Reconstruction talk:Proto-Japonic/mura

Mistaken reconstruction

@Chuterix, what reason do you have for reconstructing this as /mora/?

None of the modern reflexes seem to require an /o/ here, all appear to allow /u/.

Moreover, the existence of apparent continental cognates, all with /u/, makes this /o/ further suspect. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:59, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

This is reconstructed based off of Northern Amami-Oshima mora, who has unraised vowel. Could this just be an innovation? Compare PJ *muna (“empty”) and Northern Amami-Oshima mona.

It's also why I provided alt reconstruction *mura. Chuterix (talk) 23:08, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

@Eirikr ^.

Also, I get my Northern Amami descendants from a snippet search in Amami Hogen Bunrui Jiten, so the real phonology comparison will remain unknown until Ryukyu-go Onsei Database reopens in mid-2024. Chuterix (talk) 23:09, 6 June 2023 (UTC)

Re: Northern Amami-Oshima, I suspect the /o/ is a local innovation. For Proto-Japonic *muna as reflected in Ryukyuan, the shift from mun- to nn- or n- seems rather regular, and (if I understand it correctly) this requires that the vowel here must be /u/ at the proto level. Given this phonological requirement, and that Northern Amami-Oshima is the only one to exhibit an /o/ here, the Northern Amami-Oshima medial /o/ is clearly an outlier.

Proto-Japonic *mura appears to exhibit a similar pattern -- while we have no mu- → n- shift, this makes sense considering that the second consonant is not an /n/, and all the other reflections have medial /u/, except for Northern Amami-Oshima, again as the outlier. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:51, 7 June 2023 (UTC)