stops, affricates and the glide are subject to both quantitative and qualitative changes. Some words alternate between three grades, though not all words do. Note that the following apostrophe marking the over-long grade is not used in the official orthography, although it is generally found in dictionaries. Some gradation triads include the following: Samoyedic languages Nganasan Nganasan, alone of the Samoyedic languages (or indeed any Uralic languages east of Finnic), shows systematic qualitative gradation of stops and fricatives. Gradation occurs in intervocalic position as well as in consonant clusters consisting of a nasal and a stop. Examples of Nganasan consonant gradation can be seen in the following table (the first form given is always the nominative singular, the latter the genitive singular): The original conditions of the Nganasan gradation can be shown to be identical to gradation in Finnic and Samic; that is, radical/syllabic gradation according to syllable closure, and suffixal/rhythmic gradation according to a syllable being of odd or even number, with rhythmic gradation particularly well-preserved. Selkup A limited form of consonant gradation is found in the Ket dialect of Selkup. In certain environments, geminate stops can alternate with short (allophonically voiced) ones, under the usual conditions for radical gradation. E.g.: See also Lenition Grammatischer Wechsel Kluge's Law Consonant harmony Notes References Helimski, Eugene 1998. Nganasan. In: Daniel Abondolo (ed.), The Uralic Languages'', pp. 480–515. London / New York: Routledge. External links Introduction to Finnish - Consonant Gradation Finnish Grammar - Consonant Gradation Finnish Consonant Gradation Linguistic morphology Phonology