[ɢ]→[∅]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 2/5

Elision Uvular Lenition Afro-Asiatic Indo-European

Voiced uvular plosive to Empty sound / Zero

The elision of the voiced uvular stop [ɢ] is a common path in the lenition and eventual loss of dorsal obstruents, often passing through a fricative stage [ʁ].

Phonetic Effects

Elision, Lenition

Language Examples

Arabic (Dialectal variation) Afro-Asiatic

ɢ→∅— Historical voiced uvular stops have elided in some positions or shifted significantly in North African dialects.

Proto-Indo-European (Postulated laryngeals) Indo-European

ɢ (proposed for some laryngeals)→∅— Development of back-articulated stops into zero, often with compensatory lengthening of preceding vowels.

Related Transformations

Reverse Spirantization

More Elision Shifts

[a] → [∅] — Elision [b] → [v] — Spirantization [tɕ] → [ʃ] — De-affrication [tɕ] → [ɕ] — Lenition [d] → [∅] — Elision

Sources & References

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