AkanaWiki - User contributions [en]

Klazoo

2024-10-13T01:29:58Z

Corumayas:

Klazoo is an extinct Southern language once spoken at the southernmost tip of Peilaš. Despite its age and conservative vocabulary, it has been of little help in reconstructing Proto-Southern, since it is only extant in a small number of short inscriptions written after speakers of other Southern languages began to exert cultural influence on the area.

[[image:SouthPeilas.png|thumb|right|400px|The approximate locations of confirmed or suspected Klazoo inscriptions in southern Peilaš.]]

= Klazoo Hill Country =

The southern tip of Peilaš has a warm temperate climate. In the northeast it transitions into the humid subtropical lowlands of the east coast. In the west a Mediterranean climate transitions to a coastal desert. The hills along the southeastern margin of the continent have more moderate temperatures and moisture patterns. Gentle southeasterly winds in the winter and strong southerly winds in the summer keep the southern slopes of the hills wet and cooler than many places at the same distance from the equator in northern Peilaš. Temperatures sometimes drop below 5 degrees in the winter, and surpass 30 degrees in summer, but frost or very hot days are rare. Rainfall averages 1400mm on the windward coast, but may be double that on some south facing slopes, or half that on the leeward side.

The Klazoo Hills rise steeply from the east coast of Peilaš, but quickly level out to a series of valleys and ridges that barely exceed 500 meters. The western slopes drop much more gently. These slopes foster a mix of oak and grass, with strong catabatic winds for much of the year. Most of the hills are covered in thin, poorly developed soil, but some valleys have thick, boggy soil. Coastal soils tend to be acidic and leached of nutrients, but still support thick forests of laurel and pine. Some of the myrtles and other trees that grow in equatorial Peilaš have their southernmost habitats here.

The native people of the area spoke a language related to those spoken to the northeast and northwest, but came from a different genetic stock than the speakers of those languages. Their skin was reportedly darker and their hair straighter, and their eyes were usually amber in color. A minority of the population had eyes of a dark purple color, which for some reason correlated very closely with the appearance of webbed fingers and toes. Rumors abound about the physical differences between the Klazoo Hill people and their neighbors on Peilaš, from chronic anemia, to an ability to regulate body temperature in very cold conditions, to a higher likelihood of having perfect pitch. Most of these rumors are probably fairy tales, such as the notion that people in the hills could see in complete darkness. Others, like the total absence of wisdom teeth, are probably exaggerations based on cultural misunderstandings. Given the physical differences, it is unclear how the people of the area came to speak a language related to those from the north. Theories such as conquest, trade, or intermarriage remain untestable.

These theories will likely remain untestable since the extinction of the native population years ago. Their peculiar vulnerability to the virus explains why neighboring groups were not severely affected. The people of the Klazoo Hills were probably preliterate for most of their history, until writing arrived from the west sometime around -400 YP. By -100 YP the Klazoo language had most likely gone extinct along with its speakers.

= The Klazoo Inscriptions =

The corpus of Klazoo comes from fragments written in Klazoo and another language (presented here in English translation), in a script which is poorly adapted to the Klazoo language. Presented here is a rectification based on the best analysis of what the text is supposed to represent. The vowels e and a represent a vertical two vowel system, and y represents palatization, not an independent vowel or consonant, except in some cases where it appears word-initially. The exact realizations of each phoneme is speculative, since the script could not transcribe any significant phonetic differences between the two languages.

Most of the evidence is available as short fragments about the deeds of important people. The texts were probably written by Klazoo speakers fluent in the other language, whose speakers are probably responsible for the ethnological description above. Below is a selection of inscriptions. Note that the proper names are likely local, and may reflect semantically meaningful Klazoo words.

* alelnyexy mersyakt xan yetyenyer bese kyalydyanese nesnyeltanda nangel mxe
In the fifth year the chief went to the town of Kelden to conduct many hunts.
* manytyere bat ntyeswane ba xyenyesanat xan nestsaryer alyak synexysndesygyal dya
The priestesses and laity of the place saw the chief kill a snake with a shoe.
* a dyen xystxatxe leranex lexrkyat
This is what it says on the tomb of Lurka.

* gelyeny balya xent yextakyne andyexy syesye ksyartes
Gilin, the wife of the chief, died in a dry summer.

* ameskespaly xan byeramaskeget psyekalatnat asye aδrat anybat
Amuskuspal, chief of Biramaskug married Ashi of the Anba clan.

* yama gyarya yelasy balyaxy xent bat mawlaδxy
The master of song sang to the wives of the chief and the dowager.
* selnyexy yelasy tarkyryenexy
Later he sang to the chief's father in law.
* tarkyryene yendesygyalnat ngeln stleks
The father in law killed him at the bank of the river.

* txakyantyeny xan lerangyamet awndedanat ksrandyedames xan namyemeδrn
Txekenchin, chief of Lurangema, conquered Ksrandjedamus, chief of Nemimader

* alelnyexy syxyartaxy xan psyeδasnat asryalel
In the seventh year the chief summoned his servants.
* nyewx sgyaxya ndaks nesdranysytya gyer yas mxe
The people will say I give them many good things.
* ndaks psyestate...
I will make for them... [unintelligible]

* sa mesyal xent maryewak nyewx kyan sesat nesdange kamyast bat bxanyxwep
After the chief's mother died, the people could not eat bread or onions.

* beter ntank awgenytyas leraneq aδrat beraδrat
All the towns came together at the tomb of the Burader clan.

* nyala kenyetateswes bat...
The clothes were properly made and... [unintelligible]

* et kera xyenyese balgare dandar awsganytye agaty
His sister saw four vultures perched on a tree.
* xyeyar nesdede awmaryeveka dalpegy
She was so surprised that she fell into a ditch.
* nesdede sa ete balgar xyselke
Thus vultures are to be spurned ever after.

Exactly one monolingual inscription has been found to date. The word "vaya" may be a loanword, but otherwise there is no gloss, and thus the meaning can only be guessed at.

* net vaya
* kyatlen yedranytye merser
* reδek yedranytye eknax

= Analysis =

Scholars are currently working to compile a rudimentary grammar and dictionary for Klazoo. What information there is on this topic will be updated once a scientific consensus has been reached.

{{Article}}
[[Category:Languages]]
[[Category:Team A languages]]

AkanaWiki:Contributors

2024-10-13T01:17:35Z

Corumayas:

Following is a list of all participants who have made material contributions to the world of Akana, in alphabetical order. Some of the most notable credits are listed for each person (including only published languages).

* [[User:4pq1injbok|4pq1injbok]] - two languages ([[Ājat he-Heloun]], [[Kibülʌiṅ]])
* [[User:Alces|Alces]] - three languages ([[Ìletlégbàku]], [[Wendoth]], [[Hỳng]]); history and culture
* [[User:Arzena|Arzena]] - two languages ([[Shtåså]], [[Empotle7á]])
* [[User:Avaja|Avaja]] - one language ([[Ppãrwak]])
* [[User:Basilius|Basilius]] - three languages ([[Affanonic]], [[Tetey]], [[Tetlo]]); history and culture; linguistic families
* [[User:brandrinn|brandrinn]] - two languages ([[Zele]] v1.0, [[Potɑnsʉti]])
* [[User:caedes|caedes]] - two languages ([[Hośər]], [[Wokatasuto]])
* [[User:Caleone|Caleone]] - one language ([[Northeastern Bay Language|Ḏoarevutan]])
* [[User:CatDoom|CatDoom]] - six languages ([[ʔuulhemoo]], [[U Bol]], [[Yewedu]], [[Rrób Tè Jĕhnò]], [[Mhakh Thandim]], [[Ray Tyuwey Išup]]); culture
* [[User:Cedh|Cedh]] - sixteen languages ([[Buruya Nzaysa]], [[Ndok Aisô]], [[Kuyʔūn]], [[Tmaśareʔ]], [[Doayâu]], [[Gezoro]], [[Cəssın]], [[Farwo n-Abebbu]], [[Lotoka]], [[Omari]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], [[Tsemehkiooni]], [[Proto-Mbingmik]], [[O Ayōndui]], [[Ronc Tyu]], [[Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa]]); maps; history; linguistic families; game organization; wikicode
* [[User:Clıck|Clıck]] - one language ([[Tumetıęk]])
* [[User:con quesa|con quesa]] - one language ([[Zhaj]])
* [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]] - two languages ([[Ghaf]], [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]); climate; history; linguistic families; linguistic reconstruction
* [[User:Curlyjimsam|Curlyjimsam]] - one language ([[Šetâmol]])
* [[User:Dē Graut Bʉr|Dē Graut Bʉr]] - one language ([[Nåmúþ]])
* [[User:Dewrad|Dewrad]] - two languages ([[Adāta]], [[Proto-Western]]); history and culture; the infamous [[Tsinakan text]]
* [[User:Dunomapuka|Dunomapuka]] - five languages ([[Namɨdu]], [[Ndok Aisô]], [[Lukpanic languages|Proto-Lukpanic]], [[Thokyunèhòta]], [[Jouki Stəy]]); history and culture
* [[User:ebilein|ebilein]] - one language ([[Æðadĕ]])
* [[User:eodrakken|eodrakken]] - one language ([[Iŋomœ́|Iŋom{{IPA|œ́}}]])
* [[User:ghur|ghur]] - one language ([[Ndok Aisô]] v1.0)
* [[User:gsandi|gsandi]] - one language ([[Yād]])
* [[User:Ingolemo|Ingolemo]] - one language ([[Óhylvídós]])
* [[User:Ink Pudding|Ink Pudding]] - one language (Xa')
* [[User:jmcd|jmcd]] - one language ([[Yïåf]]); game organization
* [[User:kanejam|kanejam]] - one language ([[A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa]])
* [[User:KathAveara|KathAveara]] - one language ([[Sanap Þoi]])
* [[User:Legion|Legion]] - five languages ([[Thokyunèhòta]] v1.0, [[Naxuutayi]], [[A'gɑf]], [[Kozado]], [[Proto-Coastal-Western]]); game organization
* [[User:Kodé|Kodé]] - one language ([[ʔAghïyï]]); history
* [[User:Kohorik|Kohorik]] - one language ([[Satnímʔa]])
* [[User:kolyn|kolyn]] - one language ([[Máotatšàlì]])
* [[User:Nebulawindphone|Nebula Wind Phone]] - one language ([[Merneha]])
* [[User:NeonFox|Neon Fox]] - one language ([[Proto-Northeastern]])
* [[User:Nortaneous|Nortaneous]] - one language ([[Hāňheliubľ]])
* [[User:Nuntar|Nuntar]] - one language ([[Arie]])
* [[User:Pocketful of Songs|Pocketful of Songs]] - one language ([[Proto-Xoronic]]); maps; linguistic families
* [[User:Pole, the|Pole, the]] - ten languages ([[West Yalan]], [[East Yalan]], [[Early North Yalan]], [[Old Yalan]], [[Tari]], [[Numəsūr]], [[Wihəs]], [[Endayin]], [[Arósen tayīgan]], [[Kopoıves]]); linguistic reconstruction
* [[User:Radius|Radius Solis]] - nine languages ([[Ndak Ta]], [[Naidda]], [[Pencek]], [[Puoni]], [[Tlaliolz]], [[Jamna Kopiai]], [[User:Radius/Zod|Zod]], [[Dimana Lokud]], [[Mountain Western]]); maps; history and culture; game organization
* [[User:Ran|Ran]] - one language ([[Proto-Isles]])
* [[User:Rory|Rory]] - two languages ([[Mûtsipsa']], [[E'át]]); religion
* [[User:RHaden|RHaden]] - one language ([[Aθáta]])
* [[User:Salmoneus|Salmoneus]] - history; climate; helpful critiques
* [[User:Space Dracula|Space Dracula]] - one language ([[Qedik]])
* [[User:Starsinger|Starsinger]] - one language ([[Yhát]])
* [[User:thedukeofnuke|thedukeofnuke]] - seven languages ([[Woltu Falla]], [[Ishoʻu ʻOhu]], [[Zele]], [[Kataputi]], [[Fallo na Mendia]], [[Proto-Tulameya]], [[Ayčasamo]]); maps; history and culture; linguistic reconstruction; pictures
* [[User:Treskro|Treskro]] - one language ([[Cednìtıt]])
* [[User:Tzirtzi|TzirTzi]] - five languages ([[Aríe]], [[Yēt]], [[Proto-Núalís-Takuña]], [[Takuña]], [[Proto-Coastal-Western]]); history and culture; hosting
* [[User:Vec|Vec]] - one language ([[Əktoś Duəmeuk]])
* [[User:Vortex|Vortex]] - one language ([[Gaadràmarneš]])
* [[User:WeepingElf|WeepingElf]] - two languages ([[Çetázó]], [[Trinesian]])
* [[User:Whimemsz|Whimemsz]] - one language ([[Öhat]])
* [[User:Zhen Lin|Zhen Lin]] - four languages ([[Ayāsthi]], [[Mavakhalan]], [[Erhadzy]], [[Proto-Peninsular]]); history and culture
* [[User:Zju|Zju]] - three languages ([[Vijiš]], [[Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk]], [[Pyvyy]]); linguistic reconstruction
* [[User:Zompist|Zompist]] - one language ([[Fáralo]]); maps; history and culture; linguistic reconstruction; game organization; hosting

<noinclude>[[Category:Meta]]</noinclude>

Black River Aséta

2024-10-13T01:04:54Z

Corumayas:

{{TBC|Caleone}}

{{Language
| language = Enáte le Šéte, Šéte le Šitiméye
| phonetic = {{IPA|[e.ˈna.te le ˈɕe.te], [ˈɕe.te ˈle ɕi.ti.ˈme.je]}}
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = Northwestern Tuysáfa,<br /> Along the Viradašeye River
| speakers = unknown
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />   '''[[Northeastern Bay]]'''
| mor-type = Largely Fusional with some Synthetic Elements
| author = [[User:Caleone|Caleone]]
| word-or = SVO
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
}}
{{Article}}

'''Black River Aséta''', referred to as Šete le Šitiméye or Enáte le Šete (language of the Sitimeyans or Our Language respectively), is a language spoken around 0 YP along the Viradašeye River by the [[Šitimeye|Sitimeyan peoples]] (a subgroup of the [[Fareveme|Fareveme peoples]]) and a descendant of the [[Northeastern Bay Language]]. As such this language is related to the other [[T1 languages]] including its closest relative [[Asséta]], as well as [[West Yalan]], [[East Yalan]], [[Omari]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], and [[Tumetıęk]].

=Phonology=
==Vowels==
Unlike in [[Asséta]], the speakers of this language only distinguish five vowels, with a length distinction rather than one of nasalization.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | front
! width="25%" | back
|-
! high
| i
| u
|-
! mid
| e
| o
|-
! low
| a
|
|-
|}

*long vowels are written with a macron.

==Consonants==
'''Aséta''' contains a reduced consonant inventory in comparison to its sibling, lacking geminate consonants & the retroflex series but retaining the voicing distinction.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! width="10%" |
! width="9%" | labial
! width="9%" | alveolar
! width="9%" | palatal
! width="9%" | velar
! width="9%" | glottal
|-
! nasal
| m
| n
| ɲ
| ŋ
|
|-
! plosive
| p b
| t d
|
| k ɡ
|
|-
! fricative
| v
| s z
| ɕ ʑ
|
| h
|-
! affricate
|
| ts dz
| tɕ dʑ
|
|
|-
! liquid
|
| l ɾ
|
|
|
|-
! glide
| w
|
| j
|
|
|-
|}

* /ɲ ŋ/ are transcribed ñ ng
* /ts dz tɕ dʑ/ are transcribed c x č j
* /ɕ ʑ/ are transcribed š ž
* /ɾ j/ are transcribed r y

==Suprasegmentals==
Like its close relative '''Aséta''' is a stress-timed language, with higher weight given to stressed syllables. That is, there is a noticeable length and quality difference in stressed syllables, being spoken at a higher pitch than the unstressed vowels. Unlike [[Asséta]], however, stress is variable whereas on the former stress is confined to the penultimate syllable. As such stress is marked by an acute accent (e.g. ''á''), except when that vowel is long.

==Phonotactics==

===Syllable Structure===
The maximal syllable structure in '''Aséta''' is (C)(w, j, r)V(C) where C = any consonant and V = any vowel. The typical syllable, however, tends toward V & CV structures.

===Allowed Clusters===

=Syntax=

==Noun Phrases==

===Numerals===
{| {{softtable|c}}
! width=13%| 1.
| width=20%| na
! width=13%| 11.
| width=20%| nona
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| ne
! 12.
| nesána
! width=13%| 20.
| width=20%| nédna
|-
! 3.
| a
! 13.
| ána
! 30.
| éna
|-
! 4.
| ka
! 14.
| kapána
! 40.
| kábna
|-
! 5.
| ra
! 15.
| réna
! 50.
| reréna
|-
! 6.
| ta
! 16.
| takána
! 60.
| tákna
|-
! 7.
| muv
! 17.
| muvána
! 70.
| múrna
|-
! 8.
| ha
! 18.
| héna
! 80.
| hehéna
|-
! 9.
| oyó
! 19.
| lána
! 90.
| órna
|-
! 10.
| néta
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| aneténa
|-
|colspan=4|
! 1000.
| nóma
|}

==Basic Clauses==

==Relative Clauses==

==Comparatives & Superlatives==

==Interrogatives==

===Yes-No Questions===

===Content Questions===

Asséta

2024-10-13T01:03:10Z

Corumayas:

{{TBC|Caleone}}

{{Language
| language = Assete, Ędatę Šétis
| phonetic = {{IPA|[a.ˈsːe.te], [ẽ.ˈda.tẽ ˈɕe.tis]}}
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = Northwestern Tuysáfa,<br /> Coastal Northeastern Bay, the Heneššeme Basin
| speakers = unknown
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />   '''[[Northeastern Bay]]'''
| mor-type = Largely Fusional with some Synthetic Elements
| author = [[User:Caleone|Caleone]]
| word-or = V2
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
}}
{{Article}}

'''Asséta''', also known as '''Great River Asséta''', is a language spoken around 0 YP in the [[Heneššeme Basin]] region by the [[Fareveme|Fareveme peoples]], the main descendants of the Northeastern Bay peoples who evolved along the coastlines of the Northeastern Bay and a descendant of the [[Northeastern Bay Language]]. As such this language is related to the other [[T1 languages]] including [[Black River Aséta]], [[West Yalan]], [[East Yalan]], [[Omari]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], and [[Tumetıęk]].

=Phonology=
==Vowels==
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | front
! width="25%" | center
! width="25%" | back
|-
! high
| i ĩ
|
| u ũ
|-
! mid
| e ẽ
| (ə)
| o õ
|-
! low
| a ã
|
|
|-
|}

*Nasal vowels are written with an ogonek, e.g. /ẽ ɛ̃/ = <ę ę̂> alternatively <enn ehnn>
*ə only occurs in diphthonɡs

==Consonants==
'''Asséta''' contains a fairly large consonant inventory with distinctions between geminate, voiceless and voiced consonants, where all nasals, plosives and fricatives can be geminated.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! width="10%" |
! width="9%" | labial
! width="9%" | alveolar
! width="9%" | palatal
! width="9%" | retroflex
! width="9%" | velar
! width="9%" | glottal
|-
! nasal
| m
| n
| ɲ
| ɳ
| ŋ
|
|-
! plosive
| p b
| t d
|
| ʈ ɖ
| k ɡ
|
|-
! fricative
| f v
| s z
| ɕ ʑ
| ʂ ʐ
|
| h
|-
! affricate
|
| ts dz
| tɕ dʑ
| ʈʂ ɖʐ
|
|
|-
! liquid
|
| l
|
| ɻ ɭ
|
|
|-
! glide
| w
|
| j
|
|
|
|-
|}

* /ɲ ɳ ŋ/ are transcribed <ñ/ny ṇ/nr ng>
* /ʈ ɖ/ are transcribed <ṭ/tr ḍ/dr>
* /ts dz tɕ dʑ ʈʂ ɖʐ/ are transcribed <c/ts x/dz č/ty j/dy c̣/tsr x̣/dzr>
* /ɕ ʑ ʂ ʐ/ are transcribed <š/sh ž/zh ṣ/sr ẓ/zr>
* /ɻ ɭ j/ are transcribed <r ł/lr y>
* geminate consonants are written doubled, e.g. /tː/ = tt

==Suprasegmentals==
'''Asséta''' is a stress-timed language, with higher weight given to stressed syllables. That is, there is a noticeable length and quality difference in stressed syllables, being spoken at a higher pitch than the unstressed vowels.

==Phonotactics==

===Syllable Structure===
The maximal syllable structure in '''Asséta''' is (C)(w, j, ɻ)V(C) where C = any consonant and V = any vowel. The typical syllable however tends toward V & CV structures.

===Allowed Clusters===

=Nominal Morphology=
Nominals fall into three categories that are morphologically distinct: ''pronouns'', ''true nouns'', and ''adjectives''.

==True Nouns==
True nouns are divided into three categories: ''animate'', ''inanimate'', and ''collective''. Outside of ''collective nouns'' true nouns decline for plurality and all nouns decline for ''case'' and ''definiteness''.

===Plurality===
'''Asseta''' marks plurality with a prefix with separate forms for whether the proceeding sound is a consonant or a vowel. There are some exceptions to this, generally nouns with intial /w j/ will take the _V form in the plural (e.g. wáye ''son'' is nwáye ''sons; children'', not nuwáye as would be expected).

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! singular
! plural
|-
! _V
| w-
| n-
|-
! _C
| o-
| nu-
|-
|}

===Case and Definiteness===
'''Asseta''' nouns decline for case and definiteness with a total of three cases and two states of definiteness.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! Indefinite
! Definite
|-
! Nominative
| -ê
| -e
| Marks the subject of a clause.
|-
! Accusative
| -es
| -is
| Marks the direct object of a transitive clause.
|-
! Oblique
| -ą
| -ę
| Marks secondary objects as well as the possessor in possessive clauses.
|-
|}

==Pronouns==

===Personal Pronouns===

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="12"| '''1st person'''
|-
!
! Singular
! Plural
|- class="bg2 context"
|-
! Nominative
| tǫdate
| ędate
|-
! Accusative
| tǫdatis
| ędatis
|-
! Oblique
| tǫdatę
| ędatę
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="12"| '''2nd Person'''
|-
!
! Singular
! Plural
|-
! Nominative
| lędate
| žędate
|-
! Accusative
| lędatis
| žędatis
|-
! Oblique
| lędatę
| žędatę
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="12"| '''3rd Person'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="2"| Singular
! rowspan="99"|
! colspan="2"| Plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| width="14%"| Definite
| width="14%"| Indefinite
| width="14%"| Definite
| width="14%"| Indefinite
|-
! Nominative
| ǫdate || nuhȇ
| nųdate || nunuhȇ
|-
! Accusative
| ǫdatis || nuhes
| nųdatis || nunuhes
|-
! Oblique
| ǫdatę || nuhą
| nųdatę || nunuhą
|-
|}
<div class="visualClear"></div>

===Demonstratives===

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! colspan="2"| !!   singular   !!   plural  
|-
! rowspan="2" class="c"| Proximal
| class="bg2 r context"| Familiar
| teate || šite
|-
| class="bg2 r context"| Unfamiliar
| teato || šito
|-
| class="divider" colspan="5"|
|-
! class="c"| Medial
| class="bg2"|
| taka || aka
|-
| class="divider" colspan="5"|
|-
! rowspan="2" class="c"| Distal
| class="bg2"|
| teafa || šiha
|-
|}

===Interrogatives===
'''šetį''' = what person (who (animate))

'''šefo''' = what thing (who (inanimate))

'''šetyą''' = at what time (when)

'''šiši''' = for what reason, by what method (why/how)

'''yȇ''' = at what place (where)

=Verbal Morphology=

==Person & Aspect==

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | habitual
! width="25%" | imperfective
! width="25%" | perfective
|-
! 1
| ñe+
| ñi-
| nu-
|-
! 2
| re+
| ẓi-
| ṣičo-
|-
! 3a
| ño+
| ño-
| mo-
|-
! 3i
| ea+
| ea-
| ečo-
|-
|}

==Modality & Tense==

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | present
! width="25%" | past
! width="25%" | future
|-
! indicative
| -nɡ
| -yé
| -máfa
|-
! imperative
| -ta
| -yé
| -káfa
|-
! subjunctive
| -twíta
| -twi
| -twekáfa
|-
! optative
| -lúta
| -lu
| -lokáfa
|-
! negative
| -réata
| -rejé
| -ẓakáfa
|-
|}

==Adjectives==
Adjectives in '''Asséta''' are a class of words in the language that modify the preceding lexeme in a clause. These words behave like verbs in the sense that they take verbal prefixes for aspect and person but have their own set of conjugational suffixes for comparative and superlative forms as well as a relativizer prefix when modifying nouns. In a sense adjectives are used as both adjectives and adverbs and could more properly be called descriptives. Adjectives is used here for ease of use.

===Person & Aspect===
Adjectives when modifying verbs must take a person/aspect prefix, these are the same as used on the verbs themselves and are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | habitual
! width="25%" | imperfective
! width="25%" | perfective
|-
! 1
| ñe+
| ñi-
| nu-
|-
! 2
| re+
| ẓi-
| ṣiču-
|-
! 3a
| ñ+
| ñ-
| mu-
|-
! 3i
| ea+
| ea-
| eču-
|-
|}

===Comparatives & Superlatives===
Comparatives and superlatives take a suffix to modify the adjective which are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | comparative
! width="25%" | superlative
|-
!
| -nį
| -a
|-
|}

=Syntax=

==Noun Phrases==

===Numerals===
'''Asséta''' numerals pattern as other adjectives. Like its relatives it uses a base-10 counting system.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! width=13%| 1.
| width=20%| na
! width=13%| 11.
| width=20%| nona
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| nes
! 12.
| nesana
! width=13%| 20.
| width=20%| nena
|-
! 3.
| a
! 13.
| ana
! 30.
| ena
|-
! 4.
| kap
! 14.
| kapana
! 40.
| kana
|-
! 5.
| ra
! 15.
| rena
! 50.
| rena
|-
! 6.
| tak
! 16.
| takana
! 60.
| tąga
|-
! 7.
| muw
! 17.
| muwana
! 70.
| mura
|-
! 8.
| ha
! 18.
| hena
! 80.
| hena
|-
! 9.
| oya
! 19.
| lana
! 90.
| ora
|-
! 10.
| neta
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| anetena
|-
|colspan=4|
! 1000.
| noma
|}

Numbers 21-99 are formed by the pattern <tens> + '''še''' + <ones> as follows:

'''21'''
{{+|
{{gl|nena|twenty}}
{{gl|še| and}}
{{gl|na| one}}
{{glend|nena še na}}
}}

'''66'''
{{+|
{{gl|tąga|sixty}}
{{gl|še| and}}
{{gl|tak| six}}
{{glend|tąga še tak}}
}}

'''89'''
{{+|
{{gl|hena|eighty}}
{{gl|še| and}}
{{gl|oya| nine}}
{{glend|hena še oya}}
}}

For numbers above one hundred the pattern <hundreds> + <tens> + '''še''' + <ones> is used. Similarly for the thousands, with <thousands> being placed before the <hundreds> place.

'''267'''
{{+|
{{gl|nesanetena|two hundred}}
{{gl|tąga|sixty}}
{{gl|še| and}}
{{gl|muw| seven}}
{{glend|nesanetena tąga še muw}}
}}

'''1422'''
{{+|
{{gl|noma|one thousand}}
{{gl|kapanetena|four hundred}}
{{gl|nena|twenty}}
{{gl|še| and}}
{{gl|nes| two}}
{{glend|noma kapanetena nena še nes}}
}}

==Basic Clauses==

==Relative Clauses==

==Comparatives & Superlatives==

==Interrogatives==

===Yes-No Questions===

Yes-No questions are formed by using the verb "to do" in the v2 position while moving the main verb to the position after the object, the to-do verb taking the indicative and the main verb taking the subjunctive as seen below:

'''Did you drink the tea?'''
{{+|
{{gl|Lędate|2nd.sin}}
{{gl|ṣičonóye|2nd.pfv.to_do.ind.pst}}
{{gl|beyenes| tea.acc.indef}}
{{gl|ṣičorevútwi| 2nd.pfv.to_drink.sbj.pst}}
{{gl|a| question_particle}}
{{glend|Lędate renóng beyenes ṣičorevútwi a?}}
}}

===Content Questions===

=Sample Text=
==The Young Lion==
'''''Áffa Opayáte'''''

''Opayáte ñobeayé opošakrehémę ba-nopátis še kap-nex̣ęgótis fa fópa ǫdate ñobeayé še ǫdatę hasása ožetis ñobeayé, še ǫdatę kása wac̣étis ñobeayé, še ášša feyé ągíwa ǫdatę nassakútis.''

===Gloss===
{{+|
{{gl|Áffa|áffa-Ø|be_young}}
{{gl|Opayáte|o-payát-e|SIN.lion.NOM.DEF}}
{{glend|The Young Lion}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Opayáte|o-payát-e|SIN.lion.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|ñobeayé|ño-peang-yé|3a.HAB.to_be.IND.PST}}
{{gl|opošakrehémę|o-pošakrehem-ę|SIN.great_king.OBL.DEF}}
{{gl|ba-nopátis|ba-n-opat-is|be_all-PLU.fierce_animal.ACC.DEF}}
{{gl|še|še|and}}
{{gl|kap-nex̣ęgótis|kap-n-ex̣ęgót-is|be_four-PLU.countries.ACC.DEF}}
{{glend|The lion was emperor of all the beasts and of the four nations}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|fa|fa|because}}
{{gl|fópa|fópa-a|be_strong.SUPR}}
{{gl|ǫdate|ǫdat-e|3rd.NOM.SIN.DEF}}
{{gl|ñobeayé|ño-peang-yé|3a.HAB.to_be.IND.PST}}
{{gl|še|še|and}}
{{gl|ǫdatę|ǫdat-ę|3rd.OBL.SIN.DEF}}
{{gl|hasása|hása-a|be_thick.SUPR}}
{{gl|ožetis|o-žet-is|SIN.chest.ACC.DEF}}
{{gl|ñobeayé|ño-peang-yé|3a.HAB.to_be.IND.PST}}
{{glend|because he was the strongest, his chest was the thickest,}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|še|še|and}}
{{gl|ǫdatę|ǫdat-ę|3rd.OBL.SIN.DEF}}
{{gl|kása|ka-sa|be_thin.SUPR}}
{{gl|wac̣étis|w-ac̣ét-is|SIN.waist.ACC.DEF}}
{{gl|ñobeayé|ño-peang-yé|3a.HAB.to_be.IND.PST}}
{{gl|še|še|and}}
{{gl|ášša|ášša-a|be_quick.SUPR}}
{{gl|ñoheyé|ño-feng-yé|3a.HAB.to_run.IND.PST}}
{{gl|ągíwa|ągíwa|with}}
{{gl|ǫdatę|ǫdat-ę|3rd.OBL.SIN.DEF}}
{{gl|nassakútis|n-assakút-is|PLU.legs.ACC.DEF}}
{{glend|his waist, the thinnest, and he ran the fastest with his legs.}}
}}

{{Stub}}

[[Category:T1 languages]]
[[Category:Languages of Tuysáfa]]

Northeastern Bay Language

2024-10-13T01:00:43Z

Corumayas:

{{TBC|Caleone}}

{{Article}}
{{Language
| language = Northeastern Bay Language, Čethax Thaxarevemni
| phonetic = {{IPA|[t͡ɕe.tʰɑx tʰɑ.xɑ.ɻe.vem.ni]}}
| date = c. -1200 YP
| place = Northwestern Tuysáfa,<br /> Northeastern Bay, Heneššéme Basin
| speakers = unknown
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />   '''[[Northeastern Bay]]'''
| mor-type = Largely Fusional with some Synthetic Elements
| author = [[User:Caleone|Caleone]]
| word-or = Topic-Prominent
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
}}

The '''Northeastern Bay Language''' was a language spoken about -1200 YP in the northwestern reaches of the continent of Tuysáfa, the speakers of which called themselves ''Thaxarevemni'' [tʰɑ.xɑ.ɻe.vem.ni], which is thought to have come from ''the milk drinkers'', hearkening back to their semi-nomadic roots and separated themselves from their neighbors who spoke other languages within the [[T1 languages|T1 language family]] or the completely unrelated [[Northeastern languages]]. It is a [[T1 languages|T1 language]] and an ancestor to [[Black River Aséta]] & [[Asséta]] meaning that it is also related to [[West Yalan]], [[East Yalan]], [[Omari]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], and [[Tumetıęk]].

==Language Name==
It's thought that the native name for the language was ''Čethax Thaxarevemni'' {{IPA|[t͡ɕe.tʰɑx tʰɑ.xɑ.ɻe.vem.ni]}}ˌ or "language of the milk drinkers". Alternatively some speakers used Asčethax to name their language and reflexes of that name survive along the coast. Curiously they also used '''Thaxarevemni''' for the Omari leading scholars to postulate a closer relationship between the two than between other branches of the same family, though the evidence has so far been inconclusive.

=Phonology=
==Vowels==
The '''Thaxarevemni''' vowel inventory consists of the following seven distinct sounds all of which can appear long as well as short.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | front
! width="25%" | back
|-
! high
| i y
| u
|-
! mid
| e ø
| o
|-
! low
|
| ɑ
|-
|}

*The vowels are written as follows: i ü e ö o a
*Long vowels are written with macrons except /y ø/ which are written as ȗ ȏ

==Consonants==
'''Thaxarevemni''' has a fairly average sized consonant inventory compared to it's neighbors and relatives.
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! width="10%" |
! width="9%" | labial
! width="9%" | dental
! width="9%" | alveolar
! width="9%" | postalveolar
! width="9%" | palatal
! width="9%" | retroflex
! width="9%" | velar
! width="9%" | glottal
|-
! nasal
| m
|
| n
|
| ɲ
|
| ŋ
|
|-
! plosive
| p pʰ b
|
| t tʰ d
|
|
|
| k kʰ ɡ
|
|-
! fricative
| f v
| θ ð
| s z
| ɕ ʑ
|
| ʐ
| x ɣ
| h
|-
! affricate
|
|
| ts tsʰ dz
| tɕ tɕʰ dʑ
|
|
|
|
|-
! liquid
|
|
| l
|
|
| ɻ
| (ɫ)
|
|-
! glide
| w
|
|
|
| j
|
|
|
|-
|}

* /ɲ ŋ/ are written ñ ng
* /pʰ tʰ tsʰ tɕʰ kʰ/ are written ph th ch čh kh
* /θ ð ɕ ʑ ʐ ɣ/ are written ṭ ḍ š ž ẓ gh
* /ts dz tɕ dʑ/ are written c ď č j
* /ɻ j/ are written r y
* /ɫ/ is an allophone of /l/ at the end of a syllable and intervocallically.

==Stress==
Unless otherwise noted stress occurs on either the penultimate syllable (for words longer than two syllables) or on the first syllable (for words with one or two syllables) of the word. And though some words may have their final syllable stressed instead stress will never fall on the first syllable for words longer than three syllables.

==Phonotactics==
This section describes the phonotactics of '''Thaxarevemni'''.

