Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

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Markski
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Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

Post by Markski »

Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd is a PIE-equivalent in as-of-yet-unnamed-conworld (I'm not exactly big on conworlding, if someone wants to suggest a name I'd be open to considering it).

Typological Shiznit
PVA is a fusional language generally featuring nom-acc morphosyntactic alignment, with the exception of morphological ergativity in neuter nouns. Nouns feature two numbers, six cases (nominative, accusative (or ergative & absolutive), genitive, dative, instrumental and locative) and three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter). By the time of late PVA the masculine and feminine had already begun the process of merging (they are not distinguished in the plural of pronouns and adjectives, and there is some evidence that feminine nouns were beginning to take masculine agreement endings in some dialects), a process which continued in several descendants to the point of a binary common/neuter system.

Verbs feature synthetic aspect (progressive, iterative and aorist), voice (active, middle, passive), mood (indicative, subjunctive, optative), gender and number. Tense was indicated by context, periphrasis and/or derivation. PVA lacked any morphological participles, gerunds or infinitives; verbal functions associated with those were accomplished by relative clauses, the supine, and the irrealis moods.

Both morphology and phonology are rather SAE, I must admit :( I intend to rectify that in PVA's derivatives.

Phonology
Nasals: /m n/ <m n>

Plosives: /p t k b d g/ <p t k b d g>

Fricatives: /f θ s x v ð z ɣ/ <f þ s x v ð z h/

Resonants: /w u̯ r i̯/ <w u~w r j>

Vowels:
/a e i ɨ o u aː eː iː ɨː oː uː ãː ẽː õː/ <a e i y o u ā ē ī ȳ ō ū ą ę ǫ>

Phonotactics
Roots follow the structure (C)V((z/v)(C)C(V)), with several restrictions
  • note that uninflected roots can only begin with a single consonant or a null onset
  • the first vowel can be any vowel of any length. If it is a nasal vowel, then it will always be followed by exactly one (non-nasal) consonant given the phonological history of nasalization
The next two consonants can be any two consonants that don't violate the following rules
  • nasal consonants cannot be followed by any other consonant
  • CR type clusters can only begin with a voiced fricative (again /u̯/ and /i̯/ pattern as semivowels, not resonants, and so do not obey this rule: thus both *tjo and *rwi are both acceptable since the glides are not parsed as normal consonants.
  • adjacent homorganic obstruents will always be a geminate (thus *mūk + *-xy → muxxy, *gev + *-bū → *gebbū)
  • in most other cases clusters of obstruents can disagree in voice, except that a plosive cannot be followed by a fricative differing in voicedness (therefore zevko is allowed, but ākzy > āgzy)
  • excluding geminates plosive-plosive combinations are restricted to a series of a velar plosive followed by a non-velar.
  • alveolar sibilants cannot precede dental fricatives
Further derivation of a root could create new consonant clusters on the root: so long as none of the rules restricting onsets, codas and medial constructions given above were violated, these new clusters were liberally accepted into the PVA lexicon.

The final vowel could be a single short vowel (masculine nouns and feminine i-stems), absent (neuter nouns and masculine i-stems), a long vowel (feminine nouns) or a combination of a glide and a vowel (feminine nouns). Adjective and pronoun roots always ended in -u/y/o (M/F/N) and verbal roots were not restricted in what vowel came before the inflectional desinence.

Morphophonemics
Vowels underwent many shifts under certain conditions, with varying regularity:
  • Certain vowels raised and/or fronted before /r/ and /w/ (but not /u̯/) in closed syllables /ɨ a o/ > /i e u/ -highly regular in short vowels, less common in long vowels. Word-final vowels followed by /r/ occasionally and sporadically lengthen, the impetus for this is unknown. Also note u + w > ū.
  • Vowels of any length nasalized before /n/ and /m/ (n and m subsequently disappear), /a e i ɨ o u/ > /ã ã ẽ ẽ õ õ/. This sometimes led to stem alternations, such as the noun tą (bee) gen sing tami
  • Vowels laxed in syllables closed by a non-alveolar or non-dental voiceless obstruent /i e u/ > /ɨ a o/
  • <i> could not be long if it was the last sound of a polysyllabic word or if it is the last vowel of the word and is followed only by a resonant
There were also a few grammaticalized consonant shifts which will be discussed when the appropriate grammar topics come up.

