dhoklang Scratchpad (NP: Algonquitut?)
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? dhok posts: 235
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I'd been working on Classical Quazian morphosyntax for a long while before it became clear that the morphosyntax was neither coherent nor comprehensible, and I could barely wrap my head around the language.

Resultingly, I'm redoing the language's morphosyntax. The phonology is nearly but not completely finalized, but since I'm trying to get the morphosyntax in place first, that's neither here nor there.

A few general principles guide Classical Quazian morphosyntax. These are not universally followed, but they are followed close enough that they provide a good roadmap for the language's structure.

a) Dependents are marked.
b) Heads are not usually marked.
c) Heads come last.

There is one caveat, in which the subject can be considered a head to which the verb is a dependent. Resultingly, a system of mixed alignment exists in which noun case is ergative-aligned, while verbal marking, as well as first- and second-person pronouns, is accusative-aligned. (This system is found in various languages of New Guinea.)

After morning classes, I'll have more to say about CQ morphosyntax, including some real sentences (which are a pain to type on library computers). I wasn't aiming for a truly minimalist system derived from the above guidelines, but I would like to make something that's not a hodgepodge, and that I can write in.
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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Some quick typological observations supported by glossed sentences:

CQ is SV in intransitive sentences and SOV in transitive. The subject of a transitive sentence is marked by the suffix -ja/-jä.

qáwa-ja θúku hṍnõ-Ø
man-ERG bread eat-3sg
'The man is eating the bread.'

The object of an transitive sentence and the subject of an intransitive sentence aren't case marked. As we'll see, CQ has three cases:

- an absolutive case that doesn't receive a marker;
- an ergative case formed with -ja/-jä;
- an adpositional case formed with -ni/-nũ.

(to be continued later when I am less infuriated with the keyboard)

? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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Computer returns refurbished, along with a great keyboard with lots of special characters.

Nouns are pluralized with reduplication of the initial syllable. The accent must jump back one syllable:

qáwa 'man' -> qáqawa 'men'
θúku 'loaf' -> θúθuku 'loaves, bread (collective)'
mõŋó 'star' -> mõmṍŋo 'stars'

Plural marking is obligatory in animate nouns, but optional in inanimates.

Nouns are either animate or inanimate gender. These are generally self-explanatory, except that some nouns (like c'ímü 'sun' and ŋuqú 'moon') are considered animate by convention. The lexicon will tell you the gender of a given noun.

Adjectives must agree with nouns in gender, number and case. Instead of reduplication, syncretic suffixes mark agreement. (Note that for animates the ergative is the unmarked form- possibly a remnant of a nominative/accusative system that persists in first and second person pronouns.)

Singular Animate Plural Inanimate Inanimate
Absolutive -ke/-kõ -kʷe/-kʷõ
Ergative -wä/-wa -jä/-ja
Postpositional -ŋi/-ŋũ -mü/-mu -ni/-nũ


Note that although inanimate nouns are perfectly happy reduplicating to mark the plural (though as noted it's optional), adjectives agreeing with them do not mark number.

Adjectives precede the nouns they modify, and need no marking to be used adverbially:

qö́me-ke qáwa 'a happy man (abs.)'

qö́me qáwa-ja θúku hṍnõ 'the happy man eats bread'

qáwa-ja θúku qö́me hṍnõ 'the man eats bread happily'

Postpositions follow their objects, obviously, which must take the postpositional case, along with any modifiers:

ŋanṹ 'city'

ŋanṹ-nũ le 'to the city'

qö́me-ni ŋanṹ-nũ le 'to the happy city'

Possessive constructions are formed with the formula possessor-ERG possessum:

qáwa-ja θúku 'the man's bread'

The first and second person pronouns are nominative-accusative aligned:

Nominative Accusative Genitive Prepositional
1s ŋä́qä ŋéje ŋä́jä ŋä́ni
1p súwo sújõ súja súnũ
2s céhi céśe céjä céni
2p ráŋa ráña rája ránũ


Note the similarity of the genitive forms to the ergative case of nouns. The third-person pronouns are ergative-aligned, but, as in adjectives, the animates betray traces of a former accusative stance.

Absolutive Ergative Postpositional
3an wáka wahá wánũ
3anf kʷókõ kʷówõ kʷónũ
3in hínä híjä híni


The special feminine forms refer only to female humans. Elsewhere the standard animate pronoun predominates.
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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Continuing onto verbs.

Verbs in Classical Quazian agree in person/number with the subject (defined as the "nominative", even if such a case only exists in the first and second person of pronouns). Intransitive endings follow:

Singular Plural
1 -na/-nä -ŋö/-ŋo
2 -ca/-cä -lõ/-le
3an -θe/-θõ
3in


Note that in the third person, no ending is applied unless the subject is a plural animate. In transitive sentences, you get the following endings instead:

Singular Plural
1 -ni/-nũ -ŋä́wä/-ŋáwa
2 -sé/-sṍ -jé/-jṍ
3an -θi/-θũ
3in -hä/-ha -hä/-ha


The accent in transitive verbs must shift one to the right. In the first and second person plural it is always placed on the ending as shown.

Classical Quazian distinguishes non-past from past tense and perfective from imperfective aspect (in the past tense only), as well as positive and negative polarity. Additionally, a number of particles and modals can create analytic modal forms.

- The past tense, perfective aspect, is generally formed by transparent-looking suppletion for most verbs, often by switching vowel class, screwing with the accent, consonant mutation, or a combination of these: hṍnõ -> hõná 'eat', mékʷi -> mṍku 'work'. In nearly all past tense verbs, the accent will fall on the personal ending if there is one. A "standardized" option which encompasses a great deal of verbs and remains productive involves merely switching vowel class: níjä "pour" -> nũjá, first person intransitive nũjaná.

- The imperfective past is formed by infixing <eq> or <õq> to the past tense root: hṍnõ -> hõná -> hõqõná 'was eating'.

- Finally, the negative is formed with the prefix wa-/wä-: wahṍnõ 'doesn't eat.'

The citation form for verbs is 3ansg present positive, 1sg past perfective positive: hṍnõ, hõnaná 'eat'.
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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We are now ready to look at some syntax!

We'll start with a basic noun phrase. This has partially been covered above, but we'll go over it again for the sake of clarity.

