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 Üdj, WeepingElf (Jörg Rhiemeier) and Salmoneus, but Creyeditor, Omzinesý, and thethief have all contributed as well.

Techomonic is 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 are 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
• 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; *eŋgʷnís > *eŋgʷənís)
• Syllabic resonants develop *ə as prop vowel before the resonant
• Labiovelars lose labialization, with rounding of following vowel, e.g. *kʷe > *kø; *ə rounds to *o
• 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
• Nasal assimilation with obstruents
• *wu, *ji > *u:, i: ; *wo, *wy, *wø > o:, y:, ø: ; *je > e:
• Final *cɕ, *kʂ > ɕ, ʂ
• *w, *j lost after consonants
• Stress shifts to the penultimate syllable

Proto-Techomonic morphology

(not fully determined yet)

Proto-Techomonic Lexicon

(I've only filled in the ones that I don't think will have much semantic drift.)

• *añêc ─ narrow (< PIE *h₂enǵʰ)
• *anêêr ─ man (< PIE *h₂nḗr)
• *cêmoo ─ human being (< PIE *ǵʰmṓ)
• *khöön ─ woman (< PIE *gʷḗn)
• *lakhoos ─ long (< PIE *dl̥h₁gʰós)
• *maatêêr ─ mother (< PIE *méh₂tēr)
• *mejas ─ big, large (< PIE *méǵh₂s)
• *mrekuṣ ─ short (< PIE *mréǵʰus)
• *pathêêr ─ father (< PIE *ph₂tḗr)
• *phootnii ─ wife (< PIE *pótnih₂)
• *uuros ─ husband (< PIE *wiHrós)

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. *phëṅkös (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