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Vowel harmony affects inflectional suffixes and derivational suffixes, which have two forms, one for use with back vowels, and the other with front vowels. Compare, for example, the following pair of abstract nouns: hallit u s 'government' (from hallita , 'to reign') versus terve y s 'health' (from terve , healthy).
A vowel sound that is nonexistent in Lojban (usually /ɪ/ as in ' hit ') is added between two consonants to make the word easier to pronounce. Despite altering the phonetics of a word, the use of buffering is completely ignored by grammar. Also, the vowel sound used must not be confused with any existing Lojban vowel.
Not all suffixes obey vowel harmony perfectly. In the suffix -(i)yor, the o is invariant, while the i changes according to the preceding vowel; for example sönüyor – "he/she/it fades". Likewise, in the suffix -(y)ken, the e is invariant: Roma'dayken – "When in Rome"; and so is the i in the suffix -(y)ebil: inanılabilir – "credible".
Such suffixes are of Latin origin, except -etto and -otto, which are of unclear origin. [16] There also exist: some additional hypocoristic suffixes that are used to create new adjectives from other adjectives (or, sometimes, from nouns): -iccio/a, -icciolo/a, -igno/a, -ognolo/a, -occio/a (of Latin origin, except the last one, whose origin is ...
The formation of the causative is highly variable, and may involve replacement of the stem final vowel with short or long i or ī, palatalization of the final consonant of the stem (whereby c/z, t, tz become x, ch, ch, respectively), the loss of a stem final vowel, the addition of the suffix -l-, a number of minor strategies, or a combination ...
Another example involves the vowel differences (with accompanying stress pattern changes) in several related words. For instance, photographer is derived from photograph by adding the derivational suffix - er . When this suffix is added, the vowel pronunciations change largely owing to the moveable stress:
Stems ending in *i or *u such as *men-ti-are consonantic (i.e. athematic) because the *i is just the vocalic form of the glide *y, the full grade of the suffix being *-tey-. [note 2] Post-PIE ā was actually *eh₂ in PIE. Among the most common athematic stems are root stems, i-stems, u-stems, eh₂-stems, n-stems, nt-stems, r-stems and s-stems ...
In Greek synaeresis, two vowels merge to form a long version of one of the two vowels (e.g. e + a → ā), a diphthong with a different main vowel (e.g. a + ei → āi), or a new vowel intermediate between the originals (e.g. a + o → ō). Contraction of e + o or o + e leads to ou, and e + e to ei, which are in this case spurious diphthongs.