The oldest attested ancestor of the Aakiuru languages. These comprise a large proportion of all languages on the homeworld they call Aupala. This language family is arguably the most diverse on the whole of Aupala, featuring dramatic shifts in phonotactics, vocabulary, grammatical structures and even culture, to the point of utter unrecognisability.
Proto-Aakiuru morphosyntax:
Nouns tend to only exhibit suffixation, while verbs tend to only exhibit prefixation (as in Navajo). This is as result of a mix of head- and dependent-marking tendencies exhibited in SOV languages, and allows for much diversification in later descendant languages.
Nouns inflect for number and ‘case’. The case system is composed of suffixing specific words onto the ‘nouns‘ they affect, though since these words are only linked via intonation and in writing, it isn't a completely codified system. Below is a detailed outline of the affix order in Proto-Aakiuru.
| Stem | Suffixes | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2+ |
| stem | plural | ‘case(s)’ |
2+ indicates cases may be added via case stacking according to a specific order: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Comitative, Instrumental, Allative, Ablative,
Adessive, Abessive, Superessive.
Verbs inflect for number and perfectivity – the imperfective aspect is shown through reduplication. Tense is contextual or conveyed by use of adverbs or expressions of time; aspect and mood are conveyed through a large (unstandardised) set of auxiliary verbs that do not inflect and just follow the main verb. Here is the base inflection table with the verb “kipə” (run) conjugated:
| Num. | Person | Affix | Perfective | Imperfective | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sg. | 1st | la- | I run | la-kipə | la-kikipə | I am running | |
| 2nd | ri- | you run | ri-kipə | ri-kikipə | you are running | ||
| 3rd | sə- | it runs | sə-kipə | sə-kikipə | it is running | ||
| Pl. | 1st | pu- | we run | pu-kipə | pu-kikipə | we are running | |
| 2nd | kə- | ye run | kə-kipə | kə-kikipə | ye be running | ||
| 3rd | ʔa- | they run | ʔa-kipə | ʔa-kikipə | they are running | ||
| 4th | tau- | one runs / running | tau-kipə | tau-kikipə | one is running | ||
Circumfixion of the person affixes around the verb root emphasises the actor.
| CONS. | Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | · m | · n | · ŋ | |
| Plosive | p · | t · | k · | ʔ |
| Fricative | s · | h · | ||
| Approximant | · l | |||
| Rhotic | · r |
Proto-Aakiuru vowels:
| VOWELS | Front | Central | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open | a | ||
All sounds here are phonemic –
When Proto-Aakiuru features two adjacent vowels (not in the same place of articulation), it can be analysed as a hiatus – this is a moraic analysis and would yield such pronunciation as /sa‑u‑a.ni/ vs /saua.ni/ and /i‑a.ku‑a/ vs /ia.kua/. The latter (non-hyphenated) are based upon a syllabic analysis of consecutive vowels (diphthongs with no semivowels or glides). I'll be using ‘syllabic’ pronunciation, although ‘moraic’ just involves separating the second vowel with a hyphen in any syllable.
(C) V (V)(V)
| Meaning | Word | Pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| plant shoot | ʔia | /ʔia/ |
| moment | iuiu | /ˈiu.iu/ |
| ‘broad language’ | aa-kiuru | /aːˈkiu.ru/ |
| fractal, everlined | ii-alakə-talə-hu | /iːˈa.la.kǝˌta.lə.hu/ |
| “away from us” | ruu-əə-ka | /ˈruːəːka/ |
Long vowels are considered one unit and not two morae (e.g. Japanese), though sounds between compounds do not merge, as in əti‑ipilə, meaning ‘notion’ – /ə.ti.i.pi.lə/, not /ə.tiːpi.lə/; vowel sequences are never pronounced as glide-vowel pairs – /ia.kua/, never /ja.kwa/. Stress always falls on the nouns of compounds, as they are viewed as the cores of words: primary stress on the core noun, and secondary stress on every other noun present, for example in ii‑alakə‑talə‑hu (as shown in the table above).
Proto-Aakiuru – Vocabulary (Google Sheets)