| Proto-East-Cushitic | |
|---|---|
| Reconstruction of | East Cushitic |
| Region | Horn of Africa |
| Reconstructed ancestor | Proto-Cushitic |
Proto-East-Cushitic is the reconstructed proto-language common ancestor of the Eastern branch of the Cushitic language family. Its words and roots are not directly attested in any written works, but have been reconstructed through the comparative method, which finds systematic regularities between languages not explained by coincidence or word-borrowing, and extrapolates ancient forms from these similarities.
Phonology
Consonants
An initial reconstruction of the Proto-East-Cushitic consonants was proposed by Hans-Jürgen Sasse.
| Labial | Coronal | Post-alv./ Palatal |
Velar | Pharyngeal | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | voiceless | t | k | ʔ | |||
| voiced | b | d | g | ||||
| glottalized | ɗ <d'>, ɗ₁ <d'₁> | k’ | |||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ <š> | (x?) | ħ | h |
| voiced | z | ʕ | |||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Lateral | l | ||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Glide | w | j | |||||
Vowels
Sasse assumes a five-quality vowel system with a length distinction:
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Mid | e | o | |
| Open | a |
Morphology
Pronouns
David Appleyard reconstructs the Proto-East-Cushitic personal pronouns as follows:
| singular | plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| subject | oblique | subject | oblique | ||
| first person | *ʔani ~ *ʔanu | *yi ~ *yu (~ *ya?) | *nVnV ~ *ʔVn(n)V | *nV | |
| second person | *ʔati ~ *ʔatu | *ku ~ *ki (~ possessive *ka) | *ʔatin ~ *ʔatun | *kun ~ *kin | |
| third person | m. | *ʔus-uu | *ʔus-a(a) ~ *ʔis-a(a) | *ʔusun ~ *ʔišin | |
| f. | *ʔiš-ii | *ʔiš-ii ~ *ʔiš-ee | |||
Hans-Jürgen Sasse reconstructs a demonstrative paradigm that inflects for gender and case, contrasting a subject case and an absolute:
| masculine | feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| absolute | *ka | *ta |
| subject | *ku | *ti |
Nouns
East Cushitic is mostly characterized by marked nominative alignment. Sasse reconstructs the Proto-East-Cushitic paradigms for nouns ending in a short vowel as follows:
| masculine | feminine | |
|---|---|---|
| absolute | *-a | *-a |
| subject | *-u/i | *-a |
References
- ^ Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1979). "The Consonant Phonemes of Proto-East-Cushitic (PEC): A First Approximation". Afroasiatic Linguistics. 7 (1): 1–67.
- Appleyard, D.L. (1986). "Agaw, Cushitic and Afroasiatic: The Personal Pronoun Revisited". Journal of Semitic Studies. 31 (2).
- ^ Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1984). "Case in Cushitic, Semitic and Berber". In Bynon, James (ed.). Current Progress in Afro-Asiatic Linguistics. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 111–126. doi:10.1075/cilt.28.08sas.