Proto-Torres–Banks language

Proto-Torres-Banks (abbr. PTB) is the reconstructed ancestor of the seventeen languages of the Torres and Banks Islands of Vanuatu. Like all indigenous languages of Vanuatu, it belongs to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian languages.

Descendants[]

Proto-Torres-Banks is the shared ancestor of the following modern languages: Hiw, Lo-Toga, Lehali, Löyöp, Volow, Mwotlap, Lemerig, Vera'a, Vurës, Mwesen, Mota, Nume, Dorig, Koro, Olrat, Lakon, and Mwerlap.

Reconstruction[]

Elements of the proto-language have been proposed by linguist A. François: vowels^[1] and consonants,^[2] personal pronouns,^[3] space system,^[4] vocabulary.^[5]

Phonology[]

Phoneme inventory[]

Proto-Torres-Banks had 5 phonemic vowels, /i e a o u/,^[1] and 16 consonants:

Vowels

	Front	Back
Close	*i	*u
Close-mid	*e	*o
Open	*a

Consonants

		Labiovelar	Bilabial	Alveolar	Dorsal
Stop	prenasalized	*ᵐbʷ	*ᵐb	*ⁿd	*ᵑg
	voiceless			*t
Nasal		*mʷ	*m	*n	*ŋ
Fricative			*β ⟨v⟩	*s	*ɣ
Approximant		*w		*l, *r	*j

Following the loss of final POc consonants, syllable structure in Proto-Torres-Banks was open, i.e. (C)V with optional consonant: e.g. POc *matiruʀ "to sleep" > PTB *matiru; POc *laŋit "sky" > PTB *laŋi "wind". No descendant language preserves this situation today, but it can still be found in other related languages such as Gela and Uneapa.

Evolution of vowels[]

In all of the descendant languages except for Mota, vowel hybridization occurred (a form of metaphony).^[1] Later, a process of vowel deletion took place whereby every second vowel, being unstressed, was dropped. This resulted in an increase in the number of vowel phonemes – a process known as transphonologization.

Thus, words which initially had 4 syllables were reduced to 2 syllables (e.g. POc *RapiRapi "evening" > PTB *raβiˈraβi > MSN /rɛβrɛβ/ [rɛɸˈrɛɸ]); *CVCV disyllables were reduced to a single CVC syllable (e.g. POc *roŋoR "to hear" > PTB *roŋo > LKN /rɔŋ/); words with 3 syllables ended up with 2, including *CVCVV which became *CVCV (e.g. POc *panua "island, land" > PTB *βanua > LKN /βanʊ/).

In Mota, only single high vowels were dropped: e.g. *tolu "three" > /tol/. In the 1880s, Codrington reported cases when Mota had preserved high vowels (e.g. /siwo/ "down"; /tolu/ "three"), which have since disappeared from today's Mota (e.g. /swo/;^[6] /tol/).

In Hiw, Lo-Toga and Vera'a, the final vowel was retained as a schwa when it was originally lower than the one under stress:^[7] e.g. POc *ikan "fish" > PTB *íɣa > HIW /ɪɣə/, LTG /iɣə/. In Vera'a, the schwa became an echo vowel that is found phrase-finally, but disappears in phrase-medial position: e.g. POc *pulan "moon" > PTB *βula > *βulə > VRA /fulʊ/ (/ful/ in phrases).

Examples of reconstructions[]

Regular sound changes from Proto-Oceanic[]

The historical sound changes that took place from Proto-Oceanic (POc) to Proto-Torres-Banks (PTB) were intricate, yet largely regular. Some have been reconstructed explicitly, whether on vowels^[1] or on consonants;^[2][8] others are implicit in published lists of PTB lexical reconstructions.^[5]

Pervasive phonological sound changes include:

• The loss of all final POc consonants, such as POc *manuk "bird" > PTB *manu. This sound change resulted in the language having only open syllables.^[9]
• The labialization of POc *p, *ᵐb and *m before *o or *u, resulting in PTB *w (< *βʷ), *ᵐbʷ and *mʷ (especially in Torres and northern Banks languages).

Considering each POc proto-phoneme sequentially, the PTB reflexes can be listed in the following table.

Grammar[]

Example sentence[]

A reconstructed sentence (from François 2009:191):

Notes[]

References[]

• François, Alexandre (2005), "Unraveling the history of the vowels of seventeen northern Vanuatu languages" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 44 (2): 443–504, doi:10.1353/ol.2005.0034, S2CID 131668754
• François, Alexandre (2009), "Verbal aspect and personal pronouns: The history of aorist markers in north Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pawley, Andrew; Adelaar, Alexander (eds.), Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: A festschrift for Bob Blust, vol. 601, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, pp. 179–195
• François, Alexandre (2011), "Where *R they all? The history and geography of *R loss in Southern Oceanic" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 50 (1): 142–199, doi:10.1353/ol.2011.0009
• François, Alexandre (2013), "Shadows of bygone lives: The histories of spiritual words in northern Vanuatu" (PDF), in Mailhammer, Robert (ed.), Lexical and structural etymology: Beyond word histories, Studies in Language Change, vol. 11, Berlin: DeGruyter Mouton, pp. 185–244, doi:10.1515/9781614510581.185
• François, Alexandre (2015). "The ins and outs of up and down: Disentangling the nine geocentric space systems of Torres and Banks languages" (PDF). In Alexandre François; Sébastien Lacrampe; Michael Franjieh; Stefan Schnell (eds.). The languages of Vanuatu: Unity and diversity. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. pp. 137–195. hdl:1885/14819. ISBN 978-1-922185-23-5.
• François, Alexandre (2016), "The historical morphology of personal pronouns in northern Vanuatu" (PDF), in Pozdniakov, Konstantin (ed.), Comparatisme et reconstruction : tendances actuelles, Faits de Langues, vol. 47, Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 25–60, doi:10.1163/19589514-047-01-900000003