The basic noun phrase is, as you would expect, a noun:

qáwa-Ø
man-ABS
'the/a man'

This may be pluralized:

qá-qawa-Ø
PL-man-ABS
'(the) men'

Or declined into another case. (As an aside, note that the accent must be on one of the last three syllables, with an exception to be noted below):

qa-qáwa-ja
PL-man-ERG
'(the) men (ergative), of the men'

Finally, the demonstrative clitics =θä/=θa (this), =kü/=ku (that) and =xe/=xõ (yon) may be attached after any case marking. These agree in vowel harmony with the noun, but do not count for the purposes of accent placement:

qa-qáwa-ja=θa
PL-man-ERG=this
'these men (ergative), of these men'

Nouns may additionally be modified by adjectives. These are placed before the noun and agree with it in gender, case and (in animates only) number by means of suffixes:

kʷ'ómo-kõ qáwa-Ø
poor-ABS.AN man-ABS
'the poor man'

hamá-Ø θú-θuku-Ø=ku
warm-ABS.IN PL-bread-ABS=that
'those warm loaves'

Nouns may take possessors, whose formula is possessor-ERG possessum:

qáwa-ja córũ-Ø
man-ERG house-ABS
'the man's house'

If the possessor is a first or second person pronoun, this becomes pron-GEN possessum:

súja córũ-Ø
1p.GEN house-ABS
'our house'

Adpositional phrases without fail take the postpositional case:

ɸími-ni t'a
river-PP across
'across the river'

The postposition governs an NP which, other than postpositional case where needed, is unremarkable:

k'ára-ja réwä-ni po
king-ERG bridge-PP under
'under the king's bridge'

xä́ñä-Ø makʷá-ja=θa tõkṍ-nũ ra
rich-ERG.AN woman-ERG=that coin-PP with
'using that rich woman's money'

Conjunction of adjectives, NPs or PPs is accomplished with the postposed particles NP₁ ke NP₂ ke:

k'ára-Ø ke ñä́xi-Ø ke
king-ABS and queen-ABS and
'the king and queen'

jéŋe-ni sa ke ñaxṹ-nũ sa ke
east-PP from and west-PP from and
'from the east and from the west'

One need not repeat the same postposition twice; the above could also be rendered

jéŋe-ni ke ñaxṹ-nũ ke sa
east-PP and west-PP and from
'from the east and the west'

Similarly to ke is the conjunction qu...qu, which carries more contrast:

kʷ'ómo-kõ qu qö́me-ke qu qáwa-Ø
poor-ABS.AN but happy-ABS.AN but man-ABS
'a poor but happy man'

Relative clauses also precede their head nouns. We'll get to those later, since they require a participle.

——————————————————

Basic sentence order is:

Subject-(Object)-(Obliques)-(Adverbs)-Verb

"Subject" is defined as either the experiencer or the agent, that is, the nominative. This is also what the verb agrees with.

A basic intransitive sentence would look like this:

tucá-Ø jáma-Ø
chicken-ABS run.PRS-3S.AN.INTR
'The chicken is running.'

You can include a pronoun:

ŋä́qä jáma-na
1sg.NOM run.PRS-1S.INTR
'I am running.'

Or drop it if the verb makes it superfluous:

xóla-ca
walk.PRS-2S.INTR
'You are walking.'

Adverbials of all sorts can be added with no additional agreement:

wáña xóla-ŋo
fast walk.PRS-1P.INTR
'We are walking quickly.'

tucá-Ø=ku jéŋe-ni le xóla-Ø
chicken-ABS=that east-PP to walk-3S.AN.INTR
'That chicken is walking eastward/to the east.'

Transitive sentences add an object, and the verb must take transitive endings.

tu-túca-ja=θa ré-rere-Ø hõnṍ-θũ
PL-chicken-ABS=this PL-insect-ABS eat-3AN.PL.TR
'These chickens are eating bugs.'

Again, pro-drop is possible if the subject is understood:

kʷekʷé-Ø hõnṍ-nũ
potato-ABS eat-1SG.TR
'I am eating a potato.'

You can even drop the object if it, too, has already been mentioned:

kʷekʷé-Ø mä́ri-ni ɸe p'õñũ-nṹ. hoqó hõna-nṹ.
potato-ABS table-PP on see.PST-1SG.TR. therefore eat.PST.1SG.TR
'I saw a potato on the table. So I ate it.'

In ditransitive sentences, the recipient is considered the direct object, while what we'd think of as the object is generally considered an instrument, marked with the postposition ra:

k'ára-ja qáwa-Ø tõkṍ-nũ ra siɸä́-Ø
king-ERG man-ABS money-PP with give.PST-3SG.AN.TR
'The king gave money to the man.'

More tomorrow-bedtime now.
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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Moving onto applicatives. CQ has a number of applicatives formed by prefixing a postposition (which must agree in harmony), with the negative wä-/wa- appearing before the applicative prefix, and jerking the accent one syllable to the left. (This applies after accent considerations in the past tense.)

An applicative promotes an old postpositional oblique to object position and gets rid of the old object. (In many cases you can re-introduce the old object with ra, except with animates, who take the beneficiary śa.) Remember that ditransitives are usually secundative, so the recipient will be deleted and the dechticaetiative (marked as an instrumental) promoted:

k'ára-ja qáwa-Ø tõkṍ-nũ ra siɸä́-Ø
king-ERG man-ABS money-PP with give.PST-3SG.AN.TR
'The king gave money to the man.'

becomes

k'ára-ja tõkṍ-Ø (qáwa-nũ śa) rä-síɸä-Ø
king-ERG money-ABS (man-PP for) INST.APP-give.PST-3SG.AN.TR
'The king donated money (to the man).'

This becomes important when we consider relative clauses. Relative clauses in CQ can only relativize subjects and direct objects (including recipients)- they can't relativize into an oblique. In most situations, you can get around this by using an applicative. Relative clauses in CQ appear before their head and use no relative particle:

ŋanṹ-nũ le xüwä́-Ø qáwa-Ø
city-PP to go.PST-3SG.AN.INTR man
'the man who went to the city'

Relativized objects in CQ require a special resumptive pronominal clitic ke for animates and for inanimates:

qáwa-ja nõ hõná-Ø θúku
man-ERG it eat.PST-3SG.AN.TR bread
'the bread that the man ate (it)'

We can now use applicatives to more or less relativize an oblique:

qáwa-ja nõ le-xǘwä-Ø ŋanũ
man-ERG it towards.APP-go.PST-3SG.AN.TR city
'the city that the man went to, the city that the man to-went'

? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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Rebooting, now with more Algonquian. Phonology:

Plain stops/affricates: /p t ts tʃ k kʷ/ <p t c č k q>
Ejectives: /p' t' ts' tʃ' k' kʷ'/ <p' t' c' č' k' q'>
Nasals: /m n ŋ/ <m n ŋ>
Fricatives: /θ s ʃ h/ <θ s š h>
Liquids: /w ɾ l j/ <w r l y>

Additionally, two phonemes /ɸ/ and /ɲ/ disappeared shortly before the advent of writing and can be reconstructed from modern dialects.