That's all for today. I'll upload nouns tomorrow. Peace,
Last edited by Markski on Sat Dec 24, 2016 3:20 pm, edited 13 times in total.

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Re: Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

Post by WeepingElf »

This looks like a good start. But there is one thing that strikes me as unlikely: namely that the third-person pronouns are one of the first places where the distinction between masculine and feminine gender is lost. Rather, one would expect them to be one of the last places where this distinction holds out while being lost elsewhere.
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ESTAR-3SG:P human-OBJ only human-OBJ true-OBJ REL-LOC play-3SG:A

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Re: Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

Post by Markski »

Good point. I'll change the original post and when I get to pronouns I'll be sure to add a distinct feminine form of the 3rd prsn singular.

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Re: Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

Post by Markski »

Now onto nouns: nouns, as previously stated, decline to both case and number and have an inherent gender. It seems that at the era of PVA unity declensions perfectly matched to the gender, though when a derivational suffix was added to a nominal root, the gender of the noun was determined by the gender of the root and not the ending, thus the feminine noun *etjo (woman) with the abstract suffix *-jod (grammatically neuter) forms the feminine noun etjojod (then, via haplology) > etjod (femininity). Derivations formed from non-nominal roots take their gender from the suffix.

Masculine Nouns
Masculine nouns end with a single short vowel in the nominative singular, except for the I-stem declension, whose nom. s. is typically null (which resulted in a few stem alternations, such as *vīf acc. s. vīvnir (head). The only exceptions to the null I-stem rule are small handful of historically monosyllabic roots (ie those of the (C)CV type): xsi (dog), rvi (sky), twi (tool) and zi (tent hut, dwelling). The possible endings are -a, -e, -∅(-i), -y, -o, they decline according to the A-stem, E-stem, I-stem, Y-stem and O-stem paradigms respectively.

A-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-a

-av
-ēr
-ēnu
-ah, -eb
Plural
-āx

-ēv(ah)
-i, -ēr
-ēnu
-ēzi, -ūb

E-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-e
-i
-ev
-ir
-īnu
-eh, -eb
Plural
-āx
-i
-īv(ah)
-i, -ir
-īnu
-īzi, -ūb

I-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-∅ (-i)
-i
-iv
-ir
-īnu
-ih, -ib
Plural
-ȳx
-i
-īv(ah)
-i, -ir
-īnu
-īzi, -ūb

Y-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-y

-yv
-ir
-ȳnu
-yh, -yb
Plural
-ȳx

-ȳv(ah)
-i, -ir
-ȳnu
-ȳzi, -ūb

O-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-o

-ov
-ir
-ȳnu
-oh, -yb
Plural
-ōx

-ȳv(ah)
-i, -ir
-ȳnu
-ȳzi, -ūb

Naturally, these charts hardly explain the full story of masculine declension. Several notes and complexities should be explained:

First of all, note the large amount of identical endings in singular vs. plural actually did not create any functional difficulty in differentiating the two numbers, since masculine nouns featured a separate stem in the plural oblique cases, formed as so:
  • p t k b d g > f þ x v ð h
  • [fricative] > [fricative + geminate]
  • V(n m) > [nasal vowel] + z
  • r > h (sporadic)
  • [sonorant] > [sonorant] + z
This occurred to the consonant immediately preceding the thematic vowel. These shifts often created illegal clusters which were subsequently simplified- the precise details of this type of sandhi are complex and irrelevant, thus roots are always listed with their plural stem in lexicon entries.

