Consonant gradation

Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation in which consonants alternate between various "grades". It is typical of Uralic
languages such as Finnish, Estonian, Northern Smi, and the Samoyed language Nganasan. Of the Finnic languages, Votic is known
for its extensive set of gradation patterns. Consonant gradation in some of these languages is not (or is no longer) purely phonological
although it may be surmised for various reconstructions of Proto-Finnic. In archiphonemic terms, the mutation is a type of lenition in
which there are quantitative (such as /k/ vs. /k/) as well as qualitative (such as /k/ vs. /v/) alternations.

What types of consonants and consonant clusters may undergo gradation vary from language to language; for example, Northern
Smi has three different grades (as well as having three quantities of consonant length), and it also allows for quantitative gradation
of its sonorants /l m n r/. MostFinnic languages, however, have two grades and allow only stops to undergo gradation.

Languages may also have other constraints for loanwords; for example, loan words and some personal names in Finnish may have
quantitative gradation but not qualitative and soauto does not become *audon '(the) car's' but remainsauton.

In addition, the term has been recently used for an unrelated alternation pattern reconstructed for Proto-Germanic, the parent
language of the Germanic languages.

Contents
1 Definition
2 Finnic languages
2.1 Finnish
2.1.1 Historical sound changes affecting realization of weak grades
2.1.2 Analogical extension of gradation
2.1.3 Historical sound changes affecting conditions of gradation
2.1.4 Analogical limitation of gradation
2.2 Karelian
2.3 Votic
2.4 Estonian
3 Samic languages
3.1 Northern Smi
4 Samoyedic languages
4.1 Nganasan
4.2 Selkup
5 Historical connections
6 Notes
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

Definition
The term "consonant gradation" has been used in Uralic linguistics to refer to almost any possible process of word-medial alternation
involving lenition or fortition. The more lenited alternant is known as the weak grade; the more fortited alternant is known as the
strong grade. The exact realization of the contrast is not crucial. In its widest sense "consonant gradation" can be considered near-
synonymous to "consonant alternation", covering a number of unrelated phenomena.

However, in particular consonant gradation refers to a group of processes found in the Samic, Finnic and Samoyedic languages,
which share stark similarities, and which are commonly believed to be historically connected. The common archetype is an
alternation where a weak grade is found in two specific environments:

1. A consonant appearing at the beginning of an original non-initialclosed syllable

2. A consonant appearing at the beginning of an original non-initialsecondarily stressed syllable
The first type is known as radical gradation or syllabic gradation. A syllable was closed if it ended in a consonant, which in
particular always occurred with a word-final consonant, but also if vowels were separated by two or more consonants (including
geminates).

The second type is known as suffixal gradation or rhythmic gradation. Already in Proto-Uralic, but also in its descendants Proto-
Samic, Proto-Finnic and Proto-Samoyedic, stress originally followed a trochaic pattern, falling on odd-numbered syllables, with the
1st syllable primarily stressed, and the 3rd, 5th syllables secondarily stressed.

In all languages that maintain this particular type of gradation, it is understood to have originally been a predictable phonological
process. In most it has evolved further to a less predictable system of consonant mutation, of morphophonological or even purely
morphological nature.

Examples of consonant gradation

Alternation Phonetic nature of alternation
Language
(strong : weak) (strong : weak)
sukk : suk-a Length
Estonian
/suk/ : /suk/ overlong : long
sukka : suka-n Length
Finnish
/suk/ : /sukn/ long : short
ait : aid-a Tenseness
Estonian
/it/ : /id / tense voiceless : lax voiceless
aita : aida-n Voicing
Finnish
/it/ : /idn/ voiceless : voiced
lampi : lamme-n Manner of articulation
Finnish
/lmpi/ : /lamen/ stop : nasal
muta : mua-n Manner of articulation
Karelian
/mut/ : /mun/ stop : fricative
kylki : kylje-n Manner of articulation
Finnish
/kylki/ : /kyljen/ stop : semivowel
teko : teon Presence of segment
Finnish
/teko/ : /te.on/ stop : zero

Finnic languages
The original effect of gradation in the Finnic languages can be reconstructed as a lenition of the consonant at the beginning of the
syllable. Lenition caused geminate (long) stops and affricates to shorten, and it caused already-short voiceless obstruents to become
voiced if they were not preceded by another obstruent:

*pp [p] *p p [p]

*tt [t] *tt [t]
*cc [ts] *cc [ts]
*kk [k] *kk [k]
*p *b
*t *d
*k *g
The voiced stops *b *d *g generally shifted to fricatives * * * unless they were preceded by a nasal. This change may have
occurred already in Proto-Finnic. The fricatives soon underwent further changes, and have been lost from almost all Finnic varieties.
(Instances of // still linger in the Kven language and the traditional dialect of Rauma.)

