Published by: Anonymous on 7 September 2015 | Views: 1497
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The purpose of this book is to attempt a tentative reconstruction of the ProtoAfrasian phonological system. Inasmuch as this book grew out of the author's work on Nostratic, the reconstructions proposed in this book are based not only upon the data from the individual Afrasian daughter languages, they are also informed by data from the other languages to which Afrasian is alleged to be related within the context of the Nostratic Hypothesis. For details about the Nostratic Hypothesis and supporting data from the non-Afrasian branches of Nostratic, see the author's 2014 book A Comprehensive Introduction to the Nostratic Comparative Linguistics, with Special Reference to Indo-European, which is available for free download from various Internet sites. References are given to that book throughout this work. Thus, the scope of this book is restricted. It is not intended to be a complete etymological dictionary of Afrasian. Rather, it presents a systematic reconstruction of the Proto-Afrasian phonological system and the regular sound correspondences upon which that reconstruction is based. As will become evident, some of those correspondences are more secure than others — the sibilants, dental affricates, and fricative laterals, in particular, are still not completely certain. The core of the book contains a set of examples from the various Afrasian daughter languages designed to illustrate those sound correspondences. These examples are taken from the author's 2014 book on Nostratic. Not all of the Afrasian data included in that book appear here. The author has only selected those examples where at least two branches of Afrasian are represented, no matter how spotty the evidence. Where possible, the author has enhanced those examples, especially with data from Berber. Omotic and Chadic, however, remain underrepresented.