===Syllable Structure===
Analysing the language gives a maximal syllable structure of (C)(C)V(C) with syllables tending towards CV structure. That is up to two consonants may make up the onset with one making up the coda. A vowel is required for all syllables.

===Clusters===

* sC clusters must be preceded by a vowel. In loans an epenthetic /ɑ-/ is inserted.
* Any combination of stop and fricative is permitted, likewise any combination of nasal and fricative is also permitted but stops may only follow nasals (e.g. /oxko/, /oŋɡo/, /okxo/ are permitted, but /oɡŋo/ is not.
* Likewise a liquid consonant may appear before or after any oral stop or fricative, but may only precede a nasal stop.
* A glide may only appear on its own, or following another consonant.

=Morphophonological Processes=

=Nominal Morphology=
Nominals fall into three categories that are morphologically distinct: ''pronouns'', ''true nouns'', and ''descriptive nouns''.

==True Nouns==
True nouns are divided into three categories: ''animate'', ''inanimate'', and ''collective''. Outside of ''collective nouns'' true nouns decline for plurality and all nouns decline for ''case'' and ''definiteness''.

===Animacy & Plurality===
'''Thaxarevemni''' marks nouns with a fusional prefix that denotes both animacy and plurality

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! singular
! plural
|-
! Inanimate
| Ø-
| n(e)-
|-
! Animate
| o-/w-
| n(u)-
|-
|}

===Case and Definiteness===
'''Thaxarevemni''' nouns decline for both case and definiteness using a fusional suffix which attaches to the stem. In cases where the stem ends in a vowel the stem vowel deletes, except for long vowels. Likewise, an epenthetic -a- is inserted when the final sound is a consonant except for the consonants /ɻ l m n ɲ ŋ/ which cause voicing on the initial consonant of the suffix.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! Indefinite
! Definite
|-
! Nominative
| -fe
| -ti
|-
! Accusative
| -fes
| -tis
|-
! Dative
| -fang
| -teng
|-
! Genitive
| -fax
| -tex
|-
! Instrumental
| -u
| -šu
|-
|}

Below are example declension paradigms for the nouns ''Apsemü'', "human, ''Aprō'', "door", ''Četha'', "language", & ''wic'', "mist".

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! ''apsemü'', "human"
! Indefinite
! Definite
|-
! Nominative
| apsemve
| apsemni
|-
! Accusative
| apsemves
| apsemnis
|-
! Dative
| apsemvang
| apsemneng
|-
! Genitive
| apsemvax
| apsemnex
|-
! Instrumental
| apsemu
| apsemžu
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! ''aprō'', "door"
! Indefinite
! Definite
|-
! Nominative
| aprōfe
| aprōti
|-
! Accusative
| aprōfes
| aprōtis
|-
! Dative
| aprōfang
| aprōteng
|-
! Genitive
| aprōfax
| aprōtex
|-
! Instrumental
| aprōu
| aprōšu
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! ''Četha'', "language"
! Indefinite
! Definite
|-
! Nominative
| čethfe
| čēthi
|-
! Accusative
| čethfes
| čēthis
|-
! Dative
| čethfang
| čētheng
|-
! Genitive
| čethfax
| čēthex
|-
! Instrumental
| češu
| čečhu
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! ''wic'', "mist"
! Indefinite
! Definite
|-
! Nominative
| wicafe
| wicati
|-
! Accusative
| wicafes
| wicatis
|-
! Dative
| wicafang
| wicateng
|-
! Genitive
| wicafax
| wicatex
|-
! Instrumental
| wišu
| wicašu
|-
|}

==Pronouns==

===Personal Pronouns===

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="12"| '''1st person'''
|-
!
! Singular
! Plural
|- class="bg2 context"
|-
! Nominative
| tondati
| hendati
|-
! Accusative
| tondatis
| hendatis
|-
! Dative
| tondateng
| hendateng
|-
! Genitive
| tondatex
| hendatex
|-
! Instrumental
| tonu
| henu
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="12"| '''2nd Person'''
|-
!
! Singular
! Plural
|-
! Nominative
| lendati
| jendati
|-
! Accusative
| lendatis
| jendatis
|-
! Dative
| lendateng
| jendateng
|-
! Genitive
| lendatex
| jendatex
|-
! Instrumental
| lenu
| jenu
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="12"| '''3rd Person'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="2"| Singular
! rowspan="99"|
! colspan="2"| Plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| width="14%"| Definite
| width="14%"| Indefinite
| width="14%"| Definite
| width="14%"| Indefinite
|-
! Nominative
| ondati || onufe
| nundati || nunufe
|-
! Accusative
| ondatis || onufes
| nundatis || nunufes
|-
! Dative
| ondateng || onufang
| nundateng || nunufang
|-
! Genitive
| ondatex || onufax
| nundatex || nunufax
|-
! Instrumental
| onu || onū
| nunu || nunū
|-
|}
<div class="visualClear"></div>

===Demonstratives===

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! colspan="2"| !!   singular   !!   plural  
|-
! rowspan="2" class="c"| Proximal
| class="bg2 r context"| Familiar
| tüti || šiti
|-
| class="bg2 r context"| Unfamiliar
| tütu || šitu
|-
| class="divider" colspan="5"|
|-
! class="c"| Medial
| class="bg2"|
| takho || hakho
|-
| class="divider" colspan="5"|
|-
! rowspan="2" class="c"| Distal
| class="bg2"|
| tüfe || šife
|-
|}

===Interrogatives===
'''šetin''' = what person (who (animate))

'''šeṭu''' = what thing (who (inanimate))

'''šetnayang''' = at what time (when)

'''šisēa''' = for what reason, by what method (why/how)

'''hö''' = at what place (where)

=Verbal Morphology=

==Person & Aspect==

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | habitual
! width="25%" | imperfective
! width="25%" | perfective
|-
! 1
| ne+
| nī-
| niču-
|-
! 2
| re+
| ẓi-
| ẓiču-
|-
! 3a
| mo+
| mi-
| moču-
|-
! 3i
| ē+
| ē-
| eču-
|-
|}

==Modality & Tense==

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | present
! width="25%" | past
! width="25%" | future
|-
! indicative
| -möte
| -möc
| -makaṭat
|-
! imperative
| -ete
| -ec
| -ekaṭat
|-
! subjunctive
| -thwite
| -thwic
| -thwekaṭat
|-
! optative
| -lute
| -luc
| -lokaṭat
|-
! negative
| -rēte
| -rēc
| -ẓakaṭat
|-
|}

==Adjectives==
Adjectives in '''Thaxarevemni''' are a class of words in the language that modify the preceding lexeme in a clause. These words behave like verbs in the sense that they take verbal prefixes for aspect and person but have their own set of conjugational suffixes for comparative and superlative forms as well as a relativizer prefix when modifying nouns. In a sense adjectives are used as both adjectives and adverbs and could more properly be called descriptives. Adjectives is used here for ease of use.

===Person & Aspect===
Adjectives when modifying verbs must take a person/aspect prefix, these are the same as used on the verbs themselves and are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | habitual
! width="25%" | imperfective
! width="25%" | perfective
|-
! 1
| ne+
| nī-
| niču-
|-
! 2
| re+
| ẓi-
| ẓiču-
|-
! 3a
| mo+
| mi-
| moču-
|-
! 3i
| ē+
| ē-
| eču-
|-
|}

===Relativization===
When modifying nouns adjectives take the prefix ''fo-'' instead of the person/aspect prefix.

===Comparatives & Superlatives===
Comparatives and superlatives take a suffix to modify the adjective which are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | comparative
! width="25%" | superlative
|-
!
| -nim
| -ak
|-
|}

=Syntax=
Basic word order in '''Thaxarevemni''' is SOV with modifiers coming after their antecedents. The language is also pro-drop, that is pronouns are only used when introducing a subject or for emphasis.

==Noun Phrases==
Noun phrases consist of a noun-head, which is inflected for case and definiteness, followed by its modifier, generally an adjective but also post-positions:

{{+|
{{gl|wūdi|w-ūno-ti|ANI.SNG-cow.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|fürad|fo-ürad|REL-be_black}}
{{glend|the black cow}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|nefosti|ne-fosta-ti|INAM.PLU-boat.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|fohang|fo-hang|REL.be_small}}
{{glend|the small boats}}
}}

===Numerals===
{| {{softtable|c}}
! width=13%| 1.
| width=20%| no
! width=13%| 11.
| width=20%| aneta ši no
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| nec
! 12.
| aneta ši nec
! width=13%| 20.
| width=20%| nedna
|-
! 3.
| ha
! 13.
| aneta ši ha
! 30.
| hena
|-
! 4.
| kap
! 14.
| aneta ši kap
! 40.
| kabna
|-
! 5.
| re
! 15.
| aneta ši re
! 50.
| rena
|-
! 6.
| takh
! 16.
| aneta ši takh
! 60.
| takhna
|-
! 7.
| mul
! 17.
| aneta ši mul
! 70.
| murna
|-
! 8.
| fe
! 18.
| aneta ši fe
! 80.
| fena
|-
! 9.
| ola
! 19.
| aneta ši ola
! 90.
| orna
|-
! 10.
| aneta
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| anetena
|-
|colspan=4|
! 1000.
| noma
|}

Compound numbers higher than 100 can be formed by linking the numbers with ''ši'' "and", as follows:
: 110 '''anetena ši aneta'''
: 270 '''nednetena ši murna'''
: 1275 '''noma ši nednetena ši murna ši re'''

==Basic Clauses==
'''Intransitive Verbs''': this construction consists of an intransitive or adjectival verb and a single noun.
{{+|
{{gl|ngaxtafe|Ø-ngaxta-fe|INAM.SIN.storm.NOM.INDF}}
{{gl|ečušicamöte|eču-šic-möte|3.INAM.PFV.move_upwards.PRE.IND}}
{{glend|A storm moves upwards (away).}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|nafmordi|nu-afmolu-ti|ANI.PLU.animal.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|methörmöte|mo+ethöle-möte|3.ANI.HAB.tell_a_story.PRE.IND}}
{{glend|The animals were telling stories.}}
}}

'''Transitive Verbs''' take an additional argument, and take agreement with the modified argument in regards to person. The second argument takes the accusative case.

{{+|
{{gl|wakafe|o-ak-fe|ANI.SIN.fire.NOM.INDF}}
{{gl|ečüṭimöc|eču-üṭima-möc|3.INAM.PFV.to_destroy.PST.IND}}
{{gl|keṭakatis|Ø-keṭak-tis|INAM.SIN.house.ACC.DEF}}
{{glend|A fire destroyed the house.}}
}}

'''Ditransitive Verbs''' are similar to transitive verbs, receiving another argument in the form of an indirect object or instrument, inflected in the dative case.The indirect object takes its place after the subject/topic of a clause.

{{+|
{{gl|tondati|tonda-ti|1.NOM.SIN}}
{{gl|oyaxfang|o-yaxö-fang|ANI.SIN.pig.DAT.INDF}}
{{gl|ẓičužinžimakaṭat|ẓiču-žinži-makaṭat|2.PFV.to_give.FUT.IND}}
{{gl|lendatis|lenda-tis|2.ACC.SIN}}
{{glend|I will give you a pig.}}
}}

==Relative Clauses==

==Comparatives & Superlatives==
'''Comparatives''' and '''Superlatives''' are formed by modifying adjectives with either of two suffixes as listed earlier. The structure of the phrase is similar to a transitive verb phrase, with the comparative taking the place of the normal verb. Superlatives, in contrast are most similar to intransitive clauses.

{{+|
{{gl|dēthi|Ø-adeo-ti|SIN.INAM.paint.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|fuhakhranim|fo-hakhra-nim|REL.be_weak.COMP}}
{{gl|tondatex|tonda-tex|1.SIN.GEN}}
{{glend|This paint is weaker than mine.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|herjegmoti|Ø-herjegmo-ti|SIN.INAM.country.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|fothopasak|fo-thopas-ak|REL.be_strong.SUPR}}
{{glend|This country is the strongest.}}
}}

==Interrogatives==
Questions take the question particle, '''ha''' which is placed after the verb.
===Yes-No Questions===
Yes-No questions are asked based on the expected answer with a rise in intonation on the final lexeme. Verbs take the negative mood if the expected answer is negative and in the indicative for positive answers as seen below:

{{+|
{{gl|lendati|lenda-ti|2.SIN.NOM}}
{{gl|ẓičutōxamöte|ẓiču-tōxa-möte|2.PFV.to_take.PRE.IND}}
{{gl|ha|ha|INT}}
{{gl|othaxtis|o-thaxta-tis|ANI.SIN.milk.ACC.DEF}}
{{glend|Did you take the milk?}}
}}

To answer a yes-no question you would either reply in the positive or negative, matching or contradicting the question as shown:

{{+|
{{gl|tondati|tonda-ti|1.SIN.NOM}}
{{gl|ničutōxamöte|niču-tōxa-möte|1.PFV.to_take.PRE.IND}}
{{gl|othaxtis|o-thaxta-tis|ANI.SIN.milk.ACC.DEF}}
{{glend|I took the milk.}}
}}

or:

{{+|
{{gl|tondati|tonda-ti|1.SIN.NOM}}
{{gl|ničutōxarete|niču-tōxa-rete|1.PFV.to_take.PRE.NEG}}
{{gl|othaxtis|o-thaxta-tis|ANI.SIN.milk.ACC.DEF}}
{{glend|I did not take the milk.}}
}}

You can also answer with the verb, dropping its arguments, in either indicative or negative.

===Content Questions===

=Sample Text=
==The Young Lion==
'''''Ophaxti Fofčo'''''

''Ophaxti motengmöc wafmordis ba ši orefemnex nenirdis fokap, tho ondatex jetis fophasak ši fothopasak, athreti fokak, nastakhutis mohȗmöc moškak.''

''Da! Ophaxti fofčo movemöc!''
''Apthis asta moanamöc ši nafmorvang fak moakpharmöc ondatex thopsateng.''
''Ši maptiṭtamöte. Wafmordi ethormotis moendatimöte ophaxteng, ši nundatis matengmöte.''

===Gloss===

{{+|
{{gl|Ophaxti|o-phaxa-ti|SIN.ANI.lion.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|Fofčo|fo-afčo|REL.be_young}}
{{glend|The Young Lion}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Ophaxti|o-phaxa-ti|SIN.ANI.lion.NOM.DEF}}
{{gl|motengmöc|mo-ateng-möc|3.ANI.HAB.to_rule.PST.IND}}
{{gl|wafmordis|o-afmolu-tis|SIN.ANI.beast.ACC.DEF}}
{{gl|ba|ba|be_all}}
{{glend|The lion was the ruler of all beasts}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|ši|ši|and}}
{{gl|orefemnex|o-refeme-tex|SIN.ANI.ruler.GEN.DEF}}
{{gl|nenirdis|n-nil-tis|PLU.INAM.country.ACC.DEF}}
{{gl|fokap,|fo-kap|REL.be_four}}
{{glend|and lord of the four countries,}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|tho|tho|because}}
{{gl|ondatex|onda-tex|3.SIN.GEN}}
{{gl|jetis|Ø-je-tis|SIN.INAM.chest.ACC.DEF}}
{{gl|fophasak|fo-phas-ak|REL.be_thick.SUPR}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and}}
{{gl|fothopasak,|fo-thopas-ak|REL.be_strong.SUPR}}
{{gl|athreti|Ø-athre-ti|SIN.INAM.waist}}
{{gl|fokak,|fo-ka-ak|REL.be_thin.SUPR}}
{{gl|nastakhutis|n-astakhu-tis|PLU.INAM.leg.ACC.DEF}}
{{gl|ehȗmöc|e-ṭün-möc|3.INAM.HAB.to_run.PST.IND}}
{{gl|eškak.|e-aška-ak|3.INAM.HAB.be_quick.SUPR}}
{{glend|because his chest was thick, waist was thin, and (his) legs ran fast.}}
}}

=Lexicon=
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NP-yhK6d9V31Pz5ZP1PFak2sUBkVDbFWA9qIpmzOu7g/ A basic lexicon of Thaxarevemni.]

[[Category:T1 languages]]

West Yalan

2024-10-13T00:59:38Z

Corumayas:

{{Article}}
{{Language
| language = Jaran
| phonetic = {{IPA|[jaˈran]}}
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = southern Tuysáfa,<br /> Yalne plains
| speakers = unknown
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />  Yalan<br />    '''West Yalan'''
| mor-type = fusional
| author = [[User:Pole, the|Pole, the]]
| word-or = VSO
| morphalign = neutral/accusative
}}
[[File:Yal3.png|thumb|Speaking area of '''<span class="blue">River</span>''', '''<span class="green">Estuary</span>''' and '''<span style="color:#b28210;">Coast</span>''' Jaran varieties.]]

'''West Yalan''', '''Jaran''' is an ethnolect spoken in southern [[Tuysáfa]] around 0 YP. Together with the [[East Yalan]] it forms the [[Yalan]] language family / dialect continuum.

==Background==
The term covers a group of dialects spoken in southern and southeastern Tuysáfa coast. It is also a descendant of the Old Yalan dialects spoken around -800 YP.

West Yalan is a part of the [[T1 languages|T1 language family]] created for the Second Reconstruction Relay, together with i.a. [[Cednìtıt]], [[Tumetıęk]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]] and [[Omari]].

===Internal phonological history===
====Apocope====
(V₁, V₂ – short vowels)<br/>
V₁CV₂ → V₁ːC / _#

* OY ''ẑozu'' → ''ẑōz'' → WY ''fâs''
* OY ''xjoņo'' → ''xjōņ'' → WY ''śâ''

====Consonant shift (Western fronting)====
s̺ z̺ → f v

* OY ''ŝāxjō'' → WY ''faśâ''
* OY ''cīŝici'' → WY ''ćifić''

ɲ tʃʰ tʃ dʒ → n tsʰ ts dz<br/>
ʃ ʒ → s z

* OY ''nīšici'' → WY ''nisić''
* OY ''čāca'' → WY ''caće''

ŋʲ kʰʲ kʲ ɡʲ → ɲ tɕʰ tɕ dʑ<br/>
xʲ ɣʲ → ɕ ʑ

* OY ''kūxjixī'' → WY ''kuśeći''
* OY ''xjixjīmī'' → WY ''śeśimi''

====Vowel reduction====
i u iː uː → ɪ ʊ i u (common)<br/>
ɪ ʊ → e o (Estuary and River Jaran)<br/>
ɪ ʊ → e u (Coast Jaran)

* OY ''tusūcīxjicū'' → WY ''tosućiśeću'', CJ [tusutɕiɕetɕu]
* OY ''pusūdu'' → WY ''posuto'', CJ [pusutu]

æ o æː oː → ɛ o aː ɔː → e o a ɒ (Estuary Jaran)<br/>
æ o æː oː → ə ə æ o → a a e o (River Jaran)<br/>
æ o æː oː → ɛ o aː oː → e o a o (Coast Jaran)

* OY ''thāxjakō'' → WY ''thaśekâ'', RJ [tʰeɕako], CJ [tʰaɕeko]
* OY ''phōto'' → WY ''phâto'', RJ [pʰota], CJ [pʰoto]

i u e o → e o a a / _C# (River Jaran)
* OY ''xoẑo'' → **''xōẑ'' → WY ''hâf'', RJ [haf], CJ [hof]
* OY ''pagjiri'' → **''pagjīr'' → WY ''pećir'', RJ [patɕer], CJ [petɕil]

====Loss of voicing distinction====
b d dz dʑ ɡ → p t ts tɕ k
* OY ''pādā'' → WY ''pata''
* OY ''ībi'' → WY ''ipe''

v z ʑ ɣ~ɦ → f s ɕ x~h
* OY ''šivō'' → WY ''sefâ''
* OY ''šaža'' → WY ''sas''

====Late consonant reduction====
x → h
* OY ''xōpo'' → WY ''hâpo''
* OY ''īxiti'' → WY ''ihit''

ŋ → ɰ → ∅
* OY ''xjoņo'' → **''xjōņ'' → WY ''śâ''
* OY ''khothōņo'' → WY ''khothâo''

===Early West Yalan===
Early West Yalan was an earlier variety of Jaran spoken around -200 YP. The most notable feature of EWY was its eight vowel system that later collapsed to vowel inventories of five-six phonemes of later dialects spoken in 0 YP.

There have also been additional voiced series of stops (/b d dz dʑ ɡ/) and fricatives (/v z ʑ ɦ/) that merged with their unvoiced counterparts soon after, most probably under Cednìtıt influence.

===Varieties===
There are three main varieties of Jaran:

====Estuary Jaran====
Estuary Jaran, ''sâ Jarenah Fosotih'', is the standard language described in this article.

/r/ is usually pronounced as [ɾ].

/a/ is realized as [æ].

====River Jaran====
River Jaran, ''sâ Jarenah Âkasetih'', RJ ''so Jeranah Okeseteh'', differs slightly from the standard:
* /a ɒ/ are raised to [e o] in open and merged to [a] in closed syllables;
* /i u/ are lowered to [e o] in closed syllables;
* some instances of the original /e o/ remain [e o] ('''ê ô''' in the scientific orthography);
* other occurrences are merged to [a] ('''e o''' in the scientific orthography);
* instead of morphological reduction of vowels, RJ has lowering of ''i u e o'' to ''e o a a'';
* in some areas there is a pitch stress on the final open syllables (the high pitch unmarked, the low pitch marked with a grave accent in the scientific orthography).

====Coast Jaran====
Coast Jaran, ''sâ Jarenah Pamâkotih'', CJ ''so Jarenah Pamokotih'', has some differences as well:
* /ɒ/ is raised to [o];
* some instances of the original /o/ are further merged to [u] ('''ô''' in the scientific orthography);
* /r/ is pronounced as [l] syllable-finally and [ɾ] otherwise.

===Rapid speech===
There are some tendencies present in the rapid speech, in all of the above varieties.

Vowel sequences are often realized as pre- or post-glided vowels, e.g. '''moać''' [mwatɕ], '''aetuk''' [ajˈtuk], '''ie''' [je].

Unstressed non-initial syllables beginning with a sonorant have the vowel elided, e.g. '''nârârena''' becoming rapid CJ [noɾolˈna] or even [nolːˈna].

==Phonology==
{| {{softtable|c}}
! colspan=2|Consonants
! labial
! alveolar
! palatal
! velar
! glottal
|-
! colspan=2|nasal
| {{IPA|m}}
| {{IPA|n}}
| {{IPA|ɲ}} ‹ń›
|
|
|-
! rowspan=2|plosive
! fortis
| {{IPA|pʰ}} ‹ph›
| {{IPA|tʰ}} ‹th›
|
| {{IPA|kʰ}} ‹kh›
|
|-
! lenis
| {{IPA|p}}
| {{IPA|t}}
|
| {{IPA|k}}
|
|-
! rowspan=2|affricate
! fortis
|
| {{IPA|tsʰ}} ‹ch›
| {{IPA|tɕʰ}} ‹ćh›
|
|
|-
! lenis
|
| {{IPA|ts}} ‹c›
| {{IPA|tɕ}} ‹ć›
|
|
|-
! colspan=2|fricative
| {{IPA|f}}
| {{IPA|s}}
| {{IPA|ɕ}} ‹ś›
|
| {{IPA|h}}
|-
! colspan=2|fluid
|
| {{IPA|r}}
| {{IPA|j}}
|
|
|}

The fricatives and lenis stops can be voiced between vowels.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!Vowels
!front
!back
|-
!close
|{{IPA|i}}
|{{IPA|u}}
|-
!mid
|{{IPA|e}}
|{{IPA|o}}
|-
!open
|{{IPA|a}}
|{{IPA|ɒ}} ‹â›
|}

The front-back dichotomy has influence on inflection, e.g. noun stems expanded with ''e'' or ''o'' depending on the last vowel.

Syllables of type (C)V(C). Final consonant permitted only word-finally.

Word stress falls on the last syllable, e.g. '''śatite''' {{IPA|[ɕatiˈte]}} "flour".

===Morphophonology===
There are two common alternations: reduction and fronting.

====Reduction====
When a vowel is reduced, it changes to a mid vowel:

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Non-reduced
| i || a || u || â
|-
! Reduced
| ê || e || ô || o
|}

====Fronting====
Fronting is a shift of velar to palatal and palatal to dental consonants. The two degrees can combine:

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Grade 0
| k || kh || h
|-
! Grade +1
| ć || ćh || ś
|-
! Grade +2
| c || ch || s
|}

====Assibilation====
Assibilation (or lenition) is present only in some suffixes and sometimes doesn't happen regularly.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Normal
| p ph || t th || c ch || ć ćh || k kh
|-
! Mutated
| h || s || s || ś || h
|}

==Pronouns==
The personal pronouns are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
!
! 1sg
! 2sg
!colspan=2| 3sg
! 1pl
! 2pl
!colspan=2| 3pl
|-
! N.
| nica
| fica
| i || itu
| taca
| cica
| ni || netu
|-
! O.
| nica'''ń'''
| fica'''ń'''
| i <br/> ie ¹ || itu <br/> itou ¹
| taca'''ń'''
| cica'''ń'''
| ni || netu <br/> netou ¹
|-
! G.
| nica'''ś'''
| fica'''ś'''
| i'''h''' || itu'''h'''
| taca'''ś'''
| cica'''ś'''
| ni'''h''' || netu'''h'''
|-
! L.
| nica'''tu'''
| fica'''tu'''
| i'''tu''' || itu'''tu'''
| taca'''tu'''
| cica'''tu'''
| ni'''tu''' || netu'''tu'''
|}

: ¹) used mostly for disambiguation

There are also shortened form of 1st and 2nd person pronouns, with ''-ca-'' omitted (i.e. ''ni, niń, niś …, fi, ta'' &c) in use. They are considered inferior, though.

''Itu'' and ''netu'' are the obviative forms, used when not referring to the subject of the previous sentence:

* '''Pâhokuthu śâphehi tesata. Pâtuk nica i.'''
*: pâ-hokuthu śâphehi tesat-a. pâ-tuk nica i
*: {{sc|sg.an.obj.aor}}-see lion seagull-{{sc|obl}}. {{sc|sg.an.obj.aor}}-hunt 1sg 3sg
*: ''The lion saw the seagull. I hunted it (the lion).''

* '''Pâhokuthu śâphehi tesata. Pâtuk nica itu.'''
*: pâ-hokuthu śâphehi tesat-a. pâ-tuk nica itu
*: {{sc|sg.an.obj.aor}}-see lion seagull-{{sc|obl}}. {{sc|sg.an.obj.aor}}-hunt 1sg 3sg.obv
*: ''The lion saw the seagull. I hunted it (the seagull).''

==Nouns==
{| {{softtable|c}}
!align=center| -2
! -1
! 0
! +1
! +2
|-
| possession
| number
| '''root'''
| deixis
| case
|}

===Prefixes===
====Possessive====
: C – before consonant
: E – before front vowel
: O – before back vowel

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
!colspan=2|
!C
!E
!O
|-
!rowspan=3|sg
!1.
|ne-
|ne~ ¹
|ńo~ ¹
|-
!2.
|fe-
|fe~ ¹
|fo~ ¹
|-
!3.
|po-
|colspan=2|p-
|-
!rowspan=3|pl
!1.
|te-
|te~ ¹
|to~ ¹
|-
!2.
|ce-
|ce~ ¹
|ćo~ ¹
|-
!3.
|no-
|colspan=2|n-
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|âthuf, thuf "fish"
|-
|'''ńo'''thuf, '''ne'''thuf
|-
|'''fo'''thuf, '''fe'''thuf
|-
|'''p'''âthuf, '''po'''thuf
|-
|'''to'''thuf, '''te'''thuf
|-
|'''ćo'''thuf, '''ce'''thuf
|-
|'''n'''âthuf, '''no'''thuf
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|ipe, nepe "place"
|-
|'''ne'''pe, '''ne'''nepe
|-
|'''fe'''pe, '''fe'''nepe
|-
|'''p'''ipe, '''po'''nepe
|-
|'''te'''pe, '''te'''nepe
|-
|'''ce'''pe, '''ce'''nepe
|-
|'''n'''ipe, '''no'''nepe
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|âjâ, noja "ant"
|-
|'''ńo'''jâ, '''ne'''nojâ
|-
|'''fo'''jâ, '''fe'''nojâ
|-
|'''p'''âjâ, '''po'''nojâ
|-
|'''to'''jâ, '''te'''nojâ
|-
|'''ćo'''jâ, '''ce'''nojâ
|-
|'''n'''âjâ, '''no'''nojâ
|}
|}

:¹) prefix replacing the original vowel

====Number====
:P – before plosives and affricates
:C – before other consonants
:E – before front vowel
:O – before back vowel

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
!colspan=2|
!P
!C
!E
!O
|-
!rowspan=2|sg
!an.
|â-
|rowspan=2| -
|rowspan=2| -
|rowspan=2| -
|-
!inan.
| ~ ²
|-
!rowspan=2|pl
!an.
|rowspan=2| -
|no-
|rowspan=2| ne~ ¹
|rowspan=2| no~ ¹
|-
!inan.
|ne-
|-
!colspan=2|collective
|colspan=2|i-
|ie~ ¹
|io~ ¹
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|caka "duck"
|pa "sea"
|śiti "bird"
|ha "brain"
|aće "fire"
|âpo "country"
|-
|'''â'''caka
|
|rowspan=2|śiti
|rowspan=2|ha
|rowspan=2|aće
|rowspan=2|âpo
|-
|
|p'''h'''a
|-
|rowspan=2|caka
|rowspan=2|pa
|'''no'''śiti
|
|rowspan=2|'''ne'''će
|rowspan=2|'''no'''po
|-
|
|'''ne'''ha
|-
|'''i'''caka
|'''i'''pa
|'''i'''śiti
|'''i'''ha
|'''ie'''će
|'''io'''po
|}
|}

:¹) prefix replacing the original vowel
:²) aspiration of the consonant

===Declension===
West Yalan has four cases:
* '''Nominative''', the default form;
* '''Oblique''' (Accusative-Dative), objects of present tense verbs;
* '''Genitive''', possessions and relations; used with most prepositions;
* '''Locative''' (Locative-Allative), location, time or movement towards an object;

In some dialects the '''-tu''' locative suffix can be separated and preposited, e.g.:
{{+|
{{gl|ćifećatu|ćifić-*atu|house-{{sc|loc}}}}
{{gl|~}}
{{gl|tu ćifeća|tu ćifić-*a|{{sc|loc}} house-{{sc|prep}}}}
{{glend|in/to a house}}
}}

The noun form having the '''-tu''' subtracted is also called '''prepositive''', this is the form to which two other prepositions are added: '''fań''' "near" and '''ja''' "above".

There are also three declensions: indefinite, proximate and distal.

The words are divided into four inflectional groups:
: I – words ending with a consonant
: II – words ending with ''e o''
: III – words ending with ''i a u â''
: IV – some words ending with ''i a'', inpredictable

====Indefinite====
{| {{softtable|c}}
!
! I
! II
! III
! IV
|-
!N.
|thuf "fish"
|ipe "ground"
|âjâ "ant"
|fa "plain"
|-
!O.
|thof'''a''' ¹
|ip'''a'''
|âjâ
|fa'''ń'''
|-
!G.
|thof'''ah''' ¹
|ip'''ah'''
|âjâ'''h'''
|fa'''ś'''
|-
!L.
|thof'''atu''' ¹
|ip'''atu'''
|âjâ'''tu'''
|fa'''tu'''
|}
: ¹) last vowel of the stem reduced to ''e o''

====Proximate====
{| {{softtable|c}}
!
! I
! II
! III
! IV
|-
!N.
|thofo'''ti''' ¹
|ipe'''ti'''
|âjo'''ti''' ²
|fe'''ti''' ²
|-
!O.
|thofo'''teu''' ¹
|ipe'''teu'''
|âjo'''teu''' ²
|fe'''teu''' ²
|-
!G.
|thofo'''tih''' ¹
|ipe'''tih'''
|âjo'''tih''' ²
|fe'''tih''' ²
|-
!L.
|thofo'''titu''' ¹
|ipe'''titu'''
|âjo'''titu''' ²
|fe'''titu''' ²
|}
: ¹) last vowel of the stem reduced to ''e o'' and echo vowel introduced
: ²) final vowel reduced to ''e o''

====Distal====
{| {{softtable|c}}
!
! I
! II
! III
! IV
|-
!N.
|thofo'''khâ''' ¹
|ipe'''khâ'''
|âjo'''khâ''' ²
|fe'''khâ''' ²
|-
!O.
|thofo'''hu''' ¹
|ipe'''hu'''
|âjo'''hu''' ²
|fe'''hu''' ²
|-
!G.
|thofo'''khâh''' ¹
|ipe'''khâh'''
|âjo'''khâh''' ²
|fe'''khâh''' ²
|-
!L.
|thofo'''khâtu''' ¹
|ipe'''khâtu'''
|âjo'''khâtu''' ²
|fe'''khâtu''' ²
|}
: ¹) last vowel of the stem reduced to ''e o'' and echo vowel introduced
: ²) final vowel reduced to ''e o''

==Verbs==
{| {{softtable|c}}
! align=center| -1
! 0
! +1
! +2
|-
| person, tense, aspect
| '''root'''
| mood
| voice
|}

===Person-tense prefixes===
Verb prefixes mark tense, aspect and also animacy and number of the subject and the object.

Where two prefixes are given, the former is used before consonants and the latter before vowels.

When a prefix marked with the asterisk (*) is attached, the first vowel is reduced to ''e o''.

The reflexive prefixes have the consonant alternation between ''k'', ''ć(h)'' and ''c'' – the consonant is fronted once in singular subject prefixes and then again in imperfect and progressive tense.

====Aorist====
Aorist is used for complete actions with no present relevance.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!rowspan=2| Object
!colspan=6| Subject
|-
!colspan=2 align=center| sg anim.
!colspan=2| sg inan.
!colspan=2| pl
|-
! -
| po- || p- *
| se- || s- *
| ho- || h-
|-
! sg
| pâ- || pom- *
| su- || sem- *
| rowspan=2| hâ- || hom- *
|-
! pl
| pa- || pon- *
| sa- || sen- *
| hon- *
|-
! refl
| poće- || poć- *
| śeće- || śeć- *
| hoke- || hok- *
|}

====Imperfect====
Imperfect is used for incomplete past actions.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!rowspan=2| Object
!colspan=6| Subject
|-
!colspan=2 align=center| sg anim.
!colspan=2| sg inan.
!colspan=2| pl
|-
! -
| pe- || p-
| se- || s-
| hi- || ho-
|-
! sg
| pome- || pom-
| seme- || sem-
| home- || hom-
|-
! pl
| pone- || pon-
| sene- || sen-
| hone- || hon-
|-
! refl
| poce- || poc-
| sece- || sec-
| hoće- || hoć-
|}

====Present====
Present is used for general utterances.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!rowspan=2| Object
!colspan=6| Subject
|-
!colspan=2 align=center| sg anim.
!colspan=2| sg inan.
!colspan=2| pl
|-
! -
| mo- || m-
| a- || -
| ne- || n-
|-
! sg
|rowspan=2| mu- || mom- *
|rowspan=2| u- || am- *
|rowspan=2| na- || nem- *
|-
! pl
| mon- *
| an- *
| nen- *
|-
! refl
| moće- || moć- *
| aćhe- || aćh- *
| neke- || nek- *
|}

====Progressive====
Progressive is used for ongoing actions that will be presumably completed in future.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!rowspan=2| Object
!colspan=6| Subject
|-
!colspan=2 align=center| sg anim.
!colspan=2| sg inan.
!colspan=2| pl
|-
! -
| mi- || mo-
| ae- || a- aj- ¹
| ni- || ne-
|-
! sg
| mome- || mom-
| ame- || am-
| neme- || nem-
|-
! pl
| mone- || mon-
| ane- || an-
| nene- || nen-
|-
! refl
| moce- || moc-
| ache- || ach-
| neće- || neć-
|}

: ¹) ''a-'' before close vowels, ''aj-'' before mid and open vowels

===Mood endings===
:I – verbs ending with a consonant
:II – verbs ending with ''e o''
:III – verbs ending with ''i a u â''

{| {{softtable|c}}
!
! I
! II
! III
|-
!Indicative
|tuk "hunt"
|jape "pull"
|śi "try"
|-
!Energetic
|tok'''ak''' ¹
|jap'''ak'''
|śi'''k'''
|-
!Imperative
|toć'''a''' ¹ ²
|jap'''a''' ²
|śe'''a''' ¹
|-
!Desiderative
|tok'''u''' ¹
|jap'''u'''
|śe'''ru''' ¹
|-
!Conditional
|tuko'''thi''' ³
|jape'''thi'''
|śi'''thi'''
|-
!Potential
|tuko'''pa''' ³
|jape'''pa'''
|śi'''pa'''
|}

: ¹) the last vowel of the stem is reduced to ''e o''
: ²) the final consonant is fronted: ''k kh h ć ćh ś'' change to ''ć ćh ś c ch s''
: ³) an epenthetic vowel (''e'' or ''o'') is added

===Voice suffixes===
There are several grammatical voices in West Yalan.

