Synchronic Conlanging

What we're discussing today is useful for both a historical conlang and just describing a realistic language without too much history. The main point I want to make at the start here is all the things we're talking about can operate at different times. Why do we give a few examples? Let's start with assimilation and give some sort of examples of things that can happen. And then we can talk about assimilation because those are more complex and frankly less common.