The weakened grades of geminate consonants still counted as geminates for the purposes of syllabification. That is, a syllable ending
with a geminate in the weak grade was still considered closed. One such example of these is the Finnish derivational suffix -ton/tn '-
less'. When applied to the word tapa 'custom, practice', one would expect *tapaton when in fact it is tavaton. Historically this suffix
was *-ttojn, with a long -tt-. When gradation was introduced, this was not immediately fully shortened, but remained for a period an
intermediate quantity, *-tt-. This mid-length consonant was still able to trigger gradation of the root, and, when they were changed to
be realized as a short, the effects on gradation remained; thus: *tapattoin *tabattoin tavaton. This change is also the cause for
the present surface forms of the Finnishpassive.

Gradation also expanded to include a pattern *s *h, presumed to reflect a former pattern *s *z. [1] In cases of root-medial *s,
this pattern is generally not in evidence (e.g. Finnishpes 'nest' : plural pest), though Votic later reintroduced a gradation pattern /s/ :
/z/ here (pezd). This type of gradation only systematically survives in cases of word-final *s, which between vowels uniformly
becomes -h-, i.e. according to the conditions for rhythmic gradation: Finnish pensas 'bush' has the genitive pensaan < *pensahen, but
also the essive pensaana < *pensahena (with *h appearing in an open syllable). An example is also found after a stressed syllable,
however, in the exceptional monosyllabic root *mees : *meehe- 'man'; and in a fossilized form, in the postpositions lhell 'near' vs.
lsn 'present', reflecting the adessive and the essive of a root *lse- 'vicinity'.

Several roots developed from bisyllabic to monosyllabic (e.g. *pi > *p 'head'), which is taken into account by rhythmic gradation
(partitive: *p-t, not **p-).

Veps and Livonian have largely leveled the original gradation system and reflect both weak and strong grades of single stops as /b d
g/; this may be an archaism or a substitution of voiced stops for fricatives due to foreign influence (Russian for Veps, Latvian for
Livonian). Escept for northernmost Veps dialects, both grades of geminate stops are also reflected as /p t k/.

Finnish
Finnish consonant gradation generally preserves the Proto-Finnic pattern fairly well. The conditioning of syllable structure is still
visible in most cases, but it is no longer productive: gradation has become a grammatical feature.

Historical sound changes affecting realization of weak grades

The weak grades *p p, *tt, *kk of geminates coincided with plain *p, *t, *k.
The weak grades *mb, *nd, *g of nasal+stop clusters were assimilated to geminate nasals /mm/, /nn, // ng).
(
The weak grades *l, *r of liquid+/t/ clusters were similarly assimilated to geminate liquids /ll/, /rr/.
* merged with * (v). This may have been lost later. For example, the 3rd person singular suffix *-pi is represented
by a chroneme, i.e. a lengthening of the preceding vowel; e.g. *tule-i 's/he comes' Old Finnish tuleu Modern
Finnish tulee.
Between two unstressed short vowels (i.e. in the weak grade of suf fixal gradation), * and *h were lost (but not after
a diphthong, cf. illative plurals in-oihin, verbs in -oida); these may be preserved in a variety of dialects.
After a stressed vowel, * remained up until the dissolution of the Finnish dialects. It was lost entirely in Eastern
Finnish, while Western Finnish dialects havevarying reflexes: // or /r/ in multiple western dialects, /l/ in the old
Tavastian dialects, // in archaic Southwestern and Northwestern dialects. As the area of // shrunk throughout the
17th19th centuries, standard Finnish /d/ developed as aspelling pronunciation of orthographical d, modeled after
other languages such as Swedish, German and Russian.
* also remained until the dissolution of the Finnish dialects. It was generally lost, but in the western dialects it may
have become /j/ (most widely between a liquid and /e/, as inkylki, jrki above) or // (between two close labial
vowels, as in puku above).
The geminate affricate *cc : *cc (found in e.g. *mecc 'forest') was fronted to a dental fricative * : *. This sound
has been lost in most dialects. Widely in Eastern dialects, both grades became /ht/, leading to loss of gradation.
Standard Finnish was left with an unalternating /ts/ mets( : metsn), a spelling pronunciation similar to the case of
/d/. Other patterns found include unalternating /tt/; alternating /tt/ : /t/ (coinciding with original *tt); alternating /ht/ : /h/
(in Eastern dialects, coinciding with original *ht); alternating /ht/ : /t/; and alternating /ss/ ~ /s/.
These changes have made qualitative gradation has become more complex, especially in the case of k. In standard Finnish, k is the
phoneme with the most possible changes. It can disappear as injalka 'foot' jalan 'foot-Gen', or:[2]

