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

This page compares some of the descendant conlangs of Proto-Japonic. So far, three languages are featured here: Namari (namaikotoba), New Kudara (dāračča) and Tanmuran (tammurakotoba). Of the three, Namari is the one I've developed the most. In the Innocence Seekers setting, New Kudara (spoken in Kudara province in Namari) is the only surviving Peninsular Japonic language, while both Namari (spoken in Namari and Likkra) and Tanmuran (spoken on Jeju island in Korea and on Tsushima and Kyushu in Japan) are Insular Japonic languages.

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.

Vowels
Namari has by far the most vowels of any Japonic language in the Innocence Seekers setting, with between nine and eleven phonemic vowels depending on dialect (the most in any real-life Japonic language I know of is seven). On the other hand, Tanmuran only has five phonemic vowels (like Japanese), and New Kudara has six. New Kudara also has vowel harmony based on vowel height, with /a/, /e/ and /o/ forming one group and /ə/, /i/ and /u/ forming the other group.

The following table lists the reflexes of each Proto-Japonic vowel and vowel sequence:

Numbers
In New Kudara, numerals less than one hundred have their own forms (in comparison, Namari only has unique forms for eleven and twelve). They are listed below:

Classifiers
The history of classifiers in the Japonic languages has been fairly obscured by Chinese influence, but I can reconstruct three classifiers that do not resemble the nouns they describe: From Old Japanese evidence, in particular from prose, it is apparent that classifiers were in limited use, typically used to refer to elevated objects and deities. In most cases, count forms of nouns are combined directly with numerals. Hence I believe that numerals in Proto-Japonic behaved the same way as adjectives: they were bound forms that directly attached to a noun.
 * *-tu, the general classifier
 * *-(ta)ri, the classifier for people
 * *-uka, the classifier for days

The following table lists the forms of each numeral-classifier compound and their descendants:

While numeral-classifier compounds are nouns in Namari and Tanmuran, they are verbal adjectives in New Kudara. Tanmuran and some Namari dialects allow numeral-classifier compounds to occur after the noun they modify.

Derivative forms
I reconstruct an ordinal suffix *-me? (which may be *-may instead; I have yet to determine which reconstruction is correct). This is reflected in Namari -me, New Kudara -me/-mi, and Tanmuran -me.

Time
In general, the following prefixes are used:

Months
So far, I can only reconstruct the names of two months for Proto-Japonic:
 * *simə-tuk[u,o]y, for the eleventh month
 * *si-pasu, for the twelfth month

For the Innocence Seekers setting, I've used the Japanese names and extended them to the other Japonic languages. They are listed below:

Note that all New Kudara forms are feminine ("yin"), even though "moon" itself is masculine ("yang").

Conjugation
Being Insular Japonic languages, Namari and Tanmuran share a great deal of conjugational forms, while New Kudara, being Peninsular Japonic, is somewhat divergent.

The following compares conjugated forms of *ar- (inanimate existential) between languages: The copula is derived from *ar- (Namari ya from *i ar-, New Kudara tom from *tə ar-, Tanmuran nyan from *ni ar-). The negative of *ar- is only used in copular forms (Namari yān from *i pa ar-an- via earlier yayan, New Kudara taran from *tə pa ar-an-, Tanmuran nyaran from *ni pa ar-an-).

The following compares conjugated forms of *wor- (animate existential) between languages:

The following compares conjugated forms of *kə- ("to come") between languages:

The following compares conjugated forms of *as- ("to do") between languages:

The following compares conjugated forms of *-n- (negative suffix) between languages:

The regular conjugational classes, beginning with forms of *ankay- ("to rise"), forming the lower vowel-stem class:

Forms of *sunkoy- ("to exceed, to surpass"), forming the upper vowel-stem class:

Forms of *kak- ("to scratch, to write"), forming the k-stem class:

Forms of *əyənk- ("to swim"), forming the g-stem class:

Forms of *pəs- ("to dry"), forming the s-stem class:

Forms of *mat- ("to wait"), forming the t-stem class:

Forms of *sin- ("to die"), forming the n-stem class:

Forms of *warap- ("to laugh"), forming the p-stem class:

Forms of *təmp- ("to fly"), forming the b-stem class:

Forms of *yəm- ("to read"), forming the m-stem class:

Forms of *kir- ("to cut"), forming the r-stem class:

Tense and aspect
For Proto-Japonic, I can confidently reconstruct five aspects, the aorist, the stative, the progressive, the preparative and the experiential, as well as a possible perfect form. In all three languages featured, this perfect evolved into a simple past, and the aspects are retained. All of these forms are based on the participle *-tay.