Now for some examples of declined nouns:

*sorja (light)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
sorja
sorjē
sorjav
sorjēr
sorjēnu
sorjah, sorjeb
Plural
sorjāx
sorzē
sorzēv(ah)
sorzi, sorzēr
sorzēnu
sorzēzi, sorzūb

pēse (bird)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
pēse
pēsi
pēsev
pēsir
pēsīnu
pēseh, pēseb
Plural
pēsāx
pēssi
pēssīv(ah)
pēssi, pēssir
pēssīnu
pēssīzi, pēssūb

rȳt (uncle)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
rȳt
rȳti
rȳtiv
rȳtir
rȳtīnu
rȳtih, rȳtib
Plural
rȳtȳx
rȳþi
rȳþīv(ağ)
rȳþi, rȳþir
rȳþīnu
rȳþīzi, rȳþūb

rvi (sky)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
rvi
rvi
rviv
rvir
rvīnu
rvih, rvib
Plural
rvȳx
rvi
rvīv(ah)
rvi, rvir
rvīnu
rvīzi, rvūb


vāty (dust)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
vāty
vātȳ
vātyv
vātir
vātȳnu
vātyh, vātyb
Plural
vātȳx
vāþȳ
vāþȳv(ah)
vāþi, vāþir
vāþȳnu
vāþȳzi, vāþūb

muro (water)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
muro
murȳ
murov
murir
murȳnu
muroh, muryb
Plural
murōx
muhȳ
muhȳv(ah)
muhi, muhir
muhȳnu
muhȳzi, muhūb

Feminine Nouns
Feminine nouns end in either a long vowel of a combination of a short vowel and a glide- with the exception of the Ī-stems since /i/ cannot be long word finally (for the purpose of nomenclature they are called Ī-stems and not I-stems since they clearly derive from a long /i/ historically). The respective declensions are the Wa-Stems, Jo-Stems, Ī-Stems, Ū-Stems and Ō-stems.

Wa-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-wa
-au
-wav
-au
-aunu
-wah, -wab
Plural
-awa
-awē
-awēv
-av
-awēnu
-awēh, -ūb

Jo-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-jo
-eu
-jov
-eu
-eunu
-joh, -job
Plural
-ewa
-ewē
-ewēv
-ev
-ewēnu
-ewēh, -ūb

Ī-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
-i
-i
-ēv, -īv
-i
-īnu
-īh, -īb, -ēh, -ēb
Plural
-ja
-jē
-jēv
-iv
-jēnu
-jēh, -īb

Ū-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular

-ju
-ūv
-ju
-junu
-ūh, -ūb
Plural
-ywa
-ywē
-ywēv
-yv
-ywēnu
-ywēh, -ūb

Ō-Stem

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular


-ōv

-ōnu
-ōh, -ōb
Plural
-owa
-owē
-owēv
-ov
-owēnu
-owēh, -ūb

The feminine declensions are much more straightforward than the masculine; the plural endings are distinct and so no stem alternations are present (minus some minor sandhi effects with the /j/ in the Jo-Stems and the /w/ in the Wa-Stems)

Voilà, declined feminine nouns:

xątwa (tree)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
xątwa
xątau
xątwav
xątau
xątaunu
xątwah, xątwab
Plural
xątawa
xątawē
xątawēv
xątav
xątawēnu
xątawēh, xątūb

etjo (woman)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
etjo
eteu
etjov
eteu
eteunu
etjoh, etjob
Plural
etewa
etewē
etewēv
etev
etewēnu
etewēh, etūb

rȳti (aunt)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
rȳti
rȳti, rȳtē
rȳtīv
rȳti
rȳtīnu
rȳtīh, rȳtīb, rȳtēh, rȳtēb
Plural
rȳtja
rȳtjē
rȳtjēv
rȳtiv
rȳtjēnu
rȳtjēh, rȳtīb

þāxū (fruit)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
þāxū
þāxju
þāxūv
þāxju
þāxjunu
þāxūh, þāxūb
Plural
þāxywa
þāxywē
þāxywēv
þāxyv
þāxywēnu
þāxywēh, þāxūb

nozmō (flower)

