Proto Atŋaŋ

Proto Atŋaŋ [adŋaŋ] was a language spoken in the northern parts of the Siŋ Archipelago and the westernmost parts of the Mesoborean Sea, and it was the ancestor of the Atŋaŋ language family. The name is a compound of at (people) and ŋaŋ (speech).

Consonants
Consonants are spelled as their IPA forms with the following exceptions: /ʔ/ is, /p' t' k'/ is , and /ɾ ʀ/ is

Vowels
Vowels are spelled as they are in the IPA.

Phonotactics
(C1)V(C2)(C3)


 * C1 = any consonant
 * C2 = one of /m n ŋ r ɾ ʀ/
 * C3 = any non ejective consonant

Allophones

 * /n/ assimilates in POA to any following nasal, stop or fricative
 * /ʔp ʔt ʔk/ or /pʔ tʔ kʔ/ > [p' t' k']
 * /p t k s/ > [b d g ʣ] before nasals
 * /ŋ k k'/ > [0 q q'] before /o ʀ/ (but not if following /i u/)
 * /ɾ r ʀ/ > [ɾ̥ r̥ ʀ̥] after [p t k q]

Stress
Stress is on the penultimate syllable.

Northern
Northern Proto Atŋaŋ was spoken on the island of Tomo.

It had the following sound changes:
 * mʔ nʔ ŋʔ > b d g
 * ʔ > 0 / V_V, #_V, _#
 * aV > aː
 * eV > eː
 * iV > iː
 * oV > oː
 * uV > uː

Southern
Southern Proto Atŋaŋ was spoken on the island of Kozo.

It had the following sound changes:
 * mʔ nʔ ŋʔ > b d g
 * ɾ > z
 * r > ɾ
 * ʀ > r

Eastern
Eastern Proto Atŋaŋ was spoken on the Gauzi Peninsula.

It had the following sound changes:
 * ɾ > l
 * ʀ > w
 * a o > 0 / _{m n ŋ}

Grammar
Proto Atŋaŋ was an agglutinative language.

Verbs
Verbs are marked for person, number, tense, mood and aspect, with the markers being placed in that order. The person, number and tense markers were prefixes, while the mood and aspect were suffixes. Additionally, there are various other prefixes and suffixes that can appear.

Person + TAM Marking
The number marking was identical to the plural markers for nouns, and for person marking Proto Atŋaŋ also distinguished 1st person inclusive and exclusive forms. There were 6 cases: remote past, recent past, hodiernal past (earlier today), present, hodiernal future (later today), and post-hodiernal future (after today). Generally, the division between recent and remote past is roughly 10 days, though there is some leeway around this point.

The following is a chart for the various verbal prefixes for person, number and tense marking: Note that while the 1st person inclusive singular has forms available, it is not used, and the 1st person exclusive singular is used instead. Also, because of the person marking, the subject is commonly omitted if there is no additional information needed about it in the sentence.

The following is a chart for the various verbal suffixes for mood and aspect marking:
 * *The vowels are added if an illegal consonant cluster would be otherwise created.

Tense

 * Remote Past
 * Recent Past
 * Hodiernal Past
 * Present
 * Hodiernal Future
 * Post-hodiernal Future

Moods
The indicative mood is the basic mood used to mark basic statements. It is marked by the lack of a mood marker.
 * Indicative


 * Sinatŋu.
 * I eat.

The permissive mood is used for stating that something is allowed. It does not matter just who allowed the action in question.
 * Permissive
 * Romnatŋudo.
 * You are allowed to eat.

The optative mood is used for cases where the speaker wishes that something would happen, or wants someone to do something. The subject of the sentence in this case is the thing or person that would wish would do the action. This mood can also be used to express desires for oneself by using the 1st person conjugation of the verb.
 * Optative
 * Romnatŋum.
 * I want you to eat.


 * Sinatŋum.
 * I'm hungry. (I want to eat.)

The abilitative mood is used to indicate that something is physically possible.
 * Abilitative
 * Sinatŋuq.
 * I can eat.

The potential mood is used to mark that something might happen, however it is not guaranteed to happen.
 * Potential
 * Qanatŋur.
 * He/she might eat.

The conditional mood is used to indicate that something is likely to happen if something else happens to be the case.
 * Conditional
 * Qantaŋube...
 * He/she would eat...

The conditional mood is not used by itself, rather a second verb in the potential mood follows it in order to specify the condition.
 * Qantaŋube qaamgukakŋi.
 * He/she would eat if he/she wasn't going to swim.

Aspect

 * Simple
 * Continuous
 * Habitual
 * Iterative
 * Gnomic

Negation
Verbs are negated by the addition of the suffix -ŋi, which is placed after the aspect and mood markers, if any. If the mood itself is being negated, the same suffix is used, however it is placed after the root but before the mood marker.
 * gukak
 * to swim


 * gukakqo
 * to be able to swim


 * gukakqoŋi
 * to be able to not swim


 * gukakŋiq
 * to not be able to swim


 * gukakŋiqŋi
 * to not be able to not swim

Questions
Questions are marked with the prefix di-, which is placed before any tense and person markers.

Valency
Verbs in Proto Atŋaŋ are by default intransitive. To mark a verb as being transitive, the prefix (i)q- is added directly onto the verb stem, following the person/tense prefix. This can cause a slight shift in meaning in some cases as well.


 * Nek gamasaka.
 * ''Earlier today the nek attacked.


 * Nek kurmgu gamasiqaka.
 * ''Earlier today the nek attacked the hunter.

Nouns
Proto Atŋaŋ had 4 different number forms: singular, dual, paucal, and plural, and additionally had 8 different cases: nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, locative, ablative, instrumental, and comitative. These were marked with suffixes, with number marking following case marking.
 * *The vowels are added if an illegal consonant cluster would be otherwise created.

Sentence Structure
Proto Atŋaŋ was SOV.

Lexicon

 * A: ([a]) Person, individual
 * Aka: ([ˈaka]) to attack
 * Duz: ([t'uɾ]) Losna's Planet
 * Gukak: ([ˈk'ukak]) to swim
 * Kurm: ([kurm]) hunter
 * Natŋu: ([ˈnadŋu]) to eat
 * Nek: ([nek]) A type of animal
 * Ŋaŋ: ([ŋaŋ]) Speech, sound
 * Wi: ([ʀi]) Losna, ground