Language scratchpad/Altlangs/Alternate reconstructions/Proto-Japonic scratchpad

This subarticle lists some of my notes on Proto-Japonic.

Disclaimer: The entirety of this article's contents is to be considered science fiction. They are not, in any way, verified and accepted reconstructions of real-life proto-languages, even if they are largely based on accepted reconstructions.

Pitch and tone
The following is based on Shimabukuro's (2002) reconstruction of the Proto-Japonic accent system. The tone in parentheses represents the tone of the first mora of any following suffix/clitic in the phonological word.

Monosyllables
Monosyllables may have been bimoraic in Proto-Japonic. Thus, all monosyllables featured long vowels (word shape oo instead of short O). The monosyllables develop into three tonal classes in Early Middle Japanese and Proto-Ryukyuan.

For the root shape column, which are my own reconstructions on the possible shape of the Proto-Japonic word, T represents a voiceless consonant, M a voiced consonant, V a vowel, C any consonant or /j/, and N any nasal.

The Namari column indicates the pitch accent shape and class of the reflex.

It is suggested that initial low tone is the result of voiced initials. If so, then example reconstructions of monosyllabic words are as follows:

Although this sample size is small, 1a and 1c tend to correspond to words ending in -y. This may mean that these classes are remnants of a "checked" tonal class.

Disyllables
Shimabukuro reconstructs eight different tonal classes for disyllables, corresponding to five in Early Middle Japanese and three in Proto-Ryukyuan.

Example reconstructions:

(A side note: some of the Namari forms show a sound change unique to the Yaezora dialect, high vowel dissimilation. High vowel dissimilation only affects word-initial /i/ and /u/, and it causes these vowels to lower to /e/ or /o/ respectively whenever they are followed by a mora with /i/ or /u/. Note that original /wi/ is not affected, although the only example I have is ijishi "pig".)

Classes 2g and 2h are hypothesised by Vovin (2008) to have ended in a nasal.

Trisyllables
Shimabukuro reconstructs twelve tonal classes for trisyllables. These classes give seven Early Middle Japanese tonal classes and six Proto-Ryukyuan tonal classes.

A side note: The pitch accent of Yaezora dialect has elements of both stress and tone. Each word has an inherent tone (high or low), and a mora in which the tone changes (corresponding to stress, as no word has no accent and only unstressed short /i/ and /u/ can be elided after /s/). Some words also have "secondary stress", where the tone changes back; secondary stress is limited to words with inherent low tone. Yaezora dialect tonal classes are given as X.Y.Z, where X is the number of morae in the word, Y is either L or H for words with inherent low or high tone respectively, or a number to indicate the location of the first tone change, and Z is a number indicating the location of the (second) tone change.

Example of Namari numerals:

Issues with reconstructions

 * In some cases, it is impossible to determine whether a proto-form has */u/ or */o/.
 * So far, I've run into the same problem distinguishing word-initial */i/ from */e/. While I can say with some certainty that "to say" is *ip-, other words may prove more troublesome. What I've noticed that at the very least Proto-Japonic */i/ induces palatalisation of the following consonant in Proto-Ryukyuan; I don't know if this is true for */e/ as well.

Swadesh list
Where a word is given in parentheses, it represents the second principal part of the word preceding it. This appears for all verbs (where it represents the imperative) and all non-first declension and all monomoraic nouns (where it represents the genitive).

Note: Where I have [m,n] it reflects an alternation between Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages between the two consonants:
 * Proto-Japonic *[m,n]ipi becomes Japanese nii but Okinawan miisan.
 * Proto-Japonic *[m,n]inki-ri becomes Japanese migi(ri) but Okinawan nijiri.

Numerals
I have reconstructed the following numerals:

Reconstruction issues
There are a number of unresolved issues when reconstructing Proto-Japonic vocabulary.

Cardinal directions
So far, I have only reconstructed these terms for Proto-Ryukyuan (north: *nisi, east: *aga-r-i, south: *pa(y)e, west: *ir-i), and only if one takes into account the modern languages. The language of the Omoro Sōshi features nishi meaning both "west" (as in Japanese) and "north", as well as the terms kami and shimo for "north" and "south" respectively.

