I've been working on this conlang (Methinat) for several months now, but never quite been satisfied with it. As general background, it's a PIElang spoken in a concountry of mine in a collaborative conworld. Enough said, really. Now, I'm determined to get everything worked out, so I'm just going to post my rambling musings here, since I haven't much used Anthologica otherwise, and it's about time I gave it some love. To be continued in the next post...
So, I'm going to start with the phonology of the earliest attested phase of the language, termed Ancient Methinat, spoken around 2100 BC. The most major phonological developments from PIE include palatalisation of the front dorsals, resolution of the syllabic consonants (including laryngeals), fricativisation of the aspirates, merger of the laryngeals, and loss of labialisation. All this change produces the following inventory:
Stressed vowels are marked with an acute, long vowels with a macron.
The inherited stress system is virtually intact by this point, though it gets reorganised within several hundred years. The vowel ə has its locus in syllabic sonorants, but spread to all zero-grade root syllables, similarly to Tocharian. This means the primary ablaut system is o ~ e ~ ə. There are a few minor synchronic rules that should be mentioned: TsT clusters (T is any stop) are regularly reduced to sT (except old labiovelars reduce to w); NB clusters (B is a voiced stop) assimilate to NN. h and s are also in a mostly complementary distribution in inherited words, with h appearing word-initially and intervocalically.
| Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | Unvoiced | p | t | c | k | ʔ | |
| Voiced | b | d | ɟ <j> | g | |||
| Fricative | f | θ <þ> | s | ç <ś> | x | h | |
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Approximant | w | l | r | j <y> | |||
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
Stressed vowels are marked with an acute, long vowels with a macron.
The inherited stress system is virtually intact by this point, though it gets reorganised within several hundred years. The vowel ə has its locus in syllabic sonorants, but spread to all zero-grade root syllables, similarly to Tocharian. This means the primary ablaut system is o ~ e ~ ə. There are a few minor synchronic rules that should be mentioned: TsT clusters (T is any stop) are regularly reduced to sT (except old labiovelars reduce to w); NB clusters (B is a voiced stop) assimilate to NN. h and s are also in a mostly complementary distribution in inherited words, with h appearing word-initially and intervocalically.
A Satem language that retains an a-o distinction? (Edit: wait, it sounds like the laryngeals are treated somewhat differently from the core branches- details?)
Otherwise, this looks really interesting! Do you have a list of sound changes worked out? How conservative is the grammar?
Otherwise, this looks really interesting! Do you have a list of sound changes worked out? How conservative is the grammar?
Heh, the merger of a and o comes up pretty soon after this. And the loss of labialisation was pretty recent. On the laryngeals, they merge into ʔ (probably via h before s debuccalised). They still colour vowels as normal (so h₁e, h₂e, h₃e > ʔe, ʔa, ʔo). They are lost immediately after this phase (in the normal way, with compensatory lengthening after vowels, simple loss otherwise).
Thanks! I've done several PIElangs now and then, but I've never quite been happy with how they've turned out. This time, though, it actually looks like a real language. Sound changes are here, though I'll be fiddling with them slightly, particularly some of the later changes. Note also that not everything is marked there, such as the minor assimilation sc > śc, or the (very early) shift Dʰ > Ð. Grammar-wise, it gets less conservative over time.
At this point, the only major changes are a switch to VSO order (due to contact with Egyptian (or, due to the rules of the conworld, a language identical to Egyptian)). Eventually, the inherited aspect system gets reanalysed into a tense system, with aorist > preterite, ousting the inherited tense system. An amusing side-effect is that all preterites end up as root formations, while presents are all characterised. The middles survive, but are functionally reanalysed into an oppositional intransitive (built to aorist stems, with either e-grade or zero-grade of the root) and a passive (built to present stems). Tenses in the old middles are handled by the inherited -r suffix.
In nouns, the dative and locative merge soon after this stage, partly motivated by the homophony of the dative and instrumental singulars. The locative in -i is productive up to this point, with the old endingless locative only surviving in adverbs, as does the allative, which is lost as a productive case. The stress system is largely simplified into static and mobile stress (though thematics retain barytone and oxytone). Static stress becomes greatly unproductive in nouns that don't ablaut fairly late, with thematics only just starting to adopt mobile stress in the modern language (partially helped by an old class of thematic nouns with inherited mobile stress, which in origin are nouns whose stems end in a laryngeal).