Environment Change Strong Weak

-uku- puku puvun

kv
-yky- kyky kyvyn
-lki- kylki kyljen
kj
-rki- jrki jrjen
-nk- snky sngyn
/k///
/k/ /sky/ /syn/

j has been lost in this position in southeastern tavastian, northern bothnian and eastern dialects, resulting in kurki (crane):kuren
(crane's) instead of the stantard form Kurjen

Short t also has developed more complex gradation due to various assimilations. Patterns include
t : d (tiet : tiedn), rt : rr (kertoa :
kerron), lt : ll (pelto : pellon), and nt ~ nn (antaa ~ annan).

Alternation patterns forp include p : v (tapa : tavan) and mp : mm (lampi : lammen).

Analogical extension of gradation

The consonant clusters /ht/ and /hk/ were, comprising two obstruents, not originally subject to gradation (as is still the case for similar
clusters such as /sp/, /st/, /tk/). However, gradation pairs ht : *h and hk : *h were at one point introduced. The first of these patterns
remains common in modern Finnish, e.g.vahti : vahdit 'guard(s)'. The second is only found in a limited number of words, e.g. pohje :
pohkeet 'calf : calves', but rahka : rahkat 'quark(s)'. Usage varies for some words with /hk/, e.g. for the plural of nahka 'leather, hide',
both nahat and nahkat are acceptable.

Quantitative consonant gradation has expanded to include in addition to the pairs kk : k, pp : p, tt : t, also gg : g and bb : b (but not
dd : d) in a number of recent loanwords, such asblogata : bloggaan 'to blog'; lobata : lobbaan 'to lobby'.

Historical sound changes affecting conditions of gradation

One important change was the loss of word-final *-k and *-h early on in the history of Finnish. This resulted in many open syllables
with weak grades. In particular, the majority of nouns ending in -e are affected by this, with a weak grade in the nominative form.
The imperative form of verbs also ended in a now-lost -k. For examples, side 'bandage', from *sie, earlier *siek (cf. Veps sideg,
Eastern Votic sidg); hakea 'to get' hae! 'get! (imp.)' from *hae, earlier *haek. Traces of the original syllable closure can be
seen in sandhi effects: these classes of words can still be analyzed to contain the assimilative word-final 'consonant' , realized as
lengthening of the next word's initial consonant. Therefore, hae side varastosta 'get a bandage from storage!' is pronounced
[hesiderstost], where the weak grades indeed occur in closed syllables.

The loss of -k combined with loss of d were responsible for the modern Finnish infinitive ending, which was historically *-tak/tk.
The final *-k triggered gradation, so that the ending normally became *-dak/dk. In turn, following the loss of d between unstressed
vowels, and the loss of final *-k only *-a/ remained. Thus, hakea (originally *hakedak) has only -a as the d was lost. But juo-da
'to drink' kept its d because of the stressed syllable preceding it. In the case oftulla 'to come', the earlier form was *tul-ak, but the *
was assimilated to the l according to the rules above. The original strong grade was preserved in hais-ta 'to stink' because of the
preceding obstruent s which prevented gradation. Howewer, in multiple finnish dialects the word-final k has not completely
disappeared, and instead it is preserved as the jumping of a consonant in next word, if it is located in the beginning of this word,
yielding [hes side rstost].

