Early Romani,Matras (2002: passim) sometimes referred to as Late Proto-Romani,Beníšek, Michael. 2020. The Historical Origins of Romani. P. 18. In: Matras & Tenser (2020) is the latest common predecessor of all varieties of the Romani language. It was spoken before the Romani people dispersed throughout Europe. It is not directly attested, but rather reconstructed on the basis of shared features of existing Romani varieties. Early Romani is thought to have been spoken in the Byzantine Empire from the 9th to 10th and the 13th to 14th centuries.Matras (2002: 19)
Phonology Vowels The vowels were as follows:Matras (2002: 58-62) +The vowels of Early Romani Front Central BackClose Mid Open
Consonants The consonants were as follows:Matras (2002: 49-56) +Early Romani consonants Labial Alveolar Post-al./Palatal Velar Glottal Nasal Stop Affricate (dz) Fricative() ([χ]?) Approximant Trill ɽr The sound conventionally designated ř had originated from Indo-Aryan retroflex stops and appears to have still been a retroflex ([]) in Early Romani, judging from a retroflex reflex preserved in at least one dialect and from the diversity of reflexes in different dialects, which include geminated apical trills . Nonetheless, Yaron Matras also considers it possible that Early Romani had already shifted the place of articulation to a uvular, i.e. had acquired the modern Kalderash pronunciation [ʁ]. On the other hand, the possibility has also been entertained that there may still have been not just one, but several retroflexes in Early Romani, including a nasal and a lateral.Elšík & Matras (2006: 70-71)
Dentals may have been allophonically palatalised before /i/.Elšík & Matras (2006: 71)
The following Latin letters are used in this articleCf. Matras (2002: 254) to designate sounds in ways different from the IPA symbols: +lettercččhkhphřšžphoneme in IPA/ts//tʃ//////////ʃ///
Stress Stress was on the final syllable in the native lexical stratum (čhavó 'boy'), except that certain suffixes were not counted as part of the word for the purposes of stress placement, so the stress was placed before them instead (čhavés-ke 'for the boy'). These were the Layer II case markers (e.g. -ke, 'for'), the vocative markers, the present/future marker -a and the remoteness marker -asi. The mediopassive suffix did not receive stress either, e.g. díkh-jol 'is seen'. The special behaviour of these suffixes was due the fact that they had originally been independent words. In addition, original compound verbs ending in -d- 'to give' had stress on the original first compound member (váz-dav 'I lift'). In the foreign lexical component, words could be stressed on any syllable in accordance with the pronunciation in the source language (fóros 'town'), but when native suffixes were added, the stems received final stress like native stems (forós-ke 'for the town').Matras (2002: 62-64)
Notable morphonological processes
The consonant /s/ appears to have exhibited an optional alternation with /h/ in certain morphemes in Early Romani, a variation pattern inherited from late Middle Indo-Aryan. These must have included the 2nd singular ending -es when followed by the suffix -a (producing -eha alongside the older -esa), and, due to analogy, the 1st plural ending -as in front of -a (producing -aha alongside the older -asa), the instrumental plural case ending after vowels (-V-ha alongside older -V-sa) and the copula having variants beginning in h- alongside the older s-. Many dialects have extended this pattern to many more forms and have generalised the /h/ variants, whereas others have only retained the conservative forms with /s/ without any trace of the alternation.Matras (2002: 68-71_
The vowel /i/ was desyllabified to a semivowel /j/ before a vowel-initial suffixes: sg. buti 'work' - pl. butja.Matras (2002: 68)
Grammar The morphology exhibited a split between two strata - native (including both inherited words and loans from before the immigration into the Byzantine Empire) and foreign (predominantly loans from Byzantine Greek and some from Slavic; later borrowings from other languages also join this group in descendant dialects). Words of the two strata were often formed and declined somewhat differently.
Nominal morphology Early Romani nominals had two genders, masculine and feminine, two numbers - singular and plural, and eight cases - nominative, accusative (oblique), vocative, dative, ablative, locative, instrumental and genitive. The nominal phrases also expressed definiteness by means of a definite article.
Partly like other Modern Indo-Aryan languages, the grammatical morphemes in Romani noun declension are classified into three layers - Layer I (remainders of Old Indo-Aryan inflectional endings), Layer II (a set of originally separate words turned into new postposed inflectional elements) and Layer III (adpositions). Layer I suffixes are portmanteau morphs that simultaneously express case (nominative, oblique or vocative) and number, have different variants according to the gender of the word and exhibit some unpredictable lexical variation that makes it possible to speak of declension classes. Layer II suffixes express only case and have largely the same form.Matras (2002: 78-80)
Layer I The most common endings can be summarised as follows:Matras (2002: 80-85); except for the vocative. +nominative singularnominative pluraloblique singularoblique pluralvocative singularvocative pluralnativemasculine -o -e -es-en-éja -ále -∅ -a-afeminine -i/-∅ -a -a-eforeignmasculine -Vs -i (but -ja if V = i) -Vs -Vna, -Vfeminine -a -a? -a -o? Native feminine stems had a tendency to exhibit /j/ in front of the vowel of the suffix outside of the nominative singular: -j-a, -j-en etc. This was always the case if the nominative singular ended in -i.
