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/
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-