Proto-Namb language

Proto-Namb (abbreviated PNmb), also known as Proto-Northern Gäj (PNGäj) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Nambāno and Arklobu languages, which together form the Northern branch of the "Gäj" languages.

Consonants
Some analyses of Proto-Namb consider the sequences *gw *kw *xw *ŋw to be a class of singular labialized velar consonants.

Vowels
The vowel system of Proto-Namb features a typical five-vowel system, *a *e *i *o *u, in which the vowels *a *e *o *u had additional mutated forms, transcribed *ä *ë *ö *ü respectively. These typically arose as allophones due to *i in the next syllable. In the earliest internally reconstructible form of Proto-Namb, sometimes called Pre-Proto-Namb, the distinction between plain vowels and their mutated forms was entirely morphologically conditioned. In the later stage of the language which is the true ancestor of all Namb languages, loss of *i and *y in certain environments, as well as analogical extension in forms which never had a following *i, yielded phonemic mutated vowels in other phonological environments.

Many Namb languages exhibit separate shifts between plain and mutated vowels, cementing their phonemic status. *e and *ë are reconstructed as separate sounds, suggesting that *e likely had a central or back quality [ə~ɤ]. The other vowel pairs are usually interpreted similarly, with a back or central quality in the plain vowel and a fronted form in the mutated vowel:


 * a e o u [a~ɑ ə~ɤ o u]
 * ä ë ö ü [æ e ø y]

It has also been suggested that *ä *ë *ö *ü were not fronted, but rather had an advanced tongue root, as is exhibited in Qʼachkav vowel harmony. This theory posits the following approximate vowel qualities:


 * a e o u [ɑ ɛ ɔ ʊ]
 * ä ë ö ü [a e o u]

Stem mutation
Proto-Gäj featured a pattern of grammatical alternation where stem-final consonants in certain inflections would mutate according to the rule:


 * -b -d -j -g -r -l -y -w > -p -t -c -k -s -∅ -∅ -∅

In Namb, stem mutation developed further due to the loss of *s, palatal assimilation, and vowel-fronting, whereby the vowels *a *e *o *u were shifted to *ä *ë *ö *ü respectively in the presence of *i in the next syllable.

These changes yielded the following stem mutation rules which generally apply in Proto-Namb:


 * -b -d -j -g -x > -p -t -c -c -ç
 * -r -l -y -w > -∅
 * -a- -e- -o- -u- > -ä- -ë- -ö- -ü-

Stem mutation is the result of coincidental inflectional morphology causing multiple independent sound changes to frequently occur together, and the compound phonological variation which arose becoming recognised as a common pattern. This separated a stem into two distinct forms strengthened by semantic and morphological analogy. For example, the first and second person imperfective suffixes *-xir and *-xirx triggered fronting of the previous vowel in the stem and blocked the voicing of a stem-final plain plosive which had become voiced in the perfective and irrealis conjugations, or triggered spirantisation of an aspirated plosive. In nominal inflection, the genitive suffix *-(r)i (< *-si) also triggered the same ablaut and consonant mutation, as did the ablative suffixes *-çi and *-fi.

Many paradigms of related forms which partially or inconsistently mutated the stem were analogically levelled into systems based around a singular mutated stem. For example, the genitive singular suffix *-(r)ax (< *-sær̥) blocked voicing of obstruents, but would not have fronted the stem vowel. By analogy with other genitive suffixes and similar forms, this suffix also attached to the mutated stem, e.g. *öci, *öcax "stone-ɢᴇɴ.ᴘʟ, stone-ɢᴇɴ.ꜱɢ".

The semantic relationships between forms may also have influenced this analogy, for example in the nominal cases. There may have been a semantic split into more active or dominant roles like the possessive, genitive and ablative which happened to use the mutated stem, and passive/recipient roles like the absolutive, oblique and lative cases using the basic stem. In such a system, the ergative case would likely be more associated with the active roles, and this may be part of what led to Proto-Namb using the mutated stem for the ergative case, unlike the other Gäj languages.

Mutated ergative
The fronted vowel became the most important characteristic feature of the mutated stem in Namb, evidenced by other morphological changes revolving around the ablaut. For example, consider the Proto-Gäj inanimate ergative suffix *-ir, which triggered voicing of the stem-final obstruent, yielding forms like *pwób-ir from PKn *pwə́p-ir "moss-ᴇʀɢ". In Proto-Namb, this suffix additionally triggered vowel fronting, so *pwób-ir should be expected to yield *kwöb-ir, but instead the form *kwöp-ir is reconstructed. This indicates that this forms was changed by analogy with other mutated stem forms which usually front the vowel and mutate the final consonant together, i.e. *kwöp-.

The same analogical process also took place in the countable inflection, with vowel-fronting triggered by Proto-Gäj ergative singular and plural suffixes *-i and *-ihæx respectively. Barring a few irregular exceptions, this analogy firmly placed the ergative case into the mutated stem category in the Namb languages, distinguishing them from other Gäj languages which use the basic stem for the ergative. Namb ergative suffixation is generally less closely attached to the noun than the other cases, in some languages exhibiting clitic-like behaviour or disappearing entirely, and this may have been crucial to the change of base stem.

