Difference between revisions of "The Besokian Languages"

Word order for most Besokian languages was a strict VOS. A rather complex system of derivational morphology can be reconstructed for Proto-Besokian or an immediate ancestor, but it was mostly lost in its descendants, and inflection seems to have been absent from this family as far back as is tangible. The Kattasi languages would later go on to develop a complex system of agglutination with up to fifteen distinct grammatical cases, possibly under influence from the neighbouring Andaro-Yenmic languages; Soskish and Reknayan, on the other hand, possess largely, in some cases strictly, isolating grammars. They do not distinguish lexical categories (although a few items, mostly prepositions and numerals, ostensibly fulfil only one function), with most words displaying a range of meanings depending entirely on syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic context.

Word order for most Besokian languages was a strict VOS. A rather complex system of derivational morphology can be reconstructed for Proto-Besokian or an immediate ancestor, but it was mostly lost in its descendants, and inflection seems to have been absent from this family as far back as is tangible. The Kattasi languages would later go on to develop a complex system of agglutination with up to fifteen distinct grammatical cases, possibly under influence from the neighbouring Andaro-Yenmic languages; Soskish and Reknayan, on the other hand, possess largely, in some cases strictly, isolating grammars. They do not distinguish lexical categories (although a few items, mostly prepositions and numerals, ostensibly fulfil only one function), with most words displaying a range of meanings depending entirely on syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic context.

The sound system of Proto-Besokian was likewise fairly simple, distinguishing only 14 consonants and six vowel qualities, and clusters of any kind prohibited. Most words a disyllabic with a consonantal onset and a closed coda. Later collapsing of syllables eases these rigid principles in most daughter languages, up to the complex tone system of Lécaronian.

The sound system of Proto-Besokian was likewise fairly simple, distinguishing only 14 consonants and six vowel qualities, and clusters of any kind prohibited. Most words a disyllabic with a consonantal onset and a closed coda. Later collapsing of syllables eases these rigid principles in most daughter languages, up to the complex tone system of Lécaronian.