BOAS] 



HANDBOOK OF INDIAN LANGUAGES — CHUKCHEE 



661 



nre' q-i-g it \f hat dost thon want '^. 125.6 



file' n' filet flame 



qftaunra' gtatyeF take wife home 115.8 



Since many stems consist of consonantic clusters that are not admis- 

 sible either medially or initially, a great number of very curious pho- 

 netic changes of stems occur, either by consonantic assimilation or 

 dissimilation, or by the insertion of auxiliary vowels. Since these 

 changes are not so frequent in Koryak, the latter dialect often shows 

 the original form of the stem, which can not be recognized from the 

 Chukchee forms alone. I will give here examples of a series of pho- 

 netic changes of this t3'pe. 



(1) Medial modifications. 



(2) In the second group the stem, when in initial position, loses the 

 first sound of the consonantic cluster. 



(3) in a few cases a substitution of sounds occurs, partly due to the 

 phonetic laws described before. 



' Not in all cases. 



SJ2 