The voice suffixes can be added to verbs in other moods, so they don't necessarily depend on the verb group.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!Active
| '''-'''
|
|-
!rowspan=2|Passive
| '''-un''' ¹, '''-no''' ²
| monotransitive verbs
|-
| '''-hun''' ³
| ditransitive verbs
|-
!rowspan=2|Causative
| '''-ka''' ³
| intransitive verbs
|-
| '''-ih''' ¹, '''-h''' ²
| transitive verbs
|}

: ¹) after a consonant or replacing final ''e o''
: ²) after ''i a u â''
: ³) an epenthetic ''e'' or ''o'' added after a consonant

==Adjectives==
Adjectives, numerals and verbs acting as participles behave in their own way.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!align=center| -1
! 0
! +1
! +2
! +3
|-
|attributive
|'''root'''
|mood
|voice
|comparison
|}

When they describe another noun, they take the attributive prefix '''he-''', '''h-'''.

Relative clauses are created the same way.

* '''ćhifić heśâ'''
*: ć‹h›ifić he-śâ
*: ‹{{sc|sg.an}}›house {{sc|att}}-small
*: ''the small house''

* '''śâphehi hetuk'''
*: śâphehi he-tuk
*: lion {{sc|att}}-hunt
*: ''the hunting lion / the lion, which hunts''

{| {{softtable|c}}
!align=center| -1
! 0
! +1
! +2
! +3
! +4
|-
| person, tense, aspect
| '''root'''
| mood
| voice
| comparison
| case
|}

When they are substantivized – used alone as independent arguments, they take verbal prefixes and use their own declension type.

* '''aśâ'''
*: a-śâ
*: {{sc|sg.in}}-small
*: ''the small thing''

* '''motuk'''
*: mo-tuk
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-hunt
*: ''the hunting one''

===Comparison===
There is one degree used for comparison. It is created with the suffix '''-tetumi''' ('''-tetume-''' when declined).

After consonants, the last vowel of the stem is reduced and added as the echo vowel.

* '''aśâtetumi'''
*: a-śâ-tetumi
*: {{sc|sg.in}}-small-{{sc|comp}}
*: ''the smaller / smallest thing''

* '''śâphehi hetokotetumi'''
*: śâphehi he-tuk-tetumi
*: lion {{sc|att}}-hunt-{{sc|comp}}
*: ''the lion, which hunts more / the most''

The standard argument behaves as the object:

* '''uśâtetumi ćhifeća'''
*: u-śâ-tetumi ć‹h›ifić-*a
*: {{sc|sg.in.sg.o}}-small-{{sc|comp}} ‹{{sc|sg.in}}›-house-{{sc|obl}}
*: ''smaller than house''

===Case endings===
{| {{softtable|c}}
!N.
|thar "red"
|śâ "small"
|-
!O.
|there'''ta''' ¹
|śâ'''ta'''
|-
!G.
|there'''tah''' ¹
|śâ'''tah'''
|-
!L.
|there'''tatu''' ¹
|śâ'''tatu'''
|}
: ¹) last vowel of the stem reduced to ''e o'' and echo vowel introduced

==Numerals==
Numerals have properties of other attributive nouns.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! 1.
| nâ
! 11.
| naneta
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| ńać
! 12.
| ńećeneta
! 20.
| ńaća
|-
! 3.
| sa
! 13.
| saneta
! 30.
| sena
|-
! 4.
| ćap
! 14.
| ćepeneta
! 40.
| ćapa
|-
! 5.
| śa
! 15.
| śaneta
! 50.
| śena
|-
! 6.
| tâk
! 16.
| tokheneta
! 60.
| tâkha
|-
! 7.
| mur
! 17.
| moreneta ¹
! 70.
| muna
|-
! 8.
| ćapać
! 18.
| ćapećeneta
! 80.
| ćapaća
|-
! 9.
| âra
! 19.
| âraneta
! 90.
| ârena
|-
! 10.
| aneta
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| anetena
|}

: ¹) alternative form ''muneta'' can be also encountered by analogy

The changed forms from 11-19 can be also prefixed to other numerals, e.g.

* '''netokheńaća'''
*: ne-tokhe-ńaća
*: {{sc|pl}}-four-twenty
*: ''twenty-four''

Full n-ties (10-90) behave similarly, up to 199:

* '''nârârenanetena'''
*: n-âr-âren-anetena
*: {{sc|pl}}-nine-ninety-hundred
*: ''one hundred and ninety-nine''

Higher numbers are done analytically, with a conjunction ''śi'':

* '''nanetena hârârena śi nârârena'''
*: n-anetena h-âr-ârena śi n-âr-ârena
*: {{sc|pl}}-houndred {{sc|att}}-nine-ninety and {{sc|pl}}-nine-ninety
*: ''nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine'' (lit. ''ninety-nine houndred ninety-nine'')

==Derivation==
There are several derivational affixes in West Yalan.

Below, the adjectives are treated as verbs.

<div class="dl dln">
; -ema
: {{sc|v → n}}
: habitual agent <br/> <small>(unproductive; frequent alternations; replaced with '''-tu''')</small>
:* ''uthape'' "steal" → ''utham'''ema''''' "thief"

; <br/>

; -tu
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: person associated with X
:* ''śiti'' "bird" → ''śiti'''tu''''' "birdwatcher"

; <br/>

; -hâ
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: substance associated with X <br/> <small>(the last vowel is reduced and, regarding consonantal stems, echoed)</small>
:* ''thaće'' "fruit" → ''thaće'''hâ''''' "juice"

; <br/>

; -(m)â
: {{sc|v → n}}
: place / item associated with X <br/> <small>(rarely used; frequent irregular alternations)</small>
:* ''śane'' "sleep" → ''śa'''mâ''''' "bed"

; <br/>

; -ta
: {{sc|v → n}}
: gerund / action noun <br/> <small>(the last vowel is reduced and, regarding consonantal stems, echoed)</small>
:* ''nosuk'' "happy" → ''nosoko'''ta''''' "being happy, happiness"

; <br/>

; a-
: {{sc|v → v}}
: have a generic / habitual tendency towards X <br/> <small>(the initial consonant is assibilated; the initial vowel is reduced)</small>
:* ''ekun'' "to burn" → '''''a'''ekun'' "to be inflammable"

; <br/>

; u-
: {{sc|v → v}}
: do X involuntarily <br/> <small>(the initial consonant is assibilated; the initial vowel is reduced)</small>
:* ''hâf'' "to kill, to murder" → '''''u'''hâf'' "to kill accidentally"

; <br/>

; -ku
: {{sc|n → v}}
: be coloured like X <br/> <small>(the last vowel is reduced and, regarding consonantal stems, echoed)</small>
:* ''śańe'' "blood" → ''śańe'''ku''''' "bloody (red)"
</div>

<br clear="all" />

==Sample text==
The sample text is '''śâphehiti hehoćâ''' ("this young lion"), the text used in comparative linguistics of the T1 language family.

{{+|
{{gl|Momeće|mom*-aće|{{sc|sg.an.sg.o}}-be}}
{{gl|śâphehi|śâphehi|lion}}
{{gl|âcińemań|â-cińe-ma-ń|{{sc|sg.an}}-rule-er-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{gl|pa|pa|all}}
{{gl|nohâruh,|no-hâru-h|{{sc|pl.an}}-animal-{{sc|gen}}}}
{{glend|The lion is the ruler of all animals,}}

{{gl|thâ|thâ|because}}
{{gl|mośepak,|mo-śepa-k|{{sc|sg.an}}-strong-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|apehafak|a-pehafe-ak|{{sc|sg.in}}-thick-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|pośaâ,|po-śaâ|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-chest}}
{{gl|akhik|a-khi-k|{{sc|sg.in}}-thin-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|puho,|p-uho|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-belly}}
{{gl|ahokâk|a-hokâ-k|{{sc|sg.in}}-fast-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|mofiń.|mo-fiń|{{sc|sg.an}}-run}}
{{glend|because, certainly, he is strong, his chest is thick, his stomach is thin and he runs fast.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Ća|ća|behold}}
{{gl|mopa|mo-pa|{{sc|sg.an}}-be}}
{{gl|śâphehiti|śâphehi-ti|lion-{{sc|prox}}}}
{{gl|hehoćâ.|he-hoćâ|{{sc|att}}-young}}
{{glend|Look, there is this young lion.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Mosas|mo-sas|{{sc|sg.an}}-go}}
{{gl|phethitu|ph‹h›ethi-tu|‹{{sc|sg.in}}›forest-{{sc|loc}}}}
{{gl|ińe|ińe|every}}
{{gl|thatatu,|th‹h›ata-tu|‹{{sc|sg.in}}›morning-{{sc|loc}}}}
{{gl|si|si|and}}
{{gl|mukhophâ|mu-khophâ|{{sc|sg.an.obj}}-compare}}
{{gl|nohâru|no-hâru-∅|{{sc|pl}}-animal-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{gl|haćaf|h-aćaf|{{sc|att}}-other}}
{{gl|śepeta.|śepeta|strength}}
{{glend|He goes to the forest every morning and compares to the other animals with regard to strength.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Si|si|and}}
{{gl|aputus|a-putus|{{sc|sg.in}}-always}}
{{gl|mićinu|m-ićinu|{{sc|sg.an}}-return}}
{{gl|hepetific.|he-petific|{{sc|att}}-win}}
{{glend|And he always returns winning.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Naphame|na-phame|{{sc|pl.o}}-hear}}
{{gl|si|si|and}}
{{gl|nasaćeti|na-saćeti|{{sc|pl.o}}-know}}
{{gl|pa|pa|all}}
{{gl|nohâru|no-hâru|{{sc|pl}}-animal}}
{{gl|mećheteu:|maćh-teu|news-{{sc|prox.obl}}}}
{{gl|mucińe|mu-cińe|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-rule}}
{{gl|śâphehiti.|śâphehi-ti|lion-{{sc|prox}}}}
{{glend|All the animals hear and know this news: this lion rules them.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Si|si|and}}
{{gl|mićinu|m-ićinu|{{sc|sg.an}}-return}}
{{gl|hepetific|he-petific|{{sc|att}}-win}}
{{gl|ińe|ińe|every}}
{{gl|faśâtu,|faśâ-tu|day-{{sc|loc}}}}
{{gl|si|si|and}}
{{gl|mumaheta|mu-maheta|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-praise}}
{{gl|pimeńu:|p-imeńu|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-mother}}
{{glend|And he returns winning every day, and his mother praises him:}}

{{gl|“Momeće|mom*-aće|{{sc|sg.an.sg.o}}-be}}
{{gl|fica|fica|{{sc|2sg}}}}
{{gl|ńohata!|ńo-uhata|{{sc|1sg.poss}}-child}}
{{gl|Apehafak|a-pehafe-ak|{{sc|sg.in}}-thick-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|fehak!|fe-ahak|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-neck}}
{{gl|Akhik|a-khi-k|{{sc|sg.in}}-thin-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|foho!|fo-uho|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-belly}}
{{gl|Ahitak|a-hita-k|{{sc|sg.in}}-big-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|feśamâ!|fe-śamâ|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-chest}}
{{glend|“You are my child! Indeed, your neck is thick! Your stomach is thin! Your chest is big!}}

{{gl|Muśâfoka|mu-śâf-ka|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-be.named-{{sc|caus}}}}
{{gl|nica|nica|{{sc|1sg}}}}
{{gl|ficań|fica-ń|{{sc|2sg-obl}}}}
{{gl|‘Mośepata’!”|mo-śepa-ta|{{sc|sg.an}}-strong-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{glend|I name you ‘The Strong One’!”}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Apate|a-pate|{{sc|sg.in}}-now}}
{{gl|apakafat|a-pakafat|{{sc|sg.in}}-repeat}}
{{gl|muchiaka|mu-chia-ka|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-stretch-{{sc|caus}}}}
{{gl|ponećesa|po-ne-aćas-*a|{{sc|3sg.poss-pl}}-leg-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{gl|thatetitu,|thata-*ti-tu|morning-{{sc|prox-loc}}}}
{{gl|si|si|and}}
{{gl|mumaheta|mu-maheta|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-praise}}
{{gl|pimeńu:|p-imeńu|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-mother}}
{{glend|Now he stretches his legs again this morning and his mother praises him:}}

{{gl|“Apehafak|a-pehafe-ak|{{sc|sg.in}}-thick-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|fehak!|fe-ahak|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-neck}}
{{gl|Akhik|a-khi-k|{{sc|sg.in}}-thin-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|foho!|fo-uho|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-belly}}
{{gl|Aśepak|a-śepa-k|{{sc|sg.in}}-strong-{{sc|ene}}}}
{{gl|feśamâ!|fe-śamâ|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-chest}}
{{glend|“Indeed, your neck is thick! Your stomach is thin! Your chest is strong!}}

{{gl|Musaće|mu-saće|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-own}}
{{gl|fica|fica|{{sc|2sg}}}}
{{gl|pefesa|∅-pefas-*a|{{sc|pl}}-arm-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{gl|hetesakhihik|he-tesakhihik|{{sc|att}}-mighty}}
{{gl|śâphehih!”|śâphehi-h|lion-{{sc|gen}}}}
{{glend|You own the mighty arms of a lion!”}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|A|a|but}}
{{gl|amohuth|a-mohuth|{{sc|sg.in}}-follow}}
{{gl|mukhothâo|mu-khothâo|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-end}}
{{gl|mumahetata,|maheta-ta|praise-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{gl|si|si|and}}
{{gl|monofotiâ|mon*-âfotiâ|{{sc|sg.an.o.pl}}-say}}
{{gl|nooteu:|no~ââ-*teu|{{sc|pl}}-word-{{sc|prox.obl}}}}
{{glend|But then she finishes praising him and says these words:}}

{{gl|“Achić,|a-chić|{{sc|sg.in}}-indeed}}
{{gl|mukotâo|mu-kotâo|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-believe}}
{{gl|nica.|nica|{{sc|1sg}}}}
{{glend|“Indeed, I believe it.}}

{{gl|Muśepatetumi|mu-śepa-tetumi|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-strong-{{sc|comp}}}}
{{gl|fica|fica|{{sc|2sg}}}}
{{gl|pa|pa|all}}
{{gl|nohâru|no-hâru-∅|{{sc|pl}}-animal-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{gl|haćaf|h-aćaf|{{sc|att}}-other}}
{{glend|You are stronger than all other beasts.}}

{{gl|Aputus|a-putus|{{sc|sg.in}}-always}}
{{gl|mosas|mo-sas|{{sc|sg.an}}-go}}
{{gl|fica|fica|2sg}}
{{gl|phethitu,|ph‹h›ethi-tu|‹{{sc|sg.in}}›forest-{{sc|loc}}}}
{{gl|si|si|and}}
{{gl|aputus|a-putus|{{sc|sg.in}}-always}}
{{gl|mićinu|m-ićinu|{{sc|sg.an}}-return}}
{{gl|hepetific.|he-petific|{{sc|att}}-win}}
{{glend|You always go into the forest and always return victorious.}}

{{gl|Si|si|and}}
{{gl|aputus|a-putus|{{sc|sg.in}}-always}}
{{gl|momepâśi|mom*-ipâśi|{{sc|sg.an.o.sg}}-show}}
{{gl|fica|fica|{{sc|2sg}}}}
{{gl|nicań,|nica-ń|{{sc|1sg-obl}}}}
{{gl|mucińeketa|mu-cińe-ak-*ta|{{sc|sg.an.o}}-rule-{{sc|ene}}-{{sc|obl}}}}
{{gl|nohâroteu.|no-hâru-*teu|{{sc|pl}}-animal-{{sc|prox.obl}}}}
{{glend|And you always show me that you truly rule the beasts.}}
}}
{{comment|Source of the sample text: Roy S. Hagman, Nama Hottentot grammar, Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.}}

==Lexicon==
: ''Main page: [[West Yalan/Lexicon]]''

[[Category:T1 languages|Yalan West]]
[[Category:Tuysáfa]]

East Yalan

2024-10-13T00:58:07Z

Corumayas:

{{Article}}
{{Language
| language = Jarene
| phonetic = {{IPA|[ʒaˈrənə]}}
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = southern Tuysáfa,<br /> Yalne plains
| speakers = unknown
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />   Yalan<br />     '''East Yalan'''
| mor-type = agglutinative
| author = [[User:Pole, the|Pole, the]]
| word-or = VSO
| morphalign = accusative secundative
}}
[[File:Yal2.png|thumb|East Yalan speaking area.]]

'''East Yalan''' is an ethnolect spoken in southern [[Tuysáfa]] around 0 YP. Together with the [[West Yalan]] it forms the [[Yalan]] language family / dialect continuum.

==Background==
The term covers a group of dialects spoken in southern and southeastern Tuysáfa coast. It is also a descendant of the Old Yalan dialects spoken around -800 YP.

West Yalan is a part of the [[T1 languages|T1 language family]] created for the Second Reconstruction Relay, together with i.a. [[Cednìtıt]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], [[Tumetıęk]] and [[Omari]].

East Yalan is known of its numerous homonyms. Frequently the meaning of a word depends on its syntactic role, inflections and sometimes on the context.

=== Internal phonological history ===
====Eastern fronting====
u uː → y yː → i iː / [+palatal]_

*OY ''āxjū'' → ''āxjī'' → EY ''axai''
*OY ''tūhju'' → ''tūhji'' → EY ''tauhi''

o oː → u uː

*OY ''ņono'' → EY ''gunu''
*OY ''tōho'' → EY ''tauhu''

====Loss of aspiration====
pʰ tʰ tʃʰ kʲʰ kʰ → p t tʃ kʲ k

*OY ''chū'' → EY ''kai''
*OY ''thaī'' → EY ''tai''

====Depalatalization====
ŋʲ kʲ ɡʲ xʲ ɣʲ → ŋ k ɡ x ɣ

*OY ''hjā'' → EY ''ha''
*OY ''cā'' → EY ''ka''

====Apical-laminal merger====
s̺ z̺ → s z

*OY ''āẑa'' → EY ''aze''
*OY ''īŝā'' → EY ''aisa''

====Spirantization====
b d dʒ ɡ → β ð ʒ ɣ → v z ʒ ɣ

*OY ''tādū'' → EY ''tazau''
*OY ''tugu'' → EY ''tuhu''

j → ʒ (this one did probably happen much earlier)<br/>
tʃ → ʃ

*OY ''čīčā'' → EY ''caica'' [ʃaiʃa]
*OY ''jā'' → EY ''ja'' [ʒa]

====Vocalism and diphthongization====
i u → ij uw / _V<br/>
æ → ə, (∅ / _V)

*OY ''caba'' → EY ''keve''
*OY ''cimaū'' → EY ''kimau''

iː uː → ɪi ʊu<br/>
ɪi ʊu → ɛi ɔu → ɛ ɔ / _[-stress] (ɛj ɔw / _V)<br/>
ɪi ʊu → ai au / _[+stress] (aj aw / _V)

*OY ''thō'' → EY ''tau''
*OY ''čhīā'' → EY ''caya''

æ: → a (aj /_V)

*OY ''tā'' → EY ''ta''
*OY ''tāā'' → EY ''taya''

====Debuccalization====
ɣ → ɦ ( → ∅ / in some dialects)<br/>

==Phonology==
{| {{softtable|c}}
! Consonants
! labial
! dental
! post-alv.
! palatal
! velar
! glottal
|-
! nasal
| {{IPA|m}}
| {{IPA|n}}
|
| {{IPA|ɲ}} ‹ny›
| {{IPA|ŋ}} ‹g›
|
|-
! plosive
| {{IPA|p}}
| {{IPA|t}}
|
|
| {{IPA|k}}
|
|-
! voiceless fricative
|
| {{IPA|s}}
| {{IPA|ʃ}} ‹c›
|
| {{IPA|x}}
|
|-
! voiced fricative
| {{IPA|v}}
| {{IPA|z}}
| {{IPA|ʒ}} ‹j›
|
|
|rowspan=2| {{IPA|ɦ}} ‹h›
|-
! fluid
| {{IPA|(w)}}
| {{IPA|r}}
|
| {{IPA|(j)}} ‹y›
|
|}

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Vowels
! front
! central
! back
|-
! close
| {{IPA|i}}
|
| {{IPA|u}}
|-
! mid
|
| {{IPA|ə}} ‹e›
|
|-
! open
| {{IPA|ai}}
| {{IPA|a}}
| {{IPA|au}}
|}

Syllables of type (C)V.

The stress is placed on the last syllable if it contains diphthong, e.g. '''saxau''' {{IPA|[saˈxau̯]}} and on the next-to-last syllable otherwise, e.g. '''saxugu''' {{IPA|[saˈxuŋu]}}.

Unaccented /ai au/ are realized as {{IPA|[ɛ ɔ]}}.

/ai au i u/ followed directly by another vowel get an epenthetic glide [j w] – written as ‹'''y w'''›, e.g. '''awau''' {{IPA|[ɔwˈau̯]}}, '''xiya''' {{IPA|[ˈxija]}}.

Unaccented schwas are often elided in speech, e.g. '''akese''' {{IPA|[aˈkəsə ~ aˈkəs]}}.

==Pronouns==
The personal pronouns are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
!rowspan=2|
!colspan=2|1.
!colspan=2|2.
!colspan=3|3.
|-
!align=center|sg
!pl
!sg
!pl
!sg an.
!sg inan.
!pl
|-
! N.
| nai
| ta
| sai
| cai
| vai
| ai
| nai
|-
! AD.
| nai'''cege'''
| ta'''cege'''
| sai'''cege'''
| cai'''cege'''
| v'''igi'''
| '''igi'''
| n'''igi'''
|-
! AI.
| n'''igai'''
| t'''egai'''
| s'''igai'''
| c'''igai'''
| v'''au'''
| '''au'''
| n'''au'''
|-
! G.
| nai'''cehe'''
| ta'''cehe'''
| sai'''cehe'''
| cai'''cehe'''
| v'''ihi'''
| '''ihi'''
| n'''ihi'''
|-
! L.
| nai'''catau'''
| ta'''catau'''
| sai'''catau'''
| cai'''catau'''
| vai'''tau'''
| ai'''tau'''
| nai'''tau'''
|}

1sg and 3pl ''nai'' are distinguished by the verb agreement:

* '''Muxukaitai nai.'''
*: mu-xukaitai nai
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-see {{sc|1sg}}
*: ''I see.''

* '''Nexukaitai nai.'''
*: ne-xukaitai nai
*: {{sc|pl}}-see {{sc|3pl}}
*: ''They see.''

The second one can be also omitted:

* '''Nexukaitai.'''
*: ne-xukaitai
*: {{sc|pl}}-see
*: ''They see.''

==Nouns==
{| {{softtable|c}}
!align=center| -2
! -1
! 0
! +1
|-
| possession
| number
| '''root'''
| case
|}

===Prefixes===
====Possessive====
:C – before consonants
:V – before vowels

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
!colspan=2|
!C
!V
|-
!rowspan=3|sg
!1.
|ni-
|g- ¹
|-
!2.
|si-
|s- ¹
|-
!3.
|pu-
|p-
|-
!rowspan=3|pl
!1.
|te-
|t- ¹
|-
!2.
|ci-
|k- ¹
|-
!3.
|nu-
|n-
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|autuzu, tuzu "fish"
|-
|'''g'''utuzu, '''ni'''tuzu
|-
|'''s'''utuzu, '''si'''tuzu
|-
|'''p'''autuzu, '''pu'''tuzu
|-
|'''t'''utuzu, '''te'''tuzu
|-
|'''k'''utuzu, '''ci'''tuzu
|-
|'''n'''autuzu, '''nu'''tuzu
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|akese, nekese "leg"
|-
|'''g'''ekese, '''ni'''nekese
|-
|'''s'''ekese, '''si'''nekese
|-
|'''p'''akese, '''pu'''nekese
|-
|'''t'''ekese, '''te'''nekese
|-
|'''k'''ekese, '''ci'''nekese
|-
|'''n'''akese, '''nu'''nekese
|}
|}

: ¹) initial ''a ai au'' reduced to ''e i u''

====Number====
: P – before plosives
: C – before other consonants
: V – before vowels

{| {{softtable|c}}
!colspan=2|
!P
!C
!V
|-
!sg
!rowspan=2|anim.
| au-
| -
| -
|-
!pl
| -
| nu-
| n- ¹
|-
!sg
!rowspan=2|inan.
|colspan=2| -
| -
|-
!pl
|colspan=2| ne-
| n- ¹
|-
!colspan=2|collective
|colspan=2| ai-
| ay- ¹
|}

: ¹) initial ''a ai au'' reduced to ''e i u''

===Declension===
East Yalan has five cases:
* '''Nominative''', the default form;
* '''Accusative-Dative''' (Primative), patient or recipient; used with prepositions; in past tense can be replaced with the nominative;
* '''Accusative-Instrumental''' (Secundative), instrument or theme;
* '''Genitive''', possessions and relations, used with temporal expressions;
* '''Locative''', location or movement;

And two declensions: familiar (proximate and definite) and unfamiliar (distal or indefinite).

: 1 – words ending with ''a e i u''
: 2 – words ending with ''ai''
: 3 – words ending with ''au''

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Familiar
! 1
! 2
! 3
|-
! N.
| aivi "ground"
| xikai "night"
| sau "language"
|-
! AD.
| aiv'''ege'''
| xik'''igi'''
| s'''ugu'''
|-
! AI.
| aih'''au''' ¹
| xik'''au''' ¹
| s'''au''' ¹
|-
! G.
| aiv'''ehe'''
| xik'''ihi'''
| s'''uhu'''
|-
! L.
| aiv'''atau'''
| xikai'''tau'''
| sau'''tau'''
|-
! Unfamiliar
! 1
! 2
! 3
|-
! N.
| aivi'''kau'''
| xik'''ikau'''
| s'''ukau'''
|-
! AD.
| aivi'''kugu'''
| xik'''ikugu'''
| s'''ukugu'''
|-
! AI.
| aivi'''hau'''
| xik'''ihau'''
| s'''uhau'''
|-
! G.
| aivi'''kuhu'''
| xik'''ikuhu'''
| s'''ukuhu'''
|-
! L.
| aivi'''kautau'''
| xik'''ikautau'''
| s'''ukautau'''
|}

: ¹) non-initial ''v'' mutates to ''h''

==Verbs==
{| {{softtable|c}}
! align=center| -1
! 0
! +1
! +2
|-
| person, tense, aspect
| '''root'''
| mood
| voice
|}

===Person-tense prefixes===
Verb prefixes mark tense, aspect and agree with animacy and number of the subject.

Where two prefixes are given, the former is used before consonants and the latter before vowels.

The definite conjugation is used when the primative object (patient or recipient) is known and definite, even if not directly mentioned.
* '''Pusuja.'''
*: pu-suja
*: {{sc|sg.an.aor}}-put
*: ''He/she put (something).''

* '''Pausuja.'''
*: pau-suja
*: {{sc|sg.an.aor.def}}-put
*: ''He/she put it.''

The definite prefixes ending with ''m'' have variants with ''n'', now dialectal, indicating plurality of the object.

: C – before consonants
: V – before vowels

''a ai au'' change to ''e i u'' after prefixes marked with an asterisk (*), namely in aorist and definite and reflexive present forms.
* There are some exceptions, though: verbs '''au''' (be located), '''aunu''' (be place of) and '''auzu''' (be there, be got) do not change.

====Aorist====
Aorist is used for complete actions with no present relevance.

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Object
! C
! V
|-
!rowspan=3| sg anim.
! –
| pu-
| p- *
|-
! def.
| pau-
| pum- *
|-
! refl.
| puhe-
| puh- *
|-
!rowspan=3| sg inan.
! –
| se-
| s- *
|-
! def.
| sa-
| sem- *
|-
! refl.
| sehe-
| seh- *
|-
!rowspan=3| pl
! –
| xu-
| x- *
|-
! def.
| xau-
| xum- *
|-
! refl.
| xuhe-
| xuh- *
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| -aicici "require"
|-
| '''p'''icici
|-
| '''pum'''icici
|-
| '''puh'''icici
|-
| '''s'''icici
|-
| '''sem'''icici
|-
| '''seh'''icici
|-
| '''x'''icici
|-
| '''xum'''icici
|-
| '''xuh'''icici
|}
|}

====Imperfect====
Imperfect is used for incomplete past actions.

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Object
! C
! V
|-
!rowspan=3| sg anim.
! –
| pi-
| p-
|-
! def.
| pumi-
| pum-
|-
! refl.
| puhi-
| puh-
|-
!rowspan=3| sg inan.
! –
| si-
| s-
|-
! def.
| semi-
| sem-
|-
! refl.
| sehi-
| seh-
|-
!rowspan=3| pl
! –
| xai-
| xuw-
|-
! def.
| xumi-
| xum-
|-
! refl.
| xuhi-
| xuh-
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| -aicici "require"
|-
| '''p'''aicici
|-
| '''pum'''aicici
|-
| '''puh'''aicici
|-
| '''s'''aicici
|-
| '''sem'''aicici
|-
| '''seh'''aicici
|-
| '''xuw'''icici
|-
| '''xum'''aicici
|-
| '''xuh'''icici
|}
|}

====Present====
Present is used for general utterances.

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Object
! C
! V
|-
!rowspan=3| sg anim.
! –
| mu-
| m-
|-
! def.
| mau-
| mum- *
|-
! refl.
| muhe-
| muh- *
|-
!rowspan=3| sg inan.
! –
| a-
| -
|-
! def.
| au-
| am- *
|-
! refl.
| ahe-
| ah- *
|-
!rowspan=3| pl
! –
| ne-
| n-
|-
! def.
| na-
| nem- *
|-
! refl.
| nehe-
| neh- *
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| -aicici "require"
|-
| '''m'''aicici
|-
| '''mum'''icici
|-
| '''muh'''icici
|-
| aicici
|-
| '''am'''icici
|-
| '''ah'''icici
|-
| '''n'''aicici
|-
| '''nem'''icici
|-
| '''neh'''icici
|}
|}

====Progressive====
Progressive is used for ongoing actions.

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Object
! C
! V
|-
!rowspan=3| sg anim.
! –
| mai-
| muw-
|-
! def.
| mumi-
| mum-
|-
! refl.
| muhi-
| muh-
|-
!rowspan=3| sg inan.
! –
| ai-
| ay-
|-
! def.
| ami-
| am-
|-
! refl.
| ahi-
| ah-
|-
!rowspan=3| pl
! –
| nai-
| nay-
|-
! def.
| nemi-
| nem-
|-
! refl.
| nehi-
| neh-
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| -aicici "require"
|-
| '''muw'''aicici
|-
| '''mum'''aicici
|-
| '''muh'''aicici
|-
| '''ay'''aicici
|-
| '''am'''aicici
|-
| '''ah'''aicici
|-
| '''nay'''aicici
|-
| '''nem'''aicici
|-
| '''neh'''aicici
|}
|}

====Future====
Future tense is used for perfective actions in future.

{|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Object
! C
! V
|-
!rowspan=3| sg anim.
! –
| mau-
| mat-
|-
! def.
| mumau-
| mumet-
|-
! refl.
| muhau-
| muhet-
|-
!rowspan=3| sg inan.
! –
| au-
| at-
|-
! def.
| amau-
| amet-
|-
! refl.
| ahau-
| ahet-
|-
!rowspan=3| pl
! –
| nau-
| nat-
|-
! def.
| nemau-
| nemet-
|-
! refl.
| nehau-
| nehet-
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| -aicici "require"
|-
| '''mat'''aicici
|-
| '''mumet'''aicici
|-
| '''muhet'''aicici
|-
| '''at'''aicici
|-
| '''amet'''aicici
|-
| '''ahet'''aicici
|-
| '''nat'''aicici
|-
| '''nemet'''aicici
|-
| '''nehet'''aicici
|}
|}

===Stem classes===
Verbs (and other words that are conjugated, e.g. adjectives) are divided into several groups:

* consonantal stems
*: 1 – verbs ending in ''e i u''

* regular vocalic stems
*: 2 – verbs ending in ''a'' ('''a''' stems)
*: 3 – verbs ending in ''ai'' ('''i''' stems)

* irregular (unpredictable) vocalic stems – ending in ''au'':
*: 4 – '''u''' stems
*: 5 – '''au''' stems

Regarding the consonantal stems:
* The stem is either irregular (and listed in the dictionary) or identical to the indicative form.
* The imperative is created from the indicative, not the stem.
* The last vowel/consonant of the stem is deleted before another vowel/consonant, e.g. tauku- + -au > '''taukau'''; saig- + -ka > '''saika'''.

The stem is needed to construct imperative, irrealis and optative mood. It can be formed knowing the group number, which is listed in the dictionary.

