Proto-Rai

This page is about the ancestor of the Rai languages, native to the subtropical portion south of the mountain range south of the easternmost portion of the Mesoborean Sea. At least one of the descendants migrated to the north, across the mountains, and populated the southeastern coast of the Mesoborean Sea. The original meaning of the root "Rai" is uncertain. The northern reflex is "people, inhabitants", while the southern reflex is "land, ground".

Consonants
In the orthography, /ɸ j ɾ/ is represented as. /n/ assumes the POA of a following stop, but is [n] in all other instances, even before /ɸ/.

Vowels
/ɯ ə/ is written u e. A double vowel becomes a long vowel, and schwa cannot double. Any vowel combination can result in a diphthong (a sign they may have become diphthongs just before the proto-period, and where simple vowel sequences earlier). Dipthongs are usually closing, except for those ending in /a/, which are opening diphthongs.

Phonotactics
Syllables follow the pattern (C)(r)V(V)(n, r, s). Only stops can occur in a syllable-initial cluster with r. Furthermore, syllable-final r and s only occur before stops and word-finally.

Grammar
Proto-Rai nouns are inflected by case, and have a morphological singular/plural and a topic/nontopic distinction. The inflectional system is fusional, but is only partially irregular, as it clearly derrives from an earlier agglutinating system. Verbs have perfect/imperfect distinction and four moods: indicative/subjunctive/negative/imperative, but no tense or person distinctions. Personal pronouns were quite likely required as they have resulted in prefixes to indicate person in some languages through cliticalization, but Proto-Rai being pro-drop is not completely impossible (Quite a lot of its descendants are). Also, since Proto-Rai was SOV, the cliticalization argument is not completely satisfying. There are no traditional adjectives. Rather, a genitive is used if they are derrived from a noun, or an active or passive participle if they are derrived from a verb.

Proto-Rai had seven cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, locative and ablative. There are two major declension groups, thematic (with a stem in -a) and athematic. The words in the example are *nana ("mother") and *rai ("people, land"). Athematic nouns never end in -u or -a (unless -u is part of a diphthong.) * Note that some nouns in this group end in schwa and lose their last vowel before an ending which begins with a vowel.

** Ending loses its first schwa if the stem does not end in -n or a closing diphthong.

*** In stems ending in -i, -y- is simply an intermediate sound inserted. It is not present in any other dative singular ending.

Verb morphology is substantially simpler than in its daughter languages. The imperfect indicative was most likely unmarked, as it is often so in its daughter languages. The languages which descend from Proto-Rai which do mark the indicative imperfect have endings which do not seem cognate. (More to come)