On Proto-Eastern *ɣ

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dhok
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On Proto-Eastern *ɣ

Post by dhok »

It has come to my attention that *ɣ may not be the best reconstruction for the Proto-Eastern phoneme reconstructed as such.

Firstly, it is typologically rare for a language to have only a back fricative as its only voiced one.

Secondly, I propose from lexical and grammatical similarities that Proto-Eastern originally split into two dialects: the one that produced the Chia-Sha, Karazi and Central families. Karazi-Central is long established, and it can be seen from a map such as this one that the Chia-Sha family didn't start migrating to its current homeland in the Koranax until about 800 Z.E.- millenia after the various families split up. Before this time, the Chia-Sha were located closer to the Karazi and Central families.
I find that *ʀ is a far more plausible precursor for Cadhinor /q/, Cuêzi /ɹ/ and Lufasha /ɣ/. We shall return to why this also may be so.

Now to the other subfamily. Obenzayet and Axunašin seem to be in some ways less conservative than the other subfamilies (with the exception of the highly isolating Chia-Sha), and more conservative in other ways- the two of them have no equivalent to the *-l- morpheme that marks the passive in Cuêzi and the past participle in Cadhinor (I suppose this to be a northern innovation), and are the only families to have preserved the locative. However, they are far less phonologically conservative than Cuêzi or Cadhinor.

The Axunašin reflex of *ɣ is /ʝ/, and the Obenzayet reflex /ʔ/. I find the most likely reconstruction from those two to be *h, which produced /ʔ/ in Obenzayet and had a generalized palatalization in Axunašin (not surprising considering that the vowels are so wonky.)

I submit, therefore, that what had previously been reconstructed as Proto-Eastern *ɣ was in fact closer to *χ, which became *h in the "southern" branch of the family and *ʀ in the "northern"- *χ seems to be the most plausible sound to give rise to these.

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Niedokonany
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Re: On Proto-Eastern *ɣ

Post by Niedokonany »

Hmm... creating a proto-language from which a family is derived, I do sometimes wonder how a reconstruction based on the daughter langs would differ from the actual thing. If you attempt to present the proto-language as a reconstruction created by linguists of your conworld, it can indeed become a slight problem.
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zompist
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Re: On Proto-Eastern *ɣ

Post by zompist »

I think this is pretty good logic, and I'll mention it on the Eastern page.

Though how likely is h :> ʔ ? Is this attested anywhere?

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dhok
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Re: On Proto-Eastern *ɣ

Post by dhok »

Well, not that I can think of, but there's certainly examples of fricative>plosive. Rotokas, for one.

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Re: On Proto-Eastern *ɣ

Post by Cedh »

Isn't the French change /h/ > /Ø/ / #_ often [h] > [ʔ] phonetically, since the words affected by it usually don't display liaison?

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Re: On Proto-Eastern *ɣ

Post by vec »

h / V_V > [hiatus] > [ʔ] seems likely. Initial h-s could end up being messed up; appearing as a glottal stop in some words that often have a vowel final word in front of them, otherwise without an intial h.
vec

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