===Mood endings===
{| {{softtable|c}}
!
!colspan=2| 1
! 2
! 3
! 4
! 5
|-
!Indicative
| sig'''i''' "run"
| ait'''i''' "be dark"
| suj'''a''' "put"
| kak'''ai''' "live"
| tim'''au''' "eat"
| vat'''au''' "move"
|-
!Stem
| '''<span style="color:#bb0033;">saig</span>'''-
| aiti-
| suj'''<span style="color:#bb0033;">a</span>'''-
| kak'''<span style="color:#bb0033;">i</span>'''-
| tim'''<span style="color:#bb0033;">u</span>'''-
| vat'''<span style="color:#bb0033;">au</span>'''-
|-
!colspan=8|
|-
!Imperative
| sig'''a'''
| ait'''a'''
| suj<span style="color:#bb0033;">ay</span>'''a''' ¹
| kak<span style="color:#bb0033;">iy</span>'''a'''
| tim<span style="color:#bb0033;">uw</span>'''a'''
| vat<span style="color:#bb0033;">aw</span>'''a'''
|-
!Irrealis
| <span style="color:#bb0033;">saig</span>'''a'''
| ait'''a'''
| suj<span style="color:#bb0033;">a</span>'''ra'''
| kak<span style="color:#bb0033;">i</span>'''ra'''
| tim<span style="color:#bb0033;">u</span>'''ra'''
| vat<span style="color:#bb0033;">au</span>'''ra'''
|-
!Optative
| <span style="color:#bb0033;">saig</span>'''au'''
| ait'''au'''
| suj<span style="color:#bb0033;">a</span>'''rau'''
| kak<span style="color:#bb0033;">i</span>'''rau'''
| tim<span style="color:#bb0033;">u</span>'''rau'''
| vat<span style="color:#bb0033;">au</span>'''rau'''
|}

:¹) [j] appears there epenthetically

===Voice suffixes===
There are five voices in East Yalan:

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Active
| -
|-
! Passive
| '''-unu''' ¹, '''-nu'''
|-
! Receptive
| '''-aunu''' ¹, '''-hunu''' ²
|-
! Indirective
| '''-teme''' ²
|-
! Causative
| '''-ka''' ²
|}

: ¹) group 1 verbs (in the indicative mood)
: ²) added to the stem (in the indicative mood)

The endings can be likewise combined with other moods.

The indirective voice is used for promoting a monotransitive instrument or ditransitive theme to the primary object of the verb:

* '''Pausaicai.'''
*: pau-saicai
*: {{sc|sg.an.aor.def}}-give
*: ''He gave (something) to him.''

* '''Pausaiciteme.'''
*: pau-saici-teme
*: {{sc|sg.an.aor.def}}-give-{{sc|ind}}
*: ''He gave it (to somebody).''

* '''Muhexukautau nai.'''
*: muhe-xukautau nai
*: {{sc|sg.an.refl}}-see {{sc|1sg}}
*: ''I see myself.''

* '''Muhexukaututeme nai.'''
*: muhe-xukautu-teme nai
*: {{sc|sg.an.refl}}-see-{{sc|ind}} {{sc|1sg}}
*: ''I see by myself.''

==Adjectives==
===Attributive===
{| {{softtable|c}}
!align=center| -1
! 0
! +1
! +2
! +3
|-
|attributive
|'''root'''
|mood
|voice
|comparison
|}

Adjectives, numerals and verbal attributives take no possessive or number prefixes. Usually they describe another noun and have the attributive prefix '''xe-, x-'''.

* '''aukeza xexa'''
*: au-keza xe-xa
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-man {{sc|att}}-good
*: ''the good man''

===Substantive===
{| {{softtable|c}}
!align=center| -1
! 0
! +1
! +2
! +3
! +4
|-
| person, tense, aspect
| '''root'''
| mood
| voice
| comparison
| case
|}

When they are used alone (substantivized), they take the verbal agreement prefixes and inflect with their own declension paradigm:

* '''muxa'''
*: mu-xa
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-good
*: ''the good one''

The inflection depends on the stem class; the endings are added to the stem:

{| {{softtable|c}}
!rowspan=2|
! 1
! 2-5
|-
| '''tere''', '''ta<sup>r</sup>-''' "red"
| '''axai''' "grey"
|-
!N.
| mu{{red|tere}}
| m{{red|axai}}
|-
!AD.
| mu{{red|ta}}'''tege'''
| m{{red|axi}}'''zege''' ¹
|-
!AI.
| mu{{red|ta}}'''sai'''
| m{{red|axi}}'''zai''' ¹
|-
!G.
| mu{{red|ta}}'''tehe'''
| m{{red|axi}}'''zehe''' ¹
|-
!L.
| mu{{red|ta}}'''tatai'''
| m{{red|axi}}'''zatai''' ¹
|}

: ¹) final ''a ai au'' reduced to ''e i u''

There are no participles in East Yalan. Attributive forms are used instead:

* '''aukeza xetimau'''
*: au-keza xe-timau
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-man {{sc|att}}-eat
*: ''The eating man. / The man who eats.''

===Comparative suffix===
Comparative/superlative form is created by adding '''-tetaumai''' (group 1) / '''-zetaumai''' (groups 2-5) to the stem. So formed adjectives can take the standard argument as their primary object.

* '''muxazetaumai'''
*: mu-xa-zetaumai
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-good-{{sc|comp}}
*: ''the better/best one''

==Numerals==
Numerals are inflected like other attributives.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! 1.
| nau
! 11.
| naneza
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| gehe
! 12.
| geheneza
! 20.
| gaka
|-
! 3.
| sa
! 13.
| saneza
! 30.
| sena
|-
! 4.
| keve
! 14.
| keveneza
! 40.
| kapa
|-
! 5.
| ha
! 15.
| haneza
! 50.
| hena
|-
! 6.
| tuku
! 16.
| tukeneza
! 60.
| tauka
|-
! 7.
| muru
! 17.
| mureneza
! 70.
| mauna
|-
! 8.
| kepahe
! 18.
| kepaheneza
! 80.
| kepaka
|-
! 9.
| aura
! 19.
| auraneza
! 90.
| aurena
|-
! 10.
| aneza
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| anezena
|}

Higher numbers are constructed by agreement (addition) and attributives (multiplication), e.g.:

* '''nanezena xaura'''
*: n-anezena x-aura
*: {{sc|pl}}-hundred {{sc|att}}-nine
*: ''nine hundred''

* '''naura nanezena''' / '''nanezena naura'''
*: n-aura n-anezena
*: {{sc|pl}}-nine {{sc|pl}}-hundred
*: ''one hundred and nine''

When a numeral describes a noun, the former word order is preferred to avoid ambiguity:

* '''tuzu xanezena xaura'''
*: ∅-tuzu x-anezena x-aura
*: {{sc|pl}}-fish {{sc|att}}-hundred {{sc|att}}-nine
*: ''nine hundred fish''

* '''tuzu xaura xanezena'''
*: ∅-tuzu x-aura x-anezena
*: {{sc|pl}}-fish {{sc|att}}-nine {{sc|att}}-hundred
*: ''one hundred and nine fish''

==Syntax==
The East Yalan is a strictly head-initial language. The adjectives are placed after nouns and nouns after verbs.

The usual word order is VSO.

In ditransitive clauses, recipients are placed before themes:

* '''Maisaicai nai saicege ai.'''
*: mau-saicai nai saic-ege ai
*: {{sc|sg.an.def}}-give {{sc|1sg}} {{sc|2sg-acc.dat}} {{sc|3sg.acc.ins}}
*: ''I give it to you.''

Subjects can appear actually everywhere in clauses, but their usual place is after the verb.

Adverbs are placed before verbs and agree in tense (but not in person) with the verbs:

* '''Sipatege pitimau hina.'''
*: si-patege pi-timau hina
*: {{sc|sg.in.ipf}}-continuous {{sc|sg.an.ipf}}-eat woman
*: ''The woman was still eating.''

===Existence===
There are three verbs equivalent to English "to be" in East Yalan.

The first one, '''pa''' is used for expressing existence of the subject:

* '''Mupa xaupexai.'''
*: mu-pa xaupexai
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-exist lion
*: ''(The) lion exists.''

It inflects regularly, as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Aorist !! Imperfect !! Present !! Progressive !! Future
|-
! sg anim.
| pupa || pipa || mupa || maipa || maupa
|-
! sg inan.
| sepa || sipa || apa || aipa || aupa
|-
! pl
| xupa || xaipa || nepa || naipa || naupa
|}

===Location===
The locational verb is '''au'''. It has only definite forms and requires the location as direct object:

* '''Pumau amenai pitigi.'''
*: pum-au amenai pit-igi
*: {{sc|sg.an.aor.def}}-be.located deer forest-{{sc|acc.dat}}
*: ''The deer was in the forest.''

It inflects slightly irregularly – its initial diphthong is never reduced (the same is true also for its other forms):

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Aorist !! Imperfect !! Present !! Progressive !! Future
|-
! sg anim.
|colspan=2| pumau ||colspan=2| mumau || mumetau
|-
! sg inan.
|colspan=2| semau ||colspan=2| amau || ametau
|-
! pl
|colspan=2| xumau ||colspan=2| nemau || nemetau
|}

It has also passive form '''aunu''' "to be location of":

* '''Paunu pitai amenihi.'''
*: p-au-nu pitai amen-ihi
*: {{sc|sg.an.aor}}-be.located-{{sc|pass}} forest deer-{{sc|gen}}
*: ''The forest was location of the deer.''

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Aorist !! Imperfect !! Present !! Progressive !! Future
|-
! sg anim.
|colspan=2| paunu || maunu || muwaunu || mataunu
|-
! sg inan.
|colspan=2| saunu || aunu || ayaunu || ataunu
|-
! pl
| xaunu || xuwaunu || naunu || nayaunu || nataunu
|}

===Copula===
The third verb, the copula is '''ahe'''.

It requires the predicative as its direct object:

* '''Mumehe xaurau amenigi.'''
*: mum*-ahe xaurau amen-igi
*: {{sc|sg.an.def}}-be.copula animal deer-{{sc|acc.dat}}
*: The animal is deer.

It is conjugated regularly. It has only definite forms, though.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Aorist !! Imperfect !! Present !! Progressive !! Future
|-
! sg anim.
| pumehe || pumahe || mumehe || mumahe || mumetahe
|-
! sg inan.
| semehe || semahe || amehe || amahe || ametahe
|-
! pl
| xumehe || xumahe || nemehe || nemahe || nemetahe
|}

However, it is not used with adjectives and other attributive nouns – those are conjugated instead.

* '''Muxaita xaurau.'''
*: mu-xaita xaurau
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-big animal
*: The animal is big.

===Possession and introduction===
There is an intransitive verb '''auzu''' expressing possession. Its subject is a noun with appropriate possessive prefix:

* '''Mauzu nivautau.'''
*: m-auzu ni-vautau
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-be {{sc|1sg.poss}}-cow
*: ''I have a cow.''

Additionally, it can be used for introducing a subject – with distal inflection on the noun:

* '''Mauzu xaupexikau.'''
*: m-auzu xaupex-ikau
*: {{sc|sg.an}}-be lion-{{sc|dist.nom}}
*: ''There is a lion.''

* '''Pauzu amenikau pitaitau.'''
*: p-auzu amen-ikau pitai-tau
*: {{sc|sg.an.aor}}-be deer-{{sc|dist.nom}} forest-{{sc|loc}}
*: ''There was a deer in the forest.''

Rarely, the proximate inflection can be used.

It inflects irregularly.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Subject
! Aorist !! Imperfect !! Present !! Progressive !! Future
|-
! sg anim.
|colspan=2| pauzu || mauzu || muwauzu || matauzu
|-
! sg inan.
|colspan=2| sauzu || auzu || ayauzu || atauzu
|-
! pl
| xauzu || xuwauzu || nauzu || nayauzu || natauzu
|}

==Sample text==
The sample text is '''xaupehai xexukau''' ("the young lion"), the text used in comparative linguistics of the T1 language family.

{{+|
{{gl|Mumehe|mum*-ahe|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-be.copula}}
{{gl|xaupehai|xaupehai|lion}}
{{gl|caigemege|caig-em-ege|rule-er-{{sc|acc.dat}}}}
{{gl|pa|pa|all}}
{{gl|nuxauruhu,|nu-xaur-uhu|{{sc|pl.an}}-animal-{{sc|gen}}}}
{{glend|The lion is the ruler of all animals,}}

{{gl|tau|tau|because}}
{{gl|acihi|a-cihi|{{sc|sg.in}}-very}}
{{gl|muheva,|mu-heva|{{sc|sg.an}}-strong}}
{{gl|apexaze|a-pexaze|{{sc|sg.in}}-thick}}
{{gl|puxamau,|pu-xamau|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-chest}}
{{gl|akai|a-kai|{{sc|sg.in}}-thin}}
{{gl|pauhu,|p-auhu|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-belly}}
{{gl|axukau|a-xukau|{{sc|sg.in}}-fast}}
{{gl|musigi.|mu-sigi|{{sc|sg.an}}-run}}
{{glend|because he is very strong, his chest is thick, his belly is thin and he runs fast.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Ka|ka|behold}}
{{gl|mauzu|m-auzu|{{sc|sg.an}}-be}}
{{gl|xaupexai|xaupehai|lion}}
{{gl|xexukau.|xe-xukau|{{sc|att}}-young}}
{{glend|Look, there is the young lion.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Muceje|mu-ceje|{{sc|sg.an}}-come}}
{{gl|pitaitau|pitai-tau|forest-{{sc|loc}}}}
{{gl|aigi|aigi|every}}
{{gl|tatehe,|tat-ehe|morning-{{sc|gen}}}}
{{gl|sai|sai|and}}
{{gl|maukupau|mau-kupau|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-compare}}
{{gl|nuhaurugu|nu-haur-ugu|{{sc|pl.an}}-animal-{{sc|acc.dat}}}}
{{gl|xahe|x-ahe|{{sc|att}}-other}}
{{gl|hevezau.|hevez-au|strength-{{sc|acc.ins}}}}
{{glend|He comes to the forest every morning and compares to the other animals with regard to strength.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Sai|sai|and}}
{{gl|apautusu|a-pautusu|{{sc|sg.in}}-always}}
{{gl|maikainau|m-aikainau|{{sc|sg.an}}-return}}
{{gl|xepitaisici.|xe-pitaisici|{{sc|att}}-win}}
{{glend|And he always returns winning.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Napame|na-pame|{{sc|pl.def}}-hear}}
{{gl|sai|sai|and}}
{{gl|nasaketai|na-saketai|{{sc|pl.def}}-know}}
{{gl|mekege:|mek-ege|news-{{sc|acc.dat}}}}
{{gl|maucaigi|mau-caigi|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-rule}}
{{gl|xaupehai.|xaupehai|lion}}
{{glend|All the animals hear and know the news: the lion rules them.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Sai|sai|and}}
{{gl|maikainau|m-aikainau|{{sc|sg.an}}-return}}
{{gl|xepitaisici|xe-pitaisici|{{sc|att}}-win}}
{{gl|aigi|aigi|every}}
{{gl|saxuhu,|sax-uhu|day-{{sc|gen}}}}
{{gl|sai|sai|and}}
{{gl|maumaxeta|mau-maxeta|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-praise}}
{{gl|paimegai:|p-aimegai|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-mother}}
{{glend|And he returns winning every day, and his mother praises him:}}

{{gl|“Mumehe|mum*-ahe|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-be.copula}}
{{gl|sai|sai|{{sc|2sg}}}}
{{gl|guxazege!|g*-auxaz-ege|{{sc|1sg.poss}}-child-{{sc|acc.dat}}}}
{{gl|Apexaze|a-pexaze|{{sc|sg.in}}-thick}}
{{gl|sexeke!|s*-axeke|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-neck}}
{{gl|Akai|a-kai|{{sc|sg.in}}-thin}}
{{gl|suhu!|s*-auhu|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-belly}}
{{gl|Axaita|a-xaita|{{sc|sg.in}}-big}}
{{gl|sixamau!|si-xamau|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-chest}}
{{glend|“You are my child! Your neck is thick! Your stomach is thin! Your chest is big!}}

{{gl|Mauxausuka|mau-xausu-ka|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-be.named-{{sc|caus}}}}
{{gl|nai|nai|{{sc|1sg}}}}
{{gl|saicege|saic-ege|{{sc|2sg-acc.dat}}}}
{{gl|‘Muhevezau’!”|mu-heva-*zau|{{sc|sg.an}}-strong-{{sc|acc.ins}}}}
{{glend|I name you ‘The Strong One’!”}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Apate|a-pate|{{sc|sg.in}}-now}}
{{gl|apahasete|a-pahasete|{{sc|sg.in}}-repeat}}
{{gl|maucayaka|mau-caya-ka|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-stretch-{{sc|caus}}}}
{{gl|punekesege|pu-n*-ekes-ege|{{sc|3sg.poss-pl}}-leg-{{sc|acc.dat}}}}
{{gl|tatehe,|tat-ehe|morning-{{sc|gen}}}}
{{gl|sai|sai|and}}
{{gl|maumaxeta|mau-maxeta|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-praise}}
{{gl|paimegai:|p-aimegai|{{sc|3sg.poss}}-mother}}
{{glend|Now he stretches his legs again this morning and his mother praises him:}}

{{gl|“Apehaze|a-pehaze|{{sc|sg.in}}-thick}}
{{gl|sexeke!|s*-axeke|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-neck}}
{{gl|Akai|a-kai|{{sc|sg.in}}-thin}}
{{gl|suhu!|s*-auhu|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-belly}}
{{gl|Aheva|a-heva|{{sc|sg.in}}-strong}}
{{gl|sixamau!|si-xamau|{{sc|2sg.poss}}-chest}}
{{glend|“Your neck is thick! Your stomach is thin! Your chest is strong!}}

{{gl|Mausake|mau-sake|{{sc|sg.an.def}}-own}}
{{gl|sai|sai|{{sc|2sg}}}}
{{gl|pesazege|∅-pesaz-ege|{{sc|pl}}-arm-{{sc|acc.dat}}}}
{{gl|xetesakaixiki|xe-tesakaixiki|{{sc|att}}-mighty}}
{{gl|xaupehihi!”|xaupeh-ihi|lion-{{sc|gen}}}}
{{glend|You own the mighty arms of lion!”}}
}}

{{comment|Source of the sample text: Roy S. Hagman, Nama Hottentot grammar, Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.}}

==Lexicon==
:''Main page: [[East Yalan/Lexicon]]''

[[Category:T1 languages|Yalan East]]
[[Category:Tuysáfa]]

Hkətl’ohnim

2024-10-13T00:56:49Z

Corumayas:

{{Article}}
{{Language
| language = Hkətl’ohnim
| phonetic = {{IPA|[ʰkə.ˈt͡ɬ’o̞.ʰɲ̥im]}}
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = eastern Tuysáfa
| speakers = unknown
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />  '''Hkətl’ohnim'''
| word-or = verb-initial
| mor-type = polysynthetic; agglutinating w/ some fusion
| morphalign = split-ergative
| author = [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
'''Hkətl’ohnim''' is a language spoken in eastern [[Tuysáfa]] around 0 YP. It is part of the [[T1 languages|T1 language family]], and thus related to [[Cednìtıt]], [[East Yalan|East]] and [[West Yalan]], [[Omari]], [[Tumetıęk]], and the [[Northeastern Bay Language]].

The name literally means "we language-talk together".

=Phonology=
==Phoneme inventory==
===Consonants===

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! !! labial !! dental !! lateral !! alveolar !! palatal !! velar !! labio-v. !! uvular !! labio-uv. !! pharyng. !! glottal
|-
! plosive
| p || t || tɬ || ts || tʃ || k || kʷ || q || qʷ || ||
|-
! ejective
| p’ || t’ || tɬ’ || ts’ || tʃ’ || k’ || kʷ’ || q’ || qʷ’ || ||
|-
! fricative
| || || ɬ || s || ʃ || || || || || ħ || h
|-
! approximant
| || || l || ɹ || j || || w || || || ||
|-
! nasal
| m || n || || || ɲ || || || || || ||
|-
|}

* All consonants are written as in IPA, except that /tɬ tɬ’ ɬ tʃ tʃ’ ʃ ɹ j ɲ/ are represented by '''tl tl’ ł č č’ š r y ny'''.
* [ɲ] could probably be analysed as underlying /n/ or /nj/ in all positions, but it is much more common than any other Cj sequence, maybe even more frequent than /j/ on its own, and it definitely occurs more often than some other consonants which are clearly phonemic. What is more, there is a class of words where word-final [n] alternates with [ɲ] when a vowel follows, so for both distributional and morphophonological reasons the palatal nasal will be treated as an independent segment in this document.

===Vowels===
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! !! front !! central !! back
|-
! close
| i · iː || || u · uː
|-
! mid
| e · eː || ə || o · oː
|-
! open
| || a · aː ||
|-
|}

* All short vowels are written as in IPA.
* Long vowels take a macron diacritic: '''ī ē ā ō ū'''.

==Prosody==
Hkətl’ohnim has a dynamic stress accent, which is typically located on the last long vowel in a word, or else on the penultimate syllable. If the penultimate syllable contains the reduced vowel /ə/ and the antepenultimate syllable contains a full vowel, the antepenultimate syllable is accented.

In words with irregular accent placement, the stressed vowel is marked with an acute if short ('''í é á ó ú'''), and with a circumflex if long ('''î ê â ô û''').

==Phonetic detail and distribution==
* The maximal syllable structure of Hkətl’ohnim is roughly '''(F)C(j,w)V((C)C)'''.
* Any non-fricative onset consonant may be preceded by one of /s h ħ/ (although the latter only occurs before /q qʷ/). However, this forms a complex onset only word-initially; otherwise the fricative is reanalysed as a coda consonant.
* Any non-approximant onset consonant other than /ħ/ may be followed by one of /j w/.
* /h ħ/ may not appear immediately after another consonant.
* Three-consonant onsets only appear when the second of these consonants is a plosive, and only in word-initial position.
* All consonants except /j w/ may appear in coda position word-finally.
* Word-medially, coda consonants are limited to the coronal fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ (can occur before nasals and plain or ejective plosives), to the laryngeal fricatives /h ħ/ (the former can occur before resonants and plain plosives, the latter only before /q qʷ/), to the resonants /n ɹ l/ (can occur before almost any non-identical consonant; note that the nasal |n| represents a neutralisation of /m n ɲ/ in this position, being realised at the same POA as the following consonant), and to the ejectives /p’ t’ k’ q’/ (can only occur before nasals).
* Coda clusters appear almost exclusively in word-final position. They are limited in shape to /ɬ s ʃ h ħ n l/ followed by a (plain or ejective) plosive or affricate; again, /ħ/ appears only before /q qʷ/, and |n| assimilates in POA to the following consonant.
* /h/ is typically realised as preaspiration before another consonant, often with some frication at the latter's POA so that e.g. /hp ht hk/ may variously be heard as [ʰp ʰt ʰk] ~ [ɸp θt xk]. Resonants immediately preceded by /h/ become voiceless, which leads to a merger of |hl| into /ɬ/ in this position. /hɹ hj hw/ vary between [θ ç ɸ] and [ʃ ʃ xʷ] rather freely.
* /h ħ/ are only distinguished when not adjacent to a consonant. Neither sound occurs in cluster-final position; /ħ/ is found in clusters only before /q qʷ/; /h/ may appear before all other non-fricative consonants. Illegal combinations are resolved by POA assimilation of the fricative to the following consonant.
* /ħ/ may not occur adjacent to the vowels /i iː ə u uː/. Where this would occur, the vowels are lowered to '''e ē a o ō''' respectively. Underlying |ə| is also lowered to '''a''' when adjacent to an uvular plosive or ejective.
* The affricates /tɬ ts tʃ/ are reduced to fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ whenever they occur before plosives, ejectives, or non-lengthening nasals. This is reflected in the transcription by using the graphemes '''ł s š'''. If the preceding vowel is short and stressed, it will undergo {{sc|lengthening}}.
* Labialisation on dorsal obstruents is distinguished (and written) only before the vowels /i iː e eː a aː/ and word-finally. All velar and uvular stops are pronounced as labialised when followed by a rounded vowel.
* Underlying |ə| merges into /u/ after labialised consonants, and into /i/ after /tʃ’ tʃ ʃ ɲ/. The underlying sequences |wə jə| also surface as /u i/ when not preceded by a vowel.
* Underlying consonant clusters /ts’j k’j/, /tsj kj/, and /sj/ are generally neutralized to /tʃ’/, /tʃ/, and /ʃ/ respectively, unless preceded by a fricative other than /h/. The same obstruent mergers are observed before /i iː/. Since both changes have phonemic status, they are reflected in the transcription by using '''č’ č š''' for the resulting sounds (so that e.g. |kjə| → '''či''').
* Underlying /nj/ similarly collapses into [ɲ]; /n/ is also pronounced as [ɲ] before /i iː/. The sequence [ɲi] will be transcribed as '''ni''' in this document, regardless whether it represents underlying |ni|, |njə|, |ɲi|, or |ɲə|.
* The lateral obstruents /tɬ’ tɬ ɬ/ are often de-lateralised before the high vowels /i iː u uː/, especially in unstressed positions. The resulting sounds are typically dental [tθ’ tθ θ], but may be assibilated to [ts’ ts s] before /i iː/.
* The coronal fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ are typically pronounced as voiced [ɮ~ð z ʒ] when immediately preceded by a nasal. For some speakers, a voiced stop may be inserted into these clusters, yielding [ndɮ~ndð ndz ndʒ]. De-lateralisation of /ɬ/ to a central dental fricative or affricate is quite common in this environment before vowels of any quality, thereby preventing a merger of underlying /nɬ nl/.
* A sizeable proportion of speakers pronounces /ɹ/ as [ɾ] in prevocalic position, often strengthening it to [r] word-initially or if the following vowel is stressed. The sound still patterns as an approximant though.
* Non-ejective plosives are often lightly aspirated in stressed syllables.
* Ejectives may sometimes be realised as preglottalised voiced plosives in unstressed intervocalic positions or when followed by a nasal. In the latter environment, they may even lose all independent POA information by reducing to [ʔ], especially if the nasal is homoorganic.
* Word-final stressed vowels in content words must always be long. In case a stressed short vowel ends up in word-final position, it will be lengthened; this is reflected in the orthography.

==Morphophonology==
There are a few morphophonological alternations which may occur at morpheme boundaries. Most of these are morphologically conditioned, i.e. they only occur with specific word stems or affixes.

===Nasal mutation===
Nasal mutation is triggered by many (but not all) stems which end in a nasal consonant. It affects single morpheme-initial plosives and some instances of single morpheme-initial fricatives. ''Word''-initial /w/ may be affected as well (but note that this can only occur in nominal stems). Word stems which do not belong to one of the ''nasalisable'' stem classes are generally not affected.

Nasal mutation is indicated by marking the triggering morpheme boundary with a tilde ‹'''~'''›.

{| {{softtable|l}}
|-
| '''p kʷ qʷ w sm šm''' || → || '''ːm'''
|-
| '''t s sn šn''' || → || '''ːn'''
|-
| '''k q sny šny''' || → || '''ːny'''
|-
| '''š ħ''' || → || '''ːm / ːny'''
|-
| '''h''' || → || '''hm / hny / ːm'''
|-
|}

The triggering nasal consonant itself will be deleted. ‹'''ː'''› indicates that a preceding short vowel undergoes {{sc|lengthening}}. In some morphemes (notably the 3rd person object verbal prefixes), the quality of the preceding lengthened vowel is not phonologically predictable and must thus be given explicitly; the presence of the spurious morpheme-final nasal will be indicated in these cases by using ‹'''~ɴ'''› instead of a plain tilde.

The variant outcomes for /ʃ ħ h/ are determined on a lexical basis, and thus treated as separate capital stem classes.

If a single morpheme triggers both nasal mutation and {{sc|labialisation}}, labialisation will apply first.

===Glottalic mutation===
Glottalic mutation is triggered by most stems which end in a plain plosive (optionally preceded by a consonant other than /h ħ/) and by some stems which end in a nasal. It affects single prevocalic plosives and affricates, and additionally those single stem-initial fricatives which are also susceptible to {{sc|nasal mutation}}.

Morpheme boundaries which trigger glottalic mutation are marked with the symbol ‹'''ˀ'''›.

{| {{softtable|l}}
|-
| '''p t tɬ ts tʃ k kʷ q qʷ''' || → || '''p’ t’ tl’ ts’ č’ k’ kʷ’ q’ qʷ’'''
|-
| '''s ħ h''' || → || '''t’ q’ p’'''
|-
| '''š''' || → || '''č’ / k’'''
|-
|}

If the triggering morpheme ends in a plosive, the plosive will be deleted. In case the mutated consonant was a fricative originally, this will go along with {{sc|lengthening}} of a preceding short vowel and de-glottalisation of the ejective, so that the actual outcomes will be '''ːp ːt ːč ːk ːq''' instead of ''*p’ t’ č’ k’ q’''.

If the triggering morpheme ends in a nasal, the vowel before this nasal will be shortened, usually with a change in quality which is the reverse of the quality change associated with {{sc|lengthening}}. Since this is not entirely predictable, the mutated form of nasal-final glottalising morphemes will have to be learned separately.

The variant outcomes for /ʃ/ are determined as follows: In n-stems the outcome will be '''č’''' ~ '''ːč''', and in ny-stems the outcome will be '''k’''' ~ '''ːk'''.

If a single morpheme triggers both glottalic mutation and {{sc|labialisation}}, glottalic mutation will apply first.

When preceded by a glottalising morpheme, prevocalic instances of the fricatives /ɬ s ʃ/ which are immune to glottalic mutation will instead be fortified to the affricates '''tl ts č'''. If the triggering morpheme ends in a nasal, vowel shortening will also occur; if it ends in a plosive, the plosive will be deleted.

===Hard mutation===
Hard mutation is triggered by most stems which end in a single fricative or affricate. It affects those single stem-initial fricatives which may also undergo nasalisation, and those single stem-initial nasals which always trigger {{sc|lengthening}} of a preceding short vowel (indicated in the lexicon by a preposed ‹'''ː'''›).

Since hard mutation (for stems which are susceptible to this process) is the default behavior after morpheme-final fricatives, hardening environments will not be marked explicitly. 

{| {{softtable|l}}
|-
| '''s ħ h''' || → || '''t q p'''
|-
| '''š''' || → || '''č / k'''
|-
| '''ːn''' || → || '''t'''
|-
| '''ːny''' || → || '''k / q'''
|-
| '''ːm''' || → || '''p / kʷ / qʷ'''
|-
|}

/ʃ/ becomes '''č''' after /h ħ/, and '''k''' after /ɬ s ʃ/.

The variant outcomes for /ːɲ ːm/ are determined on a lexical basis, and thus treated as separate capital stem classes.

===Labialisation===
Labialisation is triggered by stems of various different shapes, and may be combined with most other types of mutations. Labialising stems often contain a rounded vowel, but this is by no means a rule. The process regularly affects morpheme-initial /k k’ q q’/, even when preceded by another consonant; a few instances of /ɲ/ in suffixes also exhibit labialisation (since this is exceptional, the corresponding suffix allomorph will be listed separately). If the labialising morpheme ends in an unrounded vowel, following vowel-initial morphemes will also be affected.

Labialising morpheme boundaries are marked with the symbol ‹'''ʷ'''›.

{| {{softtable|l}}
|-
| '''k q''' || → || '''kʷ qʷ'''
|-
| '''k’ q’''' || → || '''kʷ’ qʷ’'''
|-
| '''ny''' || → || '''m'''
|-
| V || → || '''w'''V
|-
|}

Where labialisation co-occurs with other morphophonological processes, the order of evaluation will be (1) {{sc|glottalic mutation}} > (2) {{sc|labialisation}} > (3) {{sc|nasal mutation}}.

===Vowel syncope / epenthesis===
Unstressed short vowels before a morpheme boundary will often be deleted when another morpheme follows, especially when the following morpheme itself begins with a vowel other than /ə/ (in this case, stem-final /u o/ preceded by a dorsal plosive or ejective are usually contracted into consonant labialisation). If the following morpheme begins with a consonant, stem-final vowels will only be syncopated if they belong to a stem of the ''consonantal'' caudal stem class ''and'' if regular morphophonological processes can create a legal consonant cluster across the morpheme boundary. Vowels at the end of an incorporated noun stem may be syncopated only when followed by a vowel.

Conversely, an epenthetic /ə/ will be inserted at all morpheme boundaries where the resulting consonant cluster would be illegal. It should be noted that the epenthetic vowel will surface as '''a''' after non-labialised /q’ q ħ/ or before /ħ/, as '''u''' after labialised consonants, as '''i''' after /tʃ’ tʃ ʃ ɲ/, and as '''ə''' elsewhere.

===Vowel lengthening===
The term "vowel lengthening" in the context of Hkətl’ohnim grammar may refer to two different phenomena. The first of these is the purely phonological requirement that any stressed word-final vowel must be long, so whenever a stressed short vowel ends up in word-final position, it will be lengthened with no change in quality. This is reflected in the orthography; however, in the lexicon such stems will always be cited with a short vowel.

When referring to the second, more complex phenomenon, the term is usually written in small caps ({{sc|lengthening}}). This second phenomenon is a morphophonological process that is triggered in various contexts, most importantly before a number of morphemes beginning with a nasal consonant, as a side-effect of {{sc|nasal mutation}} and {{sc|glottalic mutation}} in some circumstances, and for all stressed vowels which are immediately followed by a prevocalic resonant /m n ɲ l ɹ/. The resulting vowel will always be long if it ends up in stressed position (hence the name), but this will usually go along with a change in quality, and vowels in unstressed positions may be shortened again so that the modified vowel quality may in fact be the only surface realisation of {{sc|lengthening}}.

{{sc|lengthening}} is indicated with the symbol ‹'''ː'''›. The regular outcome of this process is as follows:

{| {{softtable|l}}
|-
| '''i''' || → || '''ē'''
|-
| '''e''' || → || '''ī'''
|-
| '''a''' || → || '''ē / ā'''
|-
| '''o''' || → || '''ū'''
|-
| '''u''' || → || '''ō'''
|-
|}

Various irregular outcomes are possible; these typically involve lengthening with no change in quality (this is reasonably common for /a/ → '''ā''', and rare for all other vowel qualities). Vowels adjacent to a lexically stressed syllable within the same morpheme do not undergo lengthening at all. Otherwise, {{sc|lengthened}} vowels will become short again (but retain their new quality) when they end up immediately before a stressed syllable or before a syllable containing another long vowel, starting at the end of the word.

=Nominal morphology=
==Nouns==
===Person and number===
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! rowspan="2"| !! colspan="3"| singular !! rowspan="5"| !! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 b"
| _V || _C || _CC || _V || _C || _CC
|-
! 1st person
| t- || tə- || tə- || s- || əs- || sə-
|-
! 2nd person
| l- || əl- || lə- || ny- || ni- || ni-
|-
! 3rd person
| colspan="3"| Ø- || n- || (nə-) || nə-
|-
|}

* The "prevocalic" variants of the prefixes are used not only before vowels, but also before /j w/. If the {{sc|2sg}} prefix is followed by one of these semivowels plus a vowel other than /ə/, the _CC variant of the prefix will be used instead.
* Many nouns have irregular plural stems, which are typically marked by a mutated stem-initial consonant, and sometimes also a different first vowel in the stem. If the plural stem begins with a single nasal, these nouns do not take the normal 3pl prefix '''nə-'''. Examples: '''wahə''' ‘lion’ → {{sc|3pl}} '''mahə''' (plural stem '''-mahə-'''); '''sqēmi''' ‘river’ → {{sc|3pl}} '''naħēmi''' (plural stem '''-ħēmi-'''). A few of these nouns use the plural stem for all forms except for the 3rd person singular; an example is '''rāna''' ‘woman’ → {{sc|3pl}} '''nōna''', whose stem is '''-ōna-''' in all non-{{sc|3sg}} forms. Stem alternations will be indicated in the lexicon.
* Sometimes a separate mutation takes place in the 1st person plural and 2nd person singular; for instance, the {{sc|2sg}} of '''wahə''' ‘lion’ is '''əlpahə'''.

