Lâura

The Lâura language is a branch of Khulls spoken in Poswob territory that takes its name from discarded words meaning lemonade. It is part of a series of fruit-flavored languages that also includes Apple Pie, Mandarin Orange, Raspberry Wine, and Strawberry Icecream.

Pre-Proto-Moonshine (3958) to Laura (6843)

Rounded bilabials:      pʷ      mʷ  hʷ      w            
Plain bilabials:        p       m                   kp  ḳṗ
Alveolars:              t   ṭ   n   s       l   r
Palataloids:            č       ň   š   ž   y   ǯ
Velars:                 k   ḳ   ŋ   x   g
Labiovelars:            kʷ  ḳʷ  ŋʷ  xʷ  gʷ
Postvelars:             q       h

1. The bilabial nasal m shifted to mʷ.
2. The alveolars t n l r shifted to pʷ mʷ w b unconditionally. The fricative s shifted to sʷ.
3. The fricatives hʷ ʕʷ shifted to f w.
4. The syllabic consonants ḷ ṁ ṅ ŋ̇ ṡ shifted to u um un uŋ usʷ. Note that /n/ survived.
5. The velars k ḳ ŋ x g shifted to ć ć ń ś y.

Sound changes

Early Laura speech was characterized by the division of all Khulls phonemes into [+labial] and [+palatal], with no neutral sounds.

Laura's innovation was to consider of all the non-labialized velars to be "palatal-friendly", and all of the plain alveolars (i.e. not postalveolar) to be "labial-friendly". The plain labials were also considered palatal-friendly, but in Khulls labials had always "defeated" palatals, and that remained true here. Thus the phonology was reinterpreted as

p ṗ b m  h  ʔ  ʕ  ḷ ṡ ṣ̌ z  ŋ̇  ṁ  ṅ  l x k ḳ  ġ  ŋ  t  ṭ  d  n  gʷ xʷ g s  r  š ž č ǯ kʷ  ḳʷ  ġʷ  pʷ  ṗʷ  bʷ  ʕʷ  hʷ

p ṗ b m (ś) ʔ (ź) ḷ ṡ ṣ̌ zʷ ŋ̇  ṁ  ṅ  l ś ć    ǵ  ń  tʷ ṭʷ dʷ nʷ gʷ xʷ ź sʷ rʷ š ž č ǯ kʷ  ḳʷ  ġʷ  pʷ  ṗʷ  bʷ  w   f

The syllabic consonants did not change yet because they behaved as vowels. /l/ did not change because it behaved as the palatal counterpart to /ʕʷ/.

Forward shift of coronals

The [č:tʷ] type opposition was unstable, and soon moved forward. All labialized coronals became labialized bilabials, and all palatalized coronals became plain alveolars except when bordering an /i/. Next the true palatals moved forward into psotalveolars. Thus the phonology shrank to

 p ṗ b m š ʔ ž ḷ ṡ ṣ̌ v ŋ̇  ṁ  ṅ  l č ǯ ñ pʷ ṗʷ bʷ mʷ gʷ xʷ f  s z t d kʷ  ḳʷ  ġʷ    w   

/t d/ were still [c ʒ] in some positions. Note that the language lacked any pure velars and now also lacked palatals; there were only labiovelars and postalveolars.

Syllable-final /n/ had shifted to /m/ and /s/ to /f/; however, it is possible that /s/ > /sʷ/ did not occur in word-final position because of a pan-Khul tendency to bleed it into the next syllable and to pronounce it as [ts] at the end of a syllable.

Also /r/ > /v/ unconditionally, by "escaping" with /zʷ/ instead of turning into a pure approximant. Thus the /v/ phoneme occurs in all positions: word-initially and word-finally from primordial /z/, and in every other position from primordial /r/.

NOTE: in Khulls, /ṭ r/ and /ṗ b/ occur in absolutely complementary distribution, and /ṗʷ/ probably patterns with /ṗ/. It could be nice to simply shift /ṭ r/ > /ṗ b/ unconditionally ... a sound change that would be impossible in a normal language but might make sense in a Pabappa-influenced language. Here we have /ṭ/ > /ṗʷ/, but /ṗ/ remains untouched. But /ṗʷ/ would be generated again by a later, unrelated shift, so /t/ > /ṗ/ is preferable.

Loss of syllabic consonants

All syllabic consonants that occurred after other consonants changed to /u/ + consonant, thus making /u/ more prominent than in the parent language. However, /ul/ soon changed to just /u/, thus freeing it from needing to occur before a consonant.

Syllabic consonants that occurred after a vowel simply became plain consonants, with /l/ possibly changing to /w/ here as well.

Loss of velar consonants

The language at this point had /kʷ ḳʷ ġʷ xʷ gʷ/ as its only dorsal consonants, and all of them were labialized in all positions. Next, they split three ways, depending on the surrounding phonemes:

• When before a front vowel, they were palatalized to /čʷ čʷ ǯʷ šʷ žʷ/. This probably pushes the other posalveolars into alveolars again.

• When adjacent to a rounded vowel in either direction, they were transformed into rounded labials: /pʷ ṗʷ bʷ f w/, although the second of these sometimes appeared as a simple /pʷ/ because the front-vowel shift happened first.

• If neither of these conditions were true, they became plain velars /k ḳ ġ x g/. A fourth outcome may be possible, as perhaps they were palatalized after a front vowel as well, and then delabialized if before /a/.

Reorientation of tones

Possibly change the pharyngealized tone to /w/ + vowel, thus creating even more labialized consonants.

Final phonology

Vowels are essentially unchanged from Khulls.

Consonants:

pʷ ṗʷ bʷ mʷ w p ṗ b m f v t d n s z l č ǯ š ž k ḳ ġ x g

Sample vocabulary list

• ôṭo > wōṗwo "barnacle"
• pàpina > pàpima (type of grass)
• sogàsi > fozàpfi "honey"
• gilēntan > zilēmpam "six (6)"
• šôn > swom "bathroom"
• lâʕʷra > Lwavwa (name of the language) ... assumes ʕʷr > rʷ

reconsider whether t > pʷ always or sometimes just to p.