Reconstruction talk:Proto-Japonic/intu

Alternative reconstruction

@Chuterix, thank you for the link to Vovin's piece and the page number, very helpful!

Vovin just mentions *intay- in passing. I would love a better understanding of the derivation, as the surface phonology strikes me as somewhat problematic -- it seems much easier to go from *intu to *inte- via suffixing and vowel fusion, rather than from *intay- to *intu. Can you find any other texts where Vovin presents this same reconstruction, ideally providing more information about how he arrives at this form? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:00, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I have a feeling this reconstruction by @Kwékwlos is somewhat wrong, because -u is only shushikei suffix fused to nidan verb roots. The media of linguistics would use the ren'yokei (e.g. wasure for classical nidan wasureru instead of shushikei wasuru). Chuterix (talk) 23:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

"because -u is only shushikei suffix fused to nidan verb roots."

That is one theory, but I don't think it's universally accepted.

Simply on phonological grounds, it strikes me as dubious.

• *intay- + *-u → fusion of ay + u does not produce u, so we cannot sensibly derive *intu from *intay-.
• *intu + *-i or *-e → fusion of ay + i or e has been shown to produce i or e, giving us a phonological development path for deriving *intay- (or at least attested ide-) from *intu.

Suffixation + fusion is also easier to explain than vowel deletion + suffixation.