Literature talk:Schleicher's fable: Difference between revisions
(→Nouns) |
No edit summary |
||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
'''Proto-Wakanic''' is the ancestor of [[Verapamil]], [[Diltiazem]] and [[Wakanese]]. It's part of the "CW complex" spoken in eastern Cuadhlabh. | '''Proto-Wakanic''' is the ancestor of [[Verapamil]], [[Diltiazem]] and [[Wakanese]]. It's part of the "CW complex" spoken in eastern Cuadhlabh. | ||
It's inspired by Old Turkic. | |||
Revision as of 14:56, 13 June 2016
Proto-Wakanic is the ancestor of Verapamil, Diltiazem and Wakanese. It's part of the "CW complex" spoken in eastern Cuadhlabh.
It's inspired by Old Turkic.
Phonology
Proto-Wakanic is reconstructed with the following consonants:
- The voiceless stops *p (labial), *t (dental), *c (palatal), *k (velar) and *kʷ (labialized velar). The Verapamil reflexes of these sounds are the fricatives f, s, hy, h and hw respectively. In Diltiazem, these sounds surface as voiceless aspirated stops, except for *c which becomes t̂ /θ/.
- The voiced stops *b (labial), *d (dental), *j́ (palatal), *g (velar) and *gʷ (labialized velar), which become the stops p, t, ty, c and qu respectively in Verapamil. In Diltiazem, these sounds surface as voiced stops, except for *j́ which becomes ĥ /x/.
- The nasals *m and *n, and the approximants *j, *l and *r, which are retained in Verapamil and Diltiazem, except for *j which becomes s in Diltiazem.
- *w and *ŋ, which become v and w in Verapamil respectively (but /ŋ/ is retained before *k and *g in Verapamil)
These sounds aren't as certainly known:
- *ń, which becomes ny in Verapamil and z in Diltiazem.
- *ź, which becomes zh in Verapamil and ŝ /ʃ/ in Diltiazem.
Proto-Wakanic, like most modern Wakanic languages, had five vowels: *a, *e, *i, *o, *u; which can be short or long. Long vowels are written with a macron. There were also two diphthongs: *ai and *au. The Verapamil reflex of *au is ai and the Diltiazem reflex is aŭ /aw/.
Proto-Wakanic allowed consonant clusters of up to two consonants before a vowel.
Grammar
Proto-Wakanic morphosyntax was somewhat unusual by CW standards:
- unmarked OVS word order (not attested in any modern CW language),
- topic-comment syntax (as in Proctorian),
- no pro-drop,
- three tenses (present, past and future),
- generally isolating (modern CW languages are either agglutinating, like Verapamil, or fusional, like Clofabosin).
However, Proto-Wakanic also had some grammatical features common in CW languages such as:
- head-final syntax (e.g. postpositions, complementizers after the verb, adjectives and relative clauses before the noun),
- tense agreement.
Nouns
Proto-Wakanic nouns had four cases: nominative, dative, ablative and locative, but no grammatical gender or number.
*tallo - tree | ||
---|---|---|
Nominative | *tallo | |
Dative | *tallōn | |
Locative | *tallod | |
Ablative | *tallōl |
*ēruki - pot | ||
---|---|---|
Nominative | *ēruki | |
Dative | *ērukīn | |
Locative | *ērukid | |
Ablative | *ērukīl |
Verbs
The bare verb stem was used for the present tense.
The future and past endings were *-bdi and *-ri respectively.
The auxiliary verb *iwa 'walk' was used for the progressive aspect; it turned into the Verapamil present tense suffix -ːva.
Numbers
- īr
- gau
- mīn
- dān
- mār
- tī
The word for seven in Verapamil, atu comes from the verb *ad 'to continue'.
Higher numbers have not been reconstructed.