<P> Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature (± back) is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word . It is meaning - distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears (± back) in any part of the word, they can derive (± back) for the initial syllable . For example, from the stem tuote ("product") one derives tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel' a' (rather than the front vowel' ä') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels' uo' . This is especially notable because vowels' a' and' ä' are different, meaning - distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic . Finnish front vowels are not umlauts . </P> <P> Consonant gradation is a partly nonproductive lenition process for P, T and K in inherited vocabulary, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa . For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique stem tarka -, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K in suffixes . However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta → Va, e.g. * tarkka + ta → tarkkaa . </P> <P> Finnish is a synthetic language that employs extensive regular agglutination of modifiers to verbs, nouns, adjectives and numerals . However, Finnish is not a polysynthetic language, although non-finite dependent clauses may be contracted to infinitives (lauseenvastike, e.g. juode ssa ni "when I was drinking", lit . "drink - in - I", that is "during my drinking"). </P> <P> The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative--accusative; but there are two object cases: accusative and partitive . The contrast between the two is telic, where the accusative case denotes actions completed as intended (Ammuin hirven "I shot (killed) the elk"), and the partitive case denotes incomplete actions (Ammuin hirveä "I shot (at) the elk"). Often this is confused with perfectivity, but the only element of perfectivity that exists in Finnish is that there are some perfective verbs . Transitivity is distinguished by different verbs for transitive and intransitive, e.g. ratkaista "to solve something" vs. ratketa "to solve by itself". There are several frequentative and momentane verb categories . </P>

Which of the following changes have been observed in the history of the english language