The origin of Khanty retroflex nasal

Mikhail Zhivlov (Russian State University for the Humanities / School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, RANEPA, zhivlov@yandex.ru)

Journal of Language Relationship, № 14/3-4, 2016 - p.293-302

Abstract: Proto-Khanty is traditionally reconstructed with a retroflex nasal phoneme *ṇ, whose origin remains disputed. According to one theory, it is directly inherited from Proto-Uralic. The other theory holds that Proto-Uralic *n, usually preserved as *n in Khanty, sporadically yielded *ṇ. We argue that Proto-Khanty *ṇ results from a regularly conditioned sound change.

Keywords: Ugric languages, historical phonology, retroflex consonants, Proto-Uralic

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