Sã/Phonological Changes

=Consonants=

Final
The process C:>C occurs earlier than the vowel affections, which themselves occur before the vowel changes, i.e. changes occur in the order C:>C, CV>CV, V>V. This means that te>tse can become te>tsa assuming the next syllable has an [a] in it or tia>tsa. This makes the [ts] segment phonemic, as is the same with several other conditioned sound changes.

=Vowel changes=

Vowel changes occur in this order after the consonant changes

In diphthongs not mentioned above, such as [io], [eo], [ao], etc. if the first vowel is [i] or [e] these become [j]V before stage 1 and affect the consonants which can be affected by [j], such as [t]>[ts] and the the [j] disappears. If the first vowel is [u] or [o] then these become [u]V, if [a] is the first sound then the second one will change, [o] and [u] will become [u], causing a merger between [au] and [ao] before stage 1, and [i] and [e] will merge to [i], forming [ai] before stage one. So:

Stage 1 is the time in which the consonants change, before most of the vowel changes, e.g. a word of say structure [tedaki] would first become [tsedatʃ] in Stage 1, then remain [tsedatʃ] in Stage 2, then finally [tsadatʃ] in Stage 3, causing [ts] to become phonemically distinct from [t].