Classical Armenian
Vaux (1992) argues that voiced stops often involve tongue root advancement and proposes that the source of [+ATR] were simply the voiced stops such as , , as found in Classical Armenian. Garrett notes that Adjarian's Law is however never triggered by voiced stops that have developed from the Classical Armenian plain voiceless stops; but it also triggered by the breathy-voiced fricative (which developed in the involved dialects from Classical Armenian ). He proposes that the voiced stop consonants that trigger it should be assumed to similarly have been breathy voiced , by the time of Adjarian's law. Breathy voiced stops are recorded from several other dialects of Armenian; none of these however show Adjarian's law. Garrett interprets this to mean that Adjarian's law should be considered a type of transphonologization, where breathiness leads to [+ATR] only if it is simultaneously lost. According to Vaux, the relevant feature is instead the devoicing of the Classical Armenian voiced stops.