[t]→[d]Certainty: 5/5Commonality: 5/5
Voiceless alveolar plosive to Voiced alveolar plosive
The shift from the voiceless alveolar stop [t] to its voiced counterpart [d] is a primary form of lenition. It typically occurs in intervocalic positions where the vocal folds continue to vibrate through the consonant, assimilating the stop to the surrounding vowels.
Phonetic Effects
Voicing, Lenition
Language Examples
vita [t]→vida [d/ð]— Latin intervocalic [t] voices to [d] in Spanish.
catena→cadena [d]— Latin [t] voices to [d] in Spanish.
rota→roue [ø]— French historical voicing [t] > [d], then further lenition and elision.
water [t]→[ˈwɔːɾəɹ]— Intervocalic flapping/voicing: /t/ becomes a voiced alveolar tap.
Finnish keto (meadow)→kedon (GEN)— Consonant gradation weak grade: word-medial /t/ voices to [d] in closed syllable context (nominative vs. oblique).
Finnish tote (confirmed)→toden (GEN)— Systematic intervocalic voicing in weak grade of consonant gradation paradigm.
[t] (morpheme-final stop)→[d]— Morphologically conditioned intervocalic voicing in Nuer: morpheme-final /t/ is voiced to [d] in intervocalic position before a vowel-initial suffix. This voicing alternation is restricted to morpheme-final consonants — the same consonant in suffix-initial position does not undergo the change. Dental articulation [t̪, d̪] is common before front vowels.
[t] (verb stem consonant)→[d]— Dinka verb morphology uses stem-internal consonant voicing alternations alongside vowel changes. Stop voicing alternations in stem-final position interact with the ATR-based vowel harmony system, with voiced obstruents co-occurring with [+ATR] vowels in certain morphological paradigms.
Related Transformations
More Romance Shifts
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