Skipped from Khan (Ch. 1)
1 · Pronunciation — how to say what you read · a plain-language guide to Assyrian (Sureth) grammar
Khan's phonology chapter is ~190 pages of mostly historical and technical analysis with no payoff for a speaker. Skipped:
- The full phonemic analysis and articulatory detail (§1.1–1.4: formant charts, voice-onset-time measurements, palatograms). The sounds are described above in plain terms.
- The theory of "heavy"/emphasis as a suprasegmental system (§1.3, §1.5: how pharyngealization spreads through a word, its phonological domain, competing scholarly treatments). Reduced to "learn it per word, by ear" above.
- Dialect-by-dialect vowel differences (§1.3.5) and diphthongs (§1.8) — sub-variety and technical detail.
- All historical/comparative material (§1.9 the BGDKPT consonants, §1.9.2 the loss of the old pharyngals and laryngals, §1.11 vowel history) — where sounds came from, not how to say them.
- Sound symbolism (§1.10) and the fine phonetics of voicing and vowel length (§1.6–1.7) — reference-only.