Sã/Consonant Mutations

The Consonant Mutations in Sã are a lot smaller in number than in Sangi, limited now only to initial consonant mutation, stem gradation and a fossilised I-affection.

=Initial Consonant Mutation=

Like Welsh, rather than Irish, initial consonant mutation is marked by the new pronunciation, not the base consonant plus another to represent it.

As you can see, as a result of sounds changes the distinction between voiced and voiceless nasals caused the dropping of nasal mutation and the loss of all mutations for [t] and [d] as a result of the mutated forms being too similar to distinguish easily in speech. This has resulted in a gap in mutations with only labials, velars and [m] and [n] to have any mutation.

USE:

Aspirant:
 * Locative noun stems, e.g. toc>þoccanda (towards a dog)
 * Male nouns after the numbers 3 and 9, e.g. ți mendo > ți ŵendo (three men)
 * Feminine nouns after the word "an" (and), e.g. an mana > an ŵana (and a woman)

Spirant:
 * Positive superlative adjective forms, e.g. pic>wicissi (biggest)
 * Nouns follwoing the number 2, e.g. su tuś > su suś (two dogs)

Soft:
 * Comparative forms following a feminine noun, e.g. mana picer > mana bicer (bigger woman)
 * Equative forms following a masculine noun, e.g. mano piþisse > mano biþisse (man of the same bigness)
 * Adjectives used as adverbs following verb-nouns, e.g. maneŵar picil > maneŵar bicil (he is a big man, literally "he is man bigly)

Mutation only affects nouns and adjectives so when these become verbs, the mutation cannot occur if the verb form is given a prefix.

=Stem Gradation=

h> p > b

t > d > j

c > g > j

m > mp

n > nt

ŋ > ng

l > ld

r > rd

s > t > d > j

sp > sw > sl > st > s > t > d > j

sc > ś

As you can see, the gradation series for nasals, trills and lateral is much shorter as a result of the 3rd position becoming equal to the 1st due to the C:>C rule, which eventually led to circular gradations, i.e. 2nd position was equal to 4th, 6th, etc. The h and pp gradations collapsed into a single shorter gradation series while the sp and st series merged into one long one. Overall, the stem gradation process is much much simpler than in Sangi.

=I-Affection=

I-Affection is no longer productive and instead remains as a result of sound changes of originally I-mutated stems. For instance, the stem "i" meaning "to eat" was "it" when weak and "ich" when weak and I-affected. Sound changes have meant the weak stem is also "i" but that the I-mutated version of this is still "ich". This causes an apparent irregularity in some stems, introducing elements that are unexpected. Also, I-Affection only occurs now in monosyllabic stems.

As a result of these collapses in mutation, there is no plural stem for nouns and no strong stem (as stems now only weaken)as well as no tense marking on verbs, no perfect progressive aspect and marking the passive has ceased on all but monosyllabic verbs. The Weak stem for verbs has also shifted to marking the perfect and the progressive as a whole no longer exists.