The situation appears differently in the many verbs ending in -ata/t. These verbs seem to have preserved the strong grade in the
infinitive ending, going counter to the rules of gradation. However, historically it is in fact a weak grade: the stem of the verb itself
ended in *-at/t-, and this is still visible in the 3rd person imperative ending -atkoon/tkn. Thus, when combined with the infinitive
ending, the verb ended in *-attak/ttk (similar to the origin of the -ton/tn suffix described above). The -k then weakened the
consonant from a geminate *-tt- to a single *-t-, and later loss of -k resulted in the final form -ata/t. However, even though this is
now a single consonant, it was originally a geminate and therefore triggers the weak grade on the syllable before it. So whereas the
infinitive may be for example hypt 'to jump', its original stem was *hyppt-, as can be seen in the first-person singular form
hyppn 'I jump', from earlier *hyppen with loss of *--.

An opposite effect was caused by the loss of *h and * between unstressed vowels. Loss of h affected nouns and adjectives ending in
*-s or *-h, such as kuningas 'king'. In the nominative, this -s appeared as usual, and as the preceding syllable was closed, the weak
grade ng appeared. But when a case ending such as the genitive -(e)n was added, the result was originally *kuninkasen, which was
then weakened to *kuninkahen, and the loss of -h- then resulted in the modern form kuninkaan. The intermediate steps are seen in
mies 'man'. Here, following a stressed syllable, the-h- was not lost, so that its genitive ismiehen.

Similar changes affected the illative ending, which was -hVn where V was the same as the vowel preceding the ending. The h is
preserved after stressed syllables, as in maahan 'into the land' (from maa), but lost otherwise as in kotiin 'into the home' (from earlier
*kotihin, from koti). This explains why kotiin retains a strong grade even though a closed syllable follows it. The Pohjanmaa dialect
of Finnish retains the -h-, however.

Words that now end in -e are in fact very similar to those ending in -s. These originally ended with -k or -h so that the nominative
ended in a consonant just as kuningas and therefore the preceding syllable was in the weak grade. But after an ending was added, the
weak grade g appeared, which eventually disappeared just ash did.

Analogical limitation of gradation

While syllabic gradation remains generally productive, the distortions of its original phonetic conditions have left it essentially a
morphologically conditioned process. This is particularly visible in forms that display a strong grade where a weak would be
historically expected, or vice versa. Possessive suffixes, in particular, are always preceded by the strong grade, even if the suffix may
cause the syllable to be closed. For example, 'our bed' issnkymme, not sngymme.

Strong grades may also be found in closed syllables in contractions such as

jotta en jotten.

Several recent loans and coinages with simple /p, t, k/ are also left entirely outside of gradation, e.g. auto (: auton) 'car', eka (: ekan)
'first', muki (: mukin) 'mug', peti (: petin, sometimes pedin ) 'bed', sp (: spn) 'cute'. A number of proper names such as Alepa,
Arto, Malta, Marko belong in this class as well.[3]

Suffixal gradation has been largely lost, usually in favor of the weak grade. While the partitive plurals of kana 'hen' and lakana
'bedsheet' still show distinct treatment of the original *-ta (kanoja, lakanoita), the partitive singulars in modern Finnish both have the
weak grade (kanaa, lakanaa), although in several dialects of older Finnish the form lakanata occurred for the latter. Similarly the
participle ending *-pa is now uniformly -va, even after stressed syllables; e.g. sy-v 'eating', voi-va 'being able'. (The original forms
may remain in diverged sense or fossilized derivatives: syp 'cancer', kaikki-voipa 'almighty'.)

Karelian
Karelian consonant gradation is quite similar to Finnish: * * * have been lost in a fashion essentially identical to Eastern Finnish
(and may have occurred in the common ancestor of the two), with the exception that assimilation rather than loss has occurred also
for *l and *r. E.g. the plural of jalka 'foot' is jallat, contrasting with jalat in Finnish and jalad in Estonian.

Karelian still includes some gradation pairs which Finnish does not. The consonants /t k/ undergo consonant gradation when
following a coronal obstruent /s t/: muistua 'to remember' muissan 'I remember', matka matan 'trip' (nom. gen.). This
development may be by analogy of the corresponding liquid clusters. On the other hand, some Karelian dialects (such as Livvi or
Olonets) do not allow for gradation in clusters beginning on nasals. Thus, the Olonets Karelian equivalent of Finnish vanhemmat (cf.
vanhempi 'older') is vahnembat.

