Unpacking

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Historical sound change

General

Metathesis
Dissimilation
Fortition

Lenition (weakening)

Sonorization (voicing)
Spirantization (assibilation)
Rhotacism
Debuccalization (loss of place)

Elision (loss)

Apheresis (initial)
Syncope (medial)
Apocope (final)
Haplology (similar syllables)
Fusion
Cluster reduction
Compensatory lengthening

Epenthesis (addition)

Anaptyxis (vowel)
Excrescence (consonant)
Prosthesis (initial)
Paragoge (final)
Unpacking
Vowel breaking

Assimilation

Coarticulation
Palatalization (before front vowels)
Labialization (before rounded vowels)
Final devoicing (before silence)
Vowel harmony
Consonant harmony

Cheshirisation (trace remains)

Nasalization
Tonogenesis
Floating tone

Sandhi (boundary change)

Crasis (contraction)
Liaison, linking R
Consonant mutation
Tone sandhi
Hiatus

In historical linguistics and language contact, unpacking is the separation of the features of a segment into distinct segments.

Perhaps the most common example of unpacking is the separation of nasal vowels into vowel plus nasal consonant when borrowed into languages which don't have nasal vowels. This can be seen in English borrowings of French and Portuguese words, such as monsoon [mɒnˈsuːn] from Portuguese monção [mõsɐ̃ũ], but occurs widely, as in Lingala [balansi] from French [balɑ̃s] "balance". Here the nasality of the vowel is separated out as a nasal consonant. If this didn't happen the nasality would be lost.

Consonants may also be unpacked. Basque unpacks palatal consonants in Spanish loans, so that for instance baño [baɲo] "bath" appears as bainu [bainu]. Here the palatal feature of the consonant separates out as the palatal vowel [i].

Unpacking occurs not just in borrowings, but within a language over time. Sanskrit syllabic ऋ [r̩] has become [ɾɪ] in Hindi, which has no syllabic consonants; the rhoticity is maintained by the [ɾ], while the syllabic feature is separated out as a vowel.