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User:Frrurtu/Sandbox: Difference between revisions
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==Phonology== | ==Phonology== | ||
===Consonants=== | ===Consonants=== | ||
Proto-Rttirrian had a fairly small consonant inventory; however, it was much more flexible than its daughter languages with regards to clusters. The following consonants are reconstructed: | |||
{| border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="bluetable lightbluebg" style="text-align:center;" | {| border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="bluetable lightbluebg" style="text-align:center;" | ||
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:* Among the descendants of Proto-Rttirrian, these two sounds survived only in Proto-South-Rttirrian, where they merged into a single phoneme, */ʟ/. That phoneme corresponds to /l/ and many instances of the low [[w:tone (linguistics)|tone]] in Gaju, and corresponds to /w/ and diphthongal /u/ in Rttirri. In all other descendants of Proto-Rttirrian, '''l<sub>1</sub>''' and '''l<sub>2</sub>''' disappeared as consonants and survive only in their effects on surrounding vowels. | :* Among the descendants of Proto-Rttirrian, these two sounds survived only in Proto-South-Rttirrian, where they merged into a single phoneme, */ʟ/. That phoneme corresponds to /l/ and many instances of the low [[w:tone (linguistics)|tone]] in Gaju, and corresponds to /w/ and diphthongal /u/ in Rttirri. In all other descendants of Proto-Rttirrian, '''l<sub>1</sub>''' and '''l<sub>2</sub>''' disappeared as consonants and survive only in their effects on surrounding vowels. | ||
:* Some linguists posit that they were [[w:pharyngeal consonant|pharyngeal]] approximants [ħ] and [ʕ], pointing to the fact that they generally had a backing effect on surrounding vowels in branches other than South Rttirrian. Others note that these backing effects were not uniform, and suggest that only '''l<sub>2</sub>''' was pharyngeal while '''l<sub>1</sub>''' was something like the velarized lateral [ɫ], or a lateral fricative [ɬ~ɮ]. | :* Some linguists posit that they were [[w:pharyngeal consonant|pharyngeal]] approximants [ħ] and [ʕ], pointing to the fact that they generally had a backing effect on surrounding vowels in branches other than South Rttirrian. Others note that these backing effects were not uniform, and suggest that only '''l<sub>2</sub>''' was pharyngeal while '''l<sub>1</sub>''' was something like the velarized lateral [ɫ], or a lateral fricative [ɬ~ɮ]. | ||
:* Evidence that '''l<sub>1</sub>''' was some type of fricative comes from the fact that the vowel '''a''' was allophonically raised when adjacent to '''f''', '''v''', '''s''', and '''z''', as well as '''l<sub>1</sub>''', but the relevance of this observation is disputed. | |||
===Vowels=== | ===Vowels=== | ||
Proto-Rttirrian had a simple three-vowel system: | |||
{| border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="bluetable lightbluebg" style="text-align:center; border-spacing: 20px;" | {| border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" class="bluetable lightbluebg" style="text-align:center; border-spacing: 20px;" | ||
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* The low vowel '''a''' was probably fronted and raised allophonically to something like [æ~e] adjacent to fricatives and '''l<sub>1</sub>'''. | |||
* The high back vowel '''u''' was probably lowered allophonically to something like [ʊ~ɔ] adjacent to velar consonants. | |||
==Grammar== | |||
Proto-Rttirrian had a moderate degree of [[w:fusional language|fusional]] inflection. | |||