===Case===
Nouns in Hkətl’ohnim inflect for a total of five cases, which are marked with suffixes. Case marking follows a split-ergative, dechticaetiative pattern ({{sc|dir-acc}} in the nonpast tense, {{sc|erg-dir}} in the past tense; see [[#Morphosyntactic alignment|here]] for details).

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! !! V_ !! C_
|-
! direct
| colspan="2"| -Ø
|-
! ergative
| -ł || -əł
|-
! accusative
| -n || -ən
|-
! instrumental
| colspan="2"| -u
|-
! genitive
| colspan="2"| -a
|-
|}
* The ergative suffix coalesces with stem-final /t ts tʃ/ into /tɬ/, and with stem-final /t’ ts’ tʃ’/ into /tɬ’/ (e.g. '''qat''' ‘man’ → {{sc|erg}} '''qatl''').
* The instrumental and genitive suffixes delete any preceding short vowel, and the instrumental suffix additionally causes lenition of preceding intervocalic /t/ to '''-s-''', and of preceding intervocalic /p k kʷ q qʷ/ to '''-h-''' (cf. '''qat''' ‘man’ → {{sc|instr}} '''qasu'''; '''wiq''' ‘pattern, decoration’ → {{sc|instr}} '''wihu'''). Nouns ending in a stressed vowel typically add an epenthetic glide before the instrumental and genitive suffixes (usually '''-w-''' after /u uː/ ({{sc|gen}} only) and /o oː/, '''-y-''' after /i iː e eː/, and '''-h-''' otherwise, cf. '''skəłō''' ‘owl’ → {{sc|instr}} '''skəłōhu''', {{sc|gen}} '''skəłōwa'''). Irregular formations of the instrumental case are fairly common; a few irregular genitives also exist.
* Some words have a separate oblique stem, which is used for all non-direct cases (e.g. '''tlir''' ‘cliff’ → {{sc|erg}} '''tlērəł''', {{sc|acc}} '''tlērən''', {{sc|instr}} '''tlēru''', {{sc|gen}} '''tlēra''').

===Deixis===
All nouns come in three different "deictic stems", which can be interpreted as fusional combinations of the noun stem with a demonstrative affix. The ''non-deictic'' stem (the citation form) is used for indefinite and unfocused definite instances of the noun; the ''proximal deictic'' stem is used for focused definite instances within reach or at their expected position; and the ''distal deictic'' stem is used for focused definite instances further away or at unexpected positions as well as for "obviative" (4th person) usage.

Nouns can be divided into three major and several minor groups according to how they form their deictic stems. The group labels are derived from the shape of the distal suffix.

{{ilist|
# '''H nouns (H)''', which form their distal stem with the suffix '''-(a)ħ-'''. There are three subgroups:
## ''Vocalic H nouns'' '''(H)''', whose basic stem ends in a vowel or a plosive. For these nouns (the most common class, and the default for new loanwords), the proximal stem is formed with the suffix '''-(ə)t-'''. <br>{{comment|'''ēyə''' ‘shoe’ → {{sc|prox}} '''ēyət-''', {{sc|dist}} '''ēyaħ-''' <br>'''kēri''' ‘girl, unmarried woman’ → {{sc|prox}} '''kērit-''', {{sc|dist}} '''kēreħ-''' <br>'''nyap''' ‘string, cord, sinew’ → {{sc|prox}} '''nyapət-''', {{sc|dist}} '''nyapaħ-'''}}
## ''Nasal H nouns'' '''(HN)''', whose basic stem ends in a single nasal consonant (optionally followed by an unstressed vowel), or in a sequence /jV/. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by syncopating the final vowel (if there is any) and replacing the nasal or glide with the suffix '''-nti-'''. <br>{{comment|'''rāna''' ('''-ōna-''') ‘woman’ → {{sc|prox}} '''rānti-''' ('''-ōnti-'''), {{sc|dist}} '''rānaħ-''' ('''-ōnaħ-''') <br>'''mīyu''' ‘mother’ → {{sc|prox}} '''mīnti-''', {{sc|dist}} '''mīyaħ-'''}}
## ''Dental H nouns'' '''(HT)''', whose basic stem ends in /t/ or /tV/. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by replacing this ending with '''-t’i-'''. <br>{{comment|'''qat''' ‘man’ → {{sc|prox}} '''qat’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''qataħ-''' <br>'''hołta''' ‘rowboat, canoe’ → {{sc|prox}} '''hołt’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''hołtaħ-'''}}
# '''Q nouns (Q)''', which form their distal stem with a suffix '''-qʷ-''' or similar. There are four subgroups, which are fully predictable from the shape of the stem and will thus be labeled identically in the lexicon:
## ''Simple Q nouns'', whose basic stems end in a fricative, affricate, or liquid (optionally followed by an unstressed vowel). For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed with the suffix '''-ti-''' and the distal stem is formed with the suffix '''-qʷ-'''. If the basic stem ends in a vowel, this vowel is deleted. If the last consonant in the basic stem is one of the affricates /tɬ ts tʃ/, it is reduced to the corresponding fricative (i.e. one of /ɬ s ʃ/) in both deictic stems. <br>{{comment|'''htoš''' ‘hat, cap’ → {{sc|prox}} '''htošti-''', {{sc|dist}} '''htošqʷ-''' <br>'''wahə''' ‘lion’ → {{sc|prox}} '''wahti-''', {{sc|dist}} '''waħqʷ-''' <br>'''čīlə''' ‘scorpion’ → {{sc|prox}} '''čīlti-''', {{sc|dist}} '''čīlqʷ-'''}}
## ''Glottalising Q nouns'', whose basic stem ends in a plosive. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by replacing the stem-final consonant with the suffix '''-t’i-''', and the distal stem is formed by deleting the stem-final consonant, {{sc|lengthening}} a preceding stressed vowel, and adding '''-qʷ-'''; note that this subclass of distal stems has an irregular instrumental case in '''-ħo'''. <br>{{comment|'''əráq''' ‘knife’ → {{sc|prox}} '''ərat’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''ərēqʷ-''', {{sc|dist.instr}} '''ərēħo''' <br>'''ulkət''' ‘evil spirit’ → {{sc|prox}} '''ulkət’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''ulkaqʷ-''', {{sc|dist.instr}} '''úlkaħo'''}}
## ''Nasal Q nouns'', whose basic stem ends in a nasal (optionally followed by an unstressed vowel). For these nouns, both deictic stems are formed by shortening the vowel before the nasal (with an accompanying change in quality of /iː eː aː oː uː/ to '''e i a u o''' and of any short vowel to {{!}}ə{{!}} (note that this may surface as '''ə a i u''' depending on the surrounding consonants), and adding '''-t’i-''' for the proximal stem and '''-qʷ’-''' for the distal stem. <br>{{comment|'''hūm''' ‘tooth, edge, peak’ → {{sc|prox}} '''hont’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''honqʷ’-''' <br>'''skuhōmu''' ‘prisoner, slave’ → {{sc|prox}} '''skuhunt’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''skuhúnqʷ-'''}}
## ''Cluster-final Q nouns'', whose basic stem ends in a cluster of a fricative and a plosive. For these nouns, the proximal stem is formed by replacing the final plosive with '''-t’i-''', and the distal stem is formed by replacing the final plosive with '''-qʷ’-'''. <br>{{comment|'''sułt''' ‘coat, poncho’ → {{sc|prox}} '''sułt’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''sułqʷ’-'''}}
# '''M nouns (M)''', whose basic stems end in a nasal consonant. They form both deictic stems by {{sc|lengthening}} a preceding stressed vowel and replacing the stem-final nasal with '''-ni-''' for the proximal stem and '''-mu-''' for the distal stem. <br>{{comment|'''lōn''' ‘lake’ → {{sc|prox}} '''lūni-''', {{sc|dist}} '''lūmu-''' <br>'''mōšin''' ‘body, skeleton, frame’ → {{sc|prox}} '''mōšini-''', {{sc|dist}} '''mōšimu-'''}}
}}

Some nouns do not neatly fit into these groups, mostly because they exhibit unexpected stem alternations. Two prominent examples are '''tset''' ‘bird’ → {{sc|prox}} '''čīti-''', {{sc|dist}} '''čīqʷ-''' and '''sast''' ‘corner, joint’ → {{sc|prox}} '''sašit-''', {{sc|dist}} '''sašiqʷ-'''. Irregular deictic noun stems will be mentioned in the lexicon.

==Pronouns==
===Personal pronouns===
Personal pronouns are very similar in form to the nominal person/number prefixes. There are some irregularities in the case paradigm, especially in the genitive.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! rowspan="2"| !! colspan="2"| 1st person !! rowspan="7"| !! colspan="2"| 2nd person !! rowspan="7"| !! colspan="2"| 3rd person
|- class="bg2 context"
| singular || plural
| singular || plural
| singular || plural
|-
! direct
| tu || sa
| la || nya
| u || na
|-
! ergative
| tuł || sał
| lał || nił
| uł || nał
|-
! accusative
| tūn || sān
| lān || nīn
| ūn || nān
|-
! instrumental
| tō || sō
| lō || nyō
| ō || nō
|-
! genitive
| nē || tā
| łā || kā
| mō || nō
|-
|}
* Forms with short vowels may be lenghtened when the pronoun is emphasized.

===Demonstratives===
The basic personal pronouns do not have deictic stems of their own; instead, a separate set of demonstratives is used for deictic purposes. In the 3rd person, these pronouns exhibit an additional distinction between human, nonhuman, locative, and temporal referents; note that the latter can also be used for sentential arguments and as a pro-adverb. All demonstratives inflect for case more or less like regular nouns, so only the direct case forms will be listed here.

Singular:
* {{sc|1sg}} '''nyū''' → {{sc|prox}} '''nyūt-''', {{sc|dist}} '''nyōħ-'''
* {{sc|2sg}} '''čū''' → {{sc|prox}} '''čūt-''', {{sc|dist}} '''čōħ-'''
* {{sc|3sg}} human '''nū''' → {{sc|prox}} '''nut-''', {{sc|dist}} '''noħ-'''
* {{sc|3sg}} nonhuman '''ā''' → {{sc|prox}} '''āt-''', {{sc|dist}} '''āħ-'''
* {{sc|3sg}} locative '''ān''' → {{sc|prox}} '''ēni-''', {{sc|dist}} '''ēmu-'''
* {{sc|3sg}} temp./adv. '''yū''' → {{sc|prox}} '''yuhti-''', {{sc|dist}} '''yoħqʷ-'''
Plural:
* {{sc|1pl}} '''tənī''' → {{sc|prox}} '''tənīt-''', {{sc|dist}} '''təneħ-'''
* {{sc|2pl}} '''kənī''' → {{sc|prox}} '''kənīt-''', {{sc|dist}} '''kəneħ-'''
* {{sc|3pl}} human '''mē''' → {{sc|prox}} '''met-''', {{sc|dist}} '''meħ-'''
* {{sc|3pl}} nonhuman '''ē''' → {{sc|prox}} '''ēt-''', {{sc|dist}} '''ēħ-'''
* {{sc|3pl}} locative '''nān''' → {{sc|prox}} '''nēni-''', {{sc|dist}} '''nēmu-'''
* {{sc|3pl}} temp./adv. '''hmū''' → {{sc|prox}} '''hmut-''', {{sc|dist}} '''hmoħ-'''

===Interrogative pronouns===
Hkətl’ohnim has four series of interrogative pronouns, which line up with the distinctions made in 3rd person demonstratives. They do not inflect for number. The direct case forms are as follows:

* human (‘who’): '''tīn''' → {{sc|prox}} '''tēni-''', {{sc|dist}} '''tēmu-'''
* nonhuman (‘what’): '''łū''' → {{sc|prox}} '''łut-''', {{sc|dist}} '''łoħ-'''
* locative (‘where’): '''etən''' → {{sc|prox}} '''et’ni-''', {{sc|dist}} '''et’mu-'''
* temp./adv. (‘when/how’): '''et''' → {{sc|prox}} '''et’i-''', {{sc|dist}} '''īqʷ-'''

=Verbal morphology=
==Overview==
The general structure of the Hkətl’ohnim verb can be summarised as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|- class="bg2 b"
| -4 || -3 || -2 || -1 || 0 || +1 || +2 || +3
|-
| participant marking; <br>tense || {{sc|<target>}} || ''(preverb)'' || {{sc|<theme>}} || '''STEM''' || ''(negation)'' || ''(adverbials)'' || ''(valence; role)''
|-
|}

The only obligatory elements are the verb stem itself (which is usually a monomorphemic root, but it may also be formed by compounding or by adding a derivational suffix) and a fusional prefix for participant marking and tense. Most of the other morphemes operate semi-derivationally; while some of them are required in certain situations, they tend to provide additional semantic information rather than having purely grammatical significance.

The '''preverb''' is a lexical stem extension found in a significant percentage of verbs. It precedes the main stem and may be separated from it when a noun in the role of instrument or theme is incorporated. Most preverbs belong to a closed inventory of morphemes indicating certain types of location, direction, manner, or purpose, but the semantics of these elements are often rather hazy. The most common and straightforward preverbs can be used productively to form new verbs (sometimes with valence-increasing effects), but others are fairly rare and mostly unproductive, especially if their meaning is not immediately obvious.

Following the verb stem there is the '''negation suffix''', and after that an agglutinative layer of '''adverbial suffixes''' with a wide array of meanings: Some of them can be described as modals, some as evidentials, some as aspects or aktionsarten, and yet others specify the manner or circumstance of the action. Adverbials are generally optional; they are typically not used if the notion they express is irrelevant or clear from context, but will be present when the speaker wants to stress a particular semantic configuration. Verbs may also contain more than one adverbial suffix.

A number of '''valence- and role-adjusting suffixes''' may appear at the very end of the verb. They include e.g. a causative, a non-causative transitiviser, a detransitiviser, a mediopassive, an action nominaliser, a state nominaliser, and the imperative. Some of these morphemes may be combined with each other.

Another prominent feature of Hkətl’ohnim verbal morphosyntax is '''noun incorporation''', which is done by integrating a bare noun stem (unmarked for person or case, but optionally marked for deixis) into the verb, between pronominal prefix and stem. There are two different types of incorporation, which may sometimes co-occur in a single verb:
* ''Target incorporation'' involves an argument corresponding to the primary object of the verb (typically in the semantic role of patient, experiencer, goal, recipient, or beneficiary) and generally reduces the valence by one, which requires the use of an appropriate preverb or transitivising suffix if the verb stem is lexically intransitive.
* ''Theme incorporation'' involves an oblique argument (typically in the semantic role of theme, instrument, source, manner, or cause); it does not affect the valence of intransitive verbs, may or may not reduce that of transitives, and will reduce the valence of ditransitive stems to monotransitive.
If a preverb is present, an incorporated target will precede the preverb while an incorporated theme will follow it.

==Stem classes==
Verb stems can be grouped into several different classes according to their morphophonological behaviour when affixes are attached. There are two largely independent parameters determining the class of each individual stem - the ''capital stem class'' which describes interaction with prefixes and incorporated noun stems, and the ''caudal stem class'' which describes interaction with suffixes.

Stem classes are assigned purely according to the behavior of the stem itself. Individual stems may also trigger certain types of morphophonological alternations in adjacent morphemes, which is indicated with diacritics (see [[#Morphophonology|above]] for details).

===Capital stem classes===
{{ilist|
# '''Vocalic stems (V)''', which begin with a vowel. These stems acquire an epenthetic glide when they appear after another vowel (typically '''-w-''' after labialising prefixes and after /u uː o oː/, '''-y-''' after /i iː e eː/, and '''-h-''' otherwise; a small subgroup of vocalic stems (cited with initial ‹'''ʰ'''›) always inserts '''-h-'''). If the stem itself begins with /ə/, this segment will coalesce with preceding morpheme-final /ə/ into a single '''ə''', and with a vowel of a different quality into a {{sc|lengthened}} version of the latter.
# '''Consonantal stems (C)''', which begin with a consonant or consonant cluster. Their initial boundary may undergo {{sc|labialisation}} and/or {{sc|glottalic mutation}}, and an epenthetic /ə/ may be added to prevent illegal consonant clusters, but they are immune to the nasal and hard mutations.
# '''Nasalisable stems''', whose initial boundary undergoes {{sc|nasal mutation}} when preceded by a nasalising morpheme. In other environments they behave like consonantal stems. There are two major and five minor subgroups:
## ''Aspirating nasalisable stems'' <br>Most stems beginning with /h/ fall into this class. There are two subtypes, both of which drop their initial /h/ after a consonant, causing lenition of single preceding morpheme-final /p t k(ʷ) q(ʷ)/ to '''hw s š ħ''' in the process (note that /hw/ simplifies to /h/ before /u uː o oː/):
### '''hm-stems (hm)''', whose initial consonant mutates to '''-hm-''' under nasalisation. <br>{{comment|'''-hit’əň~''' ‘chew’ → {{sc|1sg>3.np}} '''nə<u>hmit’ən</u>''' ‘I am chewing it’}}
### '''hny-stems (hny)''', whose initial consonant mutates to '''-hny-''' under nasalisation. If the regular stem vowel is /e eː/, this vowel will be raised so that the stem-initial syllable comes out as '''-hni(ː)-'''. <br>{{comment|'''-hastə-ʷ''' ‘promise, vow’ → {{sc|2sg>3.pst}} '''i<u>hnyastə</u>''' ‘you promised him/her/them sth.’ <br>'''-hēnqa-''' ‘use up, exhaust’ → {{sc|1pl>3.pst}} '''so<u>hnīnqa</u>''' ‘I have used all of it’}}
## ''Lengthening nasalisable stems'' <br>All other nasalisable stems, including a few starting with /h/ (which is dropped after a consonant, but does not cause lenition of preceding plosives). When preceded by a nasalising morpheme, these stems will cause the final vowel of the preceding morpheme to undergo {{sc|lengthening}}. This stem class has four subtypes:
### '''m-stems (m)''', whose initial consonant mutates to '''-ːm-''' under nasalisation. If the regular stem begins with prevocalic /ʃ ħ h/, the stem will also be subject to {{sc|hard mutation}}. <br>{{comment|'''-pīnkun~ʸ''' ‘be allied with’ → {{sc|1pl>3.np}} '''he<u>mīnkun</u>''' ‘we are allied with them’; {{sc|1pl>2.np}} '''həł<u>pīnkun</u>''' ‘we are allied with you’<br>'''-hoha-''' ‘interrupt, disturb’ → {{sc|1sg>3.pst}} '''so<u>moha</u>''' ‘I have interrupted him/her/them’; {{sc|2sg>1pl.np}} '''rəs<u>poha</u>''' ‘you are disturbing us’}}
### '''n-stems (n)''', whose initial consonant mutates to '''-ːn-''' under nasalisation. If the regular stem begins with prevocalic /s ʃ/, the stem will also be subject to {{sc|hard mutation}}. <br>{{comment|'''-tēmu-ʷ''' ‘be an enemy of’ → {{sc|1pl>3.np}} '''he<u>nēmu</u>''' ‘we are their enemies’; {{sc|1pl>2.np}} '''həł<u>tēmu</u>''' ‘we are your enemies’<br>'''-sōn~''' ‘help’ → {{sc|1sg>3.pst}} '''so<u>nōn</u>''' ‘I have helped him/her/them’; {{sc|2sg>1pl.np}} '''rəs<u>tōn</u>''' ‘you are helping us’}}
### '''ny-stems (ny)''', whose initial consonant mutates to '''-ːny-''' under nasalisation. If the regular stem begins with prevocalic /ʃ ħ/, the stem will also be subject to {{sc|hard mutation}}. Note that ny-stems beginning with the sequences /-kə- -ke(ː)- -qe(ː)- -ħe(ː)- -je(ː)-/ exhibit vowel raising, so that the nasally mutated stem will start with '''-ːni(ː)-'''. <br>{{comment|'''-kahku-ʷ''' ‘seek, look for’ → {{sc|1sg>3.pst}} '''so<u>nyahku</u>''' ‘I was looking for him/her/them’; {{sc|1sg>2.pst}} '''səł<u>kahku</u>''' ‘I was looking for you’<br>'''-ħet-ˀ''' ‘be a sibling of one's parent’ → {{sc|1sg>3.np}} '''ne<u>nit</u>''' ‘I am him/her aunt/uncle’; {{sc|2sg>1pl.np}} '''rəs<u>qet</u>''' ‘you are our aunt/uncle’ {{--}} ‘we are your nieces/nephews’}}
# '''Fortifiable stems''', which begin with a nasal consonant and go along with mandatory {{sc|lengthening}} of a preceding morpheme-final vowel. They will undergo {{sc|hard mutation}} of the stem-initial consonant when preceded by a morpheme-final fricative, and they may optionally undergo {{sc|labialisation}} as well, but they are immune to other types of morphophonological alternations. Since the result of hard mutation is not entirely predictable, fortifiable stems are subdivided into four groups:
## '''ːm/p stems (ːN/p)''', whose initial consonant fortifies to '''-p-''' after a fricative. <br>{{comment|'''-ːmenqʷa-''' ‘destroy, defeat’ → {{sc|3sg>1pl.np}} '''həs<u>penqʷa</u>''' ‘he is defeating us’}}
## '''ːn/t stems (ːN/t)''', whose initial consonant fortifies to '''-t-''' after a fricative. <br>{{comment|'''-ːnōmi-''' ‘exceed, surpass’ → {{sc|1pl>2.pst}} '''uł<u>tōmi</u>''' ‘we surpassed you’}}
## '''ːny/k''' and '''ːm/k stems (ːN/k)''', whose initial consonant fortifies to '''-k<sup>(</sup>ʷ<sup>)</sup>-''' after a fricative. <br>{{comment|'''-ːnyots-ʷ''' ‘scratch’ → {{sc|1sg>3:deictic.pst}} '''səh<u>kots</u>''' ‘I scratched that thing’}}
## '''ːny/q''' and '''ːm/q stems (ːN/q)''', whose initial consonant fortifies to '''-q<sup>(</sup>ʷ<sup>)</sup>-''' after a fricative. <br>{{comment|'''-ːmōmun~ʸ''' ‘irrigate’ → {{sc|1sg>3:deictic.np}} '''naħ<u>qōmun</u>''' ‘I am watering these (plants)’}}
# '''Rhotic stems''', which begin with /r/ in their citation form. When preceded by a fricative, the resulting cluster collapses into '''-š-''', with a following /e(ː)/ raising to '''-i(ː)-'''. After all other consonants (including the spurious morpheme-final nasal of nasalising prefixes), the /r/ is deleted and the following vowel (now in stem-initial position) undergoes a change in quality. There are two subgroups of rhotic stems, which are distinguished by the resulting vowel in the stem-initial syllable:
## '''r/o-stems (r/o)''', which begin with '''-o(ː)-''' when preceded by a consonant. <br>{{comment|'''-rūłaq-''' ‘split, divide’ → {{sc|1pl:refl.pst}} '''uk<u>ōłaq</u>''' ‘we parted (from each other)’; {{sc|3pl>1pl.pst}} '''sə<u>šūłaq</u>''' ‘they have divided us’}}
## '''r/u-stems (r/u)''', which begin with '''-u(ː)-''' when preceded by a consonant. <br>{{comment|'''-rihə-''' ‘be a sister of’ → {{sc|3sg>3sg.np}} '''həm<u>ūhə</u>''' ‘she is his/her sister’; {{sc|3sg>1pl.np}} '''hə<u>šihə</u>''' ‘she is our sister’}}
}}

===Caudal stem classes===
{{ilist|
# ''Vocalic stems'', which end in a vowel that is always present. When followed by another vowel, the stem will be extended by an epenthetic glide (typically '''-w-''' after labialising stems and after /u uː o oː/, '''-y-''' after /i iː e eː/, and '''-h-''' otherwise). There are two subclasses:
## '''Plain vocalic stems (V)''', which do not exhibit internal change. <br>{{comment|'''-tsumō-''' ‘be experienced’ → {{sc|+intensive}} '''-<u>tsumōw</u>aq-ˀ''' ‘be highly experienced’ <br>'''-masni-''' ‘be sick’ → {{sc|+intensive}} '''-<u>másniy</u>aq-ˀ''' ‘be seriously ill’ <br>'''-ahmē-ʷ''' ‘flirt with so.’ → {{sc|+intensive}} '''-<u>ahmēw</u>aq-ˀ''' ‘be very obviously determined to seduce so.’}}
## '''Ablauting vocalic stems (V+)''', which consist of only a single syllable with a short vowel. The vowel will become long (without a change in quality) when appearing in word-final position, and undergo {{sc|lengthening}} (usually with a change in quality) before a prevocalic resonant; note that epenthetic glides do not trigger lengthening. <br>{{comment|'''-int’e-''' ‘be worried about sth.’ → {{sc|3sg>3sg.np}} '''hm<u>int’ē</u>''' ‘he/she is worried about it’; {{sc|+potential}} '''hm<u>int’ī</u>ma''' ‘he/she might be worried about it’ <br>'''-ntla-''' ‘dye, paint’ → {{sc|1sg>3.pst}} '''so<u>ntlā</u>''' ‘I painted it’; {{sc|+inchoative}} '''so<u>ntlā</u>yə''' ‘I was starting to paint it’}}
# ''Consonantal stems'', which end in a consonant or consonant cluster, optionally followed by an unstressed short vowel that may be syncopated before vowels and certain consonants. There are three subclasses of consonantal stems; all of them may additionally trigger {{sc|labialisation}} and/or {{sc|hard mutation}}.
## '''Plain consonantal stems (C)''', which end in a consonant. When followed by a consonant-initial morpheme with which the stem cannot form a legal medial cluster, an epenthetic '''-ə-''' is inserted; note that this vowel surfaces as '''-a-''' after non-labialised /q’ q ħ/ or before /ħ/, as '''-u-''' after labialised consonants, and as '''-i-''' after /tʃ’ tʃ ʃ ɲ/. If the last consonant in the stem is an affricate, it will be reduced to the corresponding fricative before morphemes beginning with a single plosive or non-lengthening nasal; a preceding stressed short vowel will undergo compensatory {{sc|lengthening}} in this situation. In a few stems, final /n/ shifts to '''-ny-''' before a vowel; these instances of /n/ are transcribed as '''ň''' in the lexicon. <br>{{comment|'''-əltōn-''' ‘grow’ → {{sc|3sg.pst}} '''u<u>ltōn</u>''' ‘it grew’; {{sc|+potential}} '''u<u>ltōnə</u>ma''' ‘it might have grown’; {{sc|+accidental}} '''u<u>ltōn</u>tərə''' ‘it grew as a side effect’ <br>'''-saht-''' ‘be hard, be solid’ → {{sc|3sg.np}} '''hə<u>saht</u>''' ‘it is solid’; {{sc|+intentional}} '''hə<u>saht</u>lu''' ‘it is meant to be solid’; {{sc|+accidental}} '''hə<u>sahtə</u>tērə''' ‘it has become solid by accident’ <br>'''-šokʷ-''' ‘spread out, distribute’ → {{sc|1sg>3.np}} '''nən<u>šokʷ</u>''' ‘I am distributing it’; {{sc|+intentional}} '''nən<u>šóku</u>lu''' ‘I am distributing it intentionally’; {{sc|+sceptical}} '''nən<u>šóku</u>hmo''' ‘I am distributing it reluctantly’}}
## '''Syncopating consonantal stems (Cə)''', which end in a short vowel. The stem-final vowel is deleted before another vowel or when a legal consonant cluster can be formed, and reduced to '''-ə-''' before non-nasal consonants otherwise unless colored to '''-i- -a- -u-''' by the preceding consonant; note that a deleted or reduced /u/ causes labialisation of prevocalic dorsal plosives, and that a deleted /i/ turns preceding /n/ into '''-ny-'''. A few syncopating stems ending in /jV/ change this to '''n''' when followed by a non-ejective plosive or affricate or by a sibilant; this is indicated in the lexicon by a ‹'''+'''› symbol at the morpheme boundary. <br>{{comment|'''-ōma-''' ‘accidentally prevent sth.’ → {{sc|1sg>3:deictic.pst}} '''səh<u>ōma</u>''' ‘I accidentally prevented that’; {{sc|+potential}} '''səh<u>ōma</u>ma''' ‘I may have accidentally prevented that’; {{sc|+repentant}} '''səh<u>ōm</u>um''' ‘I was stupid enough to accidentally prevent that’ <br>'''-espi-''' ‘fail to understand’ → {{sc|1sg>3sg.np}} '''nəm<u>espi</u>''' ‘I don't understand it’; {{sc|+immediate}} '''nəm<u>esp</u>en''' ‘I'm not understanding it yet’; {{sc|+attenuative}} '''nəm<u>éspi</u>nim''' ‘I don't understand all of it (but I understand something)’ <br>'''-pāyu+ʷ''' ‘think, suppose’ → {{sc|3pl>3:deictic.pst}} '''səh<u>pāyu</u>''' ‘they were thinking so’; {{sc|+prospective}} '''səh<u>pāyə</u>hkʷ''' ‘they would soon come to think so’; {{sc|+traditional}} '''səh<u>pām</u>pəhni''' ‘they were traditionally thinking so’}}
## '''Leniting consonantal stems (C+)''', which end in a plosive that will undergo lenition when followed by a vowel (including epenthetic ones), a plosive, or a nasal. The observed alternations are /p t k<sup>(</sup>ʷ<sup>)</sup> q<sup>(</sup>ʷ<sup>)</sup>/ → '''hw s š ħ'''; note that /hw/ simplifies to /h/ before /u uː o oː/ or a consonant. <br>{{comment|'''-nop-''' ‘curse, wish bad luck upon’ → {{sc|1sg>2.np}} '''nəł<u>nop</u>''' ‘I curse you’; {{sc|+intensive}} '''nəł<u>nohw</u>aq''' ‘I curse you severely’; {{sc|+iterative}} '''nəł<u>noħ</u>qałt''' ‘I curse you again’ <br>'''-tsak-''' ‘trap’ → {{sc|3sg>3.pst}} '''un<u>tsák</u>''' ‘he/she laid out a trap for him/her’; {{sc|+resultative}} '''un<u>tsaš</u>im''' ‘he/she successfully trapped him/her’; {{sc|+iterative}} '''un<u>tsaš</u>qałt''' ‘he/she laid out a trap for him/her again’}}
# ''Glottalic stems'', which end in a non-ejective plosive or in a nasal. They behave like plain consonantal stems in most situations, but they trigger {{sc|glottalic mutation}} when followed by a prevocalic plosive or affricate. There are two subclasses:
## '''Plain glottalic stems (ʔ)''', which end in a plosive that will be deleted when a following consonant undergoes glottalic mutation. If the stem ends in one of /kʷ qʷ/ and the following consonant is underlyingly one of /k q/, the resulting dorsal ejective will be labialised. <br>{{comment|'''-tsəskāqʷ-ˀ''' ‘improve sth.’ → {{sc|3sg>3.np}} '''hən<u>tsəskāqʷ</u>''' ‘he/she is improving it’; {{sc|+iterative}} '''hən<u>tsəskā</u>qʷ’ałt''' ‘he/she is improving it step by step’ <br>'''-mālt-ˀ''' ‘be interesting’ → {{sc|2sg.np}} '''rə<u>mālt</u>''' ‘you are an interesting person’; {{sc|+durative}} '''rə<u>māl</u>č’i''' ‘you are fascinating all the time’}}
## '''Ablauting glottalic stems (ʔ+)''', which end in a nasal. When they trigger glottalic mutation, the vowel before the stem-final nasal consonant will be shortened with an accompanying change in quality of /iː eː aː oː uː/ to '''e i a u o''' and of any short vowel to {{!}}ə{{!}} (note that this may surface as '''ə a i u''' depending on the surrounding consonants). Exceptions will be marked in the lexicon. <br>{{comment|'''-łēm-ˀ''' ‘get, obtain, receive’ → {{sc|2sg>3.pst}} '''in<u>łēm</u>''' ‘you received it’; {{sc|+dubitative}} '''in<u>łin</u>ts’ə''' ‘you probably didn't receive it’ <br>'''-qałč’ūn-ˀʷ''' ‘settle down’ → {{sc|3pl.pst}} '''ta<u>qałč’ūn</u>''' ‘they settled down’; {{sc|+iterative}} '''ta<u>qałč’on</u>qʷ’ałt''' ‘they settled down again’}}
# ''Nasalising stems'', which end in a nasal and trigger {{sc|nasal mutation}} of following obstruents. The stem-final nasal will typically be deleted in the process, or else assimilate in POA to a following consonant. A subset of nasalising stems changes their stem-final nasal to '''-y-''' when followed by a vowel (with a preceding unstressed /i/ reducing to '''-ə-'''); this is indicated with the diacritic ‹'''ʸ'''›. Apart from this minor variation, nasalising stems can be divided into two subclasses:
## '''Plain nasalising stems (N)''', which do not exhibit further changes. <br>{{comment|'''-hnām~''' ‘hear’ → {{sc|1sg>2.pst}} '''tl<u>əhnām</u>''' ‘I heard you’; {{sc|+accidental}} '''tl<u>əhnā</u>nərə''' ‘I overheard you accidentally’; {{sc|+durative}} '''tl<u>əhnān</u>či''' ‘I listened to you (for a while)’ <br>'''-sāk’ən~ʸ''' ‘block, oppose’ → {{sc|1pl>3.pst}} '''un<u>sāk’ən</u>''' ‘we resisted them’; {{sc|+iterative}} '''un<u>sāk’ə</u>niłt''' ‘we resisted them several times’; {{sc|+intensive}} '''un<u>sāk’əy</u>aq''' ‘we resisted them fiercely’}}
## '''Ablauting nasalising stems (N+)''', which exhibit vowel {{sc|lengthening}} when not appearing in word-final position. Note that most of these stems have a long vowel in their word-final allomorph already, so often the vowel is actually modified only in quality, not in length. Many ablauting nasalising stems also exhibit an alternation between /n/ (word-final) and '''-ny-''' (before a vowel); this is indicated in the lexicon by transcribing the stem-final consonant as '''ň'''. <br>{{comment|'''-tlastōň~''' ‘wash’ → {{sc|1sg:refl.np}} '''nə<u>tl’astōn</u>''' ‘I wash myself’; {{sc|+iterative}} '''nə<u>tl’astū</u>niłt''' ‘I wash myself regularly’ <br>'''-p’āň~''' ‘punch, hit’ → {{sc|3sg>1sg.pst}} '''wi<u>p’ān</u>''' ‘he/she hit me’; {{sc|+iterative}} '''wi<u>p’ē</u>niłt''' ‘he/she hit me several times’; {{sc|+intensive}} '''wi<u>p’ēny</u>aq''' ‘he/she hit me forcefully’}}
}}

Some of the above caudal stem classes have a few members with irregular behavior, involving e.g. deletion of a medial vowel in prevocalic position, an unexpected shift in vowel quality, or an alternation between palatal and non-palatal consonants. Such irregularities will be indicated in the lexicon.

==Pronominal prefixes==
Hkətl’ohnim verbs are mandatorily marked for their subject, and also for their object if they are transitive. This is done with two sets of slightly fusional prefixes; the choice of the prefix set signals the tense of the verb. Unlike case marking on nouns, verbal person marking is aligned in a straightforward nominative-accusative pattern; i.e. the subject markers refer to the direct case argument in intransitive clauses and in nonpast tense transitive clauses, and to the ergative case argument in past tense transitive clauses.

