A Short Impression of Proto-Jalvic
2014-05-03 12:13:18
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A Short Impression of Proto-Jalvic

Man I should stop advertising things.

Proto-Jalvic, as I currently envision it, was a moderately synthetic, agglutinative language with features that, while not perhaps commonplace among the world's languages, aren't anything particularly exceptional either.

I am not going to lie here: I don't have a very concrete idea of what I want this to be like, so expect several postings documenting my vain attempts to come up with something useful.[snip]

Features I am more or less confident about are ergative alignment, SOV word order (PAV? Perhaps APV is more likely. Certain is, though, that the verb is final.) The verb is characterised by non-inflection for tense, but a rich collection of aspects and voices, as well as a few moods, not all of which occur in all combinations. There was probably also be a zero copula.

Phonologically, Proto-Jalvic had a CV syllable structure and a moderate inventory of consonants, as well as five vowels with a length distinction, /a aː e eː i iː o oː u uː/. There were no tones, and stress was always initial.

Preliminary Proto-Jalvic Consonants
LabialAlveolarRetroflexPalatalVelar
Nasalmnɳŋ
Stopptʈck
Fricativefsʂx
Approximantwr l


I am not sure about the phonemic status of the palatal nasal; its primary importance lies in generating the dental nasal in North-West(?) Jalvic, but that merges with the alveolar nasal in many NWJ languages and those that do have it may have generated it by other means. The three-way sibilant distinction, while not implausible in any way, is not necessary, as far as I can see, for anything particular I have planned, and so I may drop it just to not make too many gridlangs. Also, given the widespread presence of dental fricatives in Jalvic, it may be preferable to include /θ/ (although in the three-sibilant scenario a shift /s→θ, ɕ→s/ in some branches can produce this as well; perhaps this could be one of the isoglosses between the two primary and the weird third branch).

Anyway, back to grammar. I can't provide any concrete morphology or syntax yet — I'd like to look over a few grammars for inspiration before I do anything, and having these things in separate posts is just neater. The sources I will draw on will probably include, apart from the standard Ural-Altaic fare, Mayan, Sino-Tibetan (especially Classical Chinese does a few things that don't seem like defects of a written language and yet are very interesting; I shall see how well they transfer to a less isolating language), as well as Pama-Nyungan.

If I decide on anything, I will post it here. Depending on how long it takes, there may be minor posting on other topics in between. I hope any impatient readers will not be too disheartened!

Next in this series: Overview of Proto-Jalvic Morphosyntax
Hallow XIII 9 years ago