Proto-Cardial
Proto-Huamish is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Huamish languages. It is estimated to have been spoken around 5.500 BC.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental | Sibilants | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | |||||||
| Stops and affricates |
"Emphatic" | *pʰ | *tʰ | *(tʃ) | *(tʃ) | *kʰ | ||
| Fortis | *p | *t | *ts | *(tʃ) | *k | |||
| Lenis | *b | *d | *dz | *(tʃ) | *g | |||
| Fricatives | Fortis | *f | *s | *(ʃ) | *x | *h | ||
| Lenis | *z | *(ʃ) | ||||||
| Nasals | *m | *n | ||||||
| Laterals | Fortis | *ɫ | ||||||
| Lenis | *l | |||||||
| Rhotics | Fortis | *r | ||||||
| Lenis | *ɾ | |||||||
| Semivowels | *w | *j | ||||||
Emphatic Stops
The exact quality of "emphatic stops" is difficult to determine. For a time it was proposed to give ejective values, but the later comparison of cognates with Kartvelian and Tommian, does not show correspondences.
Apparently the Macro-Kartvelian ejectives evolved to voiceless stops, and the "emphatic stops" that reconstructed for Proto-Huamish are a later development to avoid the loss of the final consonants after the vowel readjustment.
In the descendant languages there are no remains of "emphatic", but they show different reflexes depending on the language.
The matter of "ʃ" and "tʃ"
It seems that the readjustment of vowels caused the sibilants to palatizate in final position so as not to get lost and these words acquired a diminutive sense. The words that did not adopt a diminutive meaning, reversed the change becoming * z < *ʃ and * ts < *tʃ.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | *i | *u | |
| Mid | *e | *ə | *o |
| Low | *a |
The middle vowel reflexes
The *ə phoneme is marginal and seems to be the cause of vowel readjustment. In the different groups it has the following reflexes:
| IPA | North-West | North-Central | Central-West | Central-Central | Central-East | South-Central | South-east |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *ə | *o > *u | *e | *u | *e > *∅ | *e | *u | *a |
Morphology
Pronoun Declension
| Case | Singular | Plural | Indefinite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | *-(a) | *-n(a) | *-r(a) |
| Vocative | *-fo | *-no | *-ro |
| Ergative | *-m(a) | *-tʰ(a) | *-pəm(a) |
| Dative-Genitive | *-z(a) | *-t(a) | *-xəz(a) |
| Instrumental | *-ts(a) | *-pəts(a) | *-xəts(a) |
| Locative | *-x(a) | *-pəx(a) | *-xə |
| Adverbial | *-t(a) | *-pət(a) | *-xət(a) |
| Invertive | *-u(a) | *-bu(a) | *-xu(a) |
Verb
The structure of the polysynthetic verb is:
| Person | Mood | Tense | Aspect | VERB STEM | Number | Case |
Pronouns
The following pronouns can be reconstructed as suffixes for the verbs:
| Singular | Plural | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person | Exclusive | ||
| Inclusive | |||
| 2nd person | Familiar | ||
| Polite | |||
| 3rd person | Masculine | ||
| Feminine | |||
| Demonstrative | "This" | ||
| "That" | |||
| Interrogative | "Who" | ||
| "What" | |||
