Techomonic

Techomonic
Spoken in:	Central Asia and modern Siberia
Total speakers:	Extinct
Genealogical classification:	Indo-European Techomonic
Basic word order:	SOV?
Morphological type:
Morphosyntactic alignment:
Writing system:	Unwritten
Authors:	Chiefly Arayaz (then Üdj), WeepingElf (Jörg Rhiemeier) and Salmoneus, but Creyeditor, Omzinesý, and thethief have all contributed as well.

Techomonic was a collaborative project on the Conlanger Bulletin Board aimed at the construction of a fictional branch of the Indo-European language family. The chief contributors were Arayaz (then known as Üdj), WeepingElf (Jörg Rhiemeier), and Salmoneus.

Setting

The languages are meant to descend from the language of a group of people who were "dropped off" along the way by the people who trekked eastward along the Eurasian steppe to become the ancestors of the speakers of Tocharian. The languages will be written in conscripts derived from the Kharoshthi script.

Proto-Techomonic phonology

Consonants

In the IPA:

	Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Aspirated stops	*pʰ	*tʰ		*cʰ	*kʰ
Neutral stops	*p	*t		*c	*k
Voiced stops	*b	*d		*ɟ	*ɡ
Sibilants		*s	*ʂ	*ɕ
Nasals	*m	*n		*ɲ	*ŋ
Liquids		*l	*r
Semivowels	*w			*j

In an IAST-derived notation, which may be easier for most people to type:

	Labial	Dental	Retroflex	Palatal	Velar
Aspirated stops	*ph	*th		*ch	*kh
Neutral stops	*p	*t		*c	*k
Voiced stops	*b	*d		*j	*g
Sibilants		*s	*ṣ	*ś
Nasals	*m	*n		*ñ	*ṅ
Liquids		*l	*r
Semivowels	*w			*y

Vowels

	Front unround	Front round	Back unround	Back round
Close	*i	*y (ü)	*ɨ (î)	*u
Mid	*e	*ø (ö)	*ə (ê)	*o
Open	*æ (ä)		*a

All vowels can be short or long. Long vowels are doubled.

Stress

Proto-Techomonic had penultimate stress on most words. However, since this was a recent innovation, some more common words may still retain older stress, depending on the dialect. The daughter languages will most likely vary in this.

Sound changes from PIE

(Note: for these changes, I've used the IPA instead of the IAST-derived notation.)

• Nasal assimilation with obstruents
• *h₂w > *h₃
• Laryngeals "as usual", but with triple reflex as in Greek:

• *h₁e > *e, *h₂e > *a, *h₃e > *o
• *eh₁ > *e:, *eh₂ > *a:, *eh₃ > *o:
• Syllabic and initial before a consonant: *h₁ > *e, *h₂ > *a, *h₃ > *o
• *Hi > *i, *Ho > *o, *Hu > *u (*H = any laryngeal)
• *iH > *i:, *oH > *o:, *uH > *u: (*H = any laryngeal)
• *R̥H > *Ra: (*R = resonant)

• *eje, *owo, *ojo, *ewe > *e:, *o:, *ø:, *ø:
• *ew, *ej, *ow, *oj, *iw, *uj, aw, aj > *ø, *i, *u, *ø, *y, *y, *o, *æ
• *jo, *ju > *ø, *y
• Initial *d lost before *n̥, *l̥
• Clusters of stop + nasal, stop + stop, nasal + stop, or nasal + nasal develop *ə as prop vowel between the two segments, except intervocalically (so *ǵʰmṓ is affected, but *séptəm̥ is not)
• Syllabic resonants develop *ə as prop vowel before the resonant
• Labiovelars lose labialization, with rounding of following vowel, e.g. *kʷe > *kø
• Final *d, *dʰ > *l
• *w causes rounding of a following vowel, but is not lost, e.g. *we > *wø, *twe > *twø
• Palatovelar stops become palatals, e.g. *ǵ > *ɟ
• *s > *ʂ after *r, *u, or dorsal consonants
• *s > *ɕ after *i or palatal consonants
• *e lowered to *æ when unstressed except before an *i in the following syllable or when after palatals (incl. the approximant *j)
• Dental stops become velars before *w, e.g. *dw > *ɡw; also, *sw > *ʂw
• Dentals become palatals before *j, e.g. *tj > *c; also, *sj > *ɕ (Note: the *j is deleted.)
• Voiceless and voiced-aspirated stops merge as aspirated stops in stressed syllables or word-initially and as unaspirated in unstressed syllables, word-finally, or after sibilants, e.g. *tána > *tʰana, *bʰaná > *pana, *skána > *skana.
• Grassmann's Law: aspirated stops lose aspiration before another aspirated stop in the next syllable
• Front vowels are centralized before velars, *r and *ʂ, e.g. *ek > *ək, *æŋ > *aŋ
• Nasal assimilation with obstruents
• *wu, *ji > *u:, i:
• Final *cɕ, *kʂ > ɕ, ʂ
• *w, *j lost after consonants
• Stress shifts to the penultimate syllable

