Some Boreanesian Phonological History (was: Boreanesian in the Web)

Roger Mills wrote:
-----<snip>-----
> BTW, although I don't think I've seen any Boreanesian in posts lately if
> ever, I'm under the impression it's East Asiatic-- and the name at least
> hints at Austronesian influences.  How then does it come by such an
> apparently complicated phonology?   ^_^
Other than some Japanese and Austronesian influences, the language
developed in isolation. The language is an isolate spoken in what in
our universe is roughly equivalent to the Bonin islands (although in
my universe, the main island is a circa 40,000 sq km large island of
komatiite -- the largest komatiite island in the world -- with boninite
intrussions in the eastern coast and karst formations in the west).

Over 20 thousand yrs ago, when sea levels were 100 meters lower than
today, there was a chain of islands from Japan to mainland Boreanesia.
It is through this chain that the first humans colonized Boreanesia.
Then 10 thousand yrs ago, sea levels began to rise, sinking the island
chain. Boreanesia became in effect completely isolated from the rest
of the world for thousands of years until about the first millenium AD
when the first Austronesians settled the southern coasts. The earliest
Japanese influences are of a comparatively more recent date when the
islands were held as a fief of the Daimyo Ogasawara Sadayori in the
first half of the 17th century.

Proto-B had a phonemic system of consonants and vowels like the
following:

  *p  *t  *c  *k  *q
  *b  *d  *j  *g  *G
  *f  *L  *S  *x  *X
  *B  *l  *y  *Y  *R
  *u  *r  *i  *@  *a

That is, a system with the following phonemic places of articulation (POA):
labial, apical, palatal, dorsal, and radical. Each of these with a series
of voiced and voiceless obstruents and continuants, and vowels roughly
matching the POA of consonants. Modern standard Boreanesian has merged dorsal
and radical consonants, and *r and *@, while the palatal series are now
laminal (except for *y which is still palatal). Nasality was suprasegmentalized
so that the voiced segments became coresponding nasals or nasalized segments.
Nasal harmony was certainly a part of Proto-B. But as the time went by,
nasality was not the only thing that was suprasegmentalized. Vowel features of
rounding and fronting became compatible with peripheral (labial, dorsal/radical)
and laminal/palatal consonants respectively. Notice that the POA of vowels match
the POA of consonants, and this has certainly influence how the suprasegmental-
ization of vowel features is applied in the language. In the present language,
one may profitably speak of vowel harmony for both frontness and roundness.
However, the vowel harmony in Boreanesian is complicated by the fact that
peripheral consonants are hosts to roundness but blockers of fronting, while
laminal/palatal consonants are hosts to fronting but blockers of rounding.

All of these developments must have already occured some time before the
Austronesian influx. Austronesian and Japanese loanwords are subject to the
whims of nasal and front/rounding harmony -- at least in the standard language.

If it sounds complicated, well... that's because it is.

-kristian- 8)