Proto-Gäj language

Proto-Gäj (abbreviated PGäj; also called Proto-Gajic or Proto-Arklobu) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Nambāno and Arklobu languages, which together form the "Gäj" branch of the Arklobu-Qachkav languages.

Plosive voicing
The voicing of earlier plain plosives *p *t *c *k (*kʷ) → *b *d *ɟ *g (*gʷ) is assumed to have already taken place in Proto-Gäj due to the reflection of PAQ *cʰ *c by Nambāno /s z/, which would be an unusual change without first going through the voicing step, as well as some additional evidence from Arklobu. The aspirated plosives *pʰ *tʰ *cʰ *kʰ (*kʷʰ) may well have retained their aspiration, but the only contrastive feature which can be reconstructed for Proto-Gäj is the voicedness, so their reflexes are transcribed *p *t *c *k (*kʷ).

Semivowels
The semivowels *y and *w occurred only as medial consonants in onset clusters, having historically been fortified to *ɟ and *gʷ respectively in onset position and lost in medial and coda position, affecting the quality of the preceding vowel in the latter case. Semivowels were rare in Proto-Gäj but became more frequent in Proto-Northern Gäj due the vowel shift {*ɛː, *eː} *iː *uː > iː ɨː uː > *ye *yə *wo.

Vowels
The vowel length contrast was present in the oldest form of Proto-Gäj, the ancestor of all Gäj languages, but was lost in the Northern Gäj languages which comprise the majority of the Gäj family.

Phonological stages from Proto-Arklobu-Qachkav to Late Proto-Northern Gäj
The following sound changes are reconstructed to have occurred, roughly in the order presented, in the development of Proto-Gäj from its ancestor Proto-Arklobu-Qachkav.

Proto-Gäj (PGäj)
The earliest reconstructible stage of the Gäj branch of the Arklobu-Qachkav languages is Proto-Gäj. This stage of the language had already made several significant changes to the consonant inventory, including a voiced/unvoiced contrast in the plosives rather than the plain/aspirated/glottalised, a lack of voicedness contrast in the sonorants, and a new set of fricatives. Proto-Gäj reflects Proto-Arklobu-Qachkav *x by a voiceless velar or palatal fricative, though it is thought the consonant was not velar and was likely voiced at the time of PAQ despite the symbol *x. Proto-Gäj had also shifted some vowel qualities, resulting in the vowel inventory presented above. In each example given, the start (PAQ) and end point (Pre-PGäj) for each word is shown, with relevant intermediate steps underlined.

Proto-Northern-Gäj (PNGäj)
Proto-Gäj then further developed into the later dialect Proto-Northern Gäj, the common ancestor of the core Gäj group consisting of Arklobu and Nambāno. The characteristic phonological change of Proto-Northern-Gäj is a shift in the qualities of the long vowels resulting in a loss of contrastive vowel length, while retaining the same inventory of vowel qualities. The sound changes from Proto-Gäj (PGäj) to Proto-Northern-Gäj (PNGäj) are shown below.

Stem mutation
Both nouns and verbs exhibit mutation of the final vowel and consonant in the stem in certain inflectional forms. These forms developed through coincidences in inflectional morphology which caused multiple independent sound changes to frequently occur together, and the compound phonological variation which arose becoming recognised as a common pattern. For example, the first and second person imperfective suffixes *-kiːr and *-kiː⟨r⟩k blocked the voicing of a stem-final consonant which had become voiced in the perfective and irrealis conjugations, and triggered ablaut of the previous vowel in the stem. In nominal inflection, the genitive suffixes *-mi (< *-m̥i) and *-miːŋ (< *-m̥iːŋ̊) also blocked voicing and triggered ablaut, as did the ablative suffixes. This pattern was then extended to forms which were affected by some sound changes but not others which had been associated with them, for example the third person imperfective suffix *-iːr triggered ablaut but allowed voicing of the stem-final consonant, but by analogy with the other imperfective forms the consonant was similarly devoiced to fit the pattern. The result is three distinctive forms of the stem: basic, mutated and N-stem.

Basic stem
The basic stem is used in the perfective conjugation and the absolutive, lative and oblique nominal cases. This is the unmarked form of the stem which may take any vowel and any final consonant. When vowel-initial suffixes are attached to the basic stem, *-x- is inserted between the stem and the suffix which may be realised as *-xʷ, for example on the 2sg, 2pl and 3pl perfective suffixes *-ɒkʷu, *-uːp and *-uːk respectively.

Mutated stem
The mutated stem is used in the imperfective verb conjugation and the ergative, genitive and ablative nominal cases. The final consonant of the basic stem is mutated according to the following rules:


 * *p *t *c *k *kʷ > *xʷ *s *ç *x *xʷ
 * *b *d *ɟ *g *gʷ > *p *t *c *k *kʷ
 * *z > *s

The final vowel of the stem undergoes ablaut, in which it is shifted to the corresponding front vowel of the same height:


 * {*-i(ː)-, *-ɨ(ː)-, *-u(ː)-} > *-i(ː)-
 * {*-e(ː)-, *-ə(ː)-, *-o(ː)-} > *-e(ː)-
 * {*-æ(ː)-, *-ɒ(ː)-} > *-æ(ː)-

N-stem
The N-stem is found only in the irrealis verb conjugation. The stem itself is identical in form to the basic stem with the addition of a suffix which manifests as *-ɨn on consonant-final stems and *-n on vowel-final stems, lacking the *-x- that would normally be inserted on the basic stem.

Some examples of consonant-final and vowel-final verb stems are shown below.

Transitive Verbs
Transitive verbs had three conjugation paradigms: perfective, imperfective and irrealis; which use the basic, mutated and N-stem forms respectively. Proto-Northern Gäj is more readily reconstructible than Proto-Gäj, so the morphology presented here is mostly PNGäj in order to better elucidate the precise structure of the conjugation paradigms.

Each conjugation has a set of suffixes which mark the person of the subject and a set of prefixes and infixes which mark TAM information and show agreement with the subject. Both sets of affixes distinguish first person singular and plural in all conjugations, while in the case of imperfective and irrealis conjugations with second or third person subjects, the person is marked by the suffix and the plurality is marked by the prefix/infix.

The suffixes are shown below, with the later Proto-Northern Gäj forms also shown where there are differences.

The imperfective suffixes appear to be descended from PAQ infinitive series {*-kʰi, *-kiː, *-kʰiːkʰ, *ʡiː} with an unknown suffix *-r and irregular infixing on the second person suffix *-kiː⟨r⟩k. This unusual development represents the only finite verb forms developed from the PAQ infinitives present in the Arklobu-Qachkav family.

The irrealis suffixes are the reflexes of the reconstructed suffixes of the PAQ conditional series, reflecting only the singular person forms and dropping the plurals. { *-(ə)ntʰaʡ, *-(ə)ncʰuːʡ, *-(ə)ntʼaʡu , *-(ə)ntʼayu, *-(ə)nqtʼa , *-(ə)nqtʼɔʡ}.