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
nozmō
nozmō
nozmōv
nozmō
nozmōnu
nozmōh, nozmōb
Plural
nozmowa
nozmowē
nozmowēv
nozmov
nozmowēnu
nozmowēh, nozmūb

Neuter Nouns
The simplicity of neuter nouns honestly makes it look like a joke compared to the other two genders. Nothing much to note, except that nouns belonging to these gender lack a thematic vowel and also the grammatical alignment is erg/abs rather than nom/acc. For the sake of parallelism the neuter paradigm is referred to as C-stem

C-stem

Case
Abs
Gen
Dat
Erg
Ins
Loc
Singular
-∅
-wo
-yti*
-ynu
-yk
-ytā*, -ūb
Plural
-eþ
-eþwo
-etti
-eðnu
-eþyk
-ettā, -eþub

*the <y> drops when following a plosive or fricative (note that p b > f v, þ ð d > t / _t)

kǫ (moon)

Case
Abs
Gen
Dat
Erg
Ins
Loc
Singular

komwo
komyti
komynu
komyk
komytā, komub
Plural
komeþ
komeþwo
kometti
komeðnu
komeþyk
komettā, komeþub

zeg (blood)

Case
Abs
Gen
Dat
Erg
Ins
Loc
Singular
zeg
zegwo
zegti
zegynu
zegyk
zegtā, zegub
Plural
zegeþ
zegeþwo
zegetti
zegeðnu
zegeþyk
zegettā, zegeþub

Internal History

A case-by-case analysis can of the PVA declensional system reveals several patterns hinting at the origin of the endings.

Nominative (Absolutive)- root form for each gender, rather simply formed; for masculine nouns it was a basic thematic vowel and for neuter nouns it was a consonant (cluster). Feminine nouns seem to derive from diphthongs of the masculine thematic vowels that have since collapsed and/or shifted. The masculine plural is formed by lengthening the vowel and adding -x, which may be a retracted devoiced allomorph of the apparent plural affix -z- (or perhaps the reverse is true.) The neuter plural is formed with the suffix -eþ of unknown origin. The feminine plural is formed by suffixing -a to the the diphthong, fracturing it into a vowel-resonant sequence (in the case of the Ej-stems the vowel further disappeared).

Genitive- masculine nouns tend to raise the vowel, neuter nouns added the suffix -wo (note similar pronominal/adjectival suffixes -jo, -wo, -ywo, and -ō), and feminine nouns add a vowel which disappeared in the singular (but left an intact diphthong, suggesting that they disappeared after the period where the diphthongs collapsed) and in the plural is reconstructed as -ē.

Dative- masculine and feminine nouns attest a suffix -v, lengthened to -vah in some dialects to further mark the masculine plural. Neuter nouns used the suffix -ti, perhaps an ancient ablauted form of the locative suffix -tā

Accusative- masculine nouns suffix -r to the genitive singular, with the appropriate morphophonemics. In the plural some dialects suffix an -i while others add the same ending of the accusative singular to the plural stem. Feminine nouns behave similar to the genitive; singular desinence consists of an unreduced diphthong, plural consists of a vowel (this time -i, likely cognate to the masculine suffix) added to the vowel + resonant sequence

Ergative- neuter nouns formed the ergative case with -nu, the same suffix the common (masculine & feminine) genders used to form the instrumental

Instrumental- common genders attest the suffix -nu added to the genitive case and the neuter gender uses agglutinates the postposition *-yk meaning "made of, by means of"

Locative- some isoglosses attest a -h suffix (obligatorily lengthened to -zi in the masculine plural) in the common genders and the suffix -tā in the neuter gender. Others attest a uniform locative suffix ending in -b (which has some seemingly random effects on the preceding vowel, sometimes keeping it intact other times rounding it to -ū). The former system seems more archaic, since those languages not attesting a -b locative do attest an adposition reconstructed as *ubo, with a meaning of "within, inside" whereas no postposition matching *h or *zi can be identified.