Thanks! I've done several PIElangs now and then, but I've never quite been happy with how they've turned out. This time, though, it actually looks like a real language. Sound changes are here, though I'll be fiddling with them slightly, particularly some of the later changes. Note also that not everything is marked there, such as the minor assimilation sc > śc, or the (very early) shift Dʰ > Ð. Grammar-wise, it gets less conservative over time.
At this point, the only major changes are a switch to VSO order (due to contact with Egyptian (or, due to the rules of the conworld, a language identical to Egyptian)). Eventually, the inherited aspect system gets reanalysed into a tense system, with aorist > preterite, ousting the inherited tense system. An amusing side-effect is that all preterites end up as root formations, while presents are all characterised. The middles survive, but are functionally reanalysed into an oppositional intransitive (built to aorist stems, with either e-grade or zero-grade of the root) and a passive (built to present stems). Tenses in the old middles are handled by the inherited -r suffix.
In nouns, the dative and locative merge soon after this stage, partly motivated by the homophony of the dative and instrumental singulars. The locative in -i is productive up to this point, with the old endingless locative only surviving in adverbs, as does the allative, which is lost as a productive case. The stress system is largely simplified into static and mobile stress (though thematics retain barytone and oxytone). Static stress becomes greatly unproductive in nouns that don't ablaut fairly late, with thematics only just starting to adopt mobile stress in the modern language (partially helped by an old class of thematic nouns with inherited mobile stress, which in origin are nouns whose stems end in a laryngeal).
Ok, now for the nominal morphology. I'll leave accent-ablaut for later, since it's such a difficult question (and there are lots of difference answers to consider). For this post, we'll do endings.
The surviving cases at this point are nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, and instrumental. I don't believe that PIE had an ablative case, and the allative was apparently already on its way out. The PIE terminations were as follows:
For the dat. and ins. plurals, see this article. I also assume that the conventional gen.pl. ending -oHom was generalised from the o-stems, which isn't implausible, leaving an athematic -Hom.
The full-grade alternants of the ablauting endings are generalised through athematics, and with regular sound changes this yields:
And here's what the system looks like by the merger of o into a:
It is at about this point that the opposition between dative and locative breaks down, putting their endings into competition. Generally, the locative endings are lost, except locative -i wins out over dative -ī, due to pressure from the instrumental. In the thematics, either locative -ai directly wins out over dative -āi, or the latter ending was remodelled to -ai, in order to preserve the general pattern that the thematic endings are the athemtic endings suffixed to the formant -a-.
I'll finish this post with a discussion of the neuter endings. It's fairly uncontroversial that the neuter didn't originally have a plural, and that one was created partly from a collective (providing the nom-acc plural), and partly by importing the masculine endings (providing the remaining cases). In Methinat, the nom-acc was instead created by an analogy with the vocative. In the athematic singular, both were endingless. On the basis of that identity, the vocative plural -es (which happens to be identical to the nom.pl.) was imported to provide a neuter nom-acc plural ending. For the thematics, the same case ending (in this case, -oes > -ōs) was imported. The other cases were simply imported from the masculine. At some point after this, the vocative then merged with the nominative.
The surviving cases at this point are nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, and instrumental. I don't believe that PIE had an ablative case, and the allative was apparently already on its way out. The PIE terminations were as follows:
| athematic | thematic | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sing. | plur. | sing. | plur. | |
| nom. | -s | -es | -os | -oes > -ōs |
| acc. | -m̥ | -m̥s | -om | -oms |
| neut. | -Ø | N/A | -om | N/A |
| gen. | -s ~ -és | -Hom | -os | -oHom |
| dat. | -ei | -os | -oei > -ōi | -oos > -ōs |
| loc. | -i | -su | -oi | -osu |
| ins. | -h ~ -éh | -is | -oh | -ois |
The full-grade alternants of the ablauting endings are generalised through athematics, and with regular sound changes this yields:
| athematic | thematic | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sing. | plur. | sing. | plur. | |
| nom. | -s | -es | -os | -ōs |
| acc. | -əm | -əns | -om | -ons |
| neut. | -Ø | -es | -om | -ōs |
| gen. | -es | -ʔom | -os | -oʔom |
| dat. | -ei | -os | -ōi | -ōs |
| loc. | -i | -su | -oi | -ohu |
| ins. | -eʔ | -is | -oʔ | -ois |
And here's what the system looks like by the merger of o into a:
| athematic | thematic | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| sing. | plur. | sing. | plur. | |
| nom. | -s | -es | -as | -ās |
| acc. | -əm | -əns | -am | -ans |
| neut. | -Ø | -es | -am | -ās |
| gen. | -es | -am | -as | -aam |
| dat. | -ī | -as | -āi | -ās |
| loc. | -i | -su | -ai | -ahu |
| ins. | -ī | -is | -ū | -ais |
I'll finish this post with a discussion of the neuter endings. It's fairly uncontroversial that the neuter didn't originally have a plural, and that one was created partly from a collective (providing the nom-acc plural), and partly by importing the masculine endings (providing the remaining cases). In Methinat, the nom-acc was instead created by an analogy with the vocative. In the athematic singular, both were endingless. On the basis of that identity, the vocative plural -es (which happens to be identical to the nom.pl.) was imported to provide a neuter nom-acc plural ending. For the thematics, the same case ending (in this case, -oes > -ōs) was imported. The other cases were simply imported from the masculine. At some point after this, the vocative then merged with the nominative.
