[n]→[∅]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 5/5
Alveolar nasal to Empty sound / Zero
The loss of a nasal consonant is an extremely common sound change, often leaving its mark through the nasalization of the preceding vowel or the compensatory lengthening of the vowel.
Phonetic Effects
N-Deletion, Elision, Nasalization
Language Examples
PIE *-ns (accusative plural)→-s (Baltic)— Baltic lost the nasal *n before word-final *-s; e.g., PIE *-ons → Lithuanian '-us' (masc. acc. pl.), with compensatory lengthening of the vowel.
*uns→us— Proto-Germanic nasal lost before fricatives (Ingvaeonic Nasal Spirant Law)
*gans→goos [goose]— Nasal lost with compensatory lengthening of the vowel
stem-final *-n (Proto-Mongolic)→∅ in nominative/citation forms— Khalkha Mongolian exhibits variable loss of stem-final *-n in citation forms. Proto-Mongolic stems ending in *-n often surface without the nasal in the nominative, though it reappears before vowel-initial suffixes (e.g., possessive, accusative). This represents a morphophonological alternation between zero (Ø) in absolute final position and /n/ before suffixes.
Khorchin *-n (stem-final nasal)→∅ in Khalkha— Comparative evidence from Khorchin Mongolian, which preserves more stem-final nasals, supports the reconstruction of *-n that was subsequently deleted in Khalkha.
Related Transformations
More Nasalization Shifts
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