Dictionary:About Proto-Andusian
This page documents the dictionary's practice for Proto-Andusian (code YCP-XX), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Andusian language family. Being a reconstructed language, none of its forms are attested in writing; every entry is an inference, and the conventions below say how that uncertainty is written down.
Entry conventions
- Entries live at plain phonemic titles with no asterisk — the leading * that marks a reconstruction is supplied automatically wherever a form is displayed, by the language registry.
- Definitions are deliberately broad. A reconstructed word is a field of related senses rather than a point: the figurative senses record the extensions the word plausibly carried, and descendant vocabularies may each continue a different part of the field.
- Derived and compound words whose formation is still transparent carry an Etymology section pointing at their parts. A descendant language may inherit such a word whole (with sound change applied to the fossil), or coin it afresh from the inherited parts — the two routes give different results, and neither is more correct.
Phonology
The reconstructed inventory, as it stands in the core vocabulary:
| Consonants | |
|---|---|
| Plain stops | p t d b k g q ɢ c ɟ |
| Voiced aspirates | bʰ dʰ |
| Prenasalized | ᵐb ᵑg |
| Labiovelars | kp gb |
| Affricates | ts dz |
| Fricatives | f v s z x ɣ h |
| Nasals | m ɲ ŋ |
| Liquids and glide | r l w |
Seven vowels: a e i o u ɛ ɔ. Vowel sequences occur freely (ᵑgao, gɔɛ, zae).
Two gaps appear systematic rather than accidental:
- There is no plain *n — the nasal series is m, ɲ, ŋ only, matching the prenasalized series (ᵐb, ᵑg, never ⁿd). Descendants that show an n will have innovated it.
- *p never begins a word, though it is common elsewhere (rop, qup, sorpe).
Derivation
Proto-Andusian word-building is suffixing, with two prefixes. The reconstructed affixes, each with its own entry:
| Affix | Forms | Grounded in |
|---|---|---|
| *-uɣ | collectives: a mass or landscape of the base | ciᵐbuɣ “forest” |
| *-me | result and patient nouns | vutme “name” |
| *-so | agent nouns | soc “the begetter” |
| *-ᵐbu | instrument nouns | ᵐbu “hand” |
| *-oŋ | place nouns | oŋ “at” |
| *-dzi | diminutives | dziq “small” |
| *-gɛ | augmentatives | axgɛɣ “big” |
| *-ɛts | abstract nouns | ɛts “seed” |
| *-wa | stative adjectives | dʰixwa “full” |
| *-kɛ | inchoative verbs | kɛ “come, become” |
| *ᵐbi- | causatives and benefactives | ᵐbi “give” |
| *sog- | privatives | sog “not” |
One bound root is reconstructed: *fiq “covering”, attested only in ciᵐbfiq “bark” and abʰfiq “skin” (and possibly hiding in fi “sky”).
Reduplication
Three reduplication patterns are reconstructed; the third is productive.
- Nursery reduplication in kinship terms: kaka “grandfather” beside ka “father”; bʰebʰe “grandmother” beside bʰek “woman”. Frozen; not productive.
- Expressive reduplication in imitative and affective words: ɲiɲi “mosquito”. Marginal.
- Full reduplication as a live process: on verbs it is intensive–iterative (dzus-dzus “gnaw, keep biting”, from dzus “bite, eat”), and on nouns plausibly distributive (“here and there, of every kind”). Reduplicated forms are predictable and are not given their own entries; descendant languages may lexicalize individual ones.
Descendant branches
Proto-Andusian gave rise to three branches, each with a reconstructed ancestor of its own and its own practice page: Proto-North-Andusian (YCP-XA), Proto-South-Andusian (YCP-XB), and Proto-Unterian (YCP-XC). Each branch page states the ordered sound laws by which its forms derive from the entries here. The branches part ways instructively: for bʰek “woman” compare North bɛk, South heʔ, Unterian weki.