Loss of *-i- on the ergative singular suffix appears to have generated the first phonemic mutated vowels in Proto-Namb, since they remained in environments in which they would not have arisen allophonically. For example, compare *nämi "father-ᴇʀɢ.ᴘʟ" with its singular form, which was likely *nämax rather than *nämiax. Similarly, the ergative plural *-(i)x saw loss of *-i- when attaching to vowel-final stems, c.f. *çoa "crab-ᴀʙꜱ.ꜱɢ", *çö "bird-ᴇʀɢ.ᴘʟ".

A similar analogical process appears to have extended the fully mutated stem with the fronted vowel to the genitive singular *-(r)ax and much rarer possessives *-n(u) and *-n(u)rax, yielding forms like *näm-rax, *nän-nu and *nän-nurax.

Nouns
Proto-Namb, like most other Gäj languages, features two alternating forms of many nominal inflectional suffixes, depending on whether the stem ends in a consonant or a vowel.

Grammatical number
Proto-Namb features two true grammatical numbers, singular and plural, which have different inflectional forms and corresponding verb affixes. Additionally, there is a "numberless" category, which is not strictly a grammatical number, but a form of a noun which carries no number and cannot be modified by quantifiers. When numbered and numberless nouns appear together within a discourse, the numberless noun typically has an indirect or adjunct role. Numberless nouns can be the direct object of a verb, in which case the verb generally takes a plural marking form.

Mass nouns appear only in the numberless form, typically representing things like substances, emotions and weather events.

The numberless absolutive is taken as the citation form of a noun, since all nouns have a numberless form, but due to suppletion certain noun stems do not take the numberless inflection. The most common example is *gacmafor "humanity", which has the singular and plural forms *adera "human" and *adere "humans", rather than the expected **gacmafa and gacmafe respectively. Likewise, **adror is ungrammatical.

Case
The table below shows every suffix usually reconstructed as forming the Proto-Namb case system, with alternating forms on consonant / vowel final stems shown as such. ¹ The absolutive plural suffix *-e was originally present on vowel-final stems, but may have been lost within the history of Proto-Namb.

The oblique and ablative cases were strictly unmarked for grammatical number, but were almost always accompanied by a postposition which sometimes marked number.

The possessive case was reserved for animate nouns and generally associated with human possessors, though could appear on non-human animal referents as a form of personification. Unlike the genitives, the possessive suffixes retained their initial consonant *-n- in all circumstances.

Some examples of nominal inflection are shown in the tables below. Though most countable nouns are animate, inanimate nouns can also be countable.

Unique nouns
Certain temporal and spatial nouns, as well as uniquely named entities like deities, celestial bodies and months, fall into a special category of "unique" nouns. Many of these were derived from the Proto-Koyanic inanimate locative *-tʰul and ablative *-tʰīl, with *-tʰ (later *-f) reanalysed as part of the stem in Namb. Unique nouns take numberless inflectional forms, but are treated as singular by verb agreement, and additionally use the oblique suffix *-xu for the accusative case, lacking the typical *-ax.

Quantifiers
Quantifiers are a special lexical category which are mostly used as adjectives for quantification and comparison of nouns, though can stand alone as nouns themselves. All quantifiers are grammatically plural, even those which are semantically singular. This means that they take plural inflection, have no oblique or ablative case, and as a result can not be used in indirect syntactic roles.

Numerals fall into the quantifier category and additionally have fully merged the ergative and genitive cases, as shown in the table below.

Irregular nouns
Other than suppletive forms of certain numbers, nominal inflection is highly regular across the case paradigm. The very few irregularities which do exist are almost exclusively in the two stem forms, e.g. *xelor "people, person" has the basic stem *xel-, but the mutated stem *çi- rather than the expected **xë-.

Verbs
Proto-Namb verbs have four primary forms: indicative, subjunctive, gerund and infinitive. The indicative agrees with the plural of the subject for all six combinations of person and plurality, while the subjunctive does not distinguish plurality in the second and third person marking.

There are six conjugation classes corresponding to the ending of the verb stem, either a consonant or one of the five basic vowels. Stem-final vowels surface in the subjunctive and gerund, while the infinitive has the i-mutated form. Verbs additionally carry a mandatory prefix which marks polarity, emphasis, and relative tense.

Irregular verbs
Proto-Namb verbs are generally very regular, with only a handful of verbs showing any irregularity at all, shown in the table below. The verb prefixes, however, are still completely regular when attaching to these irregular verbs. Note that the forms with initial *t are regularly voiced to *d when any prefix is added. The first person singular is always prefixed, so only exist with the voiced *d form.

The sole exception is the equative copula (gerund *yunor, infinitive *öi), which has some irregularity across prefixed forms, as shown in the table below. ¹ The singular generic present forms *(an)nuf and *(an)nux were remodelled after the plurals at some point in Proto-Namb's history, yielding *(aŋ)ŋwef and *(aŋ)ŋwex respectively.

² The affirmative forms are identical to the negatives, plus addition of *r- (present, future) or *f- (past).

Pronouns
Proto-Namb first and second person pronouns are among the only nominals to have lexically separate singular and plural forms and no numberless form. The third person pronoun may not be considered a true pronoun since it does not follow a similar usage pattern to the first and second person pronouns, but rather falls into a system of relative, demonstrative and interrogative pronouns. These pronouns do, however, have merged accusative-oblique and ergative-genitive-ablative cases, like the true pronouns.