Vowels: /i e a o i: e: a: o:/ <i e a o ī ē ā ō>

Stress is light and on the first syllable. Syllable structure is (C)V(n h t k q). When a stop geminate would occur mid-word, you instead get an ejective: micīq + qa -> micīq'a.

Nouns

are inflected for possession, number and obviation. They may be inanimate or animate. They also have locative and instrumental forms and may take a variety of adjective-like prenouns:

micīq an "land"
micīq'a (obviation with -qa) "land"
ahko-micīq (adjectivization with ahko-) "holy land'
mi-micīq (reduplicated plural) 'lands'
micīq-ek (locative) 'in the land'
micīq-ayak (instrumental) 'by means of the land'
θi-micīq 'my land'
θi-micīq-ta 'our land'
ahko-θi-mi-micīq-ta-qa 'our holy lands (obviated)'
micī-ni-q ' little land' (diminutive'
micī-yama-q 'the large land' (augmentative)
nōh-micīq 'three lands'
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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Renamed since the various incarnations of CQ don't actually have very much to do with each other and I'd like to sidetrack temporarily into a mostly isolating-ish family which will be easier to work with. I'm still unsure where this'll be spoken.

We will start with the phonology since I'm going to be boring for this family:

Voiced stops: /b d ɖ ɟ g/ <b d ḍ j g>
Voiceless stops: /p t ʈ c k/ <p t ṭ c k>
Aspirated stops: /pʰ tʰ ʈʰ cʰ kʰ/ <ph th ṭh ch k>
Nasals: /m n/ <m n>
Fricatives: /s ʂ h/ <s ṣ h>
Liquids: <w r ɻ l ɭ j> <w r ṛ l ḷ y>
Vowels: /i e a ə o u/

Syllable structure is (C)V(C). A consonant is optional word-initially.  Additionally, the following consonants are allowed word-finally: /p t c k b d j g m n w y/. (*uw and *iy are not permitted; nor are *wu or *yi).

Some example words: ṣak, niḷím, súṭhu, ə́raj.

Stress is phonemic: compare yamák '(they) see (something)' with yámak 'dolphin'.

Nouns have a plural marked by -(a)d: yámakad 'dolphins'. Verbs inflect for transitivity and for the number of the subject or agent:

Intransitive, singular subject: no ending; yamá.

Transitive, singular subject: -(ə)n: yamán.

Intransitive, plural subject: -i or -y: yamáy. (Intransitive verbs whose stems end in -i or -y don't make a number distinction.)

Transitive, plural subject: -(ə)k: yamák.

A relative or participial-like form can also be formed using the prefix a(w)-: ayamá. This retains all transitive and number marking.

TAM marking is carried out by particles, which distinguish realis against irrealis, and perfective from imperfective from habitual aspect. The realis imperfective needs no particle.

Unnamed language (which we'll refer to as Sayə́m, which for now has no clear meaning) has distinctions between nouns and verbs, but not between verbs and adjectives. There is no copula, so:

ṣak
flower
'flower'

míṣəg
dandelion
'dandelion'

chəw
be.white
'(it) is white'

ṣak chəw
flower be.white
'the flower is white'

ṣak míṣəg
flower dandelion
'the flower is a dandelion'

ṣák-ad chə́w-i
flower-PL be.white-INTR.PL
'the flowers are white'

ṣák-ad míṣəg-ad
flower-PL dandelion.PL
'the flowers are dandelions'

Causatives of intransitive verbs can be effectively formed by marking them as transitive:

weḍó ṣák-ad chə́w-ən ca
wizard flower-PL be.white-TR.PL PERF
'the wizard turned the flowers white'

yámak-ad ṭhum-i ca
dolphin-PL die-INTR.PL PERF
'the dolphins died'

weḍó-d yámak-ad ṭhum-ək ca
wizard-PL dolphin-PL die-TR.PL PERF
'the wizards killed the dolphins'

As we can see by now, basic sentence order is S(O)V(P), with (P) being the position of the TAM particle.

Participial forms with a(w)- can be used to create adjective-like forms. These come before their head noun and do not lose their verbal marking (e.g. they'll agree with their head in number):

a-chə́w ṣak héji
PRT-be.white flower lily
'The white flower is a lily.'

a-chə́w-i ṣák-ad héji-d
PRT-be.white-PL flower-PL lily-PL
'The white flowers are lilies.'

(I'm going to cut things off here because I've just decided I'm going to reboot CQ as this, and make some major changes to its structure. More later.)
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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I didn't really want to work on that morphology paper anyways!

Anyways, nouns may be animate or inanimate in Sayə́m, and this only partially reflects reality: while it's true that ṭoḍ 'stone' is inanimate and khew 'woman' is animate, you also have pairs like animate súthu 'deciduous tree' and inanimate úṣo 'conifer'.

Animates in Sayə́m are allowed to take more inflection than inanimates: they may be marked for obviation and number:

Singular proximate animates aren't marked: yámak 'dolphin', weḍó 'wizard'.

Plural proximate animates are marked with an -(a)d: yámak-ad 'dolphins', weḍó-d 'wizards.'

Singular obviative animates are marked with a suffix -(y)am: yámak-am 'dolphin.OBV', wedó-yam 'wizard.OBV'

Plural obviative animates are marked with a suffix -(ə)dam: yámak-ədam 'dolphins.OBV', wedó-dam 'wizards.OBV'

The main new changes are in the verb.

Sayə́m verbs pay attention to a topicality hierarchy:

2 > 1 > 3AN.PROX > 3AN.OBV > IN

That is, second person is ranked higher than first person, which is ranked higher than proximate animates, which are ranked higher than obviative animates, which are ranked higher than inanimates.

Transitive verbs pay attention to the topicality hierarchy in two ways:

Transitive verbs mark for the number of the core argument that is higher on the topicality hierarchy, whether that's a subject or object, if it's animate. Intransitive verbs just mark for the number of the main argument. (Subjects of transitive sentences must be animates.)

Transitive verbs also choose their voice according to the topicality hierarchy. If the subject is higher on the hierarchy than the object, the verb is in direct voice. If the object is higher than the subject, the verb is in direct voice.

