Hnag language

Introduction

This document describes Hnag, the protolang of the Hnag language family.

Phonology

Hnag had a relatively rich phonology, with 34 consonants and 11 vowels reconstructed.

Consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	Aspirated	ph [pʰ]	th [tʰ]	ťh [t̠ʰ]	ṭh [ʈʰ]	ch [cʰ]	kh [kʰ]
	Plain	p [p]	t [t]	ť [t̠]	ṭ [ʈ]	c [c]	k [k]	7 [Ɂ]
	Voiced	b [b]	d [d]	ď [d̠]	ḍ [ɖ]	j [ɟ]	g [g]
Nasal		m [m]	n [n]		ṇ [ɳ]	ñ [ɲ]	ń [ŋ]
Fricative		f [f]	s [s]					h [h]
Approximant	Central	w [w]				y [j]	x [ɰ~ʁ]
	Lateral		l [ɫ]	ľ [l̠]	ḷ [ɭ]	ł [ʎ]

There is enough evidence to reconstruct a postalveolarseries distinct from both the alveolar and palatal ones, though the articulatory details are uncertain. There might have been a fortis/lenis contrast involved, or other unknown secondary features.

The original value of the consonant noted as x is not fully certain. It might also have been a velar or uvular fricative.

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i] ü [y]	î [ɨ]	u [u]
Mid	e [e] ö [ø]	ê [ə]	ô [ɤ] o [o]
Open	ä [æ]		a [ɑ]

The five nasal and the four lateral consonants can also be vocalized.

There seems to have been two different phonations on all the vowels and vocalized consonants: plain and creaky voiced (marked by a preceding apostophe).

Creaky voice on the nucleus appears only in syllables that contain d, ď, ḍ, j, g or s, either in onset or in coda. It is also obligatory in syllables that contain f. This led to the assumption that Hnag originally had an additional series of ejective consonants, which then merged with the voiced ones (with the exception of [pʼ] that became [f], and [sʼ] which merged with [s]), but left a trace on the pronounciation of adjacent vocalic sounds. This is consistent with the behaviour of f in the syllabic structure, which is closer to that of other occlusives than of s and h.

Syllabic structure and distribution constraints

Hnag syllabic structure is a bit complex:

The onset of the syllable has 3 positions. The first position can contain s, h or nothing. The second position can contain an occlusive, a nasal, f, or nothing. The third position can contain an approximant or nothing. However, null onsets are not legal, there must be at least one consonant in one of the three positions.

The nucleus has 2 positions. The first position can contain a vowel or nothing. The second position can contain a nasal, an approximant or nothing. As with onset, null nucleus are not legal, if there is no vowel, there must be a vocalized approximant or nasal (note that the vocalized correspondents of w, j and x are simply u, i and î).

The coda has a single position, which can contain an occlusive, a fricative, or nothing.

There are some restrictions on which combinations of sound are possible. In onset, y cannot follow a postalveolar or palatal consonant. Coronal lateral consonants, if they follow a coronal occlusive or nasal, must match this occlusive or nasal's point of articulation (however, as there is no postalveolar nasal, ľ can follow n).

In the nucleus, if there is both a vowel and an approximant or nasal, they always share the same phonation (plain or creaky voice).

In the rime, if there is a coronal nasal or a lateral consonant, either vocalized or not, a following coronal occlusive must match the nasal or coronal consonant's point of articulation (as there is no postalveolar nasal, however, n can be followed by a postalveolar occlusive). This also applies to dorsal nasal consonants followed by a dorsal occlusive.

Examples of possible words:
7u: word, speech.
s'öď: hand, five.
hnag: man, human, hnag people, hnag language.
kľîmth: head, beginning.
sdw'n7: to hunt.
hfx'ôls: food, to eat.

All morphemes are monosyllabic. The vast majority of words are monomorphemic.

The syllabifications rules normally prevent the formation of ambiguous segments. Something like gln (ear) can only be [gln̩], not *[gl̩n], as n cannot be part of the coda (as it is defined for Hnag). However, the daughters language sometimes reinterpreted these segments differently, so variation of treatment may have existed already at this stage.

Allophony

s and h had voiced allophones next to voiced occlusives. s also had postalveolar and retroflex allophones next to postalveolar and retroflex consonants. h had also maybe velar and palatal allophones next to velar and palatal consonants, but there was probably more dialectal variation in this case.

Stress

Wordstress seemed to have been rather weak. Compound words were stressed on the second element.

Morphology

Hnag was a mostly isolative language, with only a few fossilized remnants of inflections, in the form of improductive infixation and vowel fronting.

Nominal morphology

Nouns were uninflected. A noun was neither singular nor plural, both numbers could be implied given the right context. However, there were a number of ways to make number explicit.

One of the different determiners could be used before the noun:
sṇä: some/several (generic plural word)
h'eńg: a few (five or less)
lm: many (more than ten)
hḍüws: a lot of, a large number (more than twenty)
bê7: no, none
ña: all, every, each

Unlike English, Hnag could not use these determiners as standalone forms, they had to always preceed a noun, a pronoun, or a classifier.

Generic plural could also be marked by reduplication: ťhľs wolf/wolves > ťhľs ťhľs wolves.

Deixis

Deixis was marked by three different words:
cxom: here (close to speaker)
mäjh: there (close to the listenner)
w'ôs: yonder (away from the speaker and listenner)

These three deixis words could be used as determiner, as pronouns or as adverbs.

Classifier

Hnag had a set of nominal classifier, comparable to some degree with those of Chinese, but quite different in their actual use.

7'onď: birds, big flying insects (hornets, dragonflies), gliding mammals.
7u: human voice, language, idea, thought, breath, abstract concept.
daph: land animal (up to the size of a wolf).
f'ixp: leaf, hand, flat and flexible objects.
jłł: person, human being, generic classifier.
pḷî7: land animal (bigger than a wolf).
xoy: slender and/or aquatic animals, most fish, snakes, lizards, most cephalopods, crocodiles, worms.

Adjectives

Personal pronouns

Numerals

Verbal morphology

Lexicon

7u: (n.) word, speech; (v.) to say; (cl.) human voice, language, idea, thought, breath, abstract concept.
bê7: (det.) no, none.
cxom: (pro., det. & adv.) here (close to speaker).
gln: (n.) ear.
hḍüws: (det.) a lot of, a large number.
h'eńg: (det.) a few.
hfx'ôls: (n.) food; (v.) to eat.
hnag: (n.) man, human, hnag people, hnag language.
kľîmth: (n.) head, beginning.
lm: (det.) many.
mäjh: (pro., det. & adv.) there (close to the listenner).
ña: (det.) all, every, each.
sdw'n7: (v.) to hunt.
sṇä: (det.) some/several.
s'öď: (n.) hand, (num.) five.
ťhľs: (n.) wolf.
w'ôs: (pro., det. & adv.) yonder (away from the speaker and listenner)