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Proto-Settameric: Difference between revisions
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==Consonants== | ==Consonants== | ||
Proto-Settameric had a quite large consonant inventory, but it is still small, when compared to reconstructions of its earlier stages. There are 48 consonants in total. The consonant denoted as *nj likely had two allophonic realizations: [ɲ] word-initially and [ŋ] elsewhere, with a few roots later getting doublets in some branches, like *njool/*ŋool “to fly”, or *njapʰee/*ŋapʰ “dying, death”. In addition, a consonant denoted as *ɣʷ merged with *w in all languages, except for two Northwestern languages, where it merges *ɣ instead. Though apparently the change was not conditional, so *ɣʷ is very likely to be a separate phoneme, even though its non-labialized counterpart *ɣ was likely an approximant [ɰ] rather than a fricative (there were no other voiceless fricative apart from these two consonants). Still, the exact realization of *ɣʷ is unknown, but it should have been distinct from *w. A phoneme, written as *r, was likely a tap [ɾ], or an approximant [ɹ], rather than a trill. | Proto-Settameric had a quite large consonant inventory, but it is still small, when compared to reconstructions of its earlier stages. There are 48 consonants in total. The consonant denoted as ''*nj'' likely had two allophonic realizations: [ɲ] word-initially and [ŋ] elsewhere, with a few roots later getting doublets in some branches, like ''*njool/*ŋool'' “to fly”, or ''*njapʰee/*ŋapʰ'' “dying, death”. In addition, a consonant denoted as ''*ɣʷ'' merged with ''*w'' in all languages, except for two Northwestern languages, where it merges ''*ɣ'' instead. Though apparently the change was not conditional, so ''*ɣʷ'' is very likely to be a separate phoneme, even though its non-labialized counterpart ''*ɣ'' was likely an approximant [ɰ] rather than a fricative (there were no other voiceless fricative apart from these two consonants). Still, the exact realization of ''*ɣʷ'' is unknown, but it should have been distinct from ''*w''. A phoneme, written as ''*r'', was likely a tap [ɾ], or an approximant [ɹ], rather than a trill. | ||
{| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center | {| class="wikitable" style=text-align:center | ||
! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| | ! colspan="2" rowspan="2"| | ||
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|- | |- | ||
! rowspan="2"| Approximant | ! rowspan="2"| Approximant | ||
|<small>[[w:Voice (phonetics)| | |<small>[[w:Voice (phonetics)|voiced]]</small> | ||
| w | | w | ||
| d [ð̞]<ref group=note>Most likey was a dental approximant [ð̞] but its exact realization is unknown, this consonant could only appear word-initially and merged with *r in the Western branch and with *l in other languages.</ref> | | d [ð̞]<ref group=note>Most likey was a dental approximant [ð̞] but its exact realization is unknown, this consonant could only appear word-initially and merged with *r in the Western branch and with *l in other languages.</ref> | ||
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{{reflist|group=note}} | {{reflist|group=note}} | ||
===Phonotactics=== | |||
The most typical syllable structure was '''CVC''' (where '''C''' stands for any consonant and '''V''' for any vowel), but '''CV''' was common too and '''CCV''' was also allowed word-initally. Reconstruction of the initial consonant clusters has been relatively difficult, and their evolution in the daughter languages have been complex. It is not known what consonants could and couldn't be in a word-initial cluster, as only two languages preserve any traces of them. Word-medially, however, almost any consonants can appear in a cluster if the second consonant was a non glottalized plosive and the same might have been true for word-initial clusters as well, for instance, roots like ''*mkoom'' ("hill"), which violate the [[w:Sonority Sequencing Principle|sonority hierarchy]], are reconstructed. Words could only end with a single consonant or a vowel, so word-final clusters were not allowed (the same is still true for the modern descendants of Proto-Settameric). If a word root ended with two consonants or a glottalized consonant, it received a vowel ending, the original quality of which is not preserved in any modern language. Two glottalized consonants could appear in one word if separated by a vowel, but later usually the first consonant lost its glottalization, like ''*kʼʷitʼə'' ("claw") became ''*kʷitʼə'', but in some languages the reverse happened as well yielding ''*kʼʷitə'' ("spike") and thus doublets were created, which often received different meanings. Two vowels could not appear together and were usually separated by an approximant *w or *j, but this was often reversed in many daughter languages. | |||
==Grammar== | |||
All modern descendants of Proto-Settameric have similar verb structures and their nouns behave almost exactly the same way, so the grammar of their proto-language is well understood. Its nouns had an [[w:Animacy|animate/inanimate]] contrast: nouns representing humans, animate beings ( as well as some plants and natural phenomena viewed as having spiritual powers) were classed as animate, while all other nouns were inanimate. The animacy of a noun was not strict and depended from other nouns in a sentence (''*čʰuu'' "fish" was treated as inanimate when a human was the subject of a sentence, but animate with any other nouns). The plural marker differed in form depending on whether the noun was animate or inanimate: animate nouns took a plural suffix ''*-n'', ''*-t'' or ''*-r'', while inanimate nouns took a plural suffix ''*-ayin''. Another important distinction involved the contrast between nouns marked as proximate ([[w:Active–stative alignment|absolutive or ergative]]) and those marked as [[w:Obviative|obviative]]. It was an active–stative language and its proximate animate nouns could be sometimes be treated as a subject and received the ergative marker (usually a lengthening of the final vowel) or as an object (absolutive, which remained unmarked), however this system was likely irregular, being substituted by obviation completely, and only traces of it can be found in modern descendants as fossilized suffixes. | |||
Proto-Settameric had six verb types: transitive, detransitive (verbs similar to intransitive, but derived from transitive verbs, like ''*sinoonʼan'' "I look"), passive (intransitive verbs with only the object marker), impersonal (verbs without a specified person marker), middle (stative, reflexive or [[w:Deponent verb|deponent]] verbs) and [[w:Antipassive voice|antipassive]] verbs. Only some of these types were preserved in its daughter languages, many of which merged certain types into one and then created new ways to express information previously conveyed by them. | |||
[[Category:Languages]] | [[Category:Languages]] | ||