We'll use, again, yamá 'to appear, see' as our example verb.

In the intransitive 'to appear', we have inflection for the gender and number of the subject:

Inanimate Animate Singular Animate Plural
-i/-y -(a)t
yamá yamáy yamát


In the transitive, things get a bit more complicated. Since transitive verbs inflect for the number of the highest argument on the topicality hierarchy, and inanimates can't be agents, transitive verbs do not have inanimate forms. They do, however, distinguish direct from inverse forms.

Singular, Direct Plural, Direct Singular, Inverse Plural, Inverse
-(ə)n -(ə)k -(ṣ)in -(ṣ)ik
yamán yamák yamáṣin yamáṣik


Sayə́m has, again, a distinction between nouns and verbs, but not verbs and adjectives, which are stative verbs. There is no copula. For example:

ṣak
flower
'flower'

chəw-Ø
be.white-IN
'IN is white'

chə́w-i ṣak
be.white-ANsg flower
'The flower is white'.

míṣəg
dandelion
'dandelion'

ṣak míṣəg
flower dandelion
'the flower is a dandelion'

(Normally verbs and their main arguments are free order-wise, but when you're equating two nouns you generally put them in the above order.)

ṣák-ad chə́w-at
flower-pl be.white-ANpl
'The flowers are white.'

ṣák-ad míṣəg
flower-pl dandelion
'The flowers are dandelions.'

mísəg ṣák
dandelion flower
'The dandelion(s) are flower(s).' (Here, because 'dandelion' has no number marking, 'flower' can't either- predicates can't specify number more precisely than their subjects do.)
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Norman, United States
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OK, onto some transitive sentences. Many, many transitive verbs are just intransitive verbs inflected with animate marking- for example, phála means 'to be on fire' in the intransitive but 'to set on fire' in the transitive.

Order of core arguments, thanks to direct-inverse marking, is relatively free.

When you begin a narrative, if your object is intransitive, you're set: you don't need to do any obviation marking, at least not until a second animate enters the mix.

phála-n ca weḍó úṣo
be on fire-TR.SG.DIR PERF wizard conifer
'The wizard set the conifer on fire.' (TAM particles, of which there are six twelve counting the null particle, directly follow the verb and are clitics with no stress of their own.)

But demons, unlike conifers, are animate. Since we've been talking about the wizard, he's the topic, and so is marked as proximate (or more accurately left unmarked); the demon is new and is obviative:

aṣá, phála-n ca weḍó-Ø ṛégən-am
later, be on fire-TR.SG.DIR PERF wizard-PROX.SG demon-OBV.SG
'Later, the wizard set a demon on fire.'

Since the proximate wizard is the subject and the obviative demon is the object, verb voice remains direct. But consider:

chəná ṭhum-in ca ṛégən-am weḍó-Ø
but die-TR.SG.INV perf demon-OBV.SG wizard-PROX.SG
'But the demon killed the wizard.'

Here, the positions are switched: the demon is subject and the wizard is object; so the verb gets direct marking.
? dhok posts: 235
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There are twelve TAM particles; further TAM distinctions must be expressed by adverbs like ə́ṭə 'long ago' or dip 'tomorrow'. They fit into a fairly smooth three- by four-distinction matrix, inflecting for aspect and mood, but not tense.

Aspect may be perfective, imperfective or habitual.

Mood may be realis, irrealis, contrafactual or potential.

The default TAM inflection, which takes no particle, is the realis imperfective. A table of particles appears below:

Perfective Imperfective Habitual
Realis ca Ø yak
Irrealis ḷiḍ khə sun
Contrafactual ḷiya cha suy
Potential be ṛiw the


TAM particles pretty much always come immediately after the verb.

