Reconstruction talk:Proto-Japonic/na

Old Japanese na ... se "not"
Reading the Man'yoshu, I do note of a standalone "na" being used before a verb, but paired with the verb se "to do". This is one very important evidence that I must consider, as this construction is unknown in Modern Japanese. For Ryukyuan, the Okinawan form neen, Miyako nyaan, and Yaeyama neenu (cognate with Japanese nai) were formed from a Proto-Ryukyuan base, although I don't know if it comes from an original phrase with *na. Cheers! Kwékwlos (talk) 18:50, 18 February 2020 (UTC)


 * -- Ya, the usage of prohibitionary な in OJP included different grammatical structures that we don't see anymore. If you can read Japanese, the entry in the KDJ is quite extensive.  The first な listing on that page is for OJP usage, where the な was followed by the verb in various constructions, with quotes from the ' of 759.  We also see prohibitionary な after the verb in the terminal / conclusive form, further down the page under the third な heading, sense [3] 〘終助〙, subsense [三], with quotes from the ' from 720 and  from the 900s.
 * I likewise suspect that the Okinawan neen is cognate with ない. See the entry in the Shuri-Naha Dialect Dictionary, which suggests a similar derivation.  This indicates that the adjectival / stative-verb form was probably already extant prior to Ryukyuan and mainland OJP branching off.  The prohibitionary な that comes after the verb also seems to be part of the Okinawan verb-conjugation paradigm, as shown here in the JA WP article on Okinawan.  So I believe the prohibitionary な and adjectival / stative-verb ねーん were probably distinct even at the Proto stage.  Cheers,  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 00:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

"name" derivatives
@Chuterix, you recently the derivative jpx-pro form from namuy to namn. I have not encountered any reconstruction of anything Japonic that allows this kind of /mn/ consonant cluster. Could you explain? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 04:08, 29 March 2023 (UTC)