This is looking very interesting...like Tocharian, it's got this sense of being almost a "standard IE language", but not quite there.
I'm assuming /c j ś/ are from *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ? At first I assumed ś was from *ḱ as in Balto-Slavic and Sanskrit and got a bit confused...
Also, it's cool that you worked accent out...I find the accent system reconstructed for PIE so complicated that I usually don't bother with it. (Now I'm starting to get the PIE bug...)
Also, while we're talking, you requested some PIE etymological dictionaries on the ZBB a while back, and I'm delighted to report that I have almost all of them, including Baltic, filched from Libgen- PM me your email address?
I'm assuming /c j ś/ are from *ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ? At first I assumed ś was from *ḱ as in Balto-Slavic and Sanskrit and got a bit confused...
Also, it's cool that you worked accent out...I find the accent system reconstructed for PIE so complicated that I usually don't bother with it. (Now I'm starting to get the PIE bug...)
Also, while we're talking, you requested some PIE etymological dictionaries on the ZBB a while back, and I'm delighted to report that I have almost all of them, including Baltic, filched from Libgen- PM me your email address?
I actually got a lot of my ideas from reading about Tocharian. The role of ə specifically, as will be expanded upon soon, was shamelessly stolen straight from there.
Yes, that's the outcome of the palatalisation, with ś coming via ź, with the same development of the aspiratae to fricatives as Italic.
In regards to accent, I'm a little torn as to exactly what to do. Having read many of Kloekhorst's articles on the accent-ablaut system, I've been forced to abandon some notions, while others are essentially confirmed. The only differences I have in opinion with Kloekhorst are (as always) in the specifics. The options are mostly where down his proposed line of development in the accentual system to break off. Methinat has always been roughly contemporary to Anatolian (in terms of detaching from the family) so it's reasonable that the inherited systems will be similar. Or, I could make Methinat even earlier than Anatolian, in which case I could just straight-up start from the primordial system with no additional changes. But that then adds the problem of assigning lexemes to this system.
That sounds wonderful! I always like to cross-reference the dictionaries I have with one-another, to see where the authors agree and disagree with each other. It's far more enlightening than just being exposed to one viewpoint. I also plan on using said dictionaries to make my own PIE lexicon, mostly for conlanging purposes.
Yes, that's the outcome of the palatalisation, with ś coming via ź, with the same development of the aspiratae to fricatives as Italic.
In regards to accent, I'm a little torn as to exactly what to do. Having read many of Kloekhorst's articles on the accent-ablaut system, I've been forced to abandon some notions, while others are essentially confirmed. The only differences I have in opinion with Kloekhorst are (as always) in the specifics. The options are mostly where down his proposed line of development in the accentual system to break off. Methinat has always been roughly contemporary to Anatolian (in terms of detaching from the family) so it's reasonable that the inherited systems will be similar. Or, I could make Methinat even earlier than Anatolian, in which case I could just straight-up start from the primordial system with no additional changes. But that then adds the problem of assigning lexemes to this system.
That sounds wonderful! I always like to cross-reference the dictionaries I have with one-another, to see where the authors agree and disagree with each other. It's far more enlightening than just being exposed to one viewpoint. I also plan on using said dictionaries to make my own PIE lexicon, mostly for conlanging purposes.