I'd write some more sentences with these particles,  but I need to do some more supporting syntax first, and I can't do that until after class and lunch.
? dhok posts: 235
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[15:17] <dhok> now I want to get back to that romance language spoken in the Azores that loses contact with the mainland by 400 AD
[15:17] <dhok> and retreats back to the neolithic
[15:18] <dhok> so it doesn't participate in many of the pan-Romance changes that occur in the early Middle Ages
[15:18] <dhok> like breaking of *ɛ *ɔ (tbf Portuguese didn't do that one either)
[15:19] <dhok> you could probably keep a small case distinction too
[15:19] <travisb> you want to preserve [ts] for VL /t_j k_j/, don't you?
[15:19] <dhok> you caught me
[15:19] <dhok> but I was also gonna have t d -> ts / _i u
[15:20] <guitarplayer> Mördscher
[15:20] <Caroline> Do Hawai'ians pronounce kitty as titty
[15:20] <dhok> perhaps only after you have a Portuguese-style raising of final vowels
[15:20] <dhok> so you'd have reflexes like <çu> for *tu and <gaç> for *cattus
[15:21] <travisb> why don't you do something like preserve [p t k] for VL /p t k/, something only found in small island within western Romance?
[15:21] <dhok> where's that small island?
[15:22] <dhok> you mean no intervocalic voicing?
[15:22] <dhok> ...hmm
[15:22] <travisb> Aragonese and some Occitan dialects
[15:22] <travisb> yeah
[15:22] <travisb> *islands
[15:22] <dhok> "High Aragonese dialects (alto aragonés), along with some dialects of Gascon, have preserved the voicelessness of many intervocalic stop consonants, e.g. CLETAM > cleta ("sheep hurdle", Cat. cleda, Fr. claie), CUCULLIATAM > cocullata ("crested lark", Sp. cogujada, Cat. cogullada)"
[15:22] <dhok> ooooh
[15:22] <dhok> that's cool
[15:23] <dhok> isn't gascon also the only dialect of western romance that did *k -> tʃ instead of ts
[15:23] <dhok> or was that picard?
[15:23] <travisb> wouldn't know
[15:24] <dhok> there's one of them in northern France anyways
[15:24] <dhok> the real question is
[15:24] <dhok> what did VL look like in about 300 AD?
[15:24] <dhok> that's something that's hard to find out for romlangs- if you are setting a language in Hungary or Iberia you can more or less figure out what it'll look like
[15:25] <dhok> because it fits on the dialect continuum
[15:25] <travisb> wouldn't the Azores be settled from Africa rather than from Europe, so that makes that what did *African* VL look in about 300 AD
[15:25] <dhok> but if you have a dialect of VL in the Azores and then in the 4th century it drops off the map...
[15:25] <dhok> oh well at that point you're conjecturing more than not
[15:26] <travisb> since very little is known about African Romance
[15:26] <dhok> yeah
[15:27] <travisb> it's like a Romance language set in Hungary - all we know about Pannonian Romance is some placenames and some loanwords in Hungarian
[15:27] <dhok> usually, I ask Dewrad, but Dewrad has a marked dislike of wacky romlangs because it's too easy to make Brithenig 2.0
[15:27] <dhok> and brithenig is stupid
[15:28] <dhok> you actually probably could get a brithenig on the Azores, but for a totally different reason: isolated speech communities cut off from a wider context tend to develop baroque features
[15:29] <dhok> rather than "language X spoken in region Y becomes language Y with a lexicon from X," which is an unsophisticated way of doing this
[15:32] <dhok> imo, wacky or conservative a posteriori languages are just fine if you can justify them
[15:32] <dhok> consider
[15:32] <dhok> if Sardinian didn't exist
[15:32] <dhok> anyone who tried to invent it would be laughed out of town
[15:32] <Caroline> http://i.imgur.com/bN2cSsy.jpg
[15:33] <Caroline> So does this count as indecent exposure
[15:33] <Caroline> I mean
[15:33] <Caroline> You can't see his bits
[15:33] <dhok> caroline: saw that on r/justneckbeardthings earlier
[15:37] <dhok> anyways, travisb, the real question, to my mind, is
[15:38] <dhok> the real question isn't "what can I keep from Latin", it's "what CAN'T I"
[15:38] <dhok> for all we know, for example, maybe North African Romance maintained the passive
[15:38] <dhok> but we'll never know, probably
[15:39] <dhok> were there passives found in the graffiti at Pompeii?
[15:40] <travisb> so you can essentially create a language that split from Vulgar Latin in the early centuries CE completely independently of Romance
[15:40] <travisb> such that you can create a language that is descended from Vulgar Latin but *isn't* Romance in the sense we know today
[15:41] <dhok> Hmmm
[15:42] <dhok> of course you'd have to figure out some way to make it interesting and not-Latin
[15:42] <dhok> but not-Latin on its own terms
[15:42] <travisb> one thing you could definitely have is loans from Berber
[15:43] <dhok> that assumes you're settling from North Africa
[15:43] <travisb> yeah
[15:43] <dhok> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volta_do_mar
[15:44] <dhok> this is relevant
[15:44] <@Brel> "This monstrosity must be torn down immediately!" claims local harridan and book-club member, Naki Pushkin. "The trees in the garden spell a frightening word from the balcony; and the tower looks like a - a - well, you know!"
[15:44] <@Brel> all the more reason to keep it
[15:44] <dhok> because it might be that the reason the Azores are Portuguese rather than Berber is that it's way easier to get there from Portugal
[15:44] <@Brel> we need fertility symbols in our city
[15:45] <cntr> 01:50 <Caroline> Do Hawai'ians pronounce kitty as titty
[15:45] <cntr> most dialects would say "kitty"
[15:45] <cntr> [kiti]
[15:45] <@Brel> yeah, Hawaiian lost /t/ not /k/
[15:46] <cntr> actually, they might say [kiki]
[15:46] <dhok> though there are some dialects of Hawai'ian that merged k -> t, not t -> k
[15:47] <dhok> so they have [t] where the rest of the islands have [k]
[15:47] <Radius> not quite
[15:47] <Radius> hawaiian had k > ? across all dialects
[15:48] <Radius> this left /t/, which backed to [k] in most dialects but not the westernmost ones
[15:48] <dhok> oh right
[15:48] <dhok> woops
[15:48] <Radius> however
[15:49] <Radius> the so-called /k/ can be pronounced in all sorts of ways, since there are no other lingual obstruents to contrast with, and [k] varies freely with [t] and [tS] and voiced versions of those and sometimes even fricative versions
[15:49] <Radius> and so even though it's not contrastive, these days they tend to preserve English consonant values
[15:51] <dhok> hmm
[15:51] <dhok> you could do something wacky like that in Azorean
[15:51] <dhok> maybe pull an Arapaho and do *k -> ʔ, *p -> k
[15:52] <dhok> which actually sounds like a terrible idea but w/e
[15:52] <dhok> if you're living on small, isolated islands all sorts of things can happen
[15:52] <dhok> then uh
[15:53] <dhok> *g -> ŋ (presumably tʃ dʒ as allophones of *k *g were already around by 300? oh, wait, sardinian didn't so nvm)
[15:53] <dhok> su ŋakku 'the cat'
[15:53] <dhok> er
[15:53] <dhok> su ʔattu
[15:54] <travisb> the thing is that Vulgar Latin may not have been uniform in 300 CE
[15:54] <dhok> right
[15:55] <dhok> well if you're colonizing from North Africa you just need a plausible VL
[15:55] <dhok> not an actual VL
[15:55] <travisb> if you're descending Azorean from Western Romance, it probably already had tS dZ for *k_j *g_j
[15:55] <dhok> because you don't realy know what that would be
[15:55] <dhok> hmm
[15:55] <dhok> but you could certainly go from NAfrica, which might be closer to Sardinain
[15:55] <dhok> ...which is a shot in the dark but as good a shot as any
[15:56] <travisb> most things I've written assume that African Romance was closer to Sardinian, yes
