Proto-Meñśwe language

Proto-Meñśwe (*Meñśwe ) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Meñśwe language family.

Morphophonology
Proto-Meñśwe has backness vowel harmony that affects affixes and heads of compounds. For example:


 * mañ 'language' + śwe 'human' → Meñśwe 'Meñśwe'
 * qu- 'like' + mewi 'child' → qymewi 'like a child, childish'

Nouns
Nouns in Proto-Meñśwe are only inflected for nine cases.

Cases
The following table shows the case affixes in their back forms. When affixed to a stem with front vowels, the prefixes harmonise.

The vowels in parentheses disappear when adjacent to another vowel. The construct prefix ś(a)- is placed after other prefixes when used conjointly.

Ditransitive clauses follow a secundative alignment.

Adjectives
Adjectives do not exist in Proto-Meñśwe. Instead, stative verbs with the meaning 'to be X' are used. For example:


 * chø — to be big
 * śechø — it is big
 * śechø kma — the sheep that is big, the big sheep
 * kma śechø — the sheep is big

Subordinate clauses
Relative clauses lack any conjunctions or pronouns that mark them as such, for example:


 * apasaś sośo kśam
 * 3-cook-PST-3 meat man
 * the man who cooked the meat

Content clauses, instead, are marked with the conjunction śa:


 * Khuśamamak kø najasaś nin naśa køqist.
 * ERG-CONST-mother-CONST 2SG say-PST-3rd 1SG INST-that 2-be.ill
 * Your mother told me that you are ill.

Pronouns
The third- and fourth-person pronouns also mean this/these (two) and that/those (two), respectively.

The fourth-person pronouns are used either as an unspecified subject (someone/something) or as a non-first- or second-person object distinct from a third-person subject, for example:


 * er onnupujur 'someone/something sees'


 * śa śanupujurś śa 'he/she/it sees him/her/itself'
 * śa nupujurś er 'he/she/it sees him/her/it'

Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for person, voice, mood, aspect, and tense.

The affixes are attached in fixed order shown below:
 * Absolutive prefix
 * 'if'/'no' prefix
 * Voice prefix
 * Verb stem
 * Mood suffix
 * Tense suffix
 * Aspect suffix
 * Ergative suffix

Conjugation
The vowels of the prefixes are omitted when the word starts with a vowel. The (a)s of the suffixes are omitted when the word ends in a vowel or in r.

Tense, aspect and mood
1: The (a) is added when this is the last affix of a word and said word ends in two consonants.

2: Perfective in past, habitual in non-past.

3: The j's and w's are elided when preceded by a consonant.

Antipassive
The antipassive voice is always used when an ambitransitive verb is to be made intransitive. It is different from the fourth-person in that no object, not even an unspecific one, is present and in that the object may still be indicated with the allative case:


 * Śujurn. — I eat something.
 * Nonśujur. — I eat.
 * Nonśujur tusośo. — I eat meat.

It is also used to allow for the deletion of an ergative pronoun whose referree is in the absolutive case:


 * Kśam śakustsa, khuśa nupusaś alku. — The man arrived and he saw the dog.

The pronoun khuśa cannot be removed because it is not in the same case as its referree, kśam, so the antipassive voice is used:


 * Kśam śakustsa, śa śonnupus talku. — The man arrived and he saw the dog.

Now kśam and śa are both in the absolutive, and so śa may be removed:


 * Kśam śakustsa, śonnupus talku. — The man arrived and saw the dog.

Adverbs
Adverbs are formed from adjectives by the circumfix śa-⟩...⟨-rak.

Syntax
Proto-Meñśwe follows a subject–verb–object word order and a complete ergative-absolutive alignment. Possessees precede possessors; adjectives and relative clauses precede nouns, and adpositions are prepositions rather than postpositions.