There is a considerable amount of syncretism in the paradigm; for instance, the {{sc|1sg}} subject forms are always identical to the {{sc|3pl}} subject forms, and the {{sc|3sg}} subject forms are identical to the {{sc|1pl}} subject forms. Also, 2nd person objects do not distinguish number at all, and 3rd person objects do so only when the object is non-deictic and the morpheme following the pronominal prefix begins with a vowel other than open-syllable '''ə'''. (But note that 3rd person objects distinguish whether their referent is deictic or not, and that there is a separate reflexive inflection for verbs where subject and object refer to the same participant.)

{| {{softtable|c}}
| colspan="11"| '''Non-past tense'''
|- class="t"
! colspan="2"| object →
! rowspan="2"| none !! rowspan="8"|
! colspan="2"| 1st person !! rowspan="2"| 2nd person !! colspan="3"| 3rd person
! rowspan="2"| reflexive
|-
! colspan="2"| subject ↓
| class="bg2 context"|   singular   || class="bg2 context"|     plural    
| class="bg2 context"|   singular   || class="bg2 context"|     plural     || class="bg2 context"|     deictic    
|-
! rowspan="2"| 1st person
| class="bg2 context"| singular
| n-/nə-
| class="bg2 context"| (refl.) || nəs-
| nəł-
| nəm-/ne~ɴ || nən-/ne~ɴ || nəh-
| nək-ˀ
|-
| class="bg2 context"| plural
| h-/hə-
| həy-/he- || class="bg2 context"| (refl.)
| həł-
| hm-/he~ɴ || hn-/he~ɴ || həh-
| hk-/hək-ˀ
|-
! rowspan="2"| 2nd person
| class="bg2 context"| singular
| r-/rə-
| rəy-/ri- || rəs-
| class="bg2 context"| (refl.)
| rəm-/ra~ɴ || rən-/ra~ɴ || rəh-
| rək-ˀ
|-
| class="bg2 context"| plural
| ny-/ni-
| ny-/ni- || nis-
| class="bg2 context"| (refl.)
| nim-/ni~ɴ || nin-/ni~ɴ || nih-
| nik-ˀ
|-
! rowspan="2"| 3rd person
| class="bg2 context"| singular
| h-/hə-
| həy-/he- || həs-
| həł-
| hm-/he~ɴ || hn-/he~ɴ || həh-
| hk-/hək-ˀ
|-
| class="bg2 context"| plural
| n-/nə-
| ny-/ni- || nəs-
| nəł-
| nəm-/ne~ɴ || nən-/ne~ɴ || nəh-
| nək-ˀ
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c}}
| colspan="11"| '''Past tense'''
|- class="t"
! colspan="2"| object →
! rowspan="2"| none !! rowspan="8"|
! colspan="2"| 1st person !! rowspan="2"| 2nd person !! colspan="3"| 3rd person
! rowspan="2"| reflexive
|-
! colspan="2"| subject ↓
| class="bg2 context"|   singular   || class="bg2 context"|     plural    
| class="bg2 context"|   singular   || class="bg2 context"|     plural     || class="bg2 context"|     deictic    
|-
! rowspan="2"| 1st person
| class="bg2 context"| singular
| t-/tə-
| class="bg2 context"| (refl.) || ts-/səs-
| tl-/səł-
| sm-/so~ɴ || sn-/so~ɴ || səh-
| skʷ-/səkʷ-ˀ
|-
| class="bg2 context"| plural
| w-/u-
| uy-/wi- || class="bg2 context"| (refl.)
| uł-
| um-/o~ɴ || un-/o~ɴ || uh-
| ukʷ-ˀ
|-
! rowspan="2"| 2nd person
| class="bg2 context"| singular
| y-/i-
| əy-/e- || is-
| class="bg2 context"| (refl.)
| im-/i~ɴ || in-/i~ɴ || ih-
| ikʷ-ˀ
|-
| class="bg2 context"| plural
| kʷ-/ku-
| kuy-/kʷi- || kus-
| class="bg2 context"| (refl.)
| kum-/ko~ɴ || kun-/ko~ɴ || kuh-
| kukʷ-ˀ
|-
! rowspan="2"| 3rd person
| class="bg2 context"| singular
| w-/u-
| uy-/wi- || us-
| uł-
| um-/o~ɴ || un-/o~ɴ || uh-
| ukʷ-ˀ
|-
| class="bg2 context"| plural
| t-/tə-
| səy-/ši- || ts-/səs-
| tl-/səł-
| sm-/so~ɴ || sn-/so~ɴ || səh-
| skʷ-/səkʷ-ˀ
|-
|}

* Where two variants of a prefix are given, the first form appears before vowels and the second form before consonants.
* As an exception to the above rule, the intransitive {{sc|3sg}} and {{sc|1pl}} prefixes in the non-past tense ('''h-/hə-''') will also lose their vowel before a prevocalic approximant or non-ejective plosive.
* Prefixes marked with ‹'''~ɴ'''› cause {{sc|nasal mutation}} of single '''p kʷ qʷ w''' into '''m'''; of single '''t''' into '''n'''; and of single '''k q''' into '''ny'''. Before a single ejective or one of '''l ł s š''', the prefix will come out with a final homoorganic nasal (i.e. identical in form to the prevocalic allomorph unless the latter doesn't have any vowel, in which case an epenthetic '''ə''' will appear before the nasal).
* The final '''h''' of the 3rd person deictic object suffixes becomes '''hw''' before a vowel other than '''u o'''.
* The final '''k<sup>(</sup>ʷ<sup>)</sup>''' of the reflexive prefixes will cause {{sc|glottalic mutation}} of any following plosive or affricate into an ejective, and combine with following single '''l ł s š''' into '''tl tl ts č'''. It will become an ejective when followed by a nasal, and it will coalesce with '''ħ h''' into '''ħ š''' (with the preceding vowel acquiring the quality listed for the nasalising 3rd person object forms). Labialisation in the past tense is preserved only on resulting prevocalic dorsal stops.

==Preverbs==
Some of the most common preverbs in Hkətl’ohnim are listed below, with approximate meanings.

All instances of /ə/ at the edge of a preverb will be deleted when adjacent to another vowel, and may be colored to /i a u/ depending on the surrounding consonants. Where the preverb begins or ends with a consonant, epenthetic vowels may be added to prevent illegal consonant clusters.

<div class="dl dln">
; -əl-/-əltə-
: {{sc|telic}}, {{sc|perfective}}, with a purpose, intended to have a predictable result

; -sə-
: {{sc|benefactive}}, for the sake of, exchanging sth.

; -stə-
: into a container

; -se-/-səy-
: into a bounded area <small>''('''-se-''' before consonants; '''-səy-''' before vowels; '''-ːne-/-ːnəy-''' after nasalising morphemes; '''-te-/-təy-''' after fricatives)''</small>

; -əłtə-
: out of a container

; -qan-
: out of a bounded area <small>''('''-ːnin-''' after nasalising morphemes)''</small>

; -mə-
: to, towards, in the direction of

; -əlmə-
: up to, reaching

; -im-
: around, regarding, dealing with, taking time for

; -hə-
: across, beyond, through, straightforwardly

; -ōnə-
: in circles, back and forth, here and there, on and off, this and that

; -ših-
: upwards, towards the deictic center, with increasing importance

; -sqa-
: downwards, away from the deictic center, with decreasing importance

; -ēq-
: there, at the aforementioned location

; -īn-/-īy-
: on, at, near (stative) <small>''('''-īn-''' before consonants and /i iː/, '''-īy-''' before other vowels)''</small>

; -uh-ʷ
: inside a container (stative)

; -pə-
: inside a bounded area (stative)
</div><div class="dlend"></div>

==Negation==
Verbs can be negated with the suffix '''-ːnē-'''. It should be noted that the vowel in this suffix always retains its quality, even when followed by a morpheme that usually triggers {{sc|lengthening}}.

==Adverbial suffixes==
Any verb may appear with zero, one, or more adverbial suffixes (however, more than three such morphemes in a single verb are very rare). If a verb contains several adverbials, morphemes referring to the manner of the action itself tend to appear closest to the verb stem, followed by morphemes referring to the temporal structure of the event, followed by morphemes referring to the attitude of a participant or of the speaker, followed by morphemes referring to the epistemic status of the proposition, followed by morphemes referring to external factors. It seems that the order of elements is somewhat variable though, and that some suffixes may be interpreted differently depending on where in the adverbial complex they appear; further analysis is required here.

A list of some common adverbial suffixes follows, roughly ordered by relative position. Note that adverbials will typically receive stress if they end up in the penultimate syllable of the word unless adjacent to a lexical long vowel or immediately preceded by a monosyllabic verb root, and that most adverbial suffixes have different stressed and unstressed allomorphs. Since the stressed variants are more distinctive, they will be used as the citation forms.

{{dl|
; -q’al-
: in a single motion; as a one-off event; quickly; instantly; suddenly {{comment|('''-aq’al-''' after a plosive or a consonant cluster)}}

; -čī-
: ongoing for an extended period of time; prolonged up to a certain point in time; repeated over and over {{comment|('''-či-''' when unstressed; combines with a preceding fricative into '''-hčī-/-hči-''')}}

; -īmə-
: fully; completely; having finished successfully; having resulted in a new state {{comment|('''-im-''' when unstressed)}}

; -šim-
: having passed (according to a natural sequence of events); having been useful; to the full extent; exhaustively {{comment|('''-šēm-''' when stressed before a consonant)}}

; -ːtōn-ʷ
: having stopped (without the implication of success); being in the process of stopping {{comment|('''-ːtūm-''' before a vowel; '''-t’ōn-ʷ/-t’ūm-''' after a consonant; '''-ːtən-ʷ/-ːtəm-/-t’ən-ʷ/-t’əm-''' when unstressed; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)}}

; -ihk-
: soon; being about to begin; being about to show noticeable consequences {{comment|('''-(ə)hk-''' when unstressed)}}

; -nī-
: having started; being in the process of starting {{comment|('''-yē-''' after a vowel; '''-ni-/-yə-''' when unstressed)}}

; -ots-
: normally; typically; according to general knowledge; as expected {{comment|('''-os-ʷ''' before a consonant; '''-(ə)ts-/-(ə)s-ʷ''' when unstressed; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)}}

; -ēn-ˀ
: now; currently; immediately; directly {{comment|('''-en-ˀ''' when unstressed; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)}}

; -qałt-ˀ
: frequently; regularly; repeatedly; being independently performed by several different agents; affecting multiple objects of the same type; affecting the same object several times {{comment|('''-ːniłt-ˀ''' after nasalising stems; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)}}

; -su-
: later on; next; as a result or goal; presumably {{comment|('''-s-''' between a vowel and an obstruent; '''-tu-''' after non-plosive consonants; combines with a preceding plosive into '''-tsu-''')}}

; -tsā-
: speculatively; probably not; judged unlikely; known through an unreliable source {{comment|('''-s-''' when unstressed between a vowel and an obstruent; '''-ts(ə)-''' when unstressed otherwise)}}

; -ːma-
: maybe; possibly; judged likely {{comment|('''-pa-''' after a non-nasal consonant; '''-ːm(ə)-/-pə-''' when unstressed)}}

; -ːmōr-ʷ
: clearly; obviously; assumed from context; with plenty of reliable evidence {{comment|('''-ːmōru-''' word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; '''-ːmur-''' when unstressed before a vowel; '''-ːmu-ʷ''' when unstressed otherwise; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)}}

; -lu-ʷ
: on purpose; being planned; being hoped for; being the favoured option {{comment|('''-ːlu-''' word-finally after a stressed vowel; '''-l-ʷ''' between a vowel and an obstruent; combines with a preceding fricative into '''-łu-ʷ''' and with a preceding plosive or affricate into '''-tlu-ʷ'''; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)}}

; -tēr-
: by chance; accidentally; involuntarily; as a side effect {{comment|('''-tērə-''' word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; '''-ːnēr(ə)'''- after nasalising stems; '''-tər(ə)-/-ːnər(ə)-''' when unstressed)}}

; -ːnas-
: necessarily; without viable alternatives; under moral or social obligation {{comment|('''-ːnəs-''' when unstressed; '''-ːns-''' before a stressed vowel)}}

; -hmo-
: reluctantly; with scepticism; being warned against; deviating from socially accepted norms {{comment|('''-hmə-''' when unstressed)}}

; -pəhni-
: customarily; according to tradition; in a morally appropriate way {{comment|('''-pəhn-''' before a vowel; '''-pəh-''' before a nasal; '''-ːməh(n(i))-''' after nasalising stems)}}

; -īm-ˀ
: focusedly; in a tailored way; extraordinarily well-adapted to the situation {{comment|('''-yēm-ˀ''' after a vowel; '''-im-ˀ/-yəm-ˀ''' when unstressed; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)}}

; -sēyə-ʷ
: enough; sufficiently; successfully (but only barely so) {{comment|('''-sēyu-''' word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; '''-sēy-''' before a vowel; '''-səyu''' word-finally when unstressed; '''-səy(ə)-ʷ''' when unstressed otherwise; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)}}

; -ispi-
: unsuitably; insufficiently; failing to succeed {{comment|('''-isp-''' before a vowel; '''-spi-''' after a vowel; '''-spē-''' between a vowel and a nasal; '''-(ə)sp(ə)-''' when unstressed)}}

; -aht-
: unfortunately; unwanted; to the detriment of someone {{comment|('''-ahtə-''' before a non-fricative consonant; '''-ːht-''' after a vowel; '''-(ə)ht(ə)-''' when unstressed)}}

; -ōm-ʷ
: stupidly; excessively; with devastating consequences; to one's own detriment {{comment|('''-ōmu-''' word-finally when not immediately preceded by a stressed syllable; '''-hōm(u)-ʷ''' after a vowel; '''-(h)um-ʷ''' when unstressed; causes labialisation of a following dorsal plosive)}}

; -ra-
: against the rules; unfairly; in an unacceptable way; mischievously; defiantly {{comment|('''-əra-''' after a consonant; '''-ːrə-''' word-finally after a stressed vowel; '''-(ə)rə-''' when unstressed otherwise)}}

; -nim-
: together; towards each other; reciprocally; with low intensity {{comment|('''-nīm-''' when stressed before a consonant; '''-ːnim-''' word-finally after a stressed vowel)}}

; -aq-ˀ
: strongly; forcefully; with great impact; with extraordinary determination; to a remarkable extent {{comment|('''-ːq-''' after a stressed vowel; '''-q-''' after an unstressed vowel; causes glottalic mutation of a following plosive)}}

; -aħqʷ-
: unexpectedly; unusually; disruptively; in contrast to something else {{comment|('''-ħqʷ-''' after a vowel)}}
|dln}}

==Valence/role suffixes==
Hkətl’ohnim verb stems are generally associated with a very specific argument structure. In order to add or remove a core argument, a number of valence-adjusting suffixes can be added to the end of the verb. A few other suffixes with miscellaneous meanings may also appear in verb-final position; because some of these may combine with valence suffixes in a fusional manner, they are also discussed here.

{{dl|
; -qa-
: {{sc|causative}}: Increases valence by adding a new subject; the original subject is demoted to primary object. {{comment|('''-q-''' after a vowel; '''-ːnya-''' after nasalising stems)}}

; -ːnin-
: {{sc|non-causative transitiviser}}: Increases valence by adding a primary object to an otherwise intransitive verb. {{comment|('''-ːmun-''' after labialising stems that end in a vowel; '''-kən-''' after a fricative)}}

; -əł-
: {{sc|detransitiviser}}: Decreases valence by removing the primary object from a transitive verb. {{comment|('''-uł-''' after a labialised consonant; '''-ł-''' after a vowel)}}

; -ən-
: {{sc|mediopassive}}: Decreases valence by promoting an original primary object to subject; the original subject is removed but may optionally appear in the genitive case. When added to a ditransitive verb, the original theme is promoted to primary object. {{comment|('''-un-''' after a labialised consonant; coalesces with a preceding unstressed vowel to stressed '''-ōn-'''; always '''-šin-''' if the verb stem was originally ditransitive)}}

; -səm-
: {{sc|inverse of ditransitive}}: Exchanges the syntactic positions of theme and recipient of a ditransitive verb with no change in valence. It may also increase the valence of a monotransitive verb by adding a new primary object and demoting the original primary object to a theme (marked with the instrumental case). {{comment|('''-təm-''' after a liquid or fricative; '''-ːnəm-''' after nasalising stems)}}

; -ta-
: {{sc|action nominaliser}}: Turns the inflected verb into a noun referring to a single, specific instance of the action involving precisely those participants marked in the pronominal prefix. Participants may also be overt; an overt subject of a nominalised verb takes the genitive case. The nominalised verb itself will also inflect for case according to its role in the matrix clause. {{comment|('''-t-''' after a vowel; '''-ːna-''' after nasalising stems; combines with the causative ''-qa-'' into '''-(ə)tsa-''', with the mediopassive ''-ən-/-šin-'' into '''-(š)ōna-''', and with the inverse ''-səm-'' into '''-sēna-''')}}

; -ːmu-
: {{sc|state nominaliser}}: Turns the inflected verb into a noun referring to a stative, generalised (or generalisable) situation associated with the action, typically with a durative meaning for atelic verbs and a resultative meaning for telic verbs. This state is interpreted to apply to the primary object if the verb is transitive and the object is deictic, or otherwise to apply to the subject. Arguments may be overt; an overt primary object will always appear in the direct case (even in the non-past tense), and an overt subject will take the ergative case if the object is deictic, and the genitive case otherwise. The nominalised verb itself is also inflected for case. {{comment|('''-ku-''' after a single obstruent; '''-īmu''' after a consonant cluster; combines with the transitiviser ''-ːnin-'' into '''-ːnīnku-''', with the detransitiviser ''-(ə)ł-'' into '''-(ə)łki-''', with the mediopassive ''-ən-/-šin-'' into '''-(š)ōnku-''', and with the inverse ''-səm-'' into '''-sēnku-''')}}

; -ê-
: {{sc|imperative}}: Marks the verb as a command or request, which is directed at the subject. This suffix is always stressed and always the final morpheme in the word; it can co-occur with the valence suffixes, but not with the nominalisers ''-ta-'' and ''-ːmu-''. {{comment|('''-hê-''' after a long vowel, which gets shortened in turn; any immediately preceding original short vowel is deleted)}}
|dln}}

=Derivation=
Some productive derivational affixes are listed below.

====Nominalising affixes====
{{dl|
;-(ə)skə
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: instrument used for the action denoted by the base (if the base is verbal), or having some kind of property associated with the base (if the base is nominal). Nouns derived with this suffix have an irregular instrumental case in '''-ːšu'''.

;-su
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: location associated with the base

;-(ə)m(ə)
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: person associated with the base

;-un
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: domesticated animal related to the base

;-(a)ħo
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: small object related to the base

;-šin
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: large object related to the base

;-yələ/-ilə
: {{sc|n/v → n}}
: person, animal, location, or object having the base as a characteristic feature or property

;-(ə)rə/-i
: {{sc|v → n}}
: abstract nominalisation. When added to nasalising verb stems, this suffix appears in the allomorph '''-ːya'''.
|dln}}

====Verbalising affixes====
{{dl|
;-(h)u-
: {{sc|n → v}}
: action carried out with the base as an instrument

;-rən~/-on~
: {{sc|n/v → v}}
: motion verb with the base as a target or theme (if the base is nominal), or with the base describing the manner of motion (if the base is verbal)

;-yən-ʷ/-in-ʷ
: {{sc|n/v → v}}
: all-purpose verbaliser, describes a specialised action related to the base
|dln}}

=Syntax and usage=
Hkətl’ohnim is, in general, a head-initial and right-branching language. The verb is typically the first element in a clause, followed by its arguments, and the noun is typically the first element in a noun phrase, followed by most of its modifiers. The basic constituent order is '''verb-subject (VS)''' in intransitive clauses, '''verb-patient-agent (VOS)''' in transitive clauses, and '''verb-recipient-donor-theme (VOSX)''' in ditransitive clauses. However, this is freed up considerably by case marking on the nouns and polypersonal agreement on the verbs. In practice, the constituents of a sentence may appear in a wide range of possible orderings, which are chosen on the basis of pragmatic considerations. Also, if the amount of syncretism in the agreement morphemes on the verb permits, core arguments are frequently dropped so that it's not uncommon for only focused constituents to appear overtly.

==Morphosyntactic alignment==
Hkətl’ohnim displays a split-ergative, dechticaetiative morphosyntactic alignment with regard to case marking, which can be summarised as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! rowspan="2" style="min-width:7em;"| !! style="min-width:7em;"| intransitive
! rowspan="4"| !! colspan="2"| transitive
! rowspan="4"| !! colspan="3"| ditransitive
|- class="bg2 b"
| style="min-width:3.5em;"| S
| style="min-width:3.5em;"| A || style="min-width:3.5em;"| P
| style="min-width:3.5em;"| D || style="min-width:3.5em;"| T || style="min-width:3.5em;"| R
|-
! nonpast
| {{sc|dir}}
| {{sc|dir}} || {{sc|acc}}
| {{sc|dir}} || {{sc|instr}} || {{sc|acc}}
|-
! past
| {{sc|dir}}
| {{sc|erg}} || {{sc|dir}}
| {{sc|erg}} || {{sc|instr}} || {{sc|dir}}
|-
|}

Intransitive clauses have only one core argument, which generally takes the unmarked direct case {{sc|(dir)}}. (There are a few intransitive verbs that lexically require their subjects to be marked with one of the other cases, but this is sufficiently rare and unsystematic to be treated as an irregularity, rather than labeling the language as "split-S".)

Case marking in mono- and ditransitive clauses exhibits split-ergativity based on the tense of the verb. Note that verbal agreement does not participate in split-ergativity, treating all subjects alike and thus following a nominative-accusative pattern.
<ul>
<li>
In the nonpast tense, case marking is nominative-accusative: The ''subject'' (typically in the semantic role of agent, causer, force, or donor) appears in the direct case {{sc|(dir)}}, and the ''primary object'' (typically in the semantic role of patient, experiencer, goal, recipient, or beneficiary) appears in the accusative case {{sc|(acc)}}.
</li>
<li>
In the past tense, case marking is ergative-absolutive: The subject is marked with the ergative case {{sc|(erg)}}, while the primary object appears in the direct case.
</li>
</ul>

Ditransitive clauses are aligned dechticaetiatively, which means that the primary object is linked to the target role, not to the theme role. The recipient or beneficiary thus appears in the accusative or direct case depending on the tense of the clause, while the ''secondary object'' (typically in the semantic role of theme, instrument, manner, or cause) is marked with the instrumental case {{sc|(instr)}}.

==Noun phrases==
===Quantifiers===
====Numerals====
Hkətl’ohnim uses a base-10 number system:

{| {{softtable|c}}
! width=13%| 1.
| width=20%| nō
! width=13%| 11.
| width=20%| nūntə
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| yak
! 12.
| nīntə
! width=13%| 20.
| width=20%| yahna
|-
! 3.
| sā
! 13.
| sēntə
! 30.
| sēna
|-
! 4.
| qep
! 14.
| qāntə
! 40.
| qehna
|-
! 5.
| rē
! 15.
| rīntə
! 50.
| rīna
|-
! 6.
| toqʷ
! 16.
| tóħantə
! 60.
| tohna
|-
! 7.
| mul
! 17.
| muləntə
! 70.
| mulna
|-
! 8.
| hē
! 18.
| hīntə
! 80.
| hīna
|-
! 9.
| ūla
! 19.
| ūləntə
! 90.
| ūlna
|-
! 10.
| ēntə
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| ēntəna
|}

The numbers 110, 120, (...), 190 are formed by suffixing the decimal multiplier morpheme '''-na''' to the words for 11, 12, (...), 19.
: 110 '''nūntəna'''
: 170 '''múləntəna'''

More complex numerals up to 199 can be formed by compounding, with the single digit coming first. Note the following special combining forms: 1 '''no-''' ('''noy-''' before a vowel); 2 '''yah-''' before a voiced consonant or /h/; 3 '''sa-''' ('''sey-''' before a vowel); 4 '''qeh-''' before a voiced consonant or /h/; 5 '''re-''' ('''rey-''' before a vowel); 6 '''toħ-'''; 8 '''he-''' ('''hey-''' before a vowel); 9 '''ūl-''' ('''ūlə-''' before /r/); 50 '''-šīna''' after a consonant; 150 '''-šīntəna''' after a consonant.
: 21 '''noyahna'''
: 47 '''mulqehna'''
: 56 '''točīna'''
: 64 '''qet’ohna'''
: 115 '''renūntəna'''
: 133 '''sasēntəna'''

Multiples of 100 are built with the special form '''-qēntəna''' by prefixing the appropriate multiplier. 1000 is '''łēn'''; multiples of 1000 are built with '''-qałēn'''.
: 300 '''saqēntəna'''
: 6000 '''toqʷ’ałēn'''

Numbers higher than 200 which are not multiples of 100 are formed analytically using the conjunction '''ši'''.
: 219 '''yaq’ēntəna ši ūləntə'''
: 483 '''qepēntəna ši sahīna'''
: 1140 '''łēn ši qāntəna'''
: 9522 '''ūlqałēn ši reyēntəna ši yačahna'''

====Indefinite quantifiers====
The most important indefinite quantifiers are:
* '''išin''' ‘some, a few, a group of’
* '''tsu''' ‘many’
* '''ma''' ‘all, every’
* '''īn''' ‘each one’
* '''kən''' ‘a certain number of’
* '''k’nyusēn''' ‘no, none of’

====Quantifier usage====
Hkətl’ohnim quantifiers are mostly verbal in nature. When they are used as the main verb of a clause, the meaning is existential if the referent is non-deictic, and predicative if the referent is deictic.
{{g4|Nəsā mahə.|nə-sā n-wahə-Ø|3PL.NP-three 3PL-lion-DIR|There are three lions.}}
{{g4|Nəsā maħqʷ.|nə-sā n-waħqʷ-Ø|3PL.NP-three 3PL-lion.DIST-DIR|Those lions, there are three of them.}}

An ordinal meaning can be achieved by using singular agreement.
{{g4|Həsā wahə.|hə-sā Ø-wahə-Ø|3SG.NP-three 3SG-lion-DIR|He is the third lion.}}

When the referent is non-deictic, it can be backgrounded by being incorporated into the numeral. Because quantifier verbs are normally intransitive, they must take a causative suffix when used in this construction.
{{g4|Nəwahəsāq.|nə-<wahə>-sā-q|3PL.NP-<lion>-three-CAUS|There are three (lions).}}

The following example shows how the full range of verbal morphology can be used to expand the meaning of numerals:
{{g4|Tēqasāqałtəht mahə.|t-ēq-sā-qałt-əht n-wahə-Ø|3PL.PST-there-three-ITER-ADVERS 3PL-lion-DIR|Unfortunately, there were often three lions at that place.}}

=Sample text=
==The young lion==
'''''Wahə həhkē.'''''

''Kōnim qa-t’ī wahə, ši nerikēmu nəlīku nemā, so ā hruskuq, həšamáłaq, hčihpēħaq, həskaħosqoqʷ.''

''Nya wahti həhkē. Hēnenyáłəts t’īn ā nin həsmīnči, ši həłūyəsquts ēħan nəlikʷák nemā suču, ši ħqanēyuts ut’iłkimostu. Latsu nehnām ši nehkotawānəs nəlīku nəmā yuhtin: Nəhrika ēħ, ān kōnim qa-t’ī wahti. Ši hōnsu hət’īqanēyuts ut’iłkimostu, ši hwahtimešu həhwaq’mə, “Ritsōł! Rəmōšinəhētaq, rəšamáłaq, rəčihpēħaq! Nəłənšihni hołu ‘Hruskum’!”''

''Ōni tərēn həsmīni. Hyōləhpəhni wahti həhkē, ši həhmešpəhni həhwaq’mə, “Rəmōšinəhētaq, rəhonts’aspiq, rənūwepuq! Ramuhamōru nitun nəruskʷim nəwahəlet!”''

''Ān mu həhmešt’ūmaħqʷ ši hənsāri yuhtin: “Šīq nehkotawānəs. Ranōməts nəlikʷák suču. Rət’īsenyáłəts ši rət’īqanēyuts it’iłkimostu, ši risēhnits yuhu račīkomōru ēn nemā. Šīq əlkōnim qa-t’ī. Ān səresu həntluhnəhk, ritsōł! Mu rət’īsenyáłəhk, ši rəheqāyəhtērə šihmūltin həseč hkohka, halt ši hənłūših tohan. Rihnāmimē, ritsōł! Rəšamáłaq, rəčihpēħaq, rəskaħosqoqʷ, rəhonts’aspiq! Ān həntluhnəht, rəhāyəh šihmūltin həseč hkohka, ši łohumu hemaqēhəhk nalmaqun tlak, ān hahtaq rət’īqanēyonēhaħqʷ. Həhmōra šihmūltin həseč hołu ‘Čīm’.”''

===Interlinear gloss===

{{gl|Wahə|Ø-wahə-Ø|3SG-lion-DIR|he-is-a-lion}}
{{gl|həhkē.|h-hkeʷ|3SG.NP-young|he-is-young}}
{{glend|The young lion.}}

{{gl|Kōnim|Ø-kōnim-Ø|3SG-chieftain-DIR|he-is-a-king}}
{{gl|qa-t’ī|qa{{--}}|of{{--}}|of{{--}}}}
{{gl| |Ø-t’ī-a|3SG-forest-GEN|it-is-a-forest}}
{{gl|wahə,|Ø-wahə-Ø|3SG-lion-DIR|he-is-a-lion}}
{{glend|The lion is king of the forest,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|nerikēmu|nəm-rika-ːmōrʷ|3PL>3SG.NP-be_subordinate-obviously|they-are-obviously-subordinate-to-him}}
{{gl|nəlīku|nə-līku-Ø|3PL-predatory_animal-DIR|they-are-beasts}}
{{gl|nemā,|nə-ːma|3PL.NP-all|they-are-all-of-them}}
{{glend|and all the beasts are clearly subordinate to him,}}

{{gl|so|so|because|because}}
{{gl|ā|ā-Ø|3SG:NH-DIR|this_one}}
{{gl|hruskuq,|h-rusku-aq|3SG.NP-strong-EMPH|he-is-very-strong}}
{{gl|həšamáłaq,|h-<šān>-hwał-aq|3SG.NP-<chest>-thick-EMPH|he-is-very-thick-of-chest}}
{{gl|hčihpēħaq,|h-<čīhʷ>-pēħa-aq|3SG.NP-<waist>-slim-EMPH|he-is-very-slim-of-waist}}
{{gl|həskaħosqoqʷ.|h-<skaħo>-sqoʷ-aq|3SG.NP-<foot>-agile-EMPH|he-is-very-swift-of-foot}}
{{glend|because he is very strong, thick of chest, slim of waist, and swift of foot.}}

{{gl|Nya|nya|TOP|look}}
{{gl|wahti|Ø-wahə-ti-Ø|3SG-lion-PROX-DIR|this-one-is-a-lion}}
{{gl|həhkē.|h-hkeʷ|3SG.NP-young|he-is-young}}
{{glend|Well, there is this young lion.}}

{{gl|Hēnenyáłəts|həm-se‹›nyał-ots|3SG>3SG.NP-go_into_area-HAB|he-always-goes-into-it}}
{{gl|t’īn|Ø-t’ī-n|3SG-forest-ACC|it-is-a-forest}}
{{gl|ā|ā-Ø|3SG:NH-DIR|this_one}}
{{gl|nin|nin|when|when}}
{{gl|həsmīnči,|h-smēn-čī|3SG.NP-be_morning-DUR|it-is-early-in-the-day}}
{{glend|He always goes into the forest when it is early in the day,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|həłūyəsquts|həhʷ-l‹›ūyəsqʷ-ots|3SG>3:DEICTIC.NP-compete_with-HAB|he-always-competes-with-them}}
{{gl|ēħan|ē-ħ-n|3PL:NH-DIST-ACC|those}}
{{gl|nəlikʷák|nə-<līku>-ak|3PL.NP-<predatory_animal>-be_another|they-are-other-beasts}}
{{gl|nemā|nə-ːma|3PL.NP-all|they-are-all-of-them}}
{{gl|suču,|Ø-suči-u|3SG-strength-INSTR|with-strength}}
{{glend|and he always competes with all the other beasts with regard to strength,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|ħqanēyuts|h-qan-ēyuʷ-ots|3SG.NP-out_of_area-arrive-HAB|he-always-arrives-out-of-there}}
{{gl|ut’iłkimostu.|w-t’iłk-īmə-ots-ta-u|3SG.PST-win-RES-HAB-VN-INSTR|with-him-having-won-as-expected}}
{{glend|and he always returns victorious.}}

{{gl|Latsu|latsu|therefore|therefore}}
{{gl|nehnām|nəm-hnām|3PL>3SG.NP-hear|they-hear-it}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|nehkotawānəs|nəm-hkotawə-ːnas|3PL>3SG.NP-recognise-OBL|they-recognise-it-as-required}}
{{gl|nəlīku|nə-līku-Ø|3PL-predatory_animal-DIR|they-are-beasts}}
{{gl|nəmā|nə-ːma|3PL.NP-all|they-are-all-of-them}}
{{gl|yuhtin:|yū-ti-n|3SG.T/A-PROX-ACC|this-thing}}
{{glend|Therefore all the beasts hear these news and recognise:}}

{{gl|Nəhrika|nəhʷ-rika|3PL>3:DEICTIC.NP-be_subordinate|they-are-subordinate-to-him}}
{{gl|ēħ,|ē-ħ-Ø|3PL:NH-DIST-DIR|those}}
{{gl|ān|ān|but|but}}
{{gl|kōnim|Ø-kōnim-Ø|3SG-chieftain-DIR|he-is-a-king}}
{{gl|qa-t’ī|qa{{--}}|of{{--}}|of{{--}}}}
{{gl| |Ø-t’ī-a|3SG-forest-GEN|it-is-a-forest}}
{{gl|wahti.|Ø-wahə-ti-Ø|3SG-lion-PROX-DIR|this-one-is-a-lion}}
{{glend|They are subordinate to him, but the lion is king of the forest.}}

{{gl|Ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|hōnsu|hōnsu|every_day|every-day}}
{{gl|hət’īqanēyuts|h-<t’ī>-qan-ēyuʷ-ots|3SG.NP-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive-HAB|he-always-arrives-out-of-the-forest}}
{{gl|ut’iłkimostu,|w-t’iłk-īmə-ots-ta-u|3SG.PST-win-RES-HAB-VN-INSTR|with-him-having-won-as-expected}}
{{glend|And every day he returns from the forest victorious,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|hwahtimešu|h-<wahə-ti>-m‹›ešuʷ|3SG.NP-<lion-PROX>-worship|she-praises-the-lion}}
{{gl|həhwaq’mə,|həhʷ-aq’məʷ|3SG>3:DEICTIC.NP-be_parent_of|she-is-his-parent}}
{{glend|and his mother praises the lion,}}

{{gl|“Ritsōł!”|rəy-tsōł|2SG>1SG.NP-be_descendant_of|you-are-my-descendant}}
{{glend|“You are my child!”}}