The Karelian phoneme inventory also includes the affricate /t/ (represented in the orthography as ), which may be found geminated
and is such subject to quantitative gradation:me 'forest' me 'in (the) forest'.
Votic
Votic has two quantities for consonants and vowels, which basically match up with the Finnish counterparts. The Votic phoneme
inventory includes a set of fully voiced stops, which Paul Ariste (A Grammar of the Votic Language) describes as being the same as
in Russian. Thus, in addition to quantitative alternations between /p t k/ and /p t k/, Votic also has a system of qualitative
alternations in which the distinguishing feature isvoicing, and so the voiceless stops/p t k/ are known to alternate with/b d /.

As in Estonian, Karelian, and Eastern dialects of Finnish, the weak grade * of /t/ in inherited vocabulary has been lost or assimilated
to adjacent sounds in Votic; the weak grade * of /p/ has similarly become/v/, or assimilated to /m/ in the cluster /mm/. However, the
weak grade of /k/ survives, as // before a back vowel or/j ~ d ~ d/ before a front vowel.[4]

A noticeable feature of Votic is that gradation has been extended to several consonant clusters that were not originally affected. As in
Finnish, this includes the clusters /ht/ and /hk/ with a voicing-neutral first member, but also further clusters, even several ones
introduced only in Russian loans.

Voicing alternations in Votic gradation

Gradation Example Translation Notes
sz is izss 'father' 'father (elat.)'
rs rz karsia karzid 'to trim' 'you trim'
hs [hs] hz [z] lahsi lahzd 'child' 'children'
t /t/ d /d/ reti reded 'sleigh' 'sleighs'
nt /nt/ nd tent
'shoe' 'shoes'
/nd/ tendd
lt /lt/ ld /ld/ jlti jlded 'footprint' 'footprints'
kg luku lugud 'number' 'numbers' From Proto-Finnic *k *.
hk [hk] hg [] tuhka tuhgassa 'ash' 'ash (elat.)'
Retained intact from Proto-Finnic *k
k g ako agod 'pitchfork' 'pitchforks'
*g.
pk bg pka bgad 'hat' 'hats' A recent Russian loanword.
'hook, curve' 'hooks,
tk dg mutka mudgad
curves'
sk zg psko pzgod 'swallow' 'swallows'
k /k/ g // ika igad 'rag' 'rags' A recent Russian loanword.
tk /tk/ dg botka
'barrel' 'barrels' A recent Russian loanword.
/d/ bodgad
lk lg jalka jalgad 'foot' 'feet' From Proto-Finnic *lk *l.
'to take apart you take
rk rg purk purgad From Proto-Finnic *rk *r.
apart

The alternations involving the voiced affricate d are only found in the Eastern dialects. In the Western dialects, there are several
possible weak grade counterparts oft:
 Gradation of t in Western Votic
Gradation Example Translation Notes
t reti rd 'sleigh' 'sleighs'
nt n /nd/ tent tend 'shoe' 'shoes'
lt ll jlti jlled 'footprint' 'footprints'
rt rj srti srjed 'roach' 'roaches'
ht hj mht mhjd 'rye porridge' 'rye porridges'
st zz iske izzed 'to strike' 'you strike'

Further minor variation in these gradation patterns was found down to the level of individual villages.

Votic also has a number of alternations between continuants which are short in the 'weak' grade, and geminates in the 'strong' grade
(kass 'to sprinkle/water' vs. kasan 'I sprinkle/water'), as well as more voicing alternations between palatalized stops, and the
alternations between nasal+consonant~nasal+chroneme found in Finnish. Votic also includes alternations in which the 'strong' grade
is represented by a short consonant, while the 'weak' grade is represented by a geminate: ritln vs. rilla. For comparison, the
Finnish equivalents of these isriitelen 'I quarrel' vs. riidell 'to quarrel'.

Estonian
Though otherwise closely related to Votic, consonant gradation in Estonian is quite different from the other Finnic languages. One
extremely important difference is the existence of three grades of consonants (alternations like strong grade pada 'pot (nom.)', weak
grade paja 'pot (gen.)', overlong grade patta 'pot (ill.)'). This can be said to generally correlate with the existence of three degrees of
consonant length (e.g.d, t, and tt), but since the alternationd ~ t occurs only after heavy syllables, and the alternations d ~ tt and t ~ tt
occur only after light syllables, there is no single paradigm that has this simple alternation. However, weak grades like v, j, or that
alternate with stops like b, d, or g originate from the weak grade of these stops, and these may still synchronically alternate with the
over-long grades (pp, tt, kk) within the same paradigm, giving paradigms with three underlying grades.

