Naengic languages
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The Ashanic languages form a subbranch of the Lakovic languages. It includes some of the most spoken Lakovic languages, such as Windermere. It is characterized by some shared innovations:
- The Ashanic Vowel Shift: A chain vowel shift ä > a > o > u > ü.
- An associative plural *φam which could be used after a noun.
- A full set of personal pronouns, with an associative plural suffix in the 2nd and 3rd person plural and a grammaticalization of *θ2iisa 'this side' for 1st person exclusive.
- A 4-tense system of past, present, future and imperative/subjunctive.
Proto-Ashanic phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Domed | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m /m/ | n /n/ | ŋ /ŋ/ | ||||
| Stop | plain | p /p/ | t /t/ | k /k/ | ʔ /ʔ/ | ||
| voiced | b /b/ | d /d/ | g /g/ | ||||
| Fricative | s /s̻/ | ś /s̺/ | š /ʃ/ | h /h/ | |||
| Affricate | c /ts̻/ | ć /ts̺/ | (č /tʃ/) | ||||
| Approximant | w /w/ | l /l/ | r /r/ | y /j/ | |||
Vowels
Proto-Ashanic had 6 vowels and register tone:
i ü u e o a = /i y u e o a/
ì ǜ ù è ò à = /i y u e o a/ + breathy voice
Phonotactics
Final consonant clusters were allowed, unlike in Windermere; they are the source of final voiced stops in Windermere.
Prefinal syllables only allowed the vowels /a i u/.
Stress
Stress was likely on the final syllable.
Grammar
Both the trigger system, gender, and TAM were still productive. Windermere and Ciêng both fossilized all of this morphology, but in a different order.
- Classical Windermere fossilized the trigger system first.
- Ciêng lost the aspect inflections first and the remaining morphology was quickly lost (and tonogenesis happened easily), as it was derivational.