Talk:Mota language

A dictionary of the language of Mota, Sugarloaf Island, Banks Islands. [Microform] (1896)

A dictionary of the language of Mota, Sugarloaf Island, Banks Islands. [Microform] (1896)

https://archive.org/details/adictionarylang00misgoog

Rajmaan (talk) 15:19, 9 March 2014 (UTC)

MTA -iu/-ui reflecting PTB -i/-u

There are words in MTA such as va-toliu "third", for va-tol, a normal reflex of PTB *va-tolu. According to Codrington the use of -iu/-ui to "recover" the lost vowel seems to have been of a dialectal nature. But there are words found in the Common Prayer, such as esu "life" < PTB *esu, that indicate the irregular preservation of the final high vowel. What circumstances would have led to Mota becoming a simplified mess compared to Tolomako or Nggela and when? Kwékwlos (talk) 09:57, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

It is actually not that messy: this phenomenon concerns exclusively the handling of the -i suffix [<POc *-qi], which is found on the citation form of inalienable nouns and of numeral adjectives. (Hence, roots like esu are not concerned, because not suffixed.)

So, with that -i suffix, expected forms include __a-i, __o-i, __e-i (e.g. matai 'eye', sogoi 'relative'…). When the root's final vowel is /u/, the expected form __u-i alternates with a metathesized __iu (e.g. qatui ~ qatiu 'head'; tolui ~ toliu 'egg'; va-tolu-i → vatoliu 'third') — along dialectal lines. As for roots ending in /i/, they never surface as **__i-i but as a dissimilative form __iu (e.g. tasiu 'brother'; va-vatiu 'fourth'…). As usual with Codrington's Mota, it's all quite regular and predictable. -- Womtelo (talk) 10:55, 29 January 2022 (UTC).