[Lingtyp] L > N

[Christoph Holz]

Dear Sergey,



In Konomala (Oceanic, Papua New Guinea), many people pronounce the locative
preposition *lə* ‘in’ as [nə], e.g. *lə məmlə* ~ *nə məmlə* ‘in (the)
village’. That is the only /l/ to [n] change in Konomala I am aware of. The
change could have been motivated by the fact that *lə* ‘in’ is almost
homophonous with the medial demonstrative *nə*, so there might have been a
merger of the two morphemes for some speakers.



Best wishes

Christoph


On Sat, 20 Sept 2025 at 14:30, Sergey Loesov via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
>
>  Are you aware of a shift *l*- > *n*- affecting the onsets of grammatical
> morphemes, specifically in word-initial position?
>
>
>
> Thank you very much!
>
>
>
> Sergey
>
>
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-- 
*Christoph Holz*
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Naples L'Orientale
Adjunct Research Fellow, Jawun Research Centre, CQU

Website: https://tianglanguage.wordpress.com/
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-7997-4928

Recent publications:
A comprehensive grammar of Tiang
<https://acquire.cqu.edu.au/articles/thesis/A_comprehensive_grammar_of_Tiang/25182350?file=44461052>
Documentation of Konomala <https://www.elararchive.org/dk0759>
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