Rttirri: Difference between revisions
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==History== | ==History== | ||
Rttirri is a member of the Rttirrian language family, whose languages are spoken across the nation of Rttirria as well as in adjoining areas of Myanmar and Thailand. | Rttirri is a member of the Rttirrian language family, whose languages are spoken across the nation of Rttirria as well as in adjoining areas of Myanmar and Thailand. It is part of the South Rttirrian branch of the family; the dialects of Proto-South-Rttirrian that would become Rttirri split off from those that would become Gaju around the 3rd to 5th century CE, probably in southeastern Rttirria. | ||
The main phonological and grammatical changes from Proto-South-Rttirrian to Rttirri are summarized here: | |||
* The language evolved from a [[w:nominative-accusative language|nominative-accusative]] to an [[w:ergative-absolutive language|ergative-absolutive]] language: intransitive verbs began to use a construction combining the subject/possessive marker with the word ''hi'' ("benefit"), which then simplified into an affix identical to the object markers. For example, ''na-hi-'' ("for my benefit, X happened") became ''ni-'' ("I did X"). | |||
* The third-person singular absolutive affix */gʲa/ disappeared. | |||
* A chain shift occurred from voiced stops, to voiceless stops, to voiceless fricatives, much like [[w:Grimm's law|Grimm's law]] in [[w:Proto-Germanic|Proto-Germanic]]. This occurred for the alveolar, bilabial, palatal, and retroflex series, but the palatalization of */gʲ/ kept it from occurring for the velar series—i.e. */gʲ/ did not become /k/ and /k/ did not become /x/. Instead, */gʲ/ shifted to simply /j/. | |||
* Some clusters were broken up with an epenthetic */ə/, which later backed to /ʌ/. | |||
* In onset position, the phoneme */ʟ/ shifted to /ʋ/, later /w/. In coda position, it vocalized to /u̯/, except after /u/—*/uʟ/ > /ʌ/. | |||
* In some "emphatic" and common words, stops were optionally pronounced as ejective consonants. Under the influence of this phenomenon, all stop-stop clusters simplified to an ejective version of the first stop, e.g. */tk/ > /tʼ/. | |||
* /β/+/ʌ/, in either order, simplified to a new vowel, /y/, which later lowered to /ø/ to contrast with /i/. | |||
* The verbal tense system simplified greatly, with only a handful of irregular verbs remaining (see below). | |||
* The freestanding evidential particles ''na'', ''nye'', ''su'', and ''sya'' began to be attached to the verb and take on the preceding vowel. | |||
* Similarly to the formation of the new absolutive prefixes, causative prefixes formed from the ergative/possessive prefixes plus ''efe'' (modern Rttirri: ''ehe'' "command"), which simplified. For example, ''na-ehe'' ("under my command, X happened") became ''ne-'' ("I caused X to happen"). | |||
* Because the word order (which is much freer in [[Gaju]], for example) was starting to solidify in an Verb / Absolutive / Ergative pattern, the absolutive noun joined the verb complex, leading to [[w:noun incorporation|noun incorporation]]. | |||
* Two more chain shifts occurred: /θ/ > /f/ > /h/, /t͡s/ > /t/ > /ʔ/. | |||
* The phoneme */s/ merged into /ç/ before front and central vowels and /ʃ/ before back vowels. | |||
* In most dialects, */a/ (which had backed to /ä/) merged with /ʌ/ as /ɑ/. | |||
==Phonology== | ==Phonology== | ||