Phonology
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This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 5 Feb 2021, 03:53.
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This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
The phonology of PAs has been reconstructed by linguists based on the similarities and differences among current and extinct Asuranesian languages. Because PAs wasn't written, linguists must rely on evidence of its earliest attested descendants, such as Old Cananganamese and xxxx.
Due to the massive number of descendants, which often vary hugely from one another, there are disagreements on how to properly reconstruct PAs' phonology. The most commonly accepted features are:
- Nasals at 3 POA's
- Voiceless-Voiced stop distinction at 3 POA's
- Glottal stop
- Labiovelars
- Labialised fricatives
- The 5 common vowels (/i e a o u/) + at least 2 others
PAs is traditionally reconstructed to have had the following phonemes. See the article on Asuranesian Sound Changes for a summary of how these phonemes are reflected in the various Asuranesian languages. Phonemes in brackets are attested in only some daughter branches.
The consonant system of PAs was crosslinguistically largely quite typical, with a voicing contrast in the plosives, three nasals, and labiovelar obstruents *kʷ *xʷ. However, there were also some less common features, notably the labialised coronal fricatives *sʷ *zʷ, velar lateral *ʟ and the lack of a labiovelar approximant /w/.
| Approximants | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laterals | ||||||||
The table gives the most common notation used in modern publications
Consonants in parentheses are marginal or only attested in some daughter branches
Plosive Series
PAs had a simple stop system with a voicing contrast at three places of articulation: *p *b, *t *d, and *k *g. In addition, there was a labiovelar stop *kʷ and a glottal stop *ʔ, although there appears to have been no voiced labiovelar stop *gʷ. Some authors have attempted to reconstruct a phonemic *gʷ but virtually no evidence can be found to support its existence. An allophone of *g [gʷ] may have occurred however around labiovelar *kʷ *xʷ based on evidence from daughter languages reflecting *b, although it is also possible that the labial reflection is merely due to cluster reduction and allophony played no part. The marginal phoneme *rʷ has been posited by some to have been a fricative /ɣʷ/ which may reflect an older stop **gʷ through the crosslinguistically common process of lenition, a process that is especially prevalent for voiced stops and /gʷ/ in particular.
Labials
PAs had four labial consonants: *m *p *b *f (*f is variously suggested to have been labiodental [f] or bilabial [ɸ]), and four labialised consonants *kʷ, *sʷ, *zʷ and *xʷ. The labials *m *p *b are well attested, as are the labiovelars *kʷ *xʷ, but *f, although attested in various Littoro-Marianic daughters, appears to have been marginal, occurring in only a handful of roots and the allative case suffix. The labialised sibilants *sʷ *zʷ by comparison are far more controversial. The evidence for labialisation comes primarily from the labial reflexes of the consonants in Proto-Yurija-Yakuna (PYY): *f *v, the development of PAs clusters CʷC > CuC in Proto-Camic (PCM) through epenthesis of the vowel /u/, and rounding effects on vowels in [INSERT]. However, the exact quality of these consonants is contested, with reconstructions all favouring a fricative manner of articulation but varying from the traditional sibilant reconstructions to dental /θ ð/ and lateral /ɬ ɮ/. Proto-Littoro-Marianic (PLM) reflects *sʷ *zʷ as laterals *ś /ɬ/ *ź /ɮ/. This provides supporting evidence as these reflexes suggest a lateral or dental interpretation where the lateral quality may have been inherited or have developed from the crosslinguistically attested phenomenon of dental fricatives developing into lateral fricatives. Cananganamese and PCM on the other hand both reflect plain sibilants *s *z which could have easily evolved from any of the proposed phoneme qualities and thus do not favour any one interpretation over another. A shift from lateral fricative to dental fricative is crosslinguistically attested, as is the reverse, but the dental interpretation is the most favoured as a shift of /ɬ/ > /f/ is far less likely than the well attested phenomenon of "Th-Fronting" /θ/ > /f/. A rounded fricative [ɬʷ] developing into [f] is possible but most evidence seems to point to *sʷ *zʷ having actually been dental /θ ð/, likely with allophonic rounding [θʷ ðʷ]. As this topic remains contested, the traditional symbols *sʷ *zʷ remain widespread in publications and are used here as well.
Fricatives
PAs had a fairly rich fricative system, consisting of labial *f, coronal *s *z *sʷ *zʷ, velar *x *xʷ, and glottal *h. The exact qualities of the labialised alveolars *sʷ *zʷ are contested (see previous section) but in modern interpretations are often held to be dental [θ ð] [θʷ ðʷ], or lateral [ɬ ɮ] [ɬʷ ɮʷ]. In addition, an earlier stage of PAs is believed to have had a voiced dorsal fricative **G that later developed into *j or *x. It has also been suggested that the marginally attested rhotics *r *rʷ (see section below on Sonorants) may have actually been voiced velar fricatives [ɣ ɣʷ] or uvular fricatives [ʁ ʁʷ], mirroring the voiceless velar set *x *xʷ, that then later merged into either a single rhotic /r/ or fricative /ɣ/. Evidence for this relies primarily on the behaviour of *r in PAs as only fricatives were permitted to occur before stops and nasals in onset clusters yet *r appears to do so in a number of roots, as well as occurring in some prefixes without an epenthetic vowel. Phonological evidence in descendant language reflexes is limited however as *r is near universally reflected as a rhotic, and where it occurs in clusters, it is either deleted (as in XX), undergoes metathesis (as in XX), or leaves a predictable cheshirisation effect equivalent to *r in other positions (as in XX). This has led to the suggestion that a true rhotic may have been present in PAs as well and that *r merged with it, as well as Early PAs **G perhaps having actually been an approximant [ɰ] or palatal fricative of various quality: [ç], [ʝ], [ʃ], [ʒ], [ɕ] or [ʑ]. However, a distinction between /ɣ/ and /ɰ/ is typologically unusual and unstable and so often taken as evidence against this theory, although conversely such a system would be expected to collapse into a more typical one which can be observed in the changes /ɣ/ > /r/ and /ɰ/ > /j/, providing evidence in favour of the theory. The palatal reconstruction is based on the same evidence but favours a typologically more usual and stable system where a palatal fricative was present instead, although the proposed quality varies by author from pure palatal /ç/ to palato-alveolar /ʃ/ or alveolo-palatal /ɕ/. Evidence from the placement of *j in clusters has also raised the question of its exact articulation, suggesting that *j like *r may have also been a fricative, in line with its presumed fricative origin in **G and reflex as *x before voiceless consonants, as in J-Stem verbs.