Proto-Techomonic morphology

Nominal morphology

Proto-Techomonic had a system of nominal morphology involving six noun cases and two numbers.

For athematic nouns:

..................	Singular	Plural
NOM	-s, -ś, -ṣ	-äs, -es, -:ś, -:ṣ
ACC	-(ê/o)m	-(ê/o)ns
INST	-ä, -aa, -e, -:	-phi
DAT	-i, -ü	-phos
GEN	-äs, -es, -:ś, -:ṣ	-oom

Notes & exceptions:

• The singular nominative is -ś after palatals, ü, or i, -ṣ after r, u, or velars, and -s elsewhere.
• The accusative is unmarked for neuter nouns.
• The epenthetic vowel in the accusative is usually -ê, but is -o after consonants that were originally labialized.
• The singular instrumental is -aa after resonants, -e after other palatals, -ä after other consonants, and surfaces only as lengthening before a final vowel.
• The singular dative is -i after consonants that were not originally labialized, -ü after labialized consonants / w, and lengthens a final i.
• The plural nominative and singular genitive are -es after palatals, -:ś after i, -:ṣ after u, and -äs elsewhere.
• Neuter nouns in the plural nominative or accusative take -a instead, or lengthen a final vowel. This surfaces as -aa instead after resonants.
• The plural instrumental and dative deaspirate any non-initial aspirated syllables. If the second syllable is aspirated and the initial is not but could be, it becomes aspirated.
• The plural genitive is -ööm after palatals or i, which turns into y.

Proto-Techomonic Lexicon

• *añêc ─ narrow (< PIE *h₂enǵʰ)
• *anêêr ─ man, husband (< PIE *h₂nḗr)
• *aṅgoniś ─ fire (< PIE *h₁n̥gʷnís)
• *ap ─ body of water (< PIE *h₂ep)
• *cêmoo ─ human being (< PIE *ǵʰmṓ)
• *decos ─ respect, propriety (< PIE *déḱos)
• *lakhoos ─ long (< PIE *dl̥h₁gʰós)
• *maatêêr ─ mother (< PIE *méh₂tēr)
• *mejas ─ big, large (< PIE *méǵh₂s)
• *mrekuṣ ─ short (< PIE *mréǵʰus)
• *naas ─ nose (< PIE *néh₂s)
• *oodêr ─ water (< PIE *wódr̥)
• *oos ─ mouth (< PIE *h₁óh₃s)
• *pathêêr ─ father (< PIE *ph₂tḗr)
• *phootnii ─ woman, wife (< PIE *pótnih₂)
• *phoor ─ flame, fire (as a substance) (< PIE *péh₂wr̥)

Proto-Techomonic Numerals

Most numerals in Proto-Techomonic are disyllabic. The numbers 1-5 all end with -s, and the numbers 6-10 all end with -m.

• 1. *önos
• 2. *gos (acquired a final -s via analogy)
• 3. *threes
• 4. *kökhores
• 5. *phêṅkös (acquired a final -s via analogy)
• 6. *ṣöcśêm (acquired a final -êm via analogy)
• 7. *septêm
• 8. *octum (acquired a final -m via analogy)
• 9. *nöwêm (final -n became -m via analogy)
• 10. *decêm

Ending

The Techomonic project was discontinued after progress slowed down, and in no small part because Arayaz has little experience with PIE or diachronic languages in general. It was hinted that it may be recontinued eventually, though this is not a guarrantee.