Introduction

A small number of autosegmental operations in phonology such as spreading, deletion, fusion, and fission, in conjunction with a hierarchical structure of features, accounts for the major processes which ejectives undergo. Ejectives are relatively common but understudied speech sounds which have never received systematic treatment in terms of their phonological effects, both synchronic and diachronic. This thesis proposes a typology of phonological change and alternations for ejectives, drawing together widely-scattered information on the phonological behavior of ejectives.