Editing Chuvash language (section)

=== Morphonology ===

==== Vowel harmony ====
[[Vowel harmony]] is the principle by which a native Chuvash word generally incorporates either exclusively back or hard vowels (а, ӑ, у, ы) and exclusively front or soft vowels (е, ӗ, ӳ, и). As such, a Chuvash suffix such as -тен means either -тан or -тен, whichever promotes vowel harmony; a notation such as -тпӗр means either -тпӑр, -тпӗр, again with vowel harmony constituting the deciding factor.

Chuvash has two classes of vowels: ''front'' and ''back'' (see the table [[#Vowels|above]]). Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Шупашкар'''та''', "in Cheboksary" but кил'''те''', "at home".

Two vowels cannot occur in succession.

=====Exceptions=====

Vowel harmony does not apply for some invariant suffixes such as the plural ending -сем and the 3rd person (possessive or verbal) ending -ӗ, which only have a front version.<ref>Rona-Tas 1997: 3</ref> It also does not occur in loanwords and in a few native Chuvash words (such as анне "mother"). In such words suffixes harmonize with the final vowel; thus Анне'''пе''' "with the mother".

Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between members of the compound (so forms like сӗтел|пукан "furniture" are permissible).

====Other processes====
The consonant т often alternates with ч before ӗ from original *''i'' (ят 'name' - ячӗ 'his name'). There is also an alternation between т (after consonants) and р (after vowels): тетел 'fishing net (nom.)' - dative тетел-те, but пулӑ 'fish (nom.)' - dative пулӑ-ра.<ref name="Róna-Tas 1997: 4">Róna-Tas (1997: 4)</ref>

'''Consonants'''

In the Chuvash orthography, the fortis and lenis consonants are not differentiated, because their changes are very straightforward. Therefore, only voiceless consonants are written. 

{| class="wikitable"
! English word !! Written Chuvash !! IPA 
!Notes
|-
| plowing || ака (aka) || {{IPA|[ɑˈk̬ɑ]}}
|
|-
| I, me || эпӗ (epĕ) || {{IPA|[ˈep̬ʲɘ̆]}}
|Notice the palatalization on /p/.
|-
|ancient || авалхи (avalxi) || {{IPA|[ɑʋɑl̴ˈx̬ɨ]}}
|Notice the centralization of /i/ in a back vowels word, and the lack of palatalization on /x/.
|-
| glorious || хӳхӗм (xüxĕm) || {{IPA|[ˈxʲyx̬ʲɘ̆mʲ]}}
|Notice the palatalization on /m/.
|-
| nine || тӑххӑр (tăxxăr) || {{IPA|[ˈtŏxːŏr]}}
|
|-
| three || виҫҫӗ (viccĕ) ||  {{IPA|[ˈʋʲiɕːɘ̆]}}
|
|}
Voicing also occurs on word boundaries: 
{| class="wikitable"
!English phrase
!Written Chuvash
!IPA
!Notes
|-
|Good day!
|Ырӑ кун! (Iră kun!)
|{{IPA|[ˈɯrŏ‿k̬un]}}
|
|-
|Is it okay?
|Юрать-и? (Yuraty-i?)
|{{IPA|[juˈrɑt̬ʲ.i]}}
| -i is a question suffix.
|}