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Proto-Oronaic: Difference between revisions
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===Phonotactics=== | ===Phonotactics=== | ||
Like in Proto-Uralic and some other proto-languages initial or final consonant clusters were not allowed, so words could begin and end with a maximum of one consonant only with an exception of few words in Carpathian, which are native or of unexplained origin (like West Carpathian ''stilli'' - "to hunt"). Inside word roots, only clusters of two consonants were permitted. The consonants *j and *w could not occure before a consonant cluster, meaning they were not treated as a part of diphthongs like modern Oronaic languages do. Geminate consonants existed and behaved like consonant clusters. These geminate consonants altered with simple ones in a derivative morphological processes. When, due to suffixation, consonant clusters, that were not permitted, arose, reduced vowels were inserted according to vowel harmony between two consonants. But because almost all the reduced vowels were elided in Hirtian, new consonants clusters just simplified, resulting in new alterations. | |||
Consonant gradation may have occurred already in Proto-Oronaic, but, if existed at all, it probably applied only to plosives and some consonant clusters. It developed and spread in all the three branches but later reduced significantly in modern Alpian and Hirtian languages. | |||
===Prosody=== | |||
Unlike Proto-Indo-European or Proto-Uralic, Proto-Oronaic had tones, similar to [[w:Yeniseian languages|Yeniseian languages]] or to Mandarin Chinese. However, there was no contrastive stress as in Indo-European; usually only the first syllable of the root was invariably stressed, while unstressed syllables underwent reduction and later elision in Hirtian or consonant alterations in Alpian and Carpathian. Four tones can be reconstructed in some words. These are the rising tone , marked with an acute accent (á), falling tone, marked with a grave accent (à), low-rising, or falling-rising tone, marked with a caron (ǎ), and an abrupt, or high-falling tone, marked with a circumflex (â or àˀ). The default or neutral tone is not marked. Most word reconstructions do not use any diacritics to mark tones as the exact tones are unknown, since no modern descendants are tonal, except for some Hirtian dialects, which distinguish high and non-high pitch accent, but it is mostly an innovation. There were some tone alterations as well, for example: ''*köȍˀcü'' "the moon", which gave ''keahci'' in West Carpathian and ''сю’ə'' (''śu’ə'') in Hirtya, had a falling or a high-falling tone, but ''*köőˀ-tä̌gə<sub>1</sub>'' "moonlight" resulted in ''kietäi'' ("shining") in West Carpathian and ''сюо’т'' (''śuo’т'') in Hirtya. | |||
===Prosody=== | ===Prosody=== | ||
==Grammar== | ==Grammar== | ||