Reconstruction talk:Proto-Japonic/ari

, you just alternative reconstructions.

I think I recall that mainland Japanese final -ru sometimes reflects as Ryukyuan -n. I also recall reading that some linguists consider Old Japanese ari as the predicative conjugation for the copula to be an innovation from older aru, to which modern Japanese effectively reverted.

→ This suggests that the Proto-Japonic form of the copula might instead be aru.

Considering the Ryukyuan reflexes, it would appear that the alternative reconstructions ani and ami would apply only to the "ant" sense? Could you clarify? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 16:47, 8 December 2022 (UTC)


 * @Kwékwlos Chuterix (talk) 06:47, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The variant reconstructions *ani and *ami, both meaning "ant", apply to the Northern Ryukyuan branch only, with *ami being limited to Amami. The copula, in any case, is *ari. Kwékwlos (talk) 08:57, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Header structure
Just FYI, POS headers in any entry with multiple etym sections must come at L4, not L3. Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 04:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)


 * @Kwékwlos*
 * also @Eirikr why are you mispelling the username? Chuterix (talk) 22:57, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @Chuterix -- that's called a typo. 😉 ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:03, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @Eirikr still (maybe i feel like grammar Nazi that's why i'm questioning you) Chuterix (talk) 00:04, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * @Chuterix, you'd asked "why", and the reason is "it was a simple mistake caused by mistyping". Nothing more to it, really.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 07:45, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Ryukyuan descendants for copular verb appear to reflect /aru/, not /ari/
I recall reading somewhere that ari is considered by at least some current linguistic researchers as a Japanese innovation, based on older aru. And, indeed, the Ryukyuan descendants seem to reflect aru, not ari -- for ari, we would expect "r" elision, as indeed we see with the descendants of ari "ant".

Considering all this, I rather think that the Proto-Japonic form should be aru. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:15, 31 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Bjarke Frellesvig (2010, "A History of the Japanese Language", page 103) has this explanation:
 * "r-irr verbs can be said to be syntactically rather than morphologically irregular: they use the infinitive as conclusive form. In other respects they are like the QD verbs. Note that the verb extensions be-, rasi-, and ram-, which regularly attach to the conclusive, attach to the adnominal of r-irr verbs: aru be-, aru rasi-, aru ram-. Another way of describing this would be to say that r-irr verbs have two conclusive forms: regularly formed aru (<= ar+u) used only with verb extensions, and ari (=infinitive) used elsewhere."
 * Arfrever (talk) 21:11, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That does look like a shift from conclusive aru to ari that happened after constructions like aru be-, aru rasi-, aru ram- had become set in the language. More circumstantial evidence pointing to a proto form of aru. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)