Some of the sound changes I've applied only apply in weak syllables (which I use to mean syllables without primary or secondary stress). These (mostly) weak-syllable-only changes were all applied before the stress pattern shifted. My language is mildly inflectional, and different inflected forms of a word can have different numbers of syllables. This has led certain vowels to vary between inflections. Now I understand that things like "this ending causes i-mutation on the last syllable" and "this case causes all vowels to be nasalized" are entirely realistic, but are the rules that my conlang uses to determine certain mutations too complex for a natural language? Will speakers simplify this pattern to only affect, say, the last two syllables or something?
(My conlang went through final high vowel loss after these changes happened. For all syllable counts, these rules use the pre-loss counts. So, a word like mazi --> maz will count as two syllables, even though the modern word only has one)
The mutations are listed in the order to which they are to be applied, as some of them do affect each other.
I-Mutation of Back Vowels:
In monosyllabic and disyllabic words, i-mutation may occur in the first syllable.
In words with more syllables, i-mutation may occur in the penultimate syllable, the anteantepenultimate syllable, and every other syllable (as in it skips over a syllable every time) before that
eː Lowering
eː may lower to ɛː in the following syllables:
The first syllable of a monosyllabic or disyllabic word.
In words with more syllables, it may occur in the penultimate syllable, the anteantepenultimate syllable, and every other syllable before that
ɛː Lowering
ɛː may lower to ɑː in the following syllables if the vowel occurs before /w/ or /m/:
The first syllable of a monosyllabic or disyllabic word.
In words with more syllables, it may occur in the penultimate syllable, the anteantepenultimate syllable, and every other syllable before that.
ɛː Rounding
ɛː may round to ɔː in the following syllables if the vowel occurs before a velar or uvular consonant:
The first syllable of a monosyllabic or disyllabic word.
In words with more syllables, it may occur in the penultimate syllable, the anteantepenultimate syllable, and every other syllable before that.
ɔːi Smoothing
ɔːi may smooth to ɔː in the following syllables
The first syllable of a monosyllabic or disyllabic word.
In words with more syllables, it may occur in the penultimate syllable, the anteantepenultimate syllable, and every other syllable before that.
oː Lowering
oː may lower to ɑː if it follows /w/, /r/, /l/, /p/, /b/, /m/, /r̥/, or /l̥/; or if it follows /n/ or /n̥/ that isn't immediately preceded by a vowel. And it may only occur if the above conditions are met in the following syllables:
The first syllable of a monosyllabic word.
The second syllable of a disyllabic word.
It may occur in the antepenultimate syllable of a polysyllabic word and in every other syllable before that.
oː Breaking
Any remaining oː may break to /wɑ/ in the following syllables:
The first syllable of a monosyllabic word.
The second syllable of a disyllabic word.
It may occur in the antepenultimate syllable of a polysyllabic word and in every other syllable before that.
k Palatalization
/k/ may palatalize to /t͡ʃ/ if it comes before a front vowel in the following syllables:
The first syllable of a monosyllabic or disyllabic word.
In words with more syllables, it may occur in the penultimate syllable, the anteantepenultimate syllable, and every other syllable before that.
The sequence /sk/ may become /ʃ/ in the same syllables as above, except without the front-vowel restriction
The sequence /kj/ may become /t͡ʃ/ in all environments.
Are these rules too unrealistic for a natural language? Especially since they're based off of past stress patterns and not current ones?
