Alderete, JohnBlenkiron, AmberThompson, Judy (Edōsdi)2024-12-062024-12-062021Alderete, J., Blenkiron, A., & Edōsdi. (2021). Series shifts and mergers in the obstruent phonology of Tahltan (Northern Athabaskan). Linguistic Discovery, 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1349/ps1.1537-0852.a.515https://doi.org/10.1349/ps1.1537-0852.a.515https://hdl.handle.net/1828/20825A survey was conducted to investigate the development of the Proto-Athabaskan obstruent series, *ts/tš/tšr/k, into present day Tahltan. Results from seven native speakers and quantitative analysis of a larger corpus establish tθ/ts/ts/tš as the standard obstruent system, alongside three alternate systems that relate to independently motivated historical changes. These findings support the long-held view that differences in the obstruent reflexes do not reflect deep phonological differences among Northern Athabaskan languages, but instead represent areal influences and patterns of individual variation in a highly dynamic language network.enAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 InternationalArticle