{{gl|“Rəmōšinəhētaq,|r-<mōšin>-hēta-aq|2SG.NP-<body>-large-EMPH|you-are-very-large-of-body}}
{{gl|rəšamáłaq,|r-<šān>-hwał-aq|2SG.NP-<chest>-thick-EMPH|you-are-very-thick-of-chest}}
{{gl|rəčihpēħaq!”|r-<čīhʷ>-pēħa-aq|2SG.NP-<waist>-slim-EMPH|you-are-very-slim-of-waist}}
{{glend|“You are large of body! You are thick of chest! You are slim of waist!”}}

{{gl|“Nəłənšihni|nəł-nšihni|1SG>2.NP-grant|I-grant-to-you}}
{{gl|hołu|Ø-hołi-u|3SG-name-INSTR|with-the-name}}
{{gl|‘Hruskum’!”|h-rusku-m|3SG.NP-be_strong-PERSON|he-is-a-strong-one}}
{{glend|“I grant you the name ‘Strong One’!”}}

{{gl|Ōni|ōni|FOC|well}}
{{gl|tərēn|tərēn|now|now}}
{{gl|həsmīni.|h-smēn-nī|3SG.NP-be_morning-INC|it-is-very-early-in-the-day}}
{{glend|Well, now the morning is beginning to break.}}

{{gl|Hyōləhpəhni|h-yōləhʷ-pəhni|3SG.NP-stretch_muscles-TRAD|he-stretches-his-body-as-usual}}
{{gl|wahti|Ø-wahə-ti-Ø|3SG-lion-PROX-DIR|this-one-is-a-lion}}
{{gl|həhkē,|h-hkeʷ|3SG.NP-young|he-is-young}}
{{glend|The young lion stretches his muscles as usual,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|həhmešpəhni|həhʷ-m‹›ešuʷ-pəhni|3SG.NP>3:DEICTIC.NP-worship-TRAD|she-praises-him-as-usual}}
{{gl|həhwaq’mə,|həhʷ-aq’məʷ|3SG>3:DEICTIC.NP-be_parent_of|she-is-his-parent}}
{{glend|and his mother praises him as usual,}}

{{gl|“Rəmōšinəhētaq,|r-<mōšin>-hēta-aq|2SG.NP-<body>-large-EMPH|you-are-very-large-of-body}}
{{gl|rəhonts’aspiq,|r-<hūm>-tsaspi-aq|2SG.NP-<tooth>-sharp-EMPH|you-are-very-sharp-of-teeth}}
{{gl|rənūwepuq!”|r-<nū>-epu-aq|2SG.NP-<soul>-brave-EMPH|you-are-very-brave-of-soul}}
{{glend|“You are large of body! You are sharp of teeth! You are brave of soul!”}}

{{gl|“Ramuhamōru|rən-kuhə-ːmōrʷ|2SG>3PL.NP-own-obviously|you-obviously-possess-them}}
{{gl|nitun|n-katu-n|3PL-arm-ACC|they-are-arms}}
{{gl|nəruskʷim|nə-rusku-īmˀ|3PL.NP-strong-suitably|they-are-suitably-strong}}
{{gl|nəwahəlet!”|nə-<wahə>-let|3PL.NP-<lion>-belong_to|they-belong-to-a-lion}}
{{glend|“You really possess the strong arms of a lion!”}}

{{gl|Ān|ān|but|but}}
{{gl|mu|mu|then|then}}
{{gl|həhmešt’ūmaħqʷ|həhʷ-m‹›ešuʷ-ːtōnʷ-aħqʷ|3SG.NP>3:DEICTIC.NP-worship-CESS-MIR|she-suddenly-stops-praising-him}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|hənsāri|hm-sāri|3SG>3SG.NP-say|she-says-it}}
{{gl|yuhtin:|yū-ti-n|3SG:TA-PROX-ACC|this}}
{{glend|But then she suddenly stops praising him and says this:}}

{{gl|“Šīq|šīq|truly|truly}}
{{gl|nehkotawānəs.”|nəm-hkotawə-ːnas|1SG>3SG.NP-recognise-OBL|I-recognise-it-as-required}}
{{glend|“It is true, I must acknowledge it.”}}

{{gl|“Ranōməts|rən-ːnōmi-ots|2SG>3PL.NP-surpass-HAB|you-always-surpass-them}}
{{gl|nəlikʷák|nə-<līku>-ak|3PL.NP-<predatory_animal>-be_another|they-are-other-beasts}}
{{gl|suču.”|Ø-suči-u|3SG-strength-INSTR|with-strength}}
{{glend|“You always surpass the other beasts with regard to strength.”}}

{{gl|“Rət’īsenyáłəts|r-<t’ī>-se‹›nyał-ots|2SG.NP-<forest>-go_into_area-HAB|you-always-go-into-the-forest}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|rət’īqanēyuts|r-<t’ī>-qan-ēyuʷ-ots|2SG.NP-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive-HAB|you-always-arrive-out-of-the-forest}}
{{gl|it’iłkimostu,”|y-t’iłk-īmə-ots-ta-u|2SG.PST-win-RES-HAB-VN-INSTR|with-you-having-won-as-expected}}
{{glend|“You always go out into the forest and you always return out of there victorious,”}}

{{gl|“ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|risēhnits|rəy-s‹›ēhni-ots|2SG>1SG.NP-prove_to-HAB|you-always-prove-it-to-me}}
{{gl|yuhu|yū-u|3SG:TA-INSTR|this}}
{{gl|račīkomōru|rən-čīkuň-ːmōrʷ|2SG>3PL.NP-be_superior-obviously|you-are-obviously-superior-to-them}}
{{gl|ēn|ē-n|3PL.NH-ACC|those}}
{{gl|nemā.”|nə-ːma|3PL.NP-all|they-are-all-of-them}}
{{glend|“and you always show me that you are really superior to all the other beasts.”}}

{{gl|“Šīq|šīq|truly|truly}}
{{gl|əlkōnim|l-kōnim-Ø|2SG-chieftain-DIR|you-are-a-king}}
{{gl|qa-t’ī.”|qa{{--}}|of{{--}}|of{{--}}}}
{{gl| |Ø-t’ī-a|3SG-forest-GEN|it-is-a-forest}}
{{glend|“You are truly king of the forest.”}}

{{gl|“Ān|ān|but|but}}
{{gl|səresu|səresu|someday|someday}}
{{gl|həntluhnəhk,|h-ntluhonʷ-ihk|3SG.NP-happen-PROSP|it-will-come-to-pass}}
{{gl|ritsōł!”|rəy-tsōł|2SG>1SG.NP-be_descendant_of|you-are-my-child}}
{{glend|“However, a certain day will come, my child!”}}

{{gl|“Mu|mu|then|then}}
{{gl|rət’īsenyáłəhk,”|r-<t’ī>-se‹›nyał-ihk|2SG.NP-<forest>-go_into_area-PROSP|you-will-go-into-the-forest}}
{{glend|“Then you will go out into the forest,”}}

{{gl|“ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|rəheqāyəhtērə|rəh-ēq-āyəh-tēr|2SG>3:DEICTIC-there-encounter-ACCID|you-will-accidentally-meet-him-there}}
{{gl|šihmūltin|Ø-šihmūlu-ti-n|3SG-game_animal-PROX-ACC|this-one-is-a-game-animal}}
{{gl|həseč|h-seč|3SG.NP-weak|he-is-weak}}
{{gl|hkohka,|h-kohka|3SG.NP-naked|he-is-naked}}
{{glend|“and you will meet a small naked creature there,”}}

{{gl|halt|h-altˀ|3SG.NP-stand_upright|he-stands-upright}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|hənłūših|hm-łūšihʷ|3SG>3.SG.NP-carry_on_shoulders|he-carries-it-on-his-shoulders}}
{{gl|tohan.”|Ø-toha-n|3SG-head-ACC|it-is-a-head}}
{{glend|“which stands upright and carries his head above his shoulders.”}}

{{gl|“Rihnāmimē,|rəy-hnām-īmˀ-ē|2SG>1SG.NP-hear-suitably-IMP|you-must-listen-to-me}}
{{gl|ritsōł!”|rəy-tsōł|2SG>1SG.NP-be_descendant_of|you-are-my-child}}
{{glend|“Listen to me, my child!”}}

{{gl|“Rəšamáłaq,|r-<šān>-hwał-aq|2SG.NP-<chest>-thick-EMPH|you-are-very-thick-of-chest}}
{{gl|rəčihpēħaq,|r-<čīhʷ>-pēħa-aq|2SG.NP-<waist>-slim-EMPH|you-are-very-slim-of-waist}}
{{gl|rəskaħosqoqʷ,|r-<skaħo>-sqoʷ-aq|2SG.NP-<foot>-agile-EMPH|you-are-very-swift-of-foot}}
{{gl|rəhonts’aspiq!”|r-<hūm>-tsaspi-aq|2SG.NP-<tooth>-sharp-EMPH|you-are-very-sharp-of-teeth}}
{{glend|“You are thick of chest! You are slim of waist! You are swift of foot! You are sharp of teeth!”}}

{{gl|“Ān|ān|but|but}}
{{gl|həntluhnəht,|h-ntluhonʷ-aht|3SG.NP-happen-ADVERS|it-will-sadly-come-to-pass}}
{{gl|rəhāyəh|rəh-āyəh|2SG>3:DEICTIC-encounter|you-will-meet-him}}
{{gl|šihmūltin|Ø-šihmūlu-ti-n|3SG-game_animal-PROX-ACC|this-one-is-a-game-animal}}
{{gl|həseč|h-seč|3SG.NP-weak|he-is-weak}}
{{gl|hkohka,”|h-kohka|3SG.NP-naked|he-is-naked}}
{{glend|“However, it will come to pass that you meet this small naked creature,”}}

{{gl|“ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|łohumu|Ø-łohu-mu-u|3SG-day-DIST-INSTR|with-that-day}}
{{gl|hemaqēhəhk|hm-mə-qēh-ihk|3SG>3SG.NP-towards-go_down-PROSP|it-will-go-down-towards-it}}
{{gl|nalmaqun|Ø-nalmaqʷ-n|3SG-horizon-ACC|it-is-the-horizon}}
{{gl|tlak,”|Ø-tlak-Ø|3SG-sun-DIR|it-is-the-sun}}
{{glend|“and on that day the sun will go down to the horizon,”}}

{{gl|“ān|ān|but|but}}
{{gl|hahtaq|hahtaq|unfortunately|unfortunately}}
{{gl|rət’īqanēyonēhaħqʷ.”|r-<t’ī>-qan-ēyuʷ-ːnē-aħqʷ|2SG.NP-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive-NEG-MIR|you-will-unexpectedly-not-return-from-the-forest}}
{{glend|“but unfortunately you will not return from the forest.”}}

{{gl|“Həhmōra|həh-mə-ōra|1PL>3:DEICTIC.NP-towards-call|we-call-it}}
{{gl|šihmūltin|Ø-šihmūlu-ti-n|3SG-game_animal-PROX-ACC|this-one-is-a-game-animal}}
{{gl|həseč|h-seč|3SG.NP-weak|he-is-weak}}
{{gl|hołu|Ø-hołi-u|3SG-name-INSTR|with-the-name}}
{{gl|‘Čīm’.”|Ø-čīm-Ø|3SG-person-DIR|he-is-a-person}}
{{glend|“We call this small creature ‘Man’.”}}

:<hr>{{comment|Source of the sample text: Roy S. Hagman, Nama Hottentot grammar, Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.}}

=Lexicon=
* [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Lexicon]]

[[Category:T1 languages]]
[[Category:Tuysáfa]]

Omari

2024-10-13T00:55:28Z

Corumayas:

{{Article}}
{{Language
| language = Omari<br>bųgieta ke-nómaru
| phonetic = {{IPA|[bũˌᵑɡjɛ.ta kɛˈnɔ.ma.ɾu]}}
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = Wohata plain
| speakers = unknown
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />  '''Omari'''
| word-or = VOS
| mor-type = polysynthetic; agglutinating w/ some fusion
| morphalign = mostly NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
'''Omari''' is a language spoken in the Wohata plain in eastern [[Tuysáfa]] around 0 YP. It is part of the [[T1 languages|T1 language family]], and thus related to [[Cednìtıt]], [[East Yalan|East]] and [[West Yalan]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], [[Tumetıęk]] and the [[Northeastern Bay Language]].

Strictly speaking, "Omari" is primarily an ethnonym; a native term more specifically referring to the language is '''bųgieta ke-nómaru''', translating to ‘speech of the Omari’. In this document, "Omari" will be used as a name for both the language and the people who speak it.

=Phonology=
==Phoneme inventory==
===Consonants===
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! !! labial !! coronal !! palatal !! dorsal !! glottal
|-
! plosive
| p · b || t · d || || k · ɡ ||
|-
! affricate
| || {{gray|ts}} || {{gray|tʃ}} || ||
|-
! fricative
| f · v || s · z || ʃ · ʒ || || h
|-
! nasal
| m || n || || ||
|-
! liquid/approximant
| w || ɾ || j || ʁ ||
|-
|}

* The phonemic status of [ts tʃ] is debated. With the exception of dialects where the distinctions [ps :: ts :: ks] and [pʃ :: tʃ :: kʃ] have been lost, these affricates are probably best treated as clusters.
* Most instances of [v z ʒ] could probably be analysed as allophones of /f s ʃ/, but the voiced fricatives are fully contrastive at least in word-initial position.
* With the exception of [ts], all the consonants listed in the above table are written with separate single graphemes.
** [tʃ ʃ ʒ ʁ] are written '''č š j x'''.
** The semivowels [w j] are written '''w y''' word-initially and between vowels. Adjacent to a consonant, they are normally analysed as part of a diphthong, and accordingly written with vowel graphemes.
** All other consonants are written as in IPA (or with the text equivalent of their IPA representation).

===Vowels===
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! !! front !! central !! back
|-
! close
| i · ĩ || || u · ũ
|-
! mid
| e · ẽ || || o · õ
|-
! open
| || a · ã ||
|-
|}

There are also numerous diphthongs, which are often treated as single phonemes rather than sequences of a vowel and a semivowel. As with the monophthongs, all diphthongs may be nasalised.

* /ie ei ea eo iu ui oe oa ou uo/
* /ĩẽ ẽĩ ẽã ẽõ ĩũ ũĩ õẽ õã õũ ũõ/

All vowels and diphthongs are written as in IPA, except that nasalisation is indicated with an ogonek instead of a tilde: '''į ę ą ǫ ų įę ęį ęą''' etc.

The diphthongs /eo oe ẽõ õẽ/ are written as '''io ue įǫ ųę''' in positions where they are pronounced as [jɔ wɛ jɔ̃ wɛ̃] (i.e. with a nonsyllabic onglide); note that these alternate graphemes reflect a purely allophonic change.

In order to simplify the description of Omari morphophonology, it makes sense to posit three additional vowel archiphonemes |I E A| and two additional diphthongs |IE EI|, which are traditionally transcribed as ‹'''î ê â iê êi'''› (‹'''ĩ ẽ ã iẽ ẽi'''› when nasalised). They are not distinct from regular /i e a ie ei/ on the surface, but they behave differently when they come into contact with morpheme boundaries that trigger certain morphophonological alternations.

==Distribution and phonotactics==
* The general syllable structure is '''C(C)V(C)'''.
* All consonants can appear word-initially before a vowel.
* All consonants can appear word-medially between vowels, although voiced fricatives cannot normally follow a single oral vowel, and voiceless fricatives other than /h/ cannot follow a nasalised vowel or a diphthong.
* Word-final consonants are relatively rare, and limited to /p t k s ʃ m n/ and the clusters /ps ts ks/.
* Word-initial consonant clusters are limited to:
** /ps ts ks pʃ tʃ kʃ/
** /sp st sk ʃp ʃt ʃk/
** /bɾ ɡɾ bʁ dʁ/
* Word-medially, the following clusters are also permitted:
** /ɾb ɾd ɾɡ/
** /ɾm ɾn/
** /pp tt kk ff ss ʃʃ/
** /pps tts kks ppʃ ttʃ kkʃ/
** /bb dd ɡɡ mm nn ɾɾ/
** /bbɾ ɡɡɾ bbʁ ddʁ/
* In addition to the above, all single consonants except /w j/ and all consonant clusters that do not end in /s ʃ ɾ ʁ/ may be followed by the semivowels [w j]. However, the latter are generally analysed as part of a diphthongal syllable nucleus in such positions.

==Phonetic detail==
* /p t k/ are lightly aspirated before a vowel, except when preceded by /s ʃ/.
* Geminate /pp tt kk/ may be realised as ejectives [p’ t’ k’], especially before a stressed vowel.
* /ɾ/ is realised as a trill [r] word-initially and when geminated.
* /h/ is palatalised to [ç] before /i e ĩ ẽ/ (including the onglide of diphthongs). Before other vowels, it may be realised as [x].
* For some speakers, the clusters /ps ks pʃ kʃ/ merge into [ts ts tʃ tʃ] (and similarly for their long counterparts).
* Some speakers pronounce intervocalic /ʁ/ as [ɣ] after oral vowels, and as [ŋ] after nasalised vowels.
* The voiced plosives /b d ɡ/ are typically pronounced as prenasalised [mb nd ŋɡ] after nasalised vowels. In some dialects, they even become full-blown nasal consonants [m n ŋ] in this environment.
* /b d ɡ/ may lenite to [β ð ɣ] or zero when preceded by an oral vowel and followed by [w j], especially in unstressed positions. In some dialects, lenited /d/ is lateralised to [l].
* Vowel nasalisation is not contrastive, and therefore not written, before nasal consonants. Phonetically, nasalised and non-nasalised realisations of vowels in such positions are in free variation for most speakers.
* The mid vowels /e o ẽ õ/ are usually realised as mid-open vowels {{IPA|[ɛ ɔ ɛ̃ ɔ̃]}}.
* Many diphthongs alternate between rising and falling based on syllable shape. When preceded by a complex onset not ending in a plosive, /ie ea eo iu/ are pronounced {{IPA|[iɛ̯ eɐ̯ ɛw iw]}}, and /uo oa oe ui/ are pronounced {{IPA|[uɔ̯ oɐ̯ ɔj uj]}}. Otherwise, /ie ea eo iu/ are typically pronounced [jɛ ja jɔ ju], and /uo oa oe ui/ are pronounced [wɔ wa wɛ wi]. In stressed or word-final open syllables, /eo ea oa oe/ may still be rendered as {{IPA|[ɛw eɐ̯ oɐ̯ ɔj]}} though. (The same quality alternations apply for nasalised diphthongs.)

==Stress==
Omari has a dynamic stress accent, which is determined by a combination of lexical and positional factors according to the following rules:

* Each content morpheme (i.e. verb or noun root) has an inherent accent location, which is usually the only syllable of monosyllabic morphemes, the final syllable of morphemes ending in a consonant, and the penultimate syllable in morphemes of two or more syllables which end in a vowel. Lexical entries formed through compounding or by addition of a so-called ''core suffix'' are treated as monomorphemic for the purposes of lexical accent, i.e. they have a single accent on the vowel before the last consonant.
* Certain word stems (mostly recent loans) have an irregular lexical accent, which is marked in the lexicon with an acute diacritic on the accented vowel. (A prominent example is the name of the language: '''ómari'''). Irregularly accented syllables attract positional stress from any other syllables in the same morpheme or from any syllable directly adjacent to the irregularly accented syllable, and cannot become fully unstressed.
* Regular lexically accented syllables become fully unstressed when immediately preceded by a positionally accented syllable, or when immediately followed by a syllable which carries both lexical and positional stress. Otherwise, they almost always carry at least secondary stress.
* In words whose final syllable is lexically accented, positional stress falls on the final syllable.
* In words that end in a vowel, positional stress otherwise falls on the penultimate syllable.
* In words that end in a consonant, positional stress otherwise falls on the antepenultimate syllable, with the final syllable receiving a secondary accent.
* However, syllables whose nucleus is part of a pronominal prefix can never be stressed. If the above rules would result in positional stress falling on a pronominal prefix, the lexically accented syllable of the content morpheme (typically word-final in this situation) receives stress instead.
* The primary accent of the word is placed on the positionally accented syllable.
* Every other remaining syllable receives a secondary accent, unless it is immediately adjacent to a lexically or positionally accented syllable, or if its nucleus belongs to a pronominal prefix.

If the primary accent does not predictably fall on the penultimate syllable (for vowel-final words) or on the antepenultimate syllable (for consonant-final words), it will be indicated with an acute accent in this document.

=Morphophonology=
There are several prominent morphophonological alternations in Omari which affect the surface form of stems and/or affixes when they come into contact with each other. All of these alternations are to some extent predictable from the phonological environment, but there are numerous idiosyncrasies and irregularities.

A number of diacritics will be used in this document to mark exceptional morphophonological characteristics:

{| {{softtable|l t}}
|-
!    
! description
! example
|-
! ː
| preceding single vowel undergoes {{sc|breaking}}
| te- + -ːna- → tiena
|-
! ~
| preceding vowel undergoes {{sc|nasalisation}}
| te- + ~da- → tęda
|-
! ˤ
| preceding or following vowel undergoes {{sc|flattening}}
| ti- + -ˤka- → teka
|-
! °
| preceding or following vowel undergoes {{sc|rounding}}
| ta- + -°ma- → toma
|-
! ‘
| preceding or following consonant undergoes {{sc|softening}}
| tekˤ- + -‘ųǫ- → tegǫą
|-
! .
| preceding or following consonant resists {{sc|softening}}
| tekˤ.- + -‘ųǫ- → tekǫą
|-
! +
| preceding or following consonant undergoes {{sc|lenition}}
| tekˤ- + +u- → teho
|-
! ,
| morpheme behaves irregularly under {{sc|lenition}} <br>(details given in morpheme list or lexicon)
| teš- + +u- → teru <br>teš,- + +u- → toeyu
|-
|}

==Phonologically conditioned alternations==
The following alternations are synchronically productive and occur automatically in the relevant environments, typically after all morphologically conditioned morphophonological rules have been applied:

===Consonant sandhi===
* Single /f s ʃ/ become voiced after diphthongs and nasalised vowels, and are written '''v z j''' in these positions.
* Conversely, /z ʒ/ become voiceless when they come into contact with a voiceless obstruent, and are then written '''s š'''.
* /w/ is fortified to /v/ (written '''v''') after /ou/ or before /u uo oa ũ ũõ õã/, and /j/ is likewise fortified to /ʒ/ (written '''j''') after /ei/ or before /i ie ea ĩ ĩẽ ẽã/. These alternations also affect glides which are epenthetic, but they generally only apply after oral vowels.
* When preceded by a nasalised vowel, intervocalic /w j/ (including epenthetic instances) surface as /m n/ (written '''m n''').
* Fricatives assimilate completely into a following fricative other than /h/, forming a voiceless geminated version of the second fricative. /h/ becomes '''k''' after /s ʃ/, and assimilates completely into any adjacent fricative otherwise.
* Plosives assimilate completely into a following plosive, forming a geminated plosive, which will be voiced (a) if both of the original plosives are voiced, or (b) if the resulting geminate stands adjacent to a nasalised vowel or underlying /ɾ ʁ/. If neither of these conditions is met, the resulting geminate will be voiceless. There is one major exception to plosive assimilation: Instances of /t/ which are immune to {{sc|softening}} will surface as '''s''' instead when adjacent to a labial or velar plosive, which in turn becomes voiceless.
* Voiceless plosives which are not immune to {{sc|softening}} become voiced between vowels, but only if they are not the first consonant in the main lexical stem of a word.
* The voiced plosives /b d ɡ/ become voiceless when adjacent to /s ʃ/.
* At the end of a word or when sandwiched between two nasalised vowels, /b d ɡ/ turn into the nasals '''m n n'''. In the latter position, voiceless plosives which are not immune to {{sc|softening}} are also affected.
* Morpheme-initial instances of /b d ɡ/ which cause {{sc|nasalisation}} of a preceding vowel also become '''m n n''' when preceded by /ɾ/.
* Nasals assimilate in POA to a following nasal, forming geminate '''mm nn'''.
* Underlying /dɾ ɡʁ/ surface as '''rr gg''' medially, and as '''di g''' word-initially.
* /ɾ/ assimilates completely into preceding /s ʃ/, forming geminated fricatives '''ss šš'''. After instances of /p t k/ which are immune to {{sc|softening}}, /ɾ/ also becomes '''š''', and after consonant clusters ending in /p t k/ it surfaces as '''i'''.
* Coda /ɾ/ is deleted word-finally or before consonants other than single /b d ɡ m n ɾ/, with compensatory {{sc|breaking}} of the preceding vowel if the syllable in question does not meet the conditions for {{sc|diphthong reduction}}. When preceded by a nasalised vowel and followed by a consonant, coda /ɾ/ assimilates completely into the following consonant, yielding a geminate. Underlying /ɾd/ surfaces as '''rr''' after a nasalised vowel.

===Vowel synaeresis===
When two vowels come into contact at morpheme boundaries, they combine into a diphthong according to the table below. Note that the vowel archiphonemes ‹'''î ê â'''› behave differently than other instances of /i e a/.

{| {{softtable|lightbluebg c}}
|-
| width="11%"|
| width="11%"| '''i'''
| width="11%"| '''î'''
| width="11%"| '''e'''
| width="11%"| '''ê'''
| width="11%"| '''a'''
| width="11%"| '''â'''
| width="11%"| '''o'''
| width="11%"| '''u'''
|-
| '''i'''
| class="redbg3"| ei¹ || class="redbg3"| ei¹ || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="graybg3"| eo || class="graybg2"| iu
|-
| '''î'''
| class="redbg3"| ei¹ || class="redbg4"| êi³ || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg4"| êi³ || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="greenbg4"| ou²
|-
| '''e'''
| class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="graybg3"| eo || class="graybg3"| eo
|-
| '''ê'''
| class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg2"| ie || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="greenbg3"| uo
|-
| '''a'''
| class="redbg2"| ie || class="redbg4"| êi³ || class="redbg2"| ie || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="greenbg3"| uo
|-
| '''â'''
| class="bluebg2"| ea || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="bluebg2"| ea || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="bluebg3"| oa
|-
| '''o'''
| class="graybg3"| oe || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="graybg3"| oe || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="greenbg3"| uo
|-
| '''u'''
| class="graybg2"| ui || class="greenbg4"| ou² || class="graybg3"| oe || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="bluebg3"| oa || class="greenbg3"| uo || class="greenbg4"| ou²
|-
|}

:¹) '''ei''' in open syllables or in stressed word-final syllables ending with a single consonant, '''ie''' otherwise
:²) '''ou''' in open syllables or in stressed word-final syllables ending with a single consonant, '''uo''' otherwise
:³) '''ou/uo''' adjacent to a labial consonant; '''ei/ie''' otherwise. Rules ¹/² also apply.

All instances of '''ea''' resulting from vowel synaeresis become '''oa''' when adjacent to a labial consonant.

Nasalised vowels combine in the same way as oral vowels. When two vowels of different nasality combine, the resulting diphthong will be nasalised. Also note that the top-left to bottom-right diagonal in this table is identical to the outcome of the morphologically conditioned process of {{sc|vowel breaking}}.

When an existing diphthong comes into contact with another vowel, the diphthong undergoes {{sc|reduction}} first, and the resulting vowel sequence is then resolved according to the above table. However, stressed diphthongs, morpheme-final diphthongs marked with a final ‹.›, and sequences of more than three single vowel segments in a row will not be reduced. Instead, an epenthetic glide will be inserted at the morpheme boundary, typically /w/ after a rounded vowel and /j/ after an unrounded vowel (but note that these glides will become /m n/ after nasalised vowels, and may be fortified to /v ʒ/ in some other environments). If there is a rising diphthong immediately after the relevant morpheme boundary, its onglide will often become fully consonantal instead, thereby rendering epenthesis unnecessary.

===Diphthong raising===
A fairly minor, but regular process is diphthong raising, which produces the following alternations:

* '''uo oa''' → '''ou''' (before intervocalic '''p b m v w''', with the latter fortifying to '''v''')
* '''ie ea''' → '''ei''' (before intervocalic '''k g j y''', with the latter fortifying to '''j''')
* '''oa''' → '''uo''' (before geminated '''pp bb mm ff''')
* '''ea''' → '''ie''' (before '''š č''' and geminated '''kk gg''')

The same alternations apply for nasalised vowels.
Diphthong raising is blocked before morpheme boundaries which trigger {{sc|flattening}}.

===Diphthong reduction===
In unstressed syllables adjacent to a syllable with primary or secondary stress, underlying diphthongs are reduced to monophthongs if at least one of the following conditions is met:

* the unstressed syllable in question contains coda /ɾ/
* the unstressed syllable in question has a complex onset and is followed by a consonant other than a voiced fricative
* an immediately following stressed syllable has a complex onset, and the unstressed syllable in question contains a falling diphthong
* the adjacent stressed syllable is closed, and the unstressed syllable in question contains a falling diphthong
* the adjacent stressed syllable contains both a diphthong and a coda consonant
* the adjacent stressed syllable contains a diphthong of the same orientation (rising or falling) as the nucleus of the unstressed syllable in question

This process affects even diphthongs which are composed of two separate vowel phonemes across a morpheme boundary; however, diphthongs in lexically accented syllables of a content morpheme (including the roots of incorporated nouns) do not undergo reduction. The following alternations are observed:

* '''ei''' → '''i'''
* '''ou''' → '''u'''
* '''ie ea''' → '''e'''
* '''uo oa''' → '''o'''
* '''ui êi iu''' → '''î''' (resolves to '''u''' when adjacent to a labial consonant, and to '''i''' otherwise)
* '''oe iê eo''' → '''ê''' (resolves to '''o''' when adjacent to a labial consonant, and to '''e''' otherwise)

Nasalised diphthongs are reduced in the same way as oral diphthongs.

If the above rules would result in a voiced fricative following an oral monophthong, the original diphthong is not reduced, but instead shifts from rising to falling or vice versa. (For diphthongs involving close and mid vowels, this results in a phonemic change; the relevant correspondence is '''ei êi ou''' <> '''ie iê uo'''.)

==Morphologically conditioned alternations==
===Vowel breaking===
Under certain morphologically conditioned circumstances, vowels before a morpheme boundary may break into diphthongs. This process is highly sensitive to prosody: It occurs consistently in syllables with primary or secondary stress, but is usually blocked in unstressed syllables, especially when an adjacent syllable both carries a primary or secondary accent ''and'' has a diphthongal nucleus. Morpheme boundaries which may trigger vowel breaking are marked with the diacritic ‹ː› (reflecting the fact that the process appears to have originated as an alternation in vowel length, considering that its outcome is identical to the top-left to bottom-right diagonal of the vowel synaeresis table).

* '''i''' → '''ei''' in open syllables or in stressed word-final syllables ending with a single consonant, '''ie''' otherwise
* '''î''' → '''êi''' in open syllables or in stressed word-final syllables ending with a single consonant, '''iê''' otherwise
* '''e''' → '''ie'''
* '''ê''' → '''ea'''
* '''a''' → '''ea'''
* '''â''' → '''oa'''
* '''o''' → '''uo'''
* '''u''' → '''ou''' in open syllables or in stressed word-final syllables ending with a single consonant, '''uo''' otherwise

The same alternations apply for nasalised vowels.
If a diphthongising morpheme boundary also triggers {{sc|rounding}} and/or {{sc|flattening}}, diphthongisation is applied first (i.e. the resulting diphthong functions as the input of the other process).

===Vowel rounding===
Vowel rounding typically occurs in the vicinity of labial consonants, but it occasionally happens in other situations as well. Rounding environments will be indicated with the diacritic ‹°›.
* '''î''' → '''u''' ('''o''' if {{sc|flattening}} also applies)
* '''ê''' → '''a''' (only when not adjacent to a coronal or palatal consonant)
* '''a''' → '''o'''
* '''êi''' → '''ou'''
* '''iê''' → '''uo'''
* '''ea''' → '''oa'''
The same alternations apply for nasalised vowels.

===Vowel flattening===
"Flattening" is the traditional label for a process that produces a more open vowel quality than usual. This process affects vowels adjacent to '''x''', adjacent to some instances of '''k g h''', and exceptionally in a few other situations. Flattening environments will be marked with the diacritic ‹ˤ›.
* '''i''' → '''e'''
* '''î''' → '''a''' ('''o''' if {{sc|rounding}} also applies)
* '''ê''' → '''a'''
* '''u''' → '''o'''
* '''uo''' → '''oa'''
* '''ea''' → '''oa'''
* '''ie iê''' → '''ea'''
The same alternations apply for nasalised vowels.

===Vowel nasalisation===
Nasalisation simply changes an oral vowel or diphthong to its nasalised counterpart. Nasalising environments are indicated by the diacritic ‹~›. Where this process operates progressively (i.e. a morpheme triggers nasalisation of the following vowel), an immediately following single fricative becomes voiced as a result. Note also that single plosives which are not immune to {{sc|softening}} will turn into nasals when surrounded by nasalised vowels on both sides, rendering nasalisation on the first vowel non-distinctive.
* '''i e a o u''' → '''į ę ą ǫ ų'''
* '''ie ei ea eo iu ui oe oa ou uo''' → '''įę ęį ęą ęǫ įų ųį ǫę ǫą ǫų ųǫ'''

===Consonant softening===
Consonant softening is typically triggered by nasalised vowels (but any given nasalised vowel will be specified to soften either a preceding or a following consonant); voiceless plosives and single voiceless fricatives usually also undergo softening when adjacent to '''r x'''. Softening environments are marked with the diacritic ‹‘›. It should be noted that the outcome of this process is dependent on the precise ordering of segments, and that a sizeable number of morphemes are immune to softening (the latter is marked with a period ‹.› at the relevant morpheme boundary).
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! width="14%"| environment
! width="14%"| #‘_V
! width="14%"| Ṽ‘_V
! width="14%"| V_‘Ṽ
! width="14%"| Vr‘_V
! width="14%"| V_‘rV
! width="14%"| V_‘xṼ
|-
! p t k
| b d g || b d g || b d g || rb rd rg || br rr gr || bx dx gg
|-
! f s š
| w z y || v z j || {{gray|f s š}} || ːv ːz ːj || ur {{gray|ss}} ir || ųx h h
|-
! h
| x || x || {{gray|h}} || {{gray|ːh}} || ːr || {{gray|h}}
|-
! pp tt kk
| {{gray|<small>''(does not occur)''</small>}} || bb dd gg || bb dd gg || ːbb ːdd ːgg || bbr ddi ggr || bbx ddx gg
|-
! ps pš ks kš
| br br gr gr || br br gr gr || {{gray|ps pš ks kš}} || {{gray|ːps ːpš ːks ːkš}} || {{gray|ps pš ks kš}} || {{gray|ps pš ks kš}}
|-
|}

Single plosives which become voiced through softening will further change into nasals if they are surrounded by nasalised vowels on both sides.

===Consonant lenition===
Consonant lenition is another type of consonant mutation which occurs at specific morpheme boundaries. Leniting environments are marked with the symbol ‹+›.