[15:57] <dhok> so, colonize the azores from North Africa
[15:58] <dhok> this basically feels like cheating
[15:58] <travisb> about the volta do mar, it'd probably be more intuitive for some people to do it by accident from Africa than from Portugal
[15:58] <travisb> because to go from Portugal they'd have to go against the wind, whereas to go from Africa they'd have to go perpendicular to the wind
[15:59] <dhok> hmmm
[15:59] <dhok> yes, you're probably correct
[16:01] <dhok> i'm thinking a direct/oblique case distinction and maintenance of the Latin future?
[16:01] <dhok> but probably not the passive
[16:02] <dhok> then, you'd have a big plosive shift
[16:02] <dhok> where *g -> ŋ
[16:02] <travisb> preserving latin case distinctions is a less "out there" thing to do, since they are still present in eastern Romance, and were preserved until a relatively late date in western Romance
[16:02] <dhok> right
[16:03] <dhok> so *g -> ŋ, and then *k -> ʔ with *p -> k to fill in the gap
[16:03] <dhok> you can have /b/ without /p/ so that can be left alone, but I'm not sure what you would do with *d
[16:04] <travisb> preserve d rather than having d > D
[16:04] <dhok> because /b d t k ʔ/ is a strange plosive system
[16:04] <dhok> very strange
[16:04] <travisb> nah /b d t k ?/ isn't that strange
[16:04] <dhok> hmm ok
[16:04] <travisb> if any lenis stop is to be missing it's /g/
[16:04] <dhok> then uh
[16:05] <travisb> if any fortis stop is to be missing it's /p/
[16:05] <dhok> you could preserve Latin *w as /w/ instead of /v/?
[16:05] <travisb> how early did w > B happen though?
[16:05] <dhok> hmm good point
[16:05] <dhok> pretty early, I think
[16:05] <travisb> IIRC this was something that happened essentially in Vulgar Latin
[16:06] <dhok> there's a joke that "blessed are the Spaniards, for whom to drink is to live"
[16:06] <dhok> that dates back pretty early
[16:06] <dhok> at least to the late Empire, I think
[16:06] <travisb> well w > B happened in all of Romance, not just Ibero-Romance
[16:08] <dhok> right
[16:08] <travisb> and I'm not sure about that joke, because B > b occurred relatively late in Ibero-Romance
[16:08] <travisb> whoops
[16:08] <travisb> b > B
[16:08] <travisb> e.g. Ladino still hasn't had b > B
[16:08] <dhok> you could easily merge *b and *w, certainly
[16:09] <dhok> (as Spanish did)
[16:09] <dhok> so this leaves you with a consonant inventory of what
[16:09] <travisb> what I meant is that the final merger of *b and *w happened relatively late in Castilian
[16:09] <dhok>  /t k ʔ b~β d m n ŋ f s r l j/
[16:09] <travisb> because Old Castilian still had /b B/
[16:09] <dhok> you can't get away with preserving *h can yo
[16:09] <dhok> u
[16:09] <dhok> huh
[16:10] <travisb> if you're going to have /h/ you're gonna have to get it from somewhere else than *h, because *h was uniformly lost in Romance
[16:10] <dhok> but this isn't romance...it's a sister language
[16:11] <dhok> but depending on how early it was lost
[16:11] <dhok> i agree it's really unlikely to survive
[16:11] <travisb> well IIRC *h was lost quite early
[16:11] <dhok> you could have *s -> h
[16:11] <dhok> but then where do you get /s/
[16:11] <dhok> since you don't have a θ or a /ts/ to get it from
[16:11] <travisb> you could do *s > h or *f > h, both of which happened in Romance varieties
[16:11] <travisb> do it conditionally
[16:11] <dhok> yeah
[16:12] <dhok> is /f h/ even a workable fricative system
[16:12] <travisb> well there are Castilian varieties that still preserve /h/ from *f
[16:12] <dhok> but they have /s/ too
[16:12] <dhok> or they have /θ/
[16:12] <dhok> i know arapaho has /θ ʃ h/ as a fricative inventory
[16:12] <travisb> well IIRC these are southwestern varieties
[16:13] <travisb> so they might also have *s > h in codas
[16:13] <dhok> yeah
[16:13] <dhok> ...if you have *s -> h then some weird shit would happen with inflection, but that's OK
[16:14] <dhok> also initial sC clusters
[16:14] <travisb> do *s > h conditionally
[16:14] <dhok> right
[16:14] <travisb> you could copy Castilian and do it only in codas
[16:14] <dhok> eh
[16:15] <travisb> but then that might be copying Castilian too much
[16:15] <dhok> could copy Greek and do it only before a vowel
[16:15] <travisb> yeah
[16:15] <dhok> so this gives you what
[16:16] <travisb> what're you going to do with *t_j *k_j *g_j?
[16:16] <dhok> good question
[16:16] <dhok> *k_j *g_j don't have to do anything if they don'twant to, sardinian didn't
[16:17] <travisb> if you're making your language descended from African Romance, I can see *k_j > k and *g_j > g, yes
[16:17] <travisb> what does *t_j do in Sardinian though?
[16:17] <dhok> i'm actually trying to find out
[16:17] <dhok> "/ts/ (or [tts]), a denti-alveolar affricate consonant written tz, corresponds to Italian z or ci- (a natural evolution of /t/ before /i/)."
[16:17] <dhok> so t_j -> ts
[16:18] <dhok> could make that turn into /s/ itself, which is pretty Portuguese-ish, but then we don't have very many other examples of /s/ since we turned it to *h
[16:18] <dhok> er to /h/
[16:20] <dhok> and you could extend this elsewhere before high vowels, too, so you could get çu 'you' or ʔaçu 'cat' (initial ʔ is usually quite rare though...)
[16:20] <travisb> yeah I'd myself go with *t_j > a roo
[16:20] <travisb> whoops
[16:20] <travisb> *t_j > s
[16:20] <dhok> what about the vowels
[16:20] <dhok> just do sardinian, cut the length distinction and call it a day?
[16:21] <dhok> seems boring
[16:22] <dhok> you -could- maintain vowel length but I don't want to do that either
[16:22] <travisb> what options are there to do? there's basically what western romance and northern italian varieties did (with or without diphthongization), there's what southern italian varieties did, there's what sardinian did, and there's what eastern romance did, and then there's doing something completely different
[16:23] <travisb> the thing is how likely is it that vowel length survived in Romance to 300 AD?
[16:23] <travisb> *Vulgar Latin
[16:24] <travisb> in no part of Romance is vowel length preserved; while there have been Romance varieties with vowel length, it's always been new vowel length
[16:24] <dhok> well it must have existed into the early empire at least, because if you compare Sardinian, Romanian and western Romance you end up concluding that you must have at one point had it
[16:25] <dhok> iirc, sicilian had the normal *i e ɛ a ɔ o u system, then had *e -> i and *o -> u
[16:25] <travisb> but did vowel length clearly survive up to 300 CE?
[16:25] <dhok> no.
[16:25] <dhok> unless you want to handwave and say But North Africa
[16:25] <dhok> which I don't much want to
[16:25] <dhok> but you -could- postulate a different vowel development for north africa!
[16:26] <travisb> so southern italian varieties actually group with western romance, with its similarity to sardinian being an independent later innovation
[16:27] <dhok> "Saint Augustine also states that "African ears have no quick perception of the shortness or length of (Latin) vowels""
[16:27] <dhok> so it sounds like we have a Sardinian situation
[16:27] <dhok> right
[16:28] == Yatalac [webchat@3da1d69e.hsd1.il.5aa6454b.net.hmsk] has quit [Ping timeout: 272 seconds]
[16:29] <dhok> i need to go home so I'm copy-pasting this into my scratchpad thread
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Bemidji, United States
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Finally have a proto-lang and daughter changes that I really, really like, and that I think I can run with. We'll call it Proto-Nahtak, from nahtāk 'people, tribe'. Briefly, its phonology is as follows:

