Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian

To Be Continued... Thedukeofnuke is still working on this article. The contents are incomplete and likely to undergo changes.

Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian
Period	c. -3800 YP
Spoken in
Total speakers
Writing system
Classification	Macro-Anatolionesian
Typology
Basic word order	SVO
Morphology	mostly isolating
Alignment	nom-acc
Credits
Created by	Thedukeofnuke

Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian (PMA) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Macro-Anatolionesian family (including Ōmishiman), spoken on the islands off the east coast of Tuysáfa. The language as presented here dates approximately to the fourth or possibly fifth millenium BP; it is believed that at this time it was spoken in the region of the Great Bay, perhaps on the coastal islands.

Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian is not related to any of the Mediundic language stocks; as such, it is grouped with the Primundic languages. It is mostly isolating and monosyllabic.

Direct descendants of Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian include Proto-Anatolionesian.

Phonology

Phoneme inventory

The phonology presented here is rather idealised; the manners of articulation of the fricatives, the rhotic /r/ and the palatal plosive /c/, as well as the nature of the "central" vowels, are especially uncertain.

Consonants

	labial	coronal	palatal	velar
nasals	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
plosives	p	t	c	k
fricatives		s		x
liquids		r · l
semivowels	w		j

Vowels

	front	central	back
high	i	ɨ	u
mid	e	ə	o
low		a

The transcription used in this article follows IPA, with the following exceptions:

• /ɲ/ is written ñ
• /x/ is written h
• /j/ is written y

Phonetic detail is problematic to reconstruct for PMA, but a few allophonic variations are considered likely:

• Lenition of /x/ after /p t/ and possibly other stops
• Palatalisation of /s x/ before /j i/, and possibly adjacent to /ɲ c/
• Laxing of mid vowels in closed syllables

In addition, comparative studies indicate that the back vowels /o u/ were strongly rounded.

Syllable structure

Syllable structure is reconstructed as (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C). However, the clusters that could form in onset and coda were somewhat restricted in form. It should also be noted that the vast majority of onsets are of the form C or CC.

Attested onset clusters have the following forms:

• stop/fricative + consonant
• nasal + liquid/semivowel
• liquid + semivowel
• stop/fricative + stop/fricative + nasal/liquid/semivowel
• stop/fricative + nasal/liquid + semivowel

Attested coda clusters have the following forms:

• stop + fricative
• fricative + stop
• nasal + homorganic stop
• liquid + stop/fricative/nasal

Semivowels are not attested in syllable codas.

Morphology

While PMA was largely isolating, it had a few (mostly derivational) morphological processes that are of interest.

Reduplication

Reduplication is believed to have been fairly productive, but its exact grammatical significance is unclear. In the Anatolionesian branch proper, the reduplicated form of a noun is usually a derived collective (or possibly plural) form. However there is some evidence for reduplication also conferring an intensive or repetitive meaning.

In reduplication, the root's onset and nucleus, but not coda, were repeated at the beginning of the word.

*cwo "fish" > *cwocwo "many fishes, shoal"

*sim "island" > *sisim "many islands, archipelago"

Affixing

PMA had a number of affixes that seem to have been used mostly for derivation. Most of these were either prefixes or, more interestingly, infixes that were inserted into the onset of the root's first syllable. This would be expected to result in some very difficult consonant clusters but it appears that epenthetic vowels - probably central vowels - were inserted should a cluster violate PMA's phonotactic constraints.

It has been suggested that prefixing indicates that PMA, despite being reconstructed as head-final, descends from an older head-initial stage. This is supported by the fact that the small handful of compounds that are believed to date back to PMA are generally head-initial as well; however, all of the attested PMA languages are principally head-final.

*p-

abstraction: *yam "to fall ill" > *pyam "illness"

*s-

causative: *nəm "to eat" > *snəm "to feed"

*k-

verbaliser: *lwac "tongue" > *klwac "to lick"

*-u-

verbaliser: *phah "tooth" > *puhah "to bite"

*-i-

diminutive: *swent "house" > *siwent "hut, cottage"

*-iŋ-

tool: *sŋur "to sew" > *sŋiŋur "needle"

*-ar-

agentive / associated person: *pyun "boat" > *paryun "sailor"

*-ɨn-

resultative: *kteŋk "to break" > *kɨnteŋk "fragment"

Lexicon

Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian/Lexicon

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