Another extremely important feature of Estonian gradation is that, due to the greater loss of word-final segments (both consonants
and vowels), the Estonian gradation is an almost entirely opaque process, where the consonant grade (short, long, or overlong) must
be listed for each class of wordform. So, for example, embus 'embrace' has the same form for all cases (e.g. genitive embuse), while
hammas 'tooth' has weak grade mm in the nominative hammas and partitive hammast, but strong form mb in the genitive hamba and
all other cases of the singular. There is a large number of cases in which inflectional endings are identical except for how they affect
the consonant grade, e.g. leht 'leaf' belongs to a declension class in which both the genitive and the partitive singular are formed by
adding -e, but the genitive takes the weak form (leh-e), while the partitive takes the strong form (leht-e). In the end, the types of
generalizations that can be made are that some inflectional categories always take the strong form (e.g. partitive plural, -ma
infinitive), some always take the weak form (e.g. -tud participle), some forms may take the overlong form (some partitive singulars,
short illative singular), while other inflectional categories are underdetermined for whether they occur with weak or strong grade. In
this last case, within a paradigm some forms are constrained to have the same grade and others are constrained to have the opposite
grade; thus all present tense forms for the same verb have the same grade, though some verbs have strong (hakkan 'I begin', hakkad
'you begin', etc.) and others have weak (loen 'I read', loed, 'you read', etc.), and the -da infinitive has the opposite grade from the
present (hakata 'to begin', lugeda 'to read').

The system of gradation has also expanded to include gradation of all consonant clusters and geminate consonants (generally
quantitative), when occurring after short vowels, and vowel gradation between long and overlong vowels, although these are not
written except for the distinction between voiceless stops and geminate voiceless stops (e.g. overlong strong grade tt with weak grade
t). E.g. linn [lin], 'city (nom.)' vs. linna [lin] 'city (gen.)'. In consonant clusters, in the strong grade the first consonant is
lengthened, e.g. must [must], 'black (nom.)' vs. musta [must] 'black (gen.)'. Before single consonants, long vowels and diphthongs
also become overlong in strong forms and remain merely long in weak forms, e.g.
kool [kol], 'school (nom.)' vs. kooli [koli] 'school
(gen.)'.
Samic languages
Gradation in the Samic languages has developed to a direction similar to Estonian: applying to all consonants, with generally three
grades found instead of two, and the original conditions of syllable closure almost entirely obscured. A common feature across Samic
is the fortition (usually realized as lengthening) of all consonants in the strong grade. In the languages in closest contact to Finnic
(Northern, Inari and Skolt), a number of developments towards the situation in Finnish and Karelian have occurred, such as the
representation of the weak grade of *t as //.

Similar to the cases of Veps and Livonian within Finnic, the marginal language South Sami has lost gradation and has /b d g/ for *p *t
*k of either grade.

Northern Smi
Northern Smi has a system of three phonological lengths for consonants, and thus has extensive sets of alternations. Not just stops
and affricates are subject to gradation, but in addition sonorants and fricatives. Sonorants and fricatives are only subject to
quantitative gradation, but stops and affricates are subject to both quantitative and qualitative changes. Some words alternate between
three grades, though not all words do. Note that the following apostrophe marking the over-long grade is not used in the official
orthography, although it is generally found in dictionaries.

Some gradation triads include the following:

Stops Over-long long short

Continuants Over-long long short
hpp /hp/ hp /hp/ b /b/~/v/
' /p/
// oa'i oait oan b'b /bp/ pp /p/
'sleeper' 'to sleep' 'I sleep'
htt /ht/ ht /ht/ //
hr'r hrr hr /t/
/r/ skuhr'ri skuhrrat skuhrai d'd /dt/ tt /t/
'snorer' 'to snore' 'S/he snored' hkk /hk/ hk /hk/ g /k/~//
/k/
m'm mm m g'g /k/ kk /k/
/m/ cum'm cummt namma ~ namat
'kiss' 'kisses' 'name' ~ 'names' h /ht/ h /ht/ /t/
/t/
s's ss s ' /dt/ /t/
/s/ guos'si guossit viessu ~ viesut
'guest' 'guests' 'house' ~ 'houses' hcc /h:ts/ hc /hts/ z /ts/
/ts/
z'z /dts/ cc /ts/

North Smi also has phonotactic rules which provide for more consonant clusters, which are also subject to alternation. In some
dialects the syllable structure is what is alternating, not necessarily consonant length or quality. For example, the word brdni 'boy'
contains a schwa vowel between the r and d (phonetically part of a long glottalized nasal), but only in the "strong" form of the word,
and is lost when the word alternates:/prnni/ ~ /prnit/ 'boys'.