The following is a complete list of Early Romani declension classes largelyThe vocative of native-stratum words is given mostly as claimed in Boretzky & Igla (2004: 2.2.1.1.D). For the foreign-stratum words, forms found in Vlax, Central and/or Balkan Romani are given. as reconstructed by Viktor Elšík (with terminology adapted for this article):Elšík & Matras (2006: 72), Matras (2002: 83) +stratumgenderstem typetypenominative singularnominative pluraloblique singularoblique pluralvocative singularvocative pluralexamplenativemasculinezero-stemmain type-∅-a-es-en -a -álekher 'house'-ipen/ibe(n)-as* --- ---čačipen 'truth'zero plural (exceptional)-∅-es --- ---vast 'hand'o-stem-o-e -éja -álešero 'head'i-stem-i-j-a-j-es-j-en --- ---pani 'water'femininezero-stemnon-jotating-∅-a-a-en-e-áledžuv 'louse'jotating-j-a-j-a-j-en-e-j-álesuv 'needle'i-stem-i-ije -j-álepiri 'pot'foreignmasculineo-stem-o(s)**-i (-a)-os***-en -ona? -ále?foros 'town'u-stem-u(s)**-us-u? -ále?papus 'grandfather'i-stem-i(s)**-j-a-is-i(na)? -j-ále?sapunis 'soap'femininea-stem-a-es?-a-o? -ále?cipa 'skin' * - The stems formed with the suffixes -ipen and -ibe(n) dropped the -e- before endings: oblique -ipn-as, -ibn-as, nominative plural -ipn-a, -ibn-a.
** - In foreign-stratum masculine words in -o(s), -u(s), -i(s), the variants of the nominative without -s found in some dialects might be due to a late reinterpretation of the -s as an oblique ending by analogy with native stratum words.Matras (2002: 85) However, the forms without -s might be original in words that were of neuter gender in Greek such as kókalo 'bone', since these, too, were adapted as masculine words in Romani. Present-day dialects have either only the forms with -s or only the forms without -s, but if the latter interpretation is correct, then both rules would be the result of a later generalisation.Matras (2002: 70-71) Note, moreover, that originally neuter Greek words like kókalo also seem to have retained a Greek plural in -a: kókala 'bones'.Matras (2002: 81)
*** - However, the oblique form of the abstract nouns formed with the suffix -im-o ended in -im-as. They retained a Greek plural in -im-ata.
Layer II The Layer II suffixes are added to the appropriate Layer I oblique case form. After the plural oblique Layer I suffix ending in /n/, the initial voiceless consonant of the suffixes became voiced and the sibilant turned into an affricate. The forms were as follows:Matras (2002: 87-91_ +casemain formform after /n/dative-ke-gelocative-te-deablative-tar-darinstrumental-sa-cagenitive-ker--ger- The genitive took the inflectional endings of adjectives and agreed with the modified noun: -ker-o, -ker-e, etc (an example of Suffixaufnahme). The genitive suffix may also have had an optional short variant -k-/-g- besides -ker-/-ger-, as seen in several modern dialects, with or without a difference in function. If there was a difference, the long form may have been more emphatic and preferred when genitives were placed after the noun or nominalised.Boretzky & Igla (2004: 22A)
Layer III Layer III words in Early Romani were prepositions (as they mostly are in contemporary dialects as well). Some inherited prepositions were andar 'out of', andre 'in(to)', angle 'in front of', astjal 'for, because of', dži 'until', karig 'towards', (ka)tar 'from', ke 'at, to', mamuj 'against', maškar between', pal 'behind', paš 'next to, by', perdal 'across, through', te 'at, to', tel 'under', truja(l) 'past, around', upral/opral 'from the top of', upre/opre 'above, on, over', and vaš 'for'. The pairs andre-andar, angle-anglal, ke/te-katar/tar formed locative-ablative pairs, but there were no special directive prepositions - the locative ones were used to express direction as well. Certain prepositions ending in vowels dropped them before the definite article: e.g. ke- + -o > ko.Matras (2002: 91-92)Elšík & Matras (2006: 83, 241)
Case use The bare oblique case was used:Matras (2002: 85-87)
1. as an accusative (direct object) case with animate nouns (as well as with pronouns), whereas inanimate nouns used the nominative.
2. It was also used to express possession: man si kher 'I have a house'.
3. Further, it expressed the indirect object of the verb 'to give', i.e. functioned as a dative case.
The instrumental was used also as a comitative case, meaning 'together with' as well as 'by means of'.Matras (2002: 89)
Adjuncts to almost all prepositions required the noun to be in the locative case,Matras (2002: 88) at least if animate, but may have taken the nominative case if inanimate, as commonly found in modern dialects.Matras (2002: 94) However, bi 'without' took the genitive and vaš 'for' took the dative.Boretzky & Igla (2004: 2.2.1.2.A, B)
Adjective declension Adjectives used attributively or predicatively were normally declined as follows:Matras (2002: 94-96) +nominative singular masculinenominative singular femininenominative pluraloblique singular masculineoblique singular feminineoblique pluralvocativeElšík & Matras (2006: 218-219)examplesnative -o-i -e -e-a-e-ebaro 'big'foreign -o-o -a -on-e-on-a-on-e-ezeleno 'green' A small group of adjectives such as šukar 'pretty' ended in a consonant and were indeclinable.
Nominalised adjectives were declined like nouns: e.g. e phures-ke 'for the old one'.
The comparative and superlative were expressed by the form constructed with the suffix -eder.
Pronouns The personal pronouns were:Matras (2002: 98-103, 110-111) +nominative emphaticnominative non-emphaticobliquepossessive1st singularmemanminř- (< mir-?)2nd singulartututtir-3rd singular masculineov (av)lo (to)(o)les(o)les-ker-3rd singular feminineoj (aj)li (ti)(o)la(o)la-ker-reflexive---pespes-ker- (or possibly pinř-Elšík & Matras (2006: 76-77))1st pluralamenamen-amar-2nd pluraltumentumen-tumar-3rd pluralol (*al), onle (te)(o)len-(o)len-ger-