Plain stops/affricates: /p t ts tʃ k kʷ ʔ/ <p t c č k kʷ ʔ>
Ejectives: /p' t' ts' tʃ' k' kʷ'/ <p' t' c' č' k' kʷ'>
Nasals: /m n ŋ/ <m n ŋ>
Fricatives: /θ s ʃ h ɬ/ <θ s š h ł>
Liquids: /w ɾ l j/ <w r l y>

Short vowels: /a e i o ɨ/  <a e i o u>
Long vowels: /a: e: i: o: ɨ:/  <ā ē ī ō ɨ̄>

Syllable structure is CV(C). Permitted codas are /t k ʔ N s š h w l y/, where N is a nasal assimilating to the following consonant (or, word-finally, /n/).
——————————-

Okay, we've gotten that over with. On to the grammar, which is a lot more interesting. Proto-Nahtak is heavily influenced by the Algonquian languages- I've been on something of an Algonquian bender recently. There are basically three lexical classes- nouns, verbs, and particles- and the verb is the pivot of the sentence, to the extent that many Proto-Nahtak sentences consist solely of a verb. I've worked out the nominal morphology pretty well, but the verbal morphology only somewhat, so I'll start with nouns.

Nouns may be animate or inanimate in gender, and this distinction is mostly but not entirely along the lines of natural animacy. So, heθe 'dog' is animate, and nismā 'potato' is inanimate, but there are also many seemingly illogical assignments- compare animate kʷēło 'deciduous tree' with inanimate ʔahmi 'conifer'.

Nouns carry inflection for possession, number, and (in animates only) obviation. They also have distinct locative and (again in animates only) vocative forms. (Inflection to come- gotta go deal with some bread...)
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, ,
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OK, onto nouns.  We'll start with animates, since they have more inflection than inanimates. Animate nouns inflect for possession, number, and obviation; they have locative and vocative forms.

All nouns in addition can take prenouns, a closed class of descriptive prefixes which basically act like adjectives in European languages. (There is no lexical class of adjective in Proto-Nahtak- their functions are handled by prenouns and stative verbs). The template for a noun is:

[possessive prefix]-[prenoun]-stem-[obviation/plurality]-[locative/vocative]-[possessive suffix]


We'll start with possession. Possessed animate nouns always take a prefix and a suffix. A table of possessive markers:

Sg Pl
1 nɨ-...-(h)et nɨ-...nɨk
12 Ø łɨ-...nɨk
2 łɨ-...-(h)et łɨ-...(e)k
3AN.PROX hā(n)-...(h)et hā(n)-...(e)k
3AN.OBV wī(y)-...-(h)et wī(y)...(e)k


All words in Proto-Nahtak must begin with a consonant, but prenouns do not necessarily start with one. If a prefix contains an optional consonant, this only shows up before vowel-initial prenouns. Optional vowels in suffixes appear when the suffix must come after a consonant, and optional consonants after a vowel.

When the possessor is plural, the possessive suffix distinguishes first-person from non first-person. A first-person inclusive possessor takes a second-person prefix and a first-person suffix.

Some examples:

heθe 'dog' -> nɨ-heθe-het 'my dog'
šɨ̄šē 'duck' -> łɨ-šɨ̄šē-nɨk 'our (including your) duck'
θēno 'cow' -> hā-θēno-k 'his/her cow'

Prenouns come between any possessive prefix and the noun stem. They are semantic, not syntactic, and usually encode adjective-like semantic primes. Examples include -ōsi- 'large' and -cōʔa- 'tall'. There may be an /h/ inserted before the prenoun if there would be a vowel hiatus or word-initial vowel. Some examples:

nɨ-hōsi-heθe-het 'my big dog'
cōʔakʷēh 'the tall woman'

This is followed by the stem. This may always stand alone (unless the noun is obligatorily possessed); if so, it is unpossessed, singular, proximate (if animate) and neither locative nor vocative.

The stem is followed by the plurality/obviation slot. Animate nouns combine these into a single affix.

Singular Plural
Proximate -Ø- -(y)āt-
Obviative -(y)ēh/-(w)ōh -(e)hta/-(o)hta


Optional consonants appear after vowels, and likewise with optional vowels. The plural markers signal a retention of some sort of vowel-harmony system in pre-Proto-Nahtak: when the first vowel of the root is a front vowel /i ī e ē/, use the /e/ variant; when it's a back vowel /a ā o ō/, use the /o/ variant. The behavior of the high central vowels /ɨ ɨ̄/ varied by branch; some branches treated them as front, others as back. (The branch I'm working on first treated /ɨ ɨ̄/ as front, so that's what I'll do in examples.)

When the singular obviative ending would have taken the same vowel as the last vowel of the root, they merged, producing -ēh/-ōh, so that heθe 'dog' obviates to heθēh, not heθe-yēh. Similar mergers and lengthening occured in the plural obviative: heθēhta, not heθehta.

Examples:

hēs-ēh 'beavers'
nahtāk-ohta 'tribes, peoples (obviated)'
łɨ-č'ān-ōh-et 'your friends'

Finally, locative and vocative endings may appear (though before any possessive suffixes). The locative ending, again, varies by vowel harmony: in words whose first vowel is front it is -hse/-ise, in back-vowel words -hso/-aso. After the plural proximate animate ending, simply add -se/-so.

The vocative ending is -(ʔ)ā. It only occurs on animate nouns.

—————————-

Inanimates

Inanimates are simpler in inflection than animates. They have no obviation or vocative markers, and possession is a bit simpler in that no possessive suffix is needed if the possessor is singular. To wit:

Sg Pl
1 nɨ- nɨ-...nɨk
12 Ø łɨ-...nɨk
2 łɨ- łɨ-...(e)k
3AN.PROX hā(n)- hā(n)-...(e)k
3AN.OBV wī(y)- wī(y)...(e)k


Prenouns do not distinguish gender.

There is no obviation marking in inanimate nouns, so they have only a plural to deal with in the obviation/plurality slot. This morpheme is -iki/-hki and does not distinguish vowel harmony. If the word ends in -h, simply add -ki; if it ends in -k, add -i. Examples:

nismā-hki 'potatoes'
māhi-ki 'fish'
yahmɨ-hki 'knives'
mɨkʷik-i 'clouds'

The locative is the same as in animates.

