Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades". It is found in some Finno-Lappic languages such as Finnish, Estonian and Sámi; moreover, the Votic language is known for its extensive set of gradation patterns. Consonant gradation in some of these languages is not (or no longer) purely phonological, although this may be surmised for various reconstructions of Proto-Finnic. In archiphonemic terms, the mutation is a type of lenition in which there are quantitative (e.g. /kː/ vs. /k/) as well as qualitative (e.g. /k/ vs. /v/) alternations. Consonant mutation is the phenomenon in which a consonant in a word is changed according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. ... Geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic in blue, Ugric in green). ... Sami is a general name for a group of Finno-Ugric languages spoken in parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, in Northern Europe. ... Votic or Votian is the language spoken by the Votes of Ingria. ... In oral language, a phoneme is the theoretical basic unit of sound that can be used to distinguish words or morphemes; in sign language, it is a similarly basic unit of hand shape, motion, position, or facial expression. ... Lenition is a kind of consonant mutation that appears in many languages. ...

What sorts of consonants and consonant clusters may undergo gradation vary language to language. Northern Sámi for instance allows for three different grades (as well as it has three quantities in terms of consonant length), and also allows for quantitative gradation of sonorants such as /l m n r/, while most Balto-Finnic languages (with some exceptions) have two grades and allow only stops to undergo grade alternations. Languages may also have other constraints with regards to loanwords. In Finnish, for instance, loan words and some personal names may undergo quantitative gradation, but not qualitative, thus auto does not become *audon '(the) car's', but remains auton. Northern Saami (also, Sámi or Sami, formerly Lapp) is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. ...

Consonant Gradation in Various Languages

Finnish

In Finnish, only the stop consonants — Finnish stops being [p t k] — appearing as the onset of the last syllable in a stem are affected by the gradation. It occurs when a suffix is added to a word that closes a syllable. Generally speaking, the nominative of the noun, and the first infinitive of verbs are most often in the "strong" grade. On the other hand, there are a few classes of nouns and verbs in which these "dictionary forms" of the words exhibit a weak grade. A stop or plosive or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ...

The process is grammatical, and it works always such that the "stem" of the word is the strong form. This sometimes creates difficulties in identifying the root (if the word is derived), because often seemingly basic words turn out to be derived, applying gradation in the process. For example, hake "wood chippings" gradates to hakkee-, not to *hae-, because it is already a gradated form of hakkaa- < "hack" (whose infinitive is the weak grade hakat|a). However, hake|a "to get, to search" does gradate to hae-, as hake- is the original form.

The symbols *β, *θ, *γ are phonetic coefficients with no single phonemic value, realized according to their phonetic environment. They can be thought as something that plays the role of bilabial, dental and velar fricatives, which are not found in modern Finnish. Finnish used to have them, and has lost them relatively recently. For example, the voiced velar fricative explains the disappearance of 'k', as in parkua → paruttiin. In spoken language, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. ... In spoken language, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. ... In spoken language, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. ... The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

Similarly, the realization of *θ varies from dialect to dialect, some dialects deleting it, or some representing it as [r], [l], [ð], [h] or [j], or a combonation of these. In eastern dialects, for instance, it is possible to find *θ surfacing as either [h], [j] based on phonetic environment.

Since the phonetic environment controls the realization, the number of actual patterns is large. Often assimilation produces a geminate, e.g. lampi 'pond' → lammen 'pond-Gen' (*lamβən). Without the historical perspective, this phoneme is analyzed as a chroneme, a consonant exhibited as a lengthening of the previous consonant. In spoken language, a chroneme is a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant. ...

In terms of the standard language, K is the phoneme with the most possible changes. It can dissapear as in jalka 'foot' → jalan 'foot-Gen', or:

Changes for t include t : d (tietää : tiedän), rt : rr (kertoa : kerron), lt : ll (pelto : pellon), and nt ~ nn (antaa ~ annan). The last three forms are due to assimilation, rather than the consonant gradation itself. Changes for p include p : v (tapa : tavan) and mp : mm (lampi : lammen), where the latter is again caused by assimilation and not by consonant gradation itself. The quantitative consonant gradation, ie. kk : k, pp : p, tt : t, gg : g, dd : d and bb : b affects all geminates, and single consonants in inverse consonant gradation position.

Due to the agglutinative nature of Finnic languages, and thus the application of a number of derivational suffixes, there are various grade alternations that occur in suffixes, not just word roots. An intensitive/causatival verbal suffix -ttA- undergoes gradation to -tA- when various derivational or inflectional suffixes are added to it, however when affixed to a word it also causes gradation in the inflectional stem. Thus, pitää 'to hold, keep' becomes pidättää 'to restrain, prevent, arrest'. When the word's syllable structure changes due to inflection for person and tense however, the grade of the previous stem does not change: pidättää vs. pidätän 'I restrain'.

Also, in loans, geminate voiced plosives (bb, dd, gg) behave much like their unvoiced counterparts, e.g. diggaa- → digata "to dig, to like (something)".

Karelian

Karelian consonant gradation is quite similar to Finnish, as a result of the two being closely related languages. On the other hand, Karelian includes some gradation pairs which Finnish does not. Karelian, unlike Finnish, allows the consonants /t k/ to undergo consonant gradation when following /s/ or /š/: muistua 'to remember' → muissan 'I remember'. On the other hand, some Karelian dialects (such as Livvi or Olonets) do not allow for gradation between clusters beginning on nasals. Thus, the Olonets Karelian equivalent of Finnish vanhemmat (> vanhempi 'older') is vahnembat. The Karelian language is a variety closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily mutually intelligible. ...

The Karelian phoneme inventory also includes the affricate /tʃ/ (represented in the orthography as č, which may be found geminated and is such subject to quantitative gradation: meččä 'forest' → mečäššä 'in (the) forest'.

North Sámi

North Sámi 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. Because the following tables list the various grades does not necessarily mean that it would be possible to find a word showing hkk~hk~g like it is to find words with đ'đ~đđ~đ. Note that the following apostrophe marking the over-long grade is not used in the official orthography. In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a member of a class of speech sounds that are continuants produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract. ... Note: This page contains phonetic information presented in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using Unicode. ...

Some gradation triads include the following:

North Sámi 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 necesarily consonant length or quality. For example, the word bárdni 'boy' contains a schwa vowel between the r and d, but only in the "strong" form of the word, and is lost when the word alternates: /pær^ətni/ ~ /pærtni^ht/ 'boys'.

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 is voicing and so the voiceless stops /p t k/ are known to alternate with /b d g/. These stops also alternate in clusters, which is (for the most part) not found in Finnish.

Votic also has a number of alternations between continuants which are short in the 'weak' grade, and geminates in the 'strong' grade (kassā 'to sprinkle/water' vs. kasan 'I sprinkle/water'), as well as more voicing alternations between palatized 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: rite̮le̮n vs. riďďe̮lla. For comparison, the Finnish equivalents of these is riitelen 'I quarrel' vs. riidellä 'to quarrel'. A continuant is a sound produced with an incomplete closure of the vocal tract. ... Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ...

Historical Changes in Gradation Behavior

Some of the problems with viewing consonant gradation as purely an issue of syllable structure (at least with the case of Finnish) is that the language has undergone various phonetic changes that mean that not all closed syllables exhibit a weak grade, and not all open syllables exhibit a strong grade. Historical changes may even lead to the situation that grade alternations can be the distinguishing factor between various morphological forms, such as in North Sámi: gáhkku 'cake-NOM' vs. gáhku 'cake-Gen/Accusative'), or in one of the forms of the Estonian illative: maja 'house' vs. majja 'house-Illat'. Illative case in the Finno-Ugric languages Illative (from Latin inferre to bring in) is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of into (the inside of). An example from Hungarian would be a házba (into...

In Finnish, some changes to the language's phonetic system deal with a diachronic class of vowels known as contracted vowels (fi. supistumavokaali), which have arisen from the deletion of a consonant in a -VCV- environment (thus -VCV- > -VV-). Thus, applying the illative suffix -Vn to a word kukka 'flower' should result in *kukaan, however the word actually surfaces as kukkaan.

The historical form (preserved in some Finnish dialects, and indeed other Balto-Finnic languages) would have been *kukkahan, in which there would have been no change to the weak grade because the syllable containing -k- would not have been closed (i.e. kuk|ka|han vs. kuk|kaan). Compare this to the genitive form of the word, which closes the syllable with the suffix -n: kuk|ka -> ku|kan. This representation may be somewhat confusing because of the resyllabification, but it is actually the second -k- which has been deleted. The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ...

Another similar process has resulted in the surfacing of weak grades when strong grades should be expected based on the modern surface forms. One such example of these is the -tOn '-less' derivational suffix. When applied to the word kyky 'experience, skill', one would expect the realization to be *kykytön when in fact it is kyvytön. Historically this suffix was *-ťtöin (the -ťt- represents a quantity between the short and long), and when these mid quantities were changed to be realized as a short the effects on gradation remained, thus: *kyβyťtöin has changed to kyvytön. This change is also the cause for the present surface forms of the Finnish passive. The term passive mood is sometimes confused with the grammatical concept passive voice. ...

There are also traces of other gradation patterns, which are stress-based as opposed to governed by syllable structure. For example the active present participle (which has a suffix of -va/-vä in Modern Finnish) used to have an alternation of -pa/-pä vs. -va/-vä depending on whether or not it followed a stressed syllable, thus: saapa mies vs. istuva mies. Similarly, the partitive case and one form of the infinitive marker have a similar suffix (historically *-ta/-tä). Historical changes have reduced the partitive and infinitive endings to -a/-ä in some environments. Thus, jousi has the partitive jousta with the original -ta, but the noun kylä has the partitive kylää, from *kylätä. With verbs, assimilation may also occur, e.g. tulla ← *tul+ta. The Karelian dialects of Finnish, and indeed some dialects of the Karelian language do not always delete the intervocalic 't'. The basic meaning of the Partitive case is partialness, without result or without specifying identity. In the Finnish language, its used to express unknown identities and irresultative actions. ...

External links

• Introduction to Finnish - Consonant Gradation
  
• Finnish Grammar - Consonant Gradation
  
• Finnish Consonant Gradation