The reflexes of each different form in the daughter languages are as follows:

In Namari, the reflex of the stative and its progressive force ergative-absolutive alignment for nonpronominal subjects. Similarly, the New Kudara reflex uses a nominative direct object in conjunction with an ergative subject. This behaviour is identical to the effect of the potential in these two languages. The Tanmuran reflex of the stative has passive semantics, and thus does not take a direct object.

I cannot reconstruct a past tense for Proto-Japonic. Classical Japanese had a preterite -ki (attributive -si) separate from the perfect -tari, but it appears that it is unique to Japanese; I cannot find any trace of this preterite in the Ryukyuan languages. Regardless, the languages featured do have tense. In addition to the past, Namari and New Kudara have a marked future, with the same etymology. The tenses and their Proto-Japonic origins are listed below:

Voice
I reconstruct a causative *-(s)as- and a passive *-(r)aryay-, both of which attach directly to the stem. There reflexes are as follows:

The potential can be considered a voice in Namari, due to its split-ergative nature, and also possesses passive properties in other Japonic languages. However, the three languages featured do feature a potential descended from the same Proto-Japonic form. In all three languages, the potential of "to do" is suppletive (Namari deku, New Kudara dečram, Tanmuran dekerun).

Agreement
In general, the Japonic languages lack agreement between the verb and its arguments. However, many Japonic languages do have optional "directionality" agreement, using various forms of "to give" attached to the participle as auxillaries.

Directionality in Japonic is based on the person of the subject and the person of the beneficiary (not necessarily the direct object). If the person of the beneficiary is lower than that of the subject (e.g. first person beneficiary and third person subject), then the marked form is used. The forms used are listed below:

The marked forms are the basis of polite requests:
 * Namari: -te kueyo, from *-tay kuray-ryə; -te kuyäbē, from *-tay kuray pampi-ar-ryə; -te kudasae, borrowed from Japanese
 * New Kudara: -te frejo/-ti friju, from *-tay kuray-ryə; -te frebelo/-ti fribilu, from *-tay kuray pampi-ar-ryə
 * Tanmuran: -te kure, from *-tay kuray-ryə; -te kurebere, from *-tay kuray pampi-ar-ryə; -te kudasai, borrowed from Japanese

Note: the form *kuryay- is my conjecture on the etymology of Okinawan kwiyun, which would have had a preform *kuye-.

Only Namari shows proper subject-verb agreement. In this case, most of the suffixes are borrowed from non-Japonic languages, and as such I will not mention them here.

Verbal adjectives
Unlike normal verbs, verbal adjectives do not conjugate for aspect or voice. They also have additional forms unique to adjectives:

Only Namari and New Kudara possess comparative forms for adjectives; Tanmuran generally leaves comparatives unmarked. This form is derived from *-ku mə ar-, giving Namari -kumoi and New Kudara -(a)fmoram or -(ə)fmurəm. All three languages have superlative forms for adjectives, but they are derived differently:
 * Namari: from *-ku mə taka-, whence -kumotakakai
 * New Kudara: from *-ku mage-, whence -(a)fmagesam or -(ə)fməgisəm.
 * Tanmuran: from *-ku-tay əpə-, whence -kutōi

Negatives are formed differently from normal verbs, and as usual, they conjugate for "tense":

New Kudara, unlike the other Japonic languages in Innocence Seekers (except certain dialects of Namari), has gender, and this is reflected in the form of verbal (and nominal) adjectives used. Verbal adjectives (but not verbs) have different forms in the conclusive and attributive depending on gender. The "yin" gender, or feminine, is the default in New Kudara, and is used for the lemma.

Note that negative and comparative forms of verbal adjectives do not have gendered forms.

Number
All languages featured have singular and plural number, while Namari also has a dual. Both Namari and Tanmuran also feature a collective separate from the plural, while New Kudara combines the two.

In all cases, number is not marked if the noun is explicitly modified by a numeral. The New Kudara plural suffix is -tta/-ttə after a noun ending in a vowel, and -ta/-tə after nouns ending in a non-coronal or non-obstruent consonant. However, if the word-final consonant is a coronal obstruent (/t/, /d/, /s/, /z/, /ɕ/, /ʑ/, /t͡s/, /t͡ɕ/), the /t/ assimilates to this consonant, forming a geminate.

