Proto-North-Rttirrian
Proto-North-Rttirrian is the reconstructed common ancestor of the North branch of the Rttirrian family of languages, and a direct descendant of Proto-Rttirrian. It was likely spoken around 300–400 CE in present-day Myanmar. It is notable for the Semitic-like root-and-pattern verbal system it was beginning to develop out of the more normal inflectional system of Proto-Rttirrian.
History
- See also: Proto-Rttirrian
Proto-North-Rttirrian descended from Proto-Rttirrian. A summary of the major changes from Proto-North-Rttirrian follows:
- The old animacy system stopped being used to distinguish nouns or pronouns. However, the old third-person animacy affixes were reanalyzed as reflecting a different kind of verb, and innovated first-person and second-person verb inflections for this kind of verb as well. This new verb class, called Form II verbs by convention, represented a more mild meaning than Form I verbs. This represents a rudimentary form of what would grow into a complicated root-and-pattern inflectional system reminiscent of those of the Semitic languages.
- The "fourth tense" from Proto-Rttirrian, whose original function is unknown, became a sort of infitinive or verbal noun mechanism.
- The old consonant transcribed as *l1 mutated to /x/ and devoiced all adjacent consonants, while the old consonant *l2 simply disappeared.
- Adjacent to both *l1 and *l2, vowels mutated:
- */ä/ > /ɔ/
- */i/ > /e/
- */u/ > /o/
- Similarly, when adjacent to the approximant /j/, */a/ raised to /e/ and */u/ lowered to /o/. */a/ also raised to /e/ when adjacent to a fricative, and */u/ lowered past /o/ to /ɔ/ when adjacent to */k/ and */g/.
- The affricate /t͡ʃ/ shifted to /ʃ/. A voiced complement, /ʒ/, was formed by most instances of /z/ when adjacent to /i/, /e/, or /j/.
- */w/ merged into the fricative /β/.
Phonology
Consonants
Proto-North-Rttirrian possessed the following consonants:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal- alveolar |
Palatal | Velar | Retroflex | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | *m /m/ | *n /n/ | *rn /ɳ/ | |||
| Plosive | *p /p/ *b /b/ |
*t /t/ *d /d/ |
*k /k/ *g /g/ |
*rt /ʈ/ *rd /ɖ/ | ||
| Fricative | *f /ɸ/ *v /β/ |
*s /s/ *z /z/ |
*sh /ʃ/ *zh /ʒ/ |
kh /x/ | ||
| Approximant | *y /j/ | *rl /ɭ/ *rr /ɻ/ |
Vowels
The following vowels had evolved from the much simpler system of Proto-Rttirrian:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | *i /i/ | *u /u/ | |
| Mid-high | *e /e/ | *o /o/ | |
| Low-mid | *â /ɔ/ | ||
| Low | *a /ä/ |
Grammar
Proto-North-Rttirrian retained much of the inflectional complexity of Proto-Rttirrian, although its verbal affixes were starting to become more regularized and clearly separated between Form I and Form II.
Verbs
The following verb prefixes are reconstructed:
| Verb Form I | Verb Form II | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | |||||||
| Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | |
| Past | *mo- | *mom- | *ap- | *am- | *bo- | *bom- | *mopa- | *mobam- | *apa- | *abam- | *papa- | *babam- |
| Present | *na- | *nam- | *af- | *sam- | *kha- | *khem- | *narda- | *nardam- | *arda- | *sardam- | *rdarda- | *rdardam- |
| Future | *ne- | *mi- | *ke- | *mi- | *khe- | *mi- | *nerdi- | *mirdi- | *kerdi- | *mirdi- | *rdirdi- | *mirdi- |
| Gerund/ Infinitive |
*ân- | *âm- | *âk- | *âm- | *ekh- | *âm- | *ânârd- | *âmâm- | *âkârd- | *âmâm- | *ârdârd- | *âmâm- |
Form II verb prefixes enacted some degree of ablaut on verbs:
- *Mo-i-viti gyo.
- 1SG.NOM.PST.Form_I-TRANS-drag 3SG.ACC
- I dragged it.
- *Mopa-ya-vata gyo.
- 1SG.NOM.PST.Form_II-TRANS-drag 3SG.ACC
- I tugged on it.
- *Ân-kaba
- 1SG.GER.Form_I-stop
- that I stop abruptly
- *Ânârd-kâbâ
- 1SG.GER.Form_II-stop
- that I slow to a halt
Nouns
The following noun suffixes are reconstructed:
| Singular | Plural | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | Diminutive | Normal | Diminutive | |
| Nominative | — | *-a | *-ma | *-maz |
| Accusative (vestigial) |
*-i/*-y | *-ey/*-y | *-mi | *-mizh |
The following pronouns are reconstructed:
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | Sing. | Pl. | |
| Nominative (emphatic) |
*naku | *napu | *atu | *saku | *âtu | *âku |
| Accusative | *ni | *mey | *ki | *ksey | *gyo | *goy |
| Possessive noun prefix |
*na- | *mi- | *ak- | *sa- | *â- | *e- |