Proto-Kra–Dai (typically abbreviated as PKD) is the proposed reconstructed ancestor of the

Kra–Dai languages The Kra–Dai languages (also known as Tai–Kadai and Daic) are a language family in Mainland Southeast Asia, Southern China and Northeast India. All languages in the family are tonal languages, including Thai and Lao, the national languages o ...

Background

No full reconstruction of Proto-Kra–Dai has been published to date, although tentative reconstructions of many Proto-Kra–Dai roots have been attempted from time to time. Some Proto-Kra–Dai forms have been reconstructed by

Benedict Benedict may refer to: People Names *Benedict (given name), including a list of people with the given name *Benedict (surname), including a list of people with the surname Religious figures * Pope Benedict I (died 579), head of the Catholic Chu ...

(1975) and Wu (2002). A reconstruction of Proto- Kam–Tai (i.e., a proposed grouping that contains all of Kra–Dai without Kra, Hlai and

Jiamao Jiamao (, ''Jiamao''; also ''Tái'' or ''Sāi'') is a possible language isolate spoken in southern Hainan, China. Jiamao speakers' autonym is ''1''.See Proto-Tai_language#Tones for an explanation of the tone codes. Classification Jiamao was ...

) has also been undertaken by Liang & Zhang (1996).Liang Min 梁敏 & Zhang Junru 张均如. 1996. ''Dongtai yuzu gailun'' 侗台语族概论 / ''An introduction to the Kam–Tai languages''. Beijing: China Social Sciences Academy Press 中国社会科学出版社.

Phonology

Proto-Kra–Dai has the finals *-l and *-c, which have been lost in most present-day Kra–Dai languages. Norquest (2020) proposes the preglottalized sonorants *ʔb, *ʔd, *ʔɖ, *ʔɟ for Proto-Kra–Dai, as part of a four-way phonation distinction in Kra-Dai sonorants consisting of preaspirated, voiceless, plain, and preglottalized sonorants.Norquest, Peter. 2020.
A Hypothesis on the Origin of Preglottalized Sonorants in Kra-Dai
'. 38th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics. Vancouver: Department of Linguistics, University of British Columbia.

Lexicon

Ostapirat (2018)

Weera Ostapirat (2018a) reconstructs

disyllabic A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "b ...

forms for Proto-Kra–Dai, rather than

sesquisyllabic Primarily in Austroasiatic languages (also known as Mon–Khmer), in a typical word a minor syllable is a reduced (minor) syllable followed by a full tonic or stressed syllable. The minor syllable may be of the form or , with a reduced vowel, as ...

or purely

monosyllabic In linguistics, a monosyllable is a word or utterance of only one syllable. It is most commonly studied in the fields of phonology and morphology and it has no semantic content. The word has originated from the Greek language. "Yes", "no", "jump", ...

forms. His Proto-Kra–Dai reconstructions also contains the finals and . Ostapirat (2018b:113)Ostapirat, Weera. 2018b.
Macrophyletic Trees of East Asian Languages Re examined
" In ''Let's Talk about Trees'', ed. by Ritsuko Kikusawa and Lawrence A. Reid. Osaka: Senri Ethnological Studies, Minpaku. lists the following of his own Proto-Kra–Dai reconstructions. ''Notes'': * : either or * : unspecified consonant * and are distinct from and .

Norquest (2020)

Norquest (2020) lists the following of his own Proto-Kra–Dai and other lower-level reconstructions.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Proto-Kra-Dai language Kra–Dai languages Kra-Dai