The outcome of lenition is sometimes highly irregular; the following table therefore lists only the most common alternations. Note that [+plosive][+sibilant] clusters are affected only when preceded by a leniting morpheme, not when followed by one. Irregular lenited allomorphs will be given separately on a morpheme-by-morpheme basis.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! environment
! width="35%"| V+_V
! width="35%"| V_+V
|-
! p t k kˤ
| f s š hˤ
| f s š hˤ
|-
! b d g gˤ
| m n n ~xˤ
| m n n ~xˤ
|-
! f s š
| w r r
| w r r
|-
! ts č
| ss šš
| {{gray|ts č}}
|-
! ps ks ˤks
| uz iz ˤz
| {{gray|ps ks ˤks}}
|-
! pš kš ˤkš
| uj ij ˤj
| {{gray|pš kš ˤkš}}
|-
|}

=Nominal morphology=
Nominal words in Omari fall in three morphologically distinct classes: ''pronouns'', ''true nouns'', and ''descriptives''.

==True nouns==
True nouns can be divided in several subgroups with slightly different morphological characteristics. This is done along the lines of ''animacy'' (animate vs. inanimate), ''number'' (count nouns vs. collective nouns vs. singulative nouns), and ''possession'' (independent nouns vs. inherently possessed nouns).

===Number and animacy===
Number and animacy are indicated with fusional prefixes. Animacy is often not immediately obvious and will become apparent only in verbal subject agreement, but number marking is always fairly transparent. Count nouns can appear in the ''singular'' or in the ''plural''; collective nouns can appear in the ''collective'' (refers to the collection as a single whole), in the ''distributive'' (refers to the members of the collection individually, but all at the same time), and in the ''plural'' (refers to a plurality of collections). Nouns referring to a single member of a collection can be derived from collectives by adding a ''singulative'' prefix; these nouns behave like normal count nouns with regard to number agreement, but their plurals are formed with a special fusional prefix.

<div class="fl">
{| {{softtable|c fl}}
|+ '''count nouns'''
! !! singular !! plural
|-
! animate
| w°-/o-/Ø- || n-/‘-/nu+
|-
! inanimate
| h-/Ø- || n-/‘-/nê+
|-
|}
<div class="fl padded"> </div>
</div>
<div class="fl">
{| {{softtable|c fl}}
|+ '''collective nouns'''
! !! collective !! distributive !! plural
|-
! animate
| m°-/‘-/mo+ || em°-/ę‘-/emo+ || čum°-/čų‘-/čų+
|-
! inanimate
| y-/i- || ęx-/ę‘- || čuy-/ču-
|-
|}
<div class="fl padded"> </div>
</div>
{| {{softtable|c}}
|+ '''singulative nouns'''
! !! singular !! plural
|-
! animate
| nogǫ-/nogę‘-/nogǫą+ || čonǫ-/čonę‘-/čonǫą+
|-
! inanimate
| noge- || čǫge-
|-
|}

* The animate singular prefix for count nouns is '''w°-''' before vowels (zero when preceded by a cliticised preposition), and either '''o-''' or zero before consonants. As it is not fully predictable which nouns take '''o-''' and which ones don't, the prefixed form will be given in the lexicon.
* The inanimate singular prefix for count nouns is '''h-''' before vowels and zero before consonants. Some words irregularly display an initial consonant mutation.
* The count noun plural prefixes are '''n-''' before vowels, zero with consonant {{sc|softening}} before single voiceless obstruents, and '''nu+/nê+''' with consonant {{sc|lenition}} elsewhere. When preceded by another prefix or proclitic (e.g. a possessive marker or a preposition), the '''nu+/nê+''' forms reduce to nasalisation of the preceding vowel plus lenition of the following stem-initial consonant, i.e. the resulting affix shape is '''~_+'''.
* Of the animate prefixes for collective and singulative nouns, the first form is used before vowels, the second form (with {{sc|softening}}) before labial obstruents, and the third form (with {{sc|lenition}}) before other consonants.
* Of the inanimate prefixes for collective nouns, the first form is used before vowels, and the second form before consonants.

===Possession===
Omari has a closed class of ''inherently possessed nouns'', which mandatorily take an additional prefix agreeing with their possessor. The most typical members of this class are body part terms, but some other words referring to parts of a larger whole are also treated as inherently possessed. All inherently possessed nouns are count nouns.

The basic forms of the possessive prefixes, which appear immediately before the number/animacy markers, are '''t(e)-''' for 1st person possession, '''k(i)-''' for 2nd person possession, and '''b(u)-''' for 3rd person possession. However, possessive and number/animacy prefixes are fused to a considerable degree. The combined forms are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="5"| singular
! rowspan="5"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2"
| _V || _C¹ || _C² || _C || _R³
| _V || _C⁴ || _C
|-
! {{sc|1.poss}}
| t- || t- || to- || te- || d-³
| dį- || tę‘- || tę+
|-
! {{sc|2.poss}}
| k- || k- || ko- || ki- || g-³
| gr~ || kį‘- || kį+
|-
! {{sc|3.poss}}
| b°- || p- || bo- || bu- || b-³
| br~ || bų‘- || bų+
|-
|}

:¹) Before single /s ʃ/.
:²) Before animate consonant-initial stems that take the singular prefix '''o-'''.
:³) When attached directly to a singular noun stem beginning with one of the resonants /m n r ʁ/, the 1st person possessive prefix combines with the stem-initial consonant as '''dų- dį- di- dx~''' respectively, the 2nd person possessive prefix combines with the stem-initial consonant as '''gų- gr~ gr- g~''', and the 3rd person possessive prefix combines with the stem-initial consonant as '''bų- br~ br- bx~'''.
:⁴) Before single obstruents.

When preceded by a proclitic (e.g. a preposition), the 3rd person possessive prefix causes a proclitic-final vowel to become nasalized.

Independent nouns (i.e. nouns which are not inherently possessed) do not take possessive prefixes.

===Case===
True nouns inflect for case in a simple direct-oblique system. The ''direct case'' is the unmarked citation form; the ''oblique case'' is formed with the suffix '''+u''', which replaces any final vowel and causes {{sc|lenition}} of the preceding consonant where applicable. Some words display stem alternations in the oblique case; such irregularities are indicated in the lexicon.

Case usage is fairly straightforward: The oblique case is used for the objects of many prepositions, for overt possessors of inherently possessed nouns, in partitive constructions, and in absolute constructions which portray the noun as an adverbial adjunct to the clause as a whole. The direct case is used everywhere else.

==Pronouns==
Because the core participants of a clause are mandatorily marked on the verb, Omari does not use free pronouns very often. They are mostly employed for emphasis, for tracking several different third person participants, or for assigning an oblique role to a participant that has already been mentioned.

There are two major subtypes of pronouns in the language: ''Personal pronouns'', which exist only for speech act participants (i.e. 1st and 2nd person), and ''demonstratives'', which are used for 3rd person referents. All pronouns inflect for case.

===Personal pronouns===
Personal pronouns inflect for number, case, and politeness. Among the polite pronouns there is also an additional distinction between physical and mental pronouns; the former are used with verbs of action and in statements about physical properties of the referent, and the latter are used with verbs of communication or mental activity and in statements about the emotional state of the referent.

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''1st person (speaker)'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| width="14%"| informal
| width="14%"| polite <br>physical
| width="14%"| polite <br>mental
| width="14%"| informal
| width="14%"| polite <br>physical
| width="14%"| polite <br>mental
|-
! direct
| toe || niu || nįdu
| si || dįų || tędu
|-
! oblique
| tou || nįęzu || nįtsu
| su || dįųzu || tętsu
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:37em"
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''2nd person (listener)'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| width="14%"| informal
| width="14%"| polite <br>physical
| width="14%"| polite <br>mental
| width="14%"| informal
| width="14%"| polite <br>physical
| width="14%"| polite <br>mental
|-
! direct
| ri || sįų || sįdu
| gi || gįų || kįdu
|-
! oblique
| ru || sįųzu || sįtsu
| gu || gįųzu || kįtsu
|-
|}
<div class="visualClear"></div>

===Demonstratives===
Omari has distinct demonstrative pronouns for referents of different animacy, shape, and size, constituting what appears to be a fairly elaborate noun class system. However, the "classes" represented by these classifying demonstratives are not fixed. A given referent may be referred to with any semantically appropriate demonstrative (provided it has the correct animacy value); the assignment of pronouns may vary from speaker to speaker, from conversation to conversation for the same speaker, or even within the same discourse, depending on which aspect of the referent the speaker considers salient.

Demonstrative pronouns distinguish number, case, and three degrees of deixis. Their inflection is somewhat fusional; all the relevant forms are given in the table below.

<div class="fl" style="min-width:37em; margin-right:1em">
====Animate demonstratives====

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''male adult human'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| width="14%"| proximal
| width="14%"| medial
| width="14%"| distal
| width="14%"| proximal
| width="14%"| medial
| width="14%"| distal
|-
! direct
| katti || kasko || kotoe
| gatti || gasko || gotoe
|-
! oblique
| katsu || kato || kotu
| gatsu || gato || gotu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''female adult human'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| rįdi || rąko || rųve
| dįdi || dęąko || dįųve
|-
! oblique
| rįzu || rąxo || rinu
| dįzu || dęąxo || dinu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''child'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| šǫdi || šǫko || šǫve
| yǫdi || yǫko || yǫve
|-
! oblique
| šǫzu || šǫxo || šomu
| yǫzu || yǫxo || yomu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''large animal'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| fųǫrri || fǫąko || fǫųve
| numorri || numoako || numouve
|-
! oblique
| fųǫzu || fǫąho || fuonu
| numouzu || numoaho || numouru
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''small animal'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| bradi || brako || brofe
| nuradi || nurako || nurofe
|-
! oblique
| brasu || braho || brou
| nurasu || nuraho || nuróu
|-
|}
</div>
<div class="fl" style="min-width:37em;">
====Inanimate demonstratives====

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''large or bulky object'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| width="14%"| proximal
| width="14%"| medial
| width="14%"| distal
| width="14%"| proximal
| width="14%"| medial
| width="14%"| distal
|-
! direct
| šinį || šękǫ || šųvę
| nerinį || nerąkǫ || nerųvę
|-
! oblique
| šįzu || šęxo || šinu
| nerįzu || nerąxo || nerinu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''small object'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| skuedį || skoakǫ || skuevę
| neskuedį || neskoakǫ || neskuevę
|-
! oblique
| skuezu || skoaho || skuevu
| neskuezu || neskoaho || neskuevu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''long object'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| psidį || psekǫ || psifę
| niotidį || niotekǫ || niotifę
|-
! oblique
| psisu || pseho || psiu
| niotisu || nioteho || niotíu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''flat object'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| wenį || wąkǫ || wąvę
| nuonį || nǫąkǫ || nǫųvę
|-
! oblique
| węzu || wąxo || wenu
| nųǫzu || nǫąxo || nuonu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''soft object'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| hiotį || hiokǫ || heffę
| niotį || niokǫ || neffę
|-
! oblique
| hessu || hioho || hefu
| nessu || nioho || nefu
|-
! colspan="8"|
|-
| || colspan="7"| '''hollow container'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| singular
! rowspan="4"|
! colspan="3"| plural
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| gronį || grǫkǫ || grǫvę
| neronį || nerǫkǫ || nerǫvę
|-
! oblique
| grǫzu || grǫxo || grǫvu
| nerǫzu || nerǫxo || nerǫvu
|-
|}

{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:18em; margin:0 1em 1em 0;"
|-
| || colspan="3"| '''liquid'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| collective
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| wittį || wekkǫ || wikkǫę
|-
! oblique
| wiču || weko || wigu
|-
|}
{| {{softtable|c fl}} style="min-width:18em;"
|-
| || colspan="3"| '''granular mass'''
|-
! rowspan="2"|
! colspan="3"| collective
|- class="bg2 context"
| proximal || medial || distal
|-
! direct
| hadį || hakǫ || hofę
|-
! oblique
| hasu || hako || huo
|-
|}
</div>
<div class="visualClear"></div>
The inanimate demonstratives for liquids and granular masses refer to collective inanimate nouns. Plurals and singulatives for these can be formed simply by adding the appropriate nominal number/animacy prefixes.

Animate collective nouns, as well as inanimate collective nouns whose referents do not belong to the two aforementioned categories, do not have demonstrative pronouns of their own. Instead, they are referred to with plural forms of the semantically appropriate countable pronoun.

==Descriptives==
A peculiarity of noun phrases in Omari is the frequent use of ''descriptives'', which are not really "nominals" in the traditional sense, but rather inflected verbs that are used syntactically not as a clause, but as an argument of another verb. (Unlike complement clauses, they do not denote the event or state which they describe, but stand in referentially for their subject.) The meaning of descriptives is often highly conventionalized and idiomatic; established descriptives are therefore included as separate nominal entries in the lexicon. This word class is very productive; in fact, coining new descriptives is one of the major word-forming strategies.

Since the morphology of descriptives is essentially the same as that of verbs, most of it will be discussed in the section about verbal morphology. The only specifically nominal morphology that descriptives may take is the oblique case suffix '''-u''' (which does ''not'' trigger {{sc|lenition}} when used with descriptives). It is found in slightly more restricted circumstances compared to true nouns, being added to descriptives only when they are used (a) in apposition to a pronoun which is also marked for the oblique case, or (b) in adverbial absolute constructions.

==Prepositions==
Prepositions in Omari are proclitics, which are phonologically bound to the first word in their complement noun phrase. Prepositions generally require the head noun or pronoun of their complement to appear in a specific case (direct or oblique). Some prepositions can appear with either case, typically with a different meaning.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! citation form !! _V !! _C !! _CC !! case !! class="l"| meaning
|-
! ke=
| kˤ- || k-/ke-¹ || ke- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| of, belonging to
|-
! dį=
| dį- || dį- || dį- || {{sc|dir, obl}} || class="l"| on, at (locative with {{sc|dir}}, temporal with {{sc|obl}})
|-
! wę=
| weni- || wę‘- || wę‘- || {{sc|dir, obl}} || class="l"| near, close to (locative with {{sc|dir}}, temporal with {{sc|obl}})
|-
! koge=
| kogˤ- || kok- || koge- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| within view distance of
|-
! tsǫge=
| tsǫgˤ- || tsǫg‘- || tsǫge- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| touching; outside of
|-
! ye=
| y- || ye- || ye- || {{sc|dir}} || class="l"| above, on top of
|-
! tu=
| tu- || t-/tu-² || tu- || {{sc|dir}} || class="l"| towards, in the direction of, on the way to
|-
! še=
| š- || š-/še-³ || še- || {{sc|dir, obl}} || class="l"| as, under the name of (with {{sc|dir}}); behind, beyond (with {{sc|obl}})
|-
! yekke=
| yekkˤ- || yekke- || yekke- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| after (temporal)
|-
! brųge=
| brųgˤ- || brųg‘- || brųge- || {{sc|dir, obl}} || class="l"| before (locative with {{sc|dir}}, temporal with {{sc|obl}})
|-
! spo=
| sp°- || spo- || spo- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| throughout, among, all around
|-
! ouge=
| ougˤ- || ouk- || ouge- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| inside of
|-
! suske=
| suskˤ- || suske- || suske- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| relevant to, associated with
|-
! dioge=
| diogˤ- || diok- || dioge- || {{sc|obl}} || class="l"| with regard to, for the purpose of
|-
|}

:¹) '''k-''' before prevocalic /s ʃ/; combines with prevocalic /m n r ʁ/ into '''gų- gr~ gr- g~'''; otherwise '''ke-'''.
:²) '''t-''' before prevocalic /s ʃ/; combines with prevocalic /m n r ʁ/ into '''dų- dį- di- dx~'''; otherwise '''tu-'''.
:³) '''š-''' before prevocalic /p t k/; '''še-''' otherwise.

It should be noted that prepositions are not used as often as they would be in other languages, because many spatial relations (especially orientation and movement) are preferrably expressed via directional preverbs on the main verb in a sentence.

=Verbal morphology=
The central element of Omari morphosyntax is the polysynthetic verb, which exhibits mandatory pronominal marking for up to three arguments, optional prefixes for aspect, optional prefixes specifying direction, optional modal suffixes, optional suffixes for pluractionality, and noun incorporation. The structure of the verb is mostly agglutinative; a number of verbal affixes also exhibit a small degree of fusional behavior. The Omari verb can be summarized as follows:

{| {{softtable|c t}}
|- class="bg2 b"
| -6 || -5 || -4 || -3 || -2 || -1 || 0 || +1 || +2
|-
| negation || subject/object/tense || aspect || ''(secondary object)'' || {{sc|<noun>}} || ''(direction)'' || '''STEM''' || ''(modality)'' || ''(pluractionality)''
|-
|}

==Negation==
The first slot in the verb can only contain a single morpheme, the negative marker '''de-'''. This prefix becomes '''d-''' before vowels, '''t-''' before a following prevocalic /s/, and combines with a following prevocalic /ʃ/ into '''č-'''.

==Pronominal prefixes==
The second slot contains pronominal prefixes that encode the person and number of the subject, and in transitive verbs also the person of the object. In the 3rd person singular, animacy of the subject is distinguished as well. (In ditransitive verbs, the "object" part of these prefixes refers to the ''primary object'', which typically corresponds to the semantic role of patient, experiencer, goal, recipient, or beneficiary.)

There are two different sets of pronominal prefixes, the choice of which indicates the tense of the verb. The basic forms of these prefixes are as follows:

{| {{softtable|c}}
| colspan="15"| '''non-past tense'''
|-
! object →
! colspan="2"| none
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 1st person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 2nd person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 3rd person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| reflexive
|- class="bg2"
! width="15%"| subject ↓
| width="8%"| _V || width="8%"| _C
| width="8%"| _V/C¹ || width="8%"| _C²
| width="8%"| _V/C¹ || width="8%"| _C²
| width="8%"| _V/N || width="8%"| _C
| width="8%"| _V³ || width="8%"| _V/C⁴
|-
! 1sg
| colspan="2"| ni-
| nis.- || nei-⁵
| niš.- || nei-⁵
| nin- || nį‘-
| nig- || nik-
|-
! 1pl
| š- || še-
| šes.- || šie-
| šeš.- || šie-
| šen- || šę‘-
| šeg- || šek-
|-
! 2sg
| r- || rî-
| ris.- || riê-
| riš.- || riê-
| rin- || rĩ‘-
| rig- || rik-
|-
! 2pl
| g-³ || gi-⁴
| gis.- || gei-⁵
| giš.- || gei-⁵
| gin- || gį‘-
| geg- || gek-
|-
! 3sg.i
| h- || e-
| es.- || ye-
| eš.- || ye-
| en- || ę‘-
| eg- || ek-
|-
! 3sg.a
| m°- || mu-
| mus.- || mou-⁵
| muš.- || mou-⁵
| mun- || mų‘-
| mug- || muk-
|-
! 3pl
| n- || nê-
| nes.- || nea-
| neš.- || nea-
| nen- || nẽ‘-
| nag- || nak-
|-
! colspan="15"|
|-
! {{sc|rel}}
| f°- || fê-
| fes.- || fea-
| feš.- || fea-
| fen- || fẽ‘-
| feg- || fek-
|-
|}

:¹) Before vowels, before single voiceless obstruents, and before single resonants. Stem-initial single nasals and /r/ assimilate completely into the sibilants, forming geminate '''ss''' or '''šš''', with original nasals causing compensatory {{sc|nasalisation}} of the following vowel, and original /m/ additionally causing insertion of |u| before a following stressed vowel. Stem-initial /f h ʁ/ mutate to '''p k k''' instead when preceded by a sibilant-final prefix allomorph.
:²) Before single voiced obstruents, before single /j w/, and before consonant clusters. When the following syllable receives stress, the diphthong may be subject to {{sc|reduction}}. Also note that these forms do not distinguish whether the object is 1st or 2nd person.
:³) Before unstressed vowels.
:⁴) Before stressed vowels and before consonants.
:⁵) '''nei- gei- mou-''' before single consonants, '''nie- gie- muo-''' before consonant clusters, '''ni- gi- mu-''' under {{sc|reduction}}.

{| {{softtable|c}}
| colspan="15"| '''past tense'''
|-
! object →
! colspan="2"| none
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 1st person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 2nd person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 3rd person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| reflexive
|- class="bg2"
! width="15%"| subject ↓
| width="8%"| _V || width="8%"| _C
| width="8%"| _V/C¹ || width="8%"| _C²
| width="8%"| _V/C¹ || width="8%"| _C²
| width="8%"| _V/N || width="8%"| _C
| width="8%"| _V³ || width="8%"| _V/C⁴
|-
! 1sg
| t- || tî-⁹
| šus.- || šou-⁵
| šuš.- || šou-⁵
| šun- || šų‘-
| šug- || šuk-
|-
! 1pl
| w°- || u-
| us.- || ou-⁵
| uš.- || ou-⁵
| un- || ų‘-
| og- || ok-
|-
! 2sg
| y- || yê-
| yes.- || yê-
| yeš.- || yê-
| in- || yẽ‘-
| yeg- || yek-
|-
! 2pl
| k-⁷ || ku-⁹
| kus.- || kou-⁵
| kuš.- || kou-⁵
| kun- || kų‘-
| kog- || kok-
|-
! 3sg.i
| s- || sa-
| sas.- || sea-
| seš.- || sea-
| san- || są‘-
| šk- || ški-
|-
! 3sg.a
| p°- || po-⁹
| colspan="2"| bįę-⁶
| colspan="2"| pši-⁶
| br~⁸ || brẽ‘-
| pog- || pok-
|-
! 3pl
| hˤ- || ho-
| hos.- || hoa-
| hoš.- || hoa-
| hon- || hǫ‘-
| hog- || hok-
|-
! colspan="15"|
|-
! {{sc|rel}}
| f°- || fê-
| fes.- || fea-
| feš.- || fea-
| fen- || fẽ‘-
| feg- || fek-
|-
|}

:¹) Before vowels, before single voiceless obstruents, and before single resonants. Stem-initial single nasals and /r/ assimilate completely into the sibilants, forming geminate '''ss''' or '''šš''', with original nasals causing compensatory {{sc|nasalisation}} of the following vowel, and original /m/ additionally causing insertion of |u| before a following stressed vowel. Stem-initial /f h ʁ/ mutate to '''p k k''' instead when preceded by a sibilant-final prefix allomorph.
:²) Before single voiced obstruents, before single /j w/, and before consonant clusters. When the following syllable receives stress, the diphthong may be subject to {{sc|reduction}}. Also note that these forms do not distinguish whether the object is 1st or 2nd person.
:³) Before unstressed vowels.
:⁴) Before stressed vowels and before consonants.
:⁵) '''šou- ou- kou-''' before single consonants, '''šuo- wo- muo-''' before consonant clusters, '''šu- u- ku-''' under {{sc|reduction}}.
:⁶) '''bį- pš-''' before vowels, '''bįę- pši-''' before consonants.
:⁷) '''k-''' before unstressed vowels, '''ki-''' before stressed vowels.
:⁸) Before vowels only.
:⁹) The {{sc|1sg, 2pl,}} and {{sc|3sg.a}} intransitive prefixes |tî- ku- po-| fuse with stem-initial resonants and fricatives as follows: /m/ > '''dų- gų- bų-'''; /n/ > '''dį- gr~ br~'''; /r/ > '''di- gr- br-'''; /ʁ/ > '''dx~ g~ bx~'''; /s/ > '''ts- ks- ps-'''; /ʃ/ > '''č- kš- pš-'''; /f/ > '''tu- ku- ku-'''; /h/ > '''t- k- p°-'''.

==Aspect and secondary object marking==
The third slot in the verb can hold one of three aspect markers (''imperfective'', ''perfective'', and ''resultative''), and the fourth slot will contain a marker for the person of the ''secondary object'' (typically in the semantic role of instrument or theme) if the verb is ditransitive. Since these markers are fused to some extent, they will be described together.

Each verb stem is either perfective/dynamic or imperfective/stative by default (i.e. in the absence of an overt aspect marker). Only inherently perfective verbs can be overtly marked as imperfective, and only inherently imperfective verbs can be overtly marked as imperfective. Both types of verbs may be marked as resultative.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! secondary object →
! colspan="2"| none
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 1st person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 2nd person
! rowspan="12"|
! colspan="2"| 3rd person
|- class="bg2"
! aspect ↓
| width="10%"| _V || width="10%"| _C
| width="9%"| _V/C¹ || width="9%"| _C²
| width="9%"| _V/C¹ || width="9%"| _C²
| width="9%"| _V/N || width="9%"| _C
|-
! (default)
| colspan="2"| -Ø-
| -s.- || -se-³
| -š.- || -ši-³
| -n- || -nê-³
|-
! imperfective
| -ih- || -i-
| -is.- || -ise-
| -iš.- || -iši-
| -in- || -į‘-
|-
! perfective
| -erd- || -er-/-eo-⁴
| -iets- || -ietse-
| -ieč- || -ieči-
| -err~⁵ || -ęǫ‘-
|-
! resultative
| colspan="2"| -tsu-
| -tsus.- || -tsuse-
| -tsuš.- || -tsuši-
| -tsun- || -tsų‘-
|-
|}

:¹) Before vowels, before single voiceless obstruents, and before single resonants. Stem-initial single nasals and /r/ assimilate completely into the sibilants, forming geminate '''ss''' or '''šš''', with original nasals causing compensatory {{sc|nasalisation}} of the following vowel, and original /m/ additionally causing insertion of |u| before a following stressed vowel. Stem-initial /f h ʁ/ mutate to '''p k k''' instead when preceded by a sibilant-final prefix allomorph.
:²) Before single voiced obstruents, before single /j w/, and before consonant clusters.
:³) These allomorphs are also used when the primary subject/object/tense prefix ends in a consonant. '''-nê-''' becomes '''-‘rẽ-''' after a reflexive prefix; note the special combined {{sc|3sg.i.past.refl>3}} form '''sagrẽ-'''.
:⁴) '''-er-''' before nasals, '''-eo-''' before all other consonants.
:⁵) '''-err~''' before vowels, '''-errẽ-''' before nasals.

==Noun incorporation==
The fifth slot in the verb can be used for incorporating a noun stem, which marks its referent as backgrounded (indefinite, conventional, or established-as-a-topic-but-temporarily-out-of-focus). When a directional prefix follows, noun incorporation has no effect on valency, and the semantic role of the incorporated noun is determined by the directional prefix (typically that of goal, source, or ground). If no directional prefix is present, noun incorporation will typically reduce the valency of transitive verbs by one, and the incorporated noun will usually be in the semantic role of patient, experiencer, or theme.

It should be noted that Omari has a closed class of bound nominal stems which cannot be used on their own, but only in compounds or incorporated into a verb. These stems mostly have a fairly general meaning, and their usage resembles a classifier system in certain ways, all the more so since some of these stems are remarkably similar to the classificatory demonstrative pronouns.

==Directional prefixes==
The sixth slot in the verb can host several prefixes with directional meaning. They may sometimes function like applicatives in that they increase the valency of the verb by adding a location, target, or source as a core argument, but they may also be used to simply add a general directional shade of meaning with no effect on argument structure. When the verb contains both an incorporated noun and a directional prefix, the incorporated noun will normally be interpreted as the complement of the directional morpheme.

The last two of the prefixes in the table below, '''-erm°-''' and '''-ut.-''', can also be used as applicatives targeting the primary object of the verb. If they are used in this way, they appear earlier on in the verbal template, namely in slot -5 which would normally hold aspectual morphemes. As a corollary of this, applicativisation is compatible only with the default aspect of a verb stem.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|- class="bg2 b"
| _V || _C
| class="l"| meaning
| class="l"| complement role
|-
| -°m°-/-‘ų-¹ || -°mo-/-‘ųǫ-¹
| class="l"| towards
| class="l"| goal
|-
| -skˤ- || -skâ-
| class="l"| away from
| class="l"| source
|-
| -st- || -sta-
| class="l"| into a vessel or movable container
| class="l"| goal
|-
| -.teni- || -.tę‘-
| class="l"| into a building or area
| class="l"| goal
|-
| colspan="2"| -ːti+/-oti+²
| class="l"| out of a vessel or movable container
| class="l"| source
|-
| -ˤgem°- || -ˤgę‘-
| class="l"| out of a building or area
| class="l"| source
|-
| -šahˤ- || -šoa-
| class="l"| upwards
| class="l"| ground
|-
| -ˤgˤ- || -ˤga+
| class="l"| downwards
| class="l"| ground
|-
| colspan="2"| -‘ru-/-nu-/-iu-³
| class="l"| up onto high ground
| class="l"| goal
|-
| -ˤgaskˤ- || -ˤgaskâ-
| class="l"| down from high ground
| class="l"| source
|-
| -ien-⁴ || -įę‘-⁴
| class="l"| over, across, beyond
| class="l"| ground
|-
| -erm°-⁵ || -ermo-⁵
| class="l"| for the benefit of, with the purpose of
| class="l"| beneficiary
|-
| -ut.- || -utî-/-us-⁶
| class="l"| without, ignoring, to the detriment of
| class="l"| theme, (anti)beneficiary
|-
|}

:¹) '''-‘ų-/-‘ųǫ-''' after an incorporated noun stem that ends in an obstruent; '''-°m°-/-°mo-''' otherwise.
:²) '''-oti+''' after an incorporated noun stem that ends in a consonant; '''-ːti+''' otherwise.
:³) '''-nu-''' after a nasalised vowel; '''-iu-''' after a consonant cluster; combines with preceding /s ʃ/ into '''-ssu- -ššu-'''; otherwise '''-‘ru-'''.
:⁴) '''-ien-/-įę‘-''' after a consonant (note that this morpheme selects the prevocalic allomorph of preceding prefixes where possible); '''-nien-/-nįę‘-''' after a nasalised vowel; '''-yen-/-yę‘-''' otherwise.
:⁵) '''-mm°-/-mmo-''' after a nasalised vowel; '''-rm°-/-rmo-''' after an oral vowel; '''-erm°-/-ermo-''' otherwise.
:⁶) '''-us-''' when followed by prevocalic /p t k/; '''-utî-''' otherwise.

When a directional prefix beginning with a consonant is preceded by an incorporated noun stem that ends in a consonant, such that no acceptable medial cluster can be formed using only the rules under [[#Consonant sandhi|Consonant sandhi]], an epenthetic '''-a-''' will be inserted between the two morphemes.

==Modal suffixes==
The first slot after the verb stem may optionally be filled by one of several suffixes marking distinctions of ''modality''.

{{dl|
; ~dis-
: {{sc|obligative}}, indicates that the action is considered necessary. With a 2nd person subject, this suffix signals a command. {{comment|('''-nis-''' after /ɾ/; '''-nnis-''' after a softening morpheme boundary otherwise; '''-tis-''' after an obstruent)}}

; -ši-
: {{sc|optative}}, indicates that the action is wished for or intended to happen. {{comment|('''-ji-''' after a diphthong or a nasalised vowel)}}

; -°fų‘-
: {{sc|accidental}} (patientive), indicates that the action was not intended to occur but happened anyway. Can only be used with verbs whose subject is in the semantic role of patient, experiencer, or recipient. {{comment|('''-pų‘-''' after /s ʃ/; '''-ų‘-''' after a plosive (causing a preceding voiced plosive to become voiceless); '''-°vų‘-''' after a diphthong or a nasalised vowel)}}

; -rre-
: {{sc|accidental}} (agentive), indicates that the action was not intended to occur but happened anyway. Can only be used with verbs whose subject is in the semantic role of agent, donor, instrument, or cause. {{comment|('''-êrre-''' after a consonant)}}

; -‘ru-
: {{sc|conditional/hypothetical}}, indicates that the reality status of the action depends on something else. {{comment|('''-su-''' after instances of /p t k/ which are immune to {{sc|softening}}; combines with any preceding fricative into '''-ssu-''')}}

; ~gru-
: {{sc|potential}}, indicates that the action is likely to occur, or that the situation described is in accordance with common knowledge. {{comment|('''-ągru-''' after a consonant other than /b d ɡ/)}}

; -akˤ.-
: {{sc|energetic}}, indicates that the action is more salient or more forceful than usual, or that it runs contrary to common expectations. {{comment|('''-ˤkˤ.-''' after a vowel)}}

; -nį‘-
: {{sc|attenuative}}, indicates that the action is less salient or less forceful than usual. {{comment|('''-‘rį‘-''' after a plosive; combines with a preceding fricative or plosive which is immune to {{sc|softening}} into '''-ššį‘-''')}}

|dln}}

==Additional number markers==
While pronominal prefixes do not indicate the number of primary and secondary objects, Omari has a few suffixes that can optionally be used to explicitly specify a plurality of objects (usually primary objects, but secondary objects may also be meant; the distinction must be deduced from context if the verb is ditransitive). These ''object number'' suffixes share the final slot in the verb with several other morphemes that express distinctions of ''pluractionality'' or ''verbal number'', that is, relating to the number of events denoted by the verb.

{{dl|
; -į‘-
: {{sc|distributive}} ("each"), indicates that the action affects several object entities individually. {{comment|(replaces any preceding unstressed vowel)}}

; ~°ba-
: {{sc|exhaustive}} ("all"), indicates that the action affects all of the entities associated with the object noun phrase. {{comment|('''-ma-''' after /ɾ/; '''-mma-''' after a {{sc|softening}} morpheme boundary otherwise; '''-pa-''' after an obstruent)}}

; -ksu-
: {{sc|plural}} ("many"), indicates that the action affects multiple object entities together, but not necessarily all of them. This suffix is prototypically used with large groups of objects; for groups smaller than ~5 entities, object number is usually unmarked. {{comment|('''-aksu-''' after a consonant)}}

; -ˤgas-
: {{sc|iterative}} ("repeatedly"), indicates that the action occurs several times in relatively quick succession or in a predictable rhythm, but gives no information about the number of objects. {{comment|('''-kas-''' when preceded by a consonant other than /ɾ/)}}

; -en-
: {{sc|punctual}} ("once"), indicates that the action occurs only once, or is unrelated to any previous or subsequent instance of a similar kind of action. {{comment|('''-ẽd-''' when not in word-final position)}}

; ~‘xęǫ-
: {{sc|reciprocal/collective}} ("together"), requires plural subject marking; indicates either that the subject entities are acting upon each other, or else that they are all taking part in the same single instance of the action. {{comment|('''-kęǫ-''' after /s ʃ/ and instances of /t/ which are immune to {{sc|softening}}; '''-nęǫ-''' after a resonant or a nasalised vowel; combines with preceding /f h/ and instances of /p k/ which are immune to {{sc|softening}} into '''-hęǫ-''')}}
|dln}}

=Syntax and usage=
==Numerals==
Numerals in Omari follow a base-10 pattern. They are verbs morphologically, meaning that they mandatorily appear with a person/number/tense prefix. The numbers 1 and 1000 are treated as singulars, all other numbers as plurals.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! width=13%| 1.
| width=20%| -no-
! width=13%| 11.
| width=20%| -nųǫda-
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| -niek-
! 12.
| -niegęda-
! width=13%| 20.
| width=20%| -niegrą-
|-
! 3.
| -sa-
! 13.
| -sęąda-
! 30.
| -sena-
|-
! 4.
| -ˤkep-
! 14.
| -ˤkebęda-
! 40.
| -ˤkebrą-
|-
! 5.
| -‘re-
! 15.
| -‘rįęda-
! 50.
| -‘rena-
|-
! 6.
| -tokˤ.-
! 16.
| -tokąda-
! 60.
| -toššą-
|-
! 7.
| -mou-
! 17.
| -muręda-
! 70.
| -murna-
|-
! 8.
| -fe-
! 18.
| -fįęda-
! 80.
| -fena-
|-
! 9.
| -ora-
! 19.