See ya next time for pronouns and adjectives
Last edited by Markski on Fri Oct 14, 2016 9:45 am, edited 12 times in total.

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Re: Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

Post by Markski »

Accidentally double posted whoops :p Move along
Last edited by Markski on Wed Jul 13, 2016 12:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

Post by Markski »

Adjectives and pronouns decline like each other, excluding the personal pronouns which decline according to their own, somewhat exceptional paradigm. The shared declension of adjectives and pronouns is split into two paradigms, referred to as strong and weak. The are somewhat similar in function to the same types of adjectives in Proto Germanic: strong pronouns and adjectives modify a noun in the same clause, whereas weak pronouns and adjectives are those that stand on their own functioning like a substantive.

Basic Declension
Strong Declension

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc (Abs)
Ins (Erg)
Loc
Masc Sing
-∅
-u
-uh

-u
-uh, -ub
Fem Sing
-i

-ȳh


-ȳh, -ȳb
Neut Sing
N/A

-ati
-a
-atā, -ab
-atā, -ab
Common Plural
-ux
-yx
-ūh
-ǫx
-yx
-ūh, -ūb
Neut Plural
N/A
-eþē
-etti
-eþa
-ettā, -eþub
-ettā, -eþub

Weak Declension

Case
Nom (Erg)
Gen
Dat
Acc (Abs)
Ins
Loc
Masc Sing
-u
-jo
-uv

-jonu
-i
Fem Sing

-jo
-yv

-jonu
-i
Neut Sing
-ēnu
-wa
-ati

-yk
-i
Common Plural
-ūx

-ūv(ah)
-ǫx
-ūnu
-ūzi
Neut Plural
-eðnu
-eþwa
-etti
-eþē
-eþyk
-eþi

For neuter nouns the "accusative" form is really an absolutive, and the ergative case takes its form from the instrumental in the strong declension whereas in the weak declension the ergative has a separate case form listed in the same row as the masculine and feminine "common suffix."

Also note that the "strong" and "weak" terminology comes from a distinction between vowel-based and n-stem declensions respectively in Proto Germanic- ie., the former constitute the classic adjective paradigm and the latter a new synthetic development. PVA has inherited the labels "strong" and "weak" in light of the tradition of how these adjectives were used, as far as any evidence can tell both weak and strong are "classic" pronoun-adjective paradigms and neither seems to outdate the other. It should be furthermore taken into consideration that nominal-esque desinences are found scattered almost arbitrarily among both strong and weak paradigms.

Degree
PVA featured four synthetic degrees: positive (default), negative, superlative and diminutive. The nonpositive degrees are invariably formed with an infix placed immediately after the root and before the ending. The infixes are: -am- (superlative), -ef- (negative), -evm- (diminutive). Note that -am- and -evm- degrade to -ą and -evą respectively before the null ending of the strong masculine nominative singular. The negative and diminutive morphemes function similar to a prefix such as "non" or "un." Like any reasonable language would, (I'm looking at you Esperanto) PVA also makes extensive use of lexical antonyms for contrasting opposites and the negative/diminutive degrees are by no means the ubiquitous method of negating an adjective: take, for example, *ēkj- (good). The typical word for bad would have been *rem-, describing something as "ēkjef" instead of "rę" would have the same effect as the litotes employed in the phrase "that's not good."

