Diachronic phonological analysis

Byntic Azurian Urianian Muna Tubenian Urianian Romani
Diachronic phonological analysis Predynastic Early Tubenian Middle Tubenanian High Tubenanian Late Tubenanian

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This analysis is based upon the only linguistic material we have from the Tubenian period, the famous king list. One does however have to take into account that the material no doubt is very corrupt. It has come into our possession through Amhanara, Suraetua and Urianian, and the corruption of the Amhanara name Hakurnawara into the late Urianian Genin, almost literally beyond recognition, attests the difficulty we have in reconstructing the original Tubenian. Thus we are not going to attempt any such reconstruction here, but instead analyse the material we have on hand, as indicated with a view to gain a measure of its evolution through the centuries.

The material is relatively rich in vowels, but poor in vowel variety. Syllables have a variety of structures. CV seems to be the commonest throughout the series, and V, VC and CVC seem to be common as well. Initial consonant clusters are rare, with only 5 different examples: Knigo, Krito, Kritan, Kreton and Spidon. The occurrence of both Krito and Kritan indicates that krit is the root and o and an inflecting morphemes, possibly denoting gender. Similar pairs are Atlo and Atlan, and Turmi and Turman, which indicates that CCVC, VCC and CVCC also are allowed syllables. The distribution of the various structures does not seem to change significantly with time, though the absence of inital clusters in the early stages can be noteworthy.

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