Case
The three languages featured have a variable number of cases. Namari has thirteen cases, New Kudara eleven, and Tanmuran ten. However, they vary slightly.

The following table lists the cases and their possible Proto-Japonic markers:

Note that the "ergative" is simply a label corresponding to its role in New Kudara; I am actually unsure of the morphosyntactic alignment of Proto-Japonic (New Kudara is tripartite). Not listed above is the pronominal nominative suffix *-re?, which is realised as -e in Namari, -re/-ri in New Kudara and -re in Tanmuran.

In all three languages, which genitive to use is determined by the animacy of the noun. Typically, animates use the reflex of *nka, while inanimates use the reflex of *nə. The marker *na is vestigial in all three languages.

Namari has three declensional classes, and is unique in that its nouns can alternate between /i/-suffixed and bound forms in declension (this is the basis of the Namari second declension). Namari has a few irregular nouns, which retain things such as irregular genitives or diphthongal pronunciation in the dative.

New Kudara does not have declensional classes per se, but there are rules that need to be followed when declining for case:
 * The lemma is the intransitive case.
 * The ergative case uses -e or -i when the noun stem ends in a consonant.
 * Likewise, the accusative case uses -o or -u in the same environment.
 * If the noun stem ends in a vowel, the ablative suffix begins with -j-; otherwise it is omitted.
 * If the noun ends in a consonant, the dative, instrumental and locative have an epenthetic /a/ or /ə/ added.
 * If the noun ends in -a or -ə, they are replaced by long variants of the ergative and accusative suffixes.
 * If the noun ends in -e or -i, they become nonsyllabic -j- before the accusative -o or -u.
 * If the noun ends in -o or -u, the ergative is simply -j.
 * If the noun ends in a long vowel, hiatus is always inserted between the stem and the ergative/accusative.
 * The allative suffix always inserts a hiatus after a vowel.
 * Vowel harmony must be observed.

Tanmuran nouns do not properly decline; they are generally invariant with respect to case markers. However, there are exceptions (e.g. kami becomes kanna and mezu becomes mina in the genitive).

Pronouns work differently from nouns. A comparison of forms between the languages is listed below (using the first person singular pronoun):

The other personal pronouns decline identically. The demonstrative ka- declines similarly, except in the genitive, where the form depends on animacy (and in the New Kudara accusative, whose form is kaw).

The demonstrative ko-, which is more regular, declines as follows:

The same applies to the other /o/ demonstratives and the interrogative (although vowel harmony applies in New Kudara).

Nominal adjectives
All three languages featured have nominal adjectives whose properties are separate from nouns. In all languages, nominal adjectives must be paired with the copula in order to act predicatively. When acting adnominally, they take the genitive. However, the form of the genitive does not necessarily match that of a normal noun, and varies between languages:
 * Namari nominal adjectives have their genitives influenced by a limited vowel harmony rule, with -na used when the word has /a/, /u/ or their derivatives, and -no otherwise.
 * New Kudara nominal adjectives have their genitives vary depending on the gender of the noun it modifies. The default is -na/-nə for the feminine, with the masculine being -ga/-gə and the neuter being -no/-nu.
 * Tanmuran nominal adjectives generally have their genitives in -na.

All nominal adjectives form their degree forms the same way as their verbal counterparts, and use the dative as adverbial forms. The comparative and superlative forms of the nominal adjectives are listed below:

Other markers
All three languages feature a topic marker and a focus marker. The topic marker is *-pa in Proto-Japonic, which is reflected in Namari -a, New Kudara -a/-ə and Tanmuran -wa. I tentatively reconstruct the focus particle as *sə, and this is reflected in Namari -zu and -koso, New Kudara -zo/-zu and -koso/-kusu, and Tanmuran -zo and -koso.

The focus marker has the property of changing the inflection of the main verb. In a normal declarative sentence, the main verb is in its conclusive form. However, the existence of a focus marker forces the main verb to take a different conjugation instead (in the case of -zo/-zu, it is the attributive, and in the case of -koso/-kusu, it is an emphatic form).

The New Kudara topic marker has special forms when combined with case markers (except the genitive, which cannot combine with the topic marker):