The negative morpheme -ef- will show up again when we get to verbs, *nudge-nudge*

Personal Pronouns
Personal pronouns ignore the strong/weak position since they always stand in "weak" position (not modifying another word in its clause)
First Person

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
vēr
varjo
varev
vare
varjonu
vari
Plural
keþ
ketjy
ketiv(ah)
keti
ketjynu
keti

Second Person

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Singular
seh
sezjo
sezav
seza
sezjonu
sezi
Plural

ramjy
ramuv(ah)
ramy
ramjynu
rami

Third Person

Case
Nom
Gen
Dat
Acc
Ins
Loc
Masc Sing
hu
hjo
huv

hjonu

Fem Sing
ti
tjo
tiv

tjonu

Masc Plural
ho

hov(ah)

hōnu
hozi
Fem Plural
te

tev(ah)

tēnu
tezi

I have a few ideas for deriving attributives from nouns as well as for formation and usage of demonstratives, relative and interrogative clauses which haven't come to fruition quite yet and so I shall wait for a later date to post those. Once I do I'll include some declension examples for pronouns and adjectives.

Peace out homiez,
Last edited by Markski on Sat Nov 26, 2016 6:45 pm, edited 13 times in total.

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Re: Proto Vauqun-Adzovъd

Post by Markski »

I'm probably not the only one here who loves the mobile accent of PIE, particularly saying all those fun paradigm names such as "acrostatic," "amphikinetic," "hysterodynamic" etc. Well, I admit that I wanted something of similar coolness for my own protolang (I'm sure many of you PIE scholars have noticed quite a bit of inspiration overall in PVA, really) but I still wanted to 1. be original and 2. not have to create something quite a baroque as PIE.

What I decided to do was create a weight-sensitive stress system reminiscent of Latin but have some sound shifts that make it partially phonemic. In essence there are three rules defining the stress system:
  1. If the first syllable of a root is heavy, the stress of all inflections and derivations of the root will fall on that syllable (these are acrostatic roots)
  2. Otherwise, the stress will fall on the leftmost heavy syllable. If there are no heavy syllables in a word then the initial root syllable is stressed. Roots such as these are labeled kinetic
  3. Light monosyllabic roots or function words will prefer to lean on another lexeme (such as a complement, postposition, pronoun, verb, etc.) for stress if possible, but they can receive stress if this is syntactically required
The definition of a heavy syllable does not quite match the typical IE concept since the presence of a coda does not directly impact the syllable's weight. Rather, weight is solely dependent on whether the nucleus is historically a long vowel or diphthong (both of which are heavy) or a short or diphthong vowel (light). Now, as discussed when feminine nouns were covered, diphthongs underwent a major shift in the pre-PVA era. Conveniently feminine desinences seem to consist of masculine noun desinences + [u̯], the morpheme inserted before the agreement desinence in passive verbs is likewise [u̯d] and there is a very productive nomen instrumenti suffix [i̯mi]. By observing how these suffixes affect the words they are attached to we can determine the diachronic structure behind PVA dipthongs.
  • au̯ (→ɰɔ?) → wa
  • eu̯ → jo
  • iu̯ (→ iɥ?) → ī
  • yu̯→ ū
  • ou̯ → ō
  • uu̯ → ū
It would seem that the result of a collapsed diphthong ending in u̯ maintains the vowel height of the original nucleus
  • ai̯ → ē
  • ei̯ → ī
  • ii̯ → ī
  • yi̯ → ī
  • oi̯ → ū
  • ui̯ → ȳ
Collapsed diphthongs ending in i̯ on the other hand have a tendency to raise compared to the height of the original nucleus

Long diphthongs are much more uniform than short diphthong. First of all, long diphthongs come either a "double stacked" off-glide (somewhat rare) or any off-glide with a single, long nucleus (more common), but regardless at some stage in the phonetic history of PVA long diphthongs were interpreted as bearing the length on the off-glide and not the nucleus, evidenced by the fact that the off-glide strengthened into a fricative (i̯ → z, u̯ → v). Note that the glides /j/ and /w/ similarly fortify in the word-initial position (cf. *uwad (cook) and *vad (food) or *mojūk (burn, be on fire (middle voice)) zūk (burn, set fire to)). This leaves the original nucleus short- but, of course, the syllable remains prosodically heavy. Likewise, the long vowels produced by short diphthong collapses are prosodically light. Yup, short heavy vowels and long light vowels. Cosmic coincidence or conniving conlangers conspiring to create confounding complexity?

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