In the following table, P represents a PNC stop consonant, whereas F a fricative or an affricate. Segmental Consonants §1 Stops Note: Na-Dené languages have three series of stops usually realized as voiceless lenes, aspirated fortes, and ejective fortes, respectively. These are most often transcribed as (emphasizing the aspiration contrast and the fact that all three series are usually voiceless). In the following table, they are transcribed as to make comparison to the other Dené–Caucasian language families (and to the orthographies of the Na-Dené languages) easier. Sound correspondences The following table depicts how the phonemes of Proto-Dené–Caucasian are hypothesized to have changed into the phonemes of its descendants. Starostin's transcription is used for Proto-Dené–Caucasian, the Basque orthography is used for Basque; IPA is given for all. (Burushaski does not have a fixed orthography.) The Na-Dené correspondences are rather tentative and come exclusively from Bengtson (2008). Hyphens indicate that a phoneme evolved in different ways depending on its position in a word, for example at the beginning or the end. "0" indicates disappearance without a trace. The exact identity of the Proto-Yeniseian phoneme "r₁" is unclear. The derivatives of Proto-Dené–Caucasian consonant clusters are not shown when their constituent phonemes evolved independently. Note: Na-Dené languages have three series of stops usually realized as voiceless lenes, aspirated fortes, and ejective fortes, respectively. These are most often transcribed as (emphasizing the aspiration contrast and the fact that all three series are usually voiceless). In the following table, they are transcribed as to make comparison to the other Dené–Caucasian language families (and to the orthographies of the Na-Dené languages) easier. ¹ /h/ has disappeared in the southern dialects of Basque in historical times. ² is reconstructed (*) for earlier stages of Basque; it has become /h/ in two northern dialects and disappeared in all others (the remaining northern one and the southern ones). ³ Next to /o/ and /u/. 4 Lengthening of the preceding vowel. 5 Nasalization of the preceding vowel. 6 In PNC, the prosodic feature of morpheme-wide tenseness is marked by presence of one or more long (tense) consonants in a morpheme. Starostin also uses a superscript T to mark a tense morpheme and a superscript L to mark a lax one, i.e. PNC *(...)Cː(...) = *(...)C(...)T and *(...)C(...) = *(...)C(...)L. 7 Or rather, when the stress was on the last syllable and the second consonant was a liquid (), the word became