Celabrian: Difference between revisions
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Most prefixes and suffixes harmonize with the nearest vowel in the word they are attached to. Vowels within a word do not necessarily have to agree in frontness/backness, but they most often do. | Most prefixes and suffixes harmonize with the nearest vowel in the word they are attached to. Vowels within a word do not necessarily have to agree in frontness/backness, but they most often do. In this article, the following notation is used to represent the harmonizing vowels in affixes: | ||
*''a<small><sup>H</sup></small>'': simple harmonizing vowel (a/e) | |||
Some consonants only occur in certain environments. In native words, velar and post-velar consonants only occur adjacent to back vowels, and palatal consonants (other than ''j'') only occur adjacent to front vowels. There are some exceptions, such as the ergative suffix ''- | *''ə<small><sup>H</sup></small>'': complex harmonizing vowel (ə/u/i/y) | ||
*''ə<small><sup>F</sup></small>'': front allomorphs of complex harmonizing vowel (i/y) | |||
*''ə<small><sup>B</sup></small>'': back allomorphs of complex harmonizing vowel (ə/u) | |||
*''ə<small><sup>R</sup></small>'': rounded allomorphs of complex harmonizing vowel (u/y) | |||
*''ə<small><sup>U</sup></small>'': unrounded allomorphs harmonizing vowel (ə/i) | |||
Some consonants only occur in certain environments. In native words, velar and post-velar consonants only occur adjacent to back vowels, and palatal consonants (other than ''j'') only occur adjacent to front vowels. There are some exceptions, such as ''-q'' in the ergative suffix ''-ə<small><sup>H</sup></small>q/q''. This rule does not apply to loanwords. | |||
===Historical phonology=== | ===Historical phonology=== | ||