Proto-Ampayrù language

Consonants
Prenasalized consonants are existing only between vowels as allophones of tenuis consonants.

Phonotactics
(C)(G)V(G/ʔ)


 * C = any consonant
 * G = glide
 * V = any vowel
 * ʔ = glottal stop

Accent
Breathy voiced stress on second syllable. Monosyllabic words don't have stress.

Tones
Neutral (a), High (á), Low (à), Rising (ǎ), Falling (â). Tones have distinctive role in lexicon.

Nouns
(1. Subject = Absolutive, Agent = Nominative, Patient = Absolutive, 2. Subject = Nominative, Agent = Nominative, Patient = Accusative)
 * split-ergative alignment: ergative-absolutive in past tenses, nominative-accusative in non-pasts.
 * indirective ditransitive alignment (Donor = Pegative, Recipient = Dative, Theme = Accusative)
 * possessor (preffixes).

Relational nouns
[Relational noun + Locative] + [Noun + Genetive case ending]

 

"The dog is sleeping on top of the mat."

Verbs

 * moods expressed by modal verbs.
 * subject marked by independent postpositional pronoun.
 * pronominal object cliticized to subjective pronoun.

Tense
Two groups of tense, past and non-past, are distinguished by type of morphological alignment:


 * past tenses are expressed by ergative-absolutive alignment,
 * non-past tenses belong to nominative-accusative alignment.

Word order

 * SOV
 * head-initial