[EDIT: Also adding an instrumental marker -(y)eši-/-(y)oši-. This is the same in animates and inanimates and goes in the locative/vocative slot.]
? Matrix Chronicler of the Myriad
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What the hell is the twelfth person?
? kusuri posts: 37
, Possibly the Bosonest Boson to ever be a Boson in CO, USA, EARTH, MWAY, UNIV ever.
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An inclusive first person? "I and you, we and y'all"?
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Bemidji, United States
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Yeah, it's inclusive first person. Note that it takes a second-person prefix but a first-person suffix.
? kusuri posts: 37
, Possibly the Bosonest Boson to ever be a Boson in CO, USA, EARTH, MWAY, UNIV ever.
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Ooh, I like that little idea. Stolen.
? Rhetorica Your Writing System Sucks
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Now to figure out what to do with the fourth through the eleventh persons!
? dhok posts: 235
, Alkali Metal, Bemidji, United States
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OK, time to make myself a mug of coffee and figure out the verbal system.

There are four categories of verb in Proto-Nahtak: intransitives with inanimate subjects (VII), intransitives with animate subjects (VIA), transitives with inanimate objects (VTI), and transitives with animate objects (VTA). (Inanimates can't be subjects of transitive verbs). We'll run through each of these in turn.

VII

Intransitive verbs with inanimate subjects are arguably the easiest to deal with. They have only number marking, since first, second, etc. person are by definition animate, and being intransitive they don't have inverse or polypersonal marking.

Here's the general template for a VII in Proto-Nahtak:

[number marking/order]-(TAM)-(preverbs)-verb root-(voice)-(medials)-(more TAM)-(finals)

Entire classes of affix, such as direct/inverse marking, polypersonal marking, and so forth, are entirely wiped out from VIIs.

The first slot contains prefixes for number and order. Number may be singular or plural, agreeing with the subject, which should be pretty self-explanatory. Order may be independent or conjunct; independent order is used in most main clauses, while conjunct order is used in various sorts of dependent clauses. (In at least two branches, there is an additional distinction between conjunct II, used in clauses expressing purpose and for questions, and conjunct I, used in everything else. A third branch has only one conjunct order, but it's derived from Conjunct II, not Conjunct I. We'll therefore reconstruct the distinction back to Proto-Nahtak). A quick table:

Singular Plural
Independent Ø- ʔa(h)-
Conjunct I sɨ̄(y)- ša(s)-
Conjunct II we(y)- wā(h)-


Consonants in parentheses appear before vowels. The plural /h/ or /s/ will also appear before a consonant if it is alone and not part of a cluster.

Additionally, a "dummy" prefix ʔɨ- appears in the independent singular when a following root or affix would create a word-initial consonant cluster.

The second affix slot contains a few TAM affixes- an optative -nē- and two aspect markers: perfective -ka- and habitual -čo-. If the optative must coexist with an aspect marker, use -nka- and -nčo-, respectively.

It's in the third morpheme slot that things really get interesting. Here we have preverbs, which are a large and very possibly somewhat open-ended class of lexical morphemes. Up to three may appear on a given verb, including preverbs signifying...

direction: -co- 'up', -ht'i- 'east', -swa- 'away'

adverbial qualities: -θih- 'almost', -k'oʔ- 'again', -yaN- 'slowly'

auxiliary-like nuance: -kʷe- 'be able to', -łɨ- 'stop, cease'

time or number: -hāN- 'once', -θɨk- 'yesterday/tomorrow', -k'ore- 'in the winter'

Many of these are pretty transparently related to free words: compare -k'ore- 'in the winter' with the free noun k'orā 'winter', or -ht'i- 'east' with -ht'ew- 'it dawns'.

Medials are generally fairly rare in VIIs, because they generally involve incorporated objects, instruments or other nominal-like arguments. One exception is when the passive voice affix -(h)iknɨ- is attached to a VTI (transitive verb with an inanimate object) to delete the original subject; a previously incorporated instrument might show up. We will learn more about medials when we go over VAIs.

The TAM II slot includes information on tense and various mood markers. The class of mood affixes appears to have been somewhat broad and possibly open-ended at an early stage of the language's development (the prefixed optative seems to be a special, possibly older, mood); the class of tense affixes seems to have been limited to a nonpast -Ø-, preterite -(w)anē- and gnomic -(i)hči-.

The mood affixes are somewhat more interesting; in all branches they are closely tied to the verb's order, and at least the following combinations can be confidently reconstructed:

In the independent order, an unmarked independent indicative mood can be reconstructed, as well as an imperative (though not in VIIs) and a dubitative/potential in -ŋēk-.

With a conjunct I prefix, an unmarked conjunct indicative is accompanied by a conjunct potential (again in -ŋēk) and an indicative conditional in -rī(y)-. Additionally, dubitative and outright counterfactual forms of the conditional mood can be formed, respectively, with -ŋīre- and -hcī(t).

The conjunct II prefix has indicative and potential forms, formed identically to those of the conjunct I forms, with a different prefix. Additionally, an interrogative mood in -(e)pē- is formed with Conjunct II.

Mood suffixes, if any, follow tense suffixes. However, note that the potential -ŋēk combines with a previous preterite suffix -(w)anē- to form -(h)oŋē-.

Finally, we have...finals. These are generally conjunction-like suffixes such as -ča 'and, too', -mɨ̄ 'but', -cik...-cik 'on the one hand...on the other hand...'. There is a negative affix -(a)kʷi which is probably the most important final, and it has a number of transparent spin-offs, such as -yekʷi 'not at all', -(a)kʷičik...-(a)kʷičik 'neither...nor...'

The dummy final -i appears when there are no other suffixes on a root, or between a consonant-final root and a consonant-initial suffix.

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Here are a few examples of glosses VII verbs and sentences before I go to bed.

we-čo-k'ore-čāta-sakʷ-epē
conj.II.sg-hab-winter-often-be.snowing(VII)-interr.
'Does it snow often in the winter'?

(Ø-)ʔaʔiš-iyekʷi-mɨ̄ pek'ɨ̄
(in.sg.ind)-catch.fire(VII)-not at all-but log
'The log isn't catching fire at all.'

čī-ki hōsi-nismā-hki ʔah-cāy-iča
this.in-PL large-potato-PL in.pl.ind-be.three(VII)-and
'And there are these three large potatoes./These large potatoes are also three in number.'
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