So, it seems likely that the oldest amphidynamic pattern was é/ó-ø-s ~ ø-é-m̥ ~ ø-ø-és (nom ~ acc ~ gen (all amphidynamic nouns are in fact masculine). The newer hysterokinetic and amphikinetic patterns are offshots from this, with various further developments. Therefore, I'm going to take Methinat from a region that never underwent those developments, to make things easier (although, in the long run, I don't think it much matters). Now, this pattern does itself have an interesting two-fold development in Methinat. The three major developments affecting this are: appearance of ə from syllabic consonants; generalisation of the nominative stem to the accusative; generalisation of ə to apophonic zero-grade syllables. These three developments, ordered chronologically, yield the following two patterns: é/ó-ø-s ~ é/ó-ø-əm ~ ə-ø-és (in stems whose suffix does not contain a syllabic consonant in the nominative); and é-ə-s ~ é-ə-əm ~ ə-ə-és (in stems whose suffix does contain a syllabic consonant in the nominative). Thus, we find *déh₃-tr̥-s ~ *dh₃-tér-m̥ ~ *dh₃-tr-és "giver" > dóʔtərs ~ dóʔtərəm ~ dəʔtərés on the one hand, and *déyus ~ *dyéwm̥ ~ *diwés "sky, sky god" > déyus ~ déywəm ~ dəywés.
The proterodynamic pattern was clearly é/ó-ø-Ø ~ ø-é-s (nom-acc ~ gen (all proterodynamics are in fact neuter)). The unique s-stem ablaut is a product of later developments. Unlike the amphidynamic ablaut, proterodynamics all develop the same way, to é/ó-ə-Ø ~ ə-é-es, as in *dór-u ~ *dr-éu-s "tree" > dórəw ~ dəréwes. s-stems, however, all gain a stem alternation between -s- in the nom-acc and -h- in the oblique. Thus: *nébʰ-s-Ø ~ nbʰ-és-s "cloud" > *néβs ~ *nəβéses > néfəs ~ nəféhes. This adds them to the ranks of inherited heteroclites (the numerous r/n-stems, and the occasional l/n-stem). An interesting case is *gʷenh₂- "woman". Szemerényi's Law gives *gʷḗn ~ *gʷnéh₂s, which could easily survive as gḗn ~ gənáʔas, with a synchronically irregular nom-acc sg.
The static nouns are awful to try to reconstruct, but I think it likely that there was a class with ó/é ablaut, though not ḗ/é ablaut. That "Narten" inflection never worked for me. There may have been a class with no ablaut whatsoever, but that doesn't sit right with me either (though, admittedly, it is more likely than "Narten" inflection, given that the two mobile paradigms could have either o- or e-grade roots in the nominative, so it's not out of the question that the static paradigm could too). Anyway, based on what we would expect based on the mobile paradigms, they would probably have this pattern: ó/é-ø-(s) ~ é-ø-(m̥) ~ é-ø-s > ó/é-(ə)-(s) ~ ó/é-(ə)-(əm) ~ é-(ə)-es. A good candidate for a static paradigm is *nógʷʰ-t-s ~ *négʷʰ-t-m̥ ~ *négʷʰ-t-s > nówts ~ nówtəm ~ néwtes.
Next up: Syntax!
The proterodynamic pattern was clearly é/ó-ø-Ø ~ ø-é-s (nom-acc ~ gen (all proterodynamics are in fact neuter)). The unique s-stem ablaut is a product of later developments. Unlike the amphidynamic ablaut, proterodynamics all develop the same way, to é/ó-ə-Ø ~ ə-é-es, as in *dór-u ~ *dr-éu-s "tree" > dórəw ~ dəréwes. s-stems, however, all gain a stem alternation between -s- in the nom-acc and -h- in the oblique. Thus: *nébʰ-s-Ø ~ nbʰ-és-s "cloud" > *néβs ~ *nəβéses > néfəs ~ nəféhes. This adds them to the ranks of inherited heteroclites (the numerous r/n-stems, and the occasional l/n-stem). An interesting case is *gʷenh₂- "woman". Szemerényi's Law gives *gʷḗn ~ *gʷnéh₂s, which could easily survive as gḗn ~ gənáʔas, with a synchronically irregular nom-acc sg.
The static nouns are awful to try to reconstruct, but I think it likely that there was a class with ó/é ablaut, though not ḗ/é ablaut. That "Narten" inflection never worked for me. There may have been a class with no ablaut whatsoever, but that doesn't sit right with me either (though, admittedly, it is more likely than "Narten" inflection, given that the two mobile paradigms could have either o- or e-grade roots in the nominative, so it's not out of the question that the static paradigm could too). Anyway, based on what we would expect based on the mobile paradigms, they would probably have this pattern: ó/é-ø-(s) ~ é-ø-(m̥) ~ é-ø-s > ó/é-(ə)-(s) ~ ó/é-(ə)-(əm) ~ é-(ə)-es. A good candidate for a static paradigm is *nógʷʰ-t-s ~ *négʷʰ-t-m̥ ~ *négʷʰ-t-s > nówts ~ nówtəm ~ néwtes.
Next up: Syntax!