We have already dealt with some deletions involving a stop before another consonant. Thus in Palatal-Deletion P-26 we saw deletion of //j// before a coronal stop.
We need another rule to account for deletion of //g// before any other consonant. Note /ninig/ 'soft', verbal derivative /=nini-bi-/ for //=ninig-w2i-// also noun /wulug/ 'honey-eating material' in case forms Locative /ama-wulu-duj/ Pergressive /ama-wulu-baj/ Relative /ama-wulu-jinyung/ and Allative-Dative /ama-wulu-guy/ Note that Hardening P-18 applies to the suffix-initial consonant, e.g., //-w2aj// → /-baj/ before the //g// is deleted.
We also use the symbol //G// for a stop archiphoneme in a prefix or compound initial, where the stop is manifested indirectly by inducing Hardening P-18 and perhaps other effects on the following morpheme, but where the stop never appears on the surface. Such a stop archiphoneme has the same effects as //g// and if we replace //G// by /g/ we will derive the correct forms. Exx. of such morphemes are Benefactive prefix /-aG-/ and compound initial /-baG-/ eye'. An exx. of a full word would be //baG-ala:di// → //baG-gala:di// P-8) → /ba-gala:di/ 'blind' ('eye-bad').
There is no general deletion of /j/ before other consonants; for a more restricted rule deleting /j/ in some preconsonantal environments see Palatal-Deletion P-26. There is no general deletion of /d/ or /d/ which are not very common before other consonants but are stable in forms where they do occur in this position. The stops /b dh/ do not occur in any relevant underlying combination so we have no evidence as to whether they are deleted before another stop.
| (P-29) | Stop-Deletion | |||
| g | | → Ø // -______-C | |
| G | ||||
The effect of this rule is to delete morpheme-final //g// or //G// when it is not word-final. This is because when there is a following morpheme within the same word, either this morpheme has an underlying initial consonant or else a morpheme-initial consonant is inserted by rule (P-8, P-6).