E.g:
*tújim- "I bite (it)"
*túxs- "he/she bites (it)"
Whether **G was voiced in this theory ranges by author as well, with some favouring the interpretation that it was originally voiced and devoiced to *x around voiceless consonants, whereas others suggest it was originally voiceless and voiced intervocalically and around voiced consonants to *j, although this theory seems less likely on the basis that word-initial **G is always reflected as *j unless preceding a voiceless consonant, as well as the fact that no other fricatives show a development of intervocalic voicing. Interestingly however is that XX reflects voiceless sonorants and aspirated stops, suggesting a shift of *r > *h~ɦ in these clusters, in accordance with the widespread shift in this branch of PAs *x > *h and all fricatives being debuccalised when preceding consonants in onset clusters. Additionally, some instances of PAs *r are reflected as *ɦ in the same debuccalisation pattern as *x > *h, suggesting that PAs may have originally made a distinction between two rhotics that other branches merged. On this basis, some authors have proposed a divide in the Asuranesian family between the so-called “R1” and “R2” languages where R1 = one rhotic reflected, and R2 = two rhotics reflected. Others have suggested that XX and other similar languages reflecting R2 patterns may have split from the earlier stage of PAs and that the family should be redrawn as Asuro-XX, but there is no clear evidence and the widespread reflection of *r as a rhotic may have simply been an early areal shift or indeed a reflection of an original rhotic pronunciation as the current reconstruction suggests.
Sonorants
Sonorants in PAs consisted of the nasal and approximant consonants *m *n *ŋ *r *l *j *ʟ. The nasal consonant series was typical, with labial *m, alveolar *n, and velar *ŋ corresponding to the labial, alveolar and velar series of stops respectively. There was however no corresponding nasal for the labiovelar stop in the most common reconstruction, despite attempts by some linguists to reconstruct one. In addition, there was a rhotic *r, two laterals, alveolar *l and velar *ʟ, and a palatal approximant *j. The rhotic *r has been variously interpreted as a trill [r], approximant [ɹ], or fricative [ɣ] [ʁ] and it has also been suggested that there may have been three rhotics: *r₁ /r/, and *r₂ /ɣ~ʁ/ *rʷ /ɣʷ~ʁʷ/, based on evidence from the syllable structure of PAs and reflexes in certain daughter languages (see previous section). Additionally, some have proposed that Early PAs **G (from which Late-PAs *j arose) may have been a velar approximant [ɰ] rather than a fricative [ɣ], but there is no direct evidence beyond a crosslinguistic tendency for voiced non-sibilant fricatives to lower to more approximant-esque manners of articulation. Other suggestions include palatal fricatives of varying qualities (see previous section) so the topic remains contested.
Sonorants in PAs could cluster quite heavily and it has been suggested that traditional complex clusters may have actually involved syllabic sonorant nuclei, as in the word for 'knife' *sntro-n, traditionally reconstructed as /sntron/ but alternatively suggested to have been /sn̩trón/. Evidence for this comes primarily from the reflexes of clustered sonorants in many descendant languages as having epenthetic vowels inserted, a development commonly associated with syllabic consonants. For example, PLM reflects *sntro-n as *santróón with an epenthetic vowel *a inserted before the nasal *n. Likewise, PYY reflects *sənatrí ~ sənatré with an epenthetic vowel *ə having been inserted before the nasal. Additional evidence comes from the placement of the word pitch in different case inflections of the noun, with the pitch remaining on the first vowel despite an expectation that it would shift to the second: intransitive *sntro-n and accusative *sntróga-n vs expected *sntrogá-n. In the old analysis, there was an assumption that case markers simply were not accented and that only the word stem could be with some exceptions, but more recent analyses have suggested a far more regular pattern of nominal pitch placement based on mora count, so these patterns are unusual. From this, it can be inferred that syllabic sonorants were moraic and therefore contributed to pitch placement. The internally reconstructed older stage of PAs, Early PAs, appears to reflect historical schwa *ə where clusters now exist, suggesting this vowel was either deleted or absorbed by the sonorant - both of which are crosslinguistically very common changes that would result in the formation of syllabic sonorant nuclei.
PAs had a mostly typical vowel system with five common vowels: *a *e *i *o *u, as well as schwa *ə and an unusual vowel *y whose quality has been variously suggested as front rounded [y], central rounded [ʉ], or central or back unrounded [ɨ] [ɯ]. In this article, *y is treated as a central vowel.
| Mid | |||
|---|---|---|---|
The table gives the most common notation used in modern publications
There were no phonemic long vowels or diphthongs, although sequences of vowels in hiatus could occur. It is possible that these were separated by glottal stops based on evidence from some daughter languages, but many others such as PLM display monophthongisation, suggesting they may have indeed simply been in hiatus or in fact been realised phonetically as diphthongs.
TO ADD:
- evidence for *y
- **E
- pitch accent
- *f *rʷ triggering rounding ✎ Edit Article ✖ Delete Article
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