Proto-East-Cushitic language

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Proto-East-Cushitic
Reconstruction of East Cushitic
Region Horn of Africa
Reconstructed
ancestor

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.

Contents

Phonology

Consonants

An initial reconstruction of the Proto-East-Cushitic consonants was proposed by Hans-Jürgen Sasse. [1]

Labial Coronal Post-alv./
Palatal 		Velar Pharyngeal Glottal
Plosive voiceless t k ʔ
voiced b d g
glottalized ɗ <d'>, ɗ ₁ <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: [1]

Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e o
Open a

Morphology

Pronouns

David Appleyard reconstructs the Proto-East-Cushitic personal pronouns as follows: [2]

singularplural
subjectobliquesubjectoblique
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 personm.*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: [3]

masculinefeminine
absolute*ka*ta
subject*ku*ti

Nouns

East Cushitic is mostly characterized by marked nominative alignment. [3] Sasse reconstructs the Proto-East-Cushitic paradigms for nouns ending in a short vowel as follows:

masculinefeminine
absolute*-a*-a
subject*-u/i*-a

Verbs

Derivation

Richard Hayward reconstructs the following derivational affixes for Proto-East-Cushitic: [4]

  • causative prefixes *s-, *y-, *ys-;
  • causative suffixes *-s, *-is, *-siis, and *-isiis;
  • a middle prefix *t-;
  • a middle suffix *-at/ad'/an-;
  • a middle causative prefix *ss-;
  • a middle causative suffix *-(s)it-, as well as other combinations of the middle and causative suffixes;
  • detransitive prefixes *m-, *mm-, and *nt-;
  • a detransitive suffix *-am-; and
  • inchoative suffixes *-aaw- and *-oow-.

Inflection

Proto-East-Cushitic is reconstructed with two types of verbal inflection. A minority of verbs primarily marks subject agreement through prefixes, as in some other branches of Afroasiatic. The majority uses the typically Cushitic suffix conjugation. [5] Appleyard reconstructs the Proto-Lowland-East-Cushitic suffixed subject markers as follows: [6]

presentpast
1sg.*-aa*-ay
2sg.*-taa*-tay
3sg.m.*-aa*-ay
3sg.f.*-taa*-tay
1pl.*-naa*-nay
2pl.*-taani*-teeni
3pl.*-aani*-eeni

For prefix-conjugated verbs, Sasse reconstructs four different conjugational classes, which he compares to various kinds of strong and weak roots in Semitic (C stands for a radical consonant, U stands for *i or *u): [7]

classpresent/subjunctivepast
CCVC type*y-a-CCaC-, *y-a-CCUC-*y-U-CCUC-
CVC type*y-a-CaC-*y-U-CUC-
CVVC type*y-a-CaaC-*y-U-CUUC-
CCi type*y-U-Ca(a)Caa*y-U-CCi(i)

Several branches of East Cushitic also attest a stative conjugation that may be related to those of Semitic, Berber, and Ancient Egyptian, reconstructed by Sasse as follows: [8]

1sg.*-i-yu
2sg.*-i-tu
3sg.*-a
1pl.*-i-nu
2pl.*-i-tin
3pl. ?

Giorgio Banti has proposed a modification to this reconstruction, suggesting that the 1sg. form may have alternated with *-i-yi, that the third person (singular and plural) should be reconstructed without an ending, and that this conjugation is best compared to the Ancient Egyptian sḏm.f, not the stative. [9]

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Hans-Jürgen Sasse was a German linguist.

Proto-Cushitic is the reconstructed proto-language common ancestor 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 regular similarities between languages not explained by coincidence or word-borrowing, and extrapolates ancient forms from these similarities.

References

  1. 1 2 Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1979). "The Consonant Phonemes of Proto-East-Cushitic (PEC): A First Approximation". Afroasiatic Linguistics. 7 (1): 1–67.
  2. ↑ Appleyard, D.L. (1986). "Agaw, Cushitic and Afroasiatic: The Personal Pronoun Revisited". Journal of Semitic Studies. 31 (2).
  3. 1 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.
  4. ↑ Hayward, Richard J. (1984). "A Reconstruction of Some Root Extensions of the East Cushitic Verb". In Bynon, James (ed.). Current Progress in Afro-Asiatic Linguistics: Papers of the Third International Hamito-Semitic Congress, London, 1978. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 69–109.
  5. ↑ Appleyard, David L. (1996). "The position of Agaw within Cushitic". In Zemánek, Petr (ed.). Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. Memorial Volume of Karel Petráček. Prague: Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. Oriental Institute. pp. 1–14.
  6. ↑ Appleyard, David L. (2004). "Beja as a Cushitic language". In Takács, Gábor (ed.). Egyptian and Semito-Hamitic (Afro-Asiatic) Studies in Memoriam Werner Vycichl. Leiden: Brill. pp. 175–194.
  7. ↑ Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1980). "Ostkuschitische und semitische Verbalklassen". In Diem, Werner; Wild, Stefan (eds.). Studien aus Arabistik und Semitistik Anton Spitaler zum siebzigsten Geburtstag von seinen Schülern überreicht. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 153–174.
  8. ↑ Sasse, Hans-Jürgen (1981). "Afroasiatisch". In Heine, Bernd; Schadeberg, Thilo C.; Wolff, Ekkehard (eds.). Die Sprachen Afrikas. Vol. 2 Afro-Asiatisch. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. pp. 129–148.
  9. ↑ Banti, Giorgio (2004). "New Perspectives on the Cushitic Verbal System". In Simpson, Andrew (ed.). Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (March 22-25, 2001) – Special Session on Afroasiatic Languages. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. pp. 1–48.
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