Unpacking (linguistics)
In historical linguistics and language contact, unpacking is the separation of the features of a segment into distinct segments. It is a subtype of transphonologization.
Examples
One of the most common examples of unpacking is the separation of nasal vowels into sequences of a vowel and a nasal consonant when are borrowed into languages that do not have nasal vowels. That can be seen in English borrowings of French and Portuguese words like monsoon from Portuguese monção ; likewise, Lingala reflects French "balance". In such examples, the nasality of the vowel is separated out as a nasal consonant; otherwise, the nasality would be lost.Unpacking occurs also as a sound change within the same language. For example, Classical Armenian changed the Proto-Indo European syllabic sonorants *m̥, *n̥, *r̥, and *l̥ to am, an, ar, and al: this kept the syllabic nature of the sound, while preserving the consonant value. Thus, the privative prefix *n̥- became ան-, and the word *mr̥tos became մարդ.