Editing Ho-Chunk language (section)

=== Dorsey's law===
There is a notable sound law in Ho-Chunk called Dorsey's law{{cn|date=May 2025}} which dictates the following:
* /ORS/ → [OSRS] 
where O is a voiceless obstruent, R is a resonant, and S a syllabic sound. In other words, if there is an underlying voiceless obstruent (in Ho-Chunk, /p/, /c/, /k/, /s/, /š/, and /x/) followed by resonant (/r/, /n/, or /w/), the vowel following the resonant is copied into the proceeding consonant cluster. All Dorsey's Law sequences attested in the language are listed below, with V representing the copied vowel:<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last1=Miner|last2=Dorsey|date=1979|title=Dorsey's Law in Winnebago-Chiwere and Winnebago Accent|journal=International Journal of American Linguistics|volume=45|pages=25–33|doi=10.1086/465571|s2cid=144853982}}</ref> 
* pVnV 
* pVrV 
* kVnV 
* kVrV 
* kVwV 
* sVnV 
* sVrV 
* sVwV 
* šVnV 
* šVrV 
* šVwV 
* cVwV 
* xVnV 
* xVrV 
* xVwV

Multiple sources advocate that Dorsey's law is a [[synchrony and diachrony|synchronic]] process in the language because of the way that other processes like stress assignment and the morphological process of [[reduplication]] are affected by it.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Miner|first=Kenneth L.|date=1989|title=Winnebago Accent: The Rest of the Data|journal=Anthropological Linguistics}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Miner|first=Kenneth|date=1993|editor-last=Oliverio|editor-first=Giulia|editor2-last=Linn|editor2-first=Mary Sarah|title=On some theoretical implications of Winnebago phonology|journal=Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics|volume=18}}</ref>

Dorsey's law can apply within a single morpheme, as in /pra/ becoming [para] in the word ''paras'' '(be) wide, flat', or across morpheme boundaries, as in /šra/ becoming [šara] in the word ''šaraše'' 'you go there', where ''š'' is the second person pronominal prefixing to the verb ''rahe'' 'to be going there'.