Samoyedic languages

Nganasan
Nganasan, alone of the Samoyedic languages (or indeed any Uralic languages east of Finnic), shows systematic qualitative gradation
of stops and fricatives. Gradation occurs in intervocalic position as well as in consonant clusters consisisting of a nasal and a stop.
Examples of Nganasan consonant gradation can be seen in the following table (the first form given is always the nominative singular,
the latter the genitive singular):
 Gradation Example Gloss
h:b bahi : babi 'wild reindeer'
t: uta : ua 'berry'
k: mku : mu 'back'
s : d basa : bada 'iron'
h : mb kohu : kombu 'wave'
nt : nd dint : dind 'bow'
k : bk : b 'sod hut'
ns : nd bns : bnd 'all'

The original conditions of the Nganasan gradation can be shown to be identical to gradation in Finnic and Samic; that is,
radical/syllabic gradation according to syllable closure, and suffixal/rhythmic gradation according to a syllable being of odd or even
[5][6]
number, with rhythmic gradation particularly well-preserved.

Selkup
A limited form of consonant gradation is found in the Ket dialect of Selkup. In certain environments, geminate stops can alternate
with short (allophonically voiced) ones, under the usual conditions for radical gradation. E.g.:

Gradation Example Gloss

p : b qop : qobn skin, hide
t : d uta : udan hand

Historical connections
There is no consensus view on the ultimate origin of consonant gradation in the Uralic languages. Three broad positions may be
distinguished:

Gradation in Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic are all connected to one another
.
Gradation in Finnic and Samic are connected; gradation in Samoyedic is an unrelated phenomenon.
There is no connection between gradation in any of the three language groups, and the similarities are accidental.
Helimski (1995) has argued that in light of the identical conditioning of gradation in all three groups, and in the absence of any
evidence of the same system having existed in any unrelated language in the world, the latter two options should be rejected as
implausible.[5]

If a connection exists, it is also disputed what its nature may be, again allowing for three broad positions:

Gradation is common inheritance (from either Proto-Uralic or Proto-Finno-Samic).

Gradation is an areal phenomenon that has developed throughlanguage contact.
Gradation has developed independently in Finnic, Samic, and Samoyedic, based on a set of common
preconditions
inherited from Proto-Uralic.
The great geographical distance between the Finnic and Samic peoples on one hand, and the Nganasans on the other, leads Helimski
to reject the second option of these.

Notes
1. Posti, Lauri (1953), "From Pre-Finnic to Late Proto-Finnic",Finnische-Ugrische Forschungen, 31: 6265
2. Kimberli Mkrinen. "The diabolical k" (http://www.uta.fi/~km56049/finnish/diabk.html). Finnish Grammar. Retrieved
2009-01-24.
 3. "VISK - 44 Astevaihtelun ulkopuolelle jvi sanoja"(http://scripta.kotus.fi/visk/sisallys.php?p=44). Scripta.kotus.fi.
Retrieved 2016-10-24.
4. Kettunen, Lauri (1915). Vatjan kielen nnehistoria. Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura.
5. Helimski, Eugene. Proto-Uralic gradation: Continuation and traces - In: Congressus Octavus Internationalis Fenno-
Ugristarum. Pars I: Orationes plenariae et conspectus quinquennales. Jyvskyl, 1995
6. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20111002150529/http://helimski.com/2.140.PDF)
(PDF). Archived from
the original (http://helimski.com/2.140.PDF)(PDF) on 2011-10-02. Retrieved 2012-02-24.

See also
Lenition
Grammatischer Wechsel
Kluge's Law
Consonant harmony

References
Helimski, Eugene 1998. Nganasan. In: Daniel Abondolo (ed.),The Uralic Languages, pp. 480515. London / New
York: Routledge.

External links
Introduction to Finnish - Consonant Gradation
Finnish Grammar - Consonant Gradation
Finnish Consonant Gradation

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