Tanoan historical phonology

The chart below contains the reconstructed consonants of the Tanoan proto-language as reconstructed by Hale (1967) based on consonant correspondences in stem-initial position.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan="2" | ! Labial ! Apical ! Apical Fricated ! Velar ! Velar Labial ! Glottal ! rowspan="4" | Plosive ! voiced ! plain ! glottalized ! aspirated ! colspan="2" | Nasal ! colspan="2" | Fricative ! colspan="2" | Glide
 * - style="line-height: 1.1em;"
 * }
 * }

The evidence for ' comes from prefixes; ' has not been found in stem-initial position and thus is in parentheses above. Hale also reconstructs the nasalization feature for nasal vowels. Vowel quality and prosodic features like vowel length, tone, and stress have not yet been reconstructed for the Tanoan family. However, Hale (1967) does give certain sets of vowel quality correspondences.

The following table illustrates the reconstructed initial consonants in Proto-Tanoan and its reflexes in the daughter languages.


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! rowspan="2" | Proto-Tanoan ! rowspan="2" | Tiwa ! rowspan="2" | Tewa ! rowspan="2" | Towa ! rowspan="2" | Kiowa ! colspan="2" | Proto-Tanoan ! rowspan="2" | Tiwa ! rowspan="2" | Tewa ! rowspan="2" | Towa ! rowspan="2" | Kiowa ! consonant !! environment ! ! !! ! ! rowspan="2" | ! style="font-weight: normal; font-size: x-small;" | before oral vowel ! ! style="font-weight: normal; font-size: x-small;" | before nasal vowel ! ! !! ! !  !! ! !  !! ! !  !! ! !  !! ! !  !! ! !  !! ! !  !! ! !  !! ! !  !! !
 * + style="line-height: 1.5em;" | Initial consonants in proto-language and daughter languages
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 * colspan="6" style="background-color: lightGrey;" |
 * }
 * }

As can be seen in the above table, a number of phonological mergers have occurred in the different languages. Cognate sets supporting the above are listed below:


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! !! Tiwa  !! Tewa !! Towa !! Kiowa !! meaning(s) ! *b ! *m ! *d (+ V) ! *d (+ Ṽ) ! *n ! *ts ! *t ! *tsʰ ! *tʰ ! *ts’ ! *t’ ! *dz
 * + Cognate sets demonstrating initial consonant correspondences
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to bring"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to bring"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "hand"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "hand"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "fowl"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "fowl"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "sand" (in Taos), "ground" (in Tewa, Kiowa), "space" (in Jemez)
 * style="text-align: left;" | "sand" (in Taos), "ground" (in Tewa, Kiowa), "space" (in Jemez)
 * style="text-align: left;" | first person singular
 * style="text-align: left;" | first person singular
 * style="text-align: left;" | "eye"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "eye"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to say"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to say"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to drink"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to drink"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to break" (in Taos, Tewa, Jemez), "to sever several" (in Kiowa)
 * style="text-align: left;" | "to break" (in Taos, Tewa, Jemez), "to sever several" (in Kiowa)
 * style="text-align: left;" | "liver"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "liver"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "antelope"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "antelope"
 * style="text-align: left;" | "song" (in Taos, Jemez), "to sing" (in Kiowa)
 * }
 * }