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Phonology
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:
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Retroflex | Pharyngeal? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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/ |
||||
| Affricate | *ch /t͡ʃ/ | |||||
| Approximant | *w /w/ | *y /j/ | *rl /ɭ/ *rr /ɻ/ |
*l1 *l2 |
- The exact pronunciation of the consonants transcribed as l1 and l2 is unknown.
- 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 tone in Gaju, and corresponds to /w/ and diphthongal /u/ in Rttirri. In all other descendants of Proto-Rttirrian, l1 and l2 disappeared as consonants and survive only in their effects on surrounding vowels.
- Some linguists posit that they were 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 l2 was pharyngeal while l1 was something like the velarized lateral [ɫ], or a lateral fricative [ɬ~ɮ].
- Evidence that l1 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 l1, but the relevance of this observation is disputed. The realization of the vowel u was not affected by either consonant, suggesting that they were probably not velar.
Vowels
Proto-Rttirrian had a simple three-vowel system:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i /i/ | u /u/ | |
| Low | a /ä/ |
- The low vowel a was probably fronted and raised allophonically to something like [æ~e] adjacent to fricatives and l1.
- 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 fusional inflection.