Proto-Kra language
Proto-Kra language
Main page

Proto-Kra language

logo
Community Hub0 subscribers
What are your thoughts?
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Be the first to start a discussion here.
Proto-Kra language

Proto-Kra is the reconstructed ancestor of the Kra languages. It was reconstructed in 2000 by Weera Ostapirat in his Ph.D. dissertation.

Ostapirat (2000) provided preliminary phonological reconstructions for several lower-level groupings before attempting a reconstruction of Proto-Kra.

Proto-Kra has a total of 32 consonants, seven of which (marked in green) can occur as syllable finals (Ostapirat 2000:224, 236).

Marc Miyake (2008, 2021) proposes alternative reconstructions for Ostapirat's (2000) Proto-Kra retroflex consonants, suggesting that many of them were actually non-retroflexes that had been influenced by pre-syllables, in particular with alveolar consonants leniting in intervocalic position. In synchronic Kra languages, reflexes are often attested as voiced fricatives, which Miyake (2021) does not believe to have developed from historical initial retroflex consonants. Some examples of Miyake's (2008) revised Proto-Kra reconstructions are provided below.

Miyake (2021) reconstructs some disyllabic lexical forms for Proto-Kra, including *mataA 'eye', *manokD 'bird', and *kVtuA1 'louse'.

Additionally, Miyake (2008) revises Ostapirat's Proto-Kra *pwl- as *CV-pl-, *bwl- as *CV-bl-, *m-pl- as *pl-, *(p/d/k)-l- as *(p/d/k)V-l-, *ʈ-l- as k-l-, and *ɖ-l- as *(k/tV)-l-. Proto-Kra consonants in Miyake (2021) as compared to Ostapirat (2000) are:

Proto-Kra has a total of 6 vowels (Ostapirat 2000:235).

Proto-Kra has 4 diphthongs, which are not found in closed syllables.

See all
User Avatar
No comments yet.