The Japanese terms are in general different from those of the Ryukyuan languages. Japanese still has nishi, but it means "west" instead of "north" (and based on evidence from the Omoro Sōshi, I believe the "west" meaning is the original meaning of Proto-Japonic *nisi). The other three terms do not match with their Ryukyuan counterparts. The terms kita and minami ("north" and "south" respectively) do not have any transparent etymologies (note that Japanese also has hae, meaning "south wind" and cognate with the Ryukyuan terms for "south"), while higashi is of secondary development (a compound of hi "sun" with a form of muku "to face a direction"). Japanese also has azuma ("east"), derived from Old Japanese aduma, but also with an unclear etymology.

Because of these differences, I have had to make my own words for the cardinal directions in Namari (and their corresponding winds, if separate):
 * North: kami (かみ)
 * East: pingai (ひんがい), kochi (こち)
 * South: shimo (しも), pae (はえ)
 * West: nishi (にし)

The derivations are as follows:
 * North: From Proto-Japonic *kami, meaning "upper; northern".
 * East: A compound of Old Namari pi ("sun", from Proto-Japonic *pi) and mukapi, the infinitive of mukapu ("to face a direction", from Proto-Japonic *muk-ap-; compare Okinawan nkayun). Compare Japanese higashi, derived from Old Japanese *pi1-muka-si. The term kochi is of unclear derivation, but does originate from Proto-Japonic *kəti.
 * South: From Proto-Japonic *simo, meaning "lower; southern". The term pae may be an old loanword from Sanskrit (via Chinese), but is reconstructible for Proto-Japonic, the protoform being *paye.
 * West: From Proto-Japonic *nisi, meaning "origin; west"

Family
Reconstructing terms for family and relations have proved very difficult, due to the variation between languages, and even between dialects. So far, I can only reconstruct four words confidently (and several more tentatively) in this semantic category:
 * *əy-a, meaning "parent" (the root *əy-, means "to grow old"; I am unsure whether Japanese oiru "to grow old" corresponds to *əy-əy- or *əy-[u,o]y, due to ambiguities found in what little I've found in Ryukyuan; for Namari I assume *əy-əy-)
 * *amo, meaning "mother" (tentatively, also *papa)
 * *ətə, meaning "younger sibling"
 * *itəkə, meaning "cousin" (confirmed by Okinawan ichuku)
 * Tentatively, *sosa, meaning "older sibling"

I can only trace e ("older sibling") to Proto-Japanese (whose form is *ye), but oto ("younger sibling") does go back to Proto-Japonic.

Namari has the following terms:
 * oya (おや), meaning "parent"
 * amo (あも), meaning "mother" (alternatively はは papa, although due to language contact this variant is archaic and easily confused)
 * kazo (かぞ), meaning "father"
 * wayabe (わやべ), meaning "child"
 * oyobe (およべ), meaning "son" (ultimately derived from Old Namari wo- + warabe)
 * maibe (まいべ), meaning "daughter" (ultimately derived from Old Namari me- + warabe)
 * moko (もこ), meaning "son-in-law" (also means "groom", from Proto-Japonic *moko "groom; son-in-law")
 * yome (よめ), meaning "daughter-in-law" (also means "bride", from Proto-Japonic *yəme "bride; daughter-in-law")
 * sosa (そさ), meaning "older sibling" (bound form え e)
 * onnae (おんなえ), meaning "older sister" (derived from onna + -e; colloquially, あね ane or ねー nē)
 * okkonoe (おっこのえ), meaning "older brother" (derived from otoko + -no + -e; colloquially, あに ani or にー nī)
 * oto (おと), meaning "younger sibling"
 * otouto (おとうと), meaning "younger brother"
 * imouto (いもうと), meaning "younger sister"
 * itoko (いとこ), meaning "cousin"
 * pamae (はまえ), meaning "grandmother" (derived from pa- + mae)
 * shimae (しまえ), meaning "grandfather" (derived from shi- + mae)
 * oyamae (おやまえ), meaning "grandparent"
 * mmago (んまご), meaning "grandchild" (tentatively I reconstruct *(m)uman-ko, but most Ryukyuan words are descendants of Proto-Ryukyuan *(m)umaga, with only Yonaguni using *(m)umago)
 * umango (うまんご), meaning "grandson"
 * umamme (うまんめ), meaning "granddaughter"
 * The above six terms may be prefixed with pi- (ひ) to refer to great-grandparents or great-grandchildren. This prefix can be repeated to increase the generational gap by one per repeat.
 * oji (おじ), meaning "uncle" (tentatively I reconstruct *wən-si, and the only Ryukyuan word I can find is Yoron fuja)
 * oba (おば), meaning "aunt" (tentatively I reconstruct *wəm-pa)
 * oiko (おいこ), meaning "nephew" (derived from earlier oi + -ko; tentatively I reconstruct *wə-pi)
 * meiko (めいこ), meaning "niece" (derived from earlier mei + -ko; tentatively I reconstruct *me-pi)
 * The above four terms also accept the pi- prefix to increase the generational gap (i.e. one prefix referring to great-uncles/great-aunts/etc.)
 * yauchi (やうち), meaning "family" (unreconstructible in Proto-Japonic, the Namari term is derived from ya- "house" + ochi "one's own group")

Verb conjugation
You may have noticed that I only gave stems for verbs in the above lists. This is because reconstruction of the Proto-Japonic verbal system is fraught with uncertainty. So far, I have made the following observations:
 * In general, there are vowel-stem (thematic) and consonant-stem (athematic) verbs. Most (but not all) thematic verb stems end in a diphthong.
 * Consonant-stem verbs add an epenthetic *-a- (which may alternate with *-ə-, but my evidence is flimsy) whenever a suffix beginning with a consonant is added (e.g. *kak- "to scratch; to write" becomes *kak-a-n- "not to scratch; not to write", with *-n- being the negation suffix; compare *ankay- "to rise" becoming *ankai-n- "not to rise").
 * The general infinitive suffix is *-i. This suffix may be elided after vowel stems ending in */i/ or a diphthong.
 * The general attributive suffix I reconstruct as *-ro. The */r/ is lost in consonant-stem verbs as a result of Whitman's Law.
 * The general imperative suffix I reconstruct as *-ryə, which becomes **-iə/**-ia → *-e for consonant stems. The glide explains the different forms between Western Japanese (-yo), Eastern Japanese (-ro) and Ryukyuan (-ru for dialects that retain the thematic-athematic distinction), as well as Proto-Japonic *-e for consonant stems (in conjunction with Whitman's Law).
 * All Japonic languages have a participle/gerundive marked with -te (for Japanese) or -ti (for Ryukyuan), subject to euphonic changes. This ultimately originates from Proto-Japonic *-tay, which attaches to the infinitive (e.g. *kak-i-tay "writing", *ankai-(i)-tay "rising").

As of writing (2019-05-02), I have noticed a disagreement between two Wiktionary users regarding the proper form to use as the lemma for Proto-Japonic verbs. This is because the typical lemma for verbs in Japonic languages is the conclusive (only very early missionary dictionaries use the infinitive as the lemma), and the conclusive varies significantly between the Japonic languages (Japanese -u, Hachijō -u/-owa, Okinawan -(y)un, Yaeyama -un). In addition, I reconstruct a realis marker *-m(u) for Proto-Ryukyuan, which attaches to many (but not all) finite verb forms.

The general pattern I've found for conclusive forms is:
 * Japanese: -u, from Proto-Japanese *-u, which replaces the thematic vowel in most vowel-stems.
 * Northern Ryukyuan: *-i-woru, derived from the combination of the infinitive with the animate existential. All languages also add the realis marker *-m(u).
 * Southern Ryukyuan (Sakishima): Unclear; may be a reflex of Proto-Japonic *-u, as evidenced in Irabu Miyako kafum ("to write", from a protoform *kakum(u)). Like with the Northern Ryukyuan languages, the realis marker *-m(u) is added.

From the above, I can reconstruct Proto-Japonic *-u for the conclusive, based on evidence from Japanese and Miyako. However, I am unclear on how it interacts with vowel stems, as Japanese replaces the thematic vowel, Okinawan has since lost the thematic-athematic distinction (what were vowel stems have since fallen into the "clear" conjugational class along with r- and p-stems), and Irabu Miyako uses an infix -r-.

For Namari, I have generally taken the verb forms of Japanese, although I have also taken the imperfective-perfective distinction found in Okinawan. In addition, I have innovated a future tense. With regards to the conclusive, I generally follow Japanese, although for monograde verbs I use -i instead of -ru (which would become *-yu).