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 Sister Tadpole (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
- The bilabial nasal m shifted to mʷ.
- The alveolars t ṭ n r shifted to pʷ ṗʷ mʷ b unconditionally. The fricative s shifted to sʷ.
- The laterals l λ merged as l.
- The fricatives hʷ ʕʷ shifted to f w.
- The syllabic consonants ḷ ṁ ṅ ŋ̇ ṡ shifted to u um un uŋ usʷ. Note that /n/ survived.
- The postalveolars č ň š ž ǯ shifted to c n s z ʒ, though they remained as postalveolars allophonically before any front vowel.
- The velars k ḳ ŋ x g shifted to t t n s y. Then h also became ś.
- The labiovelars kʷ ḳʷ ŋʷ xʷ gʷ shifted to k k ŋ h g.
- The labial-velar coarticulated stops kp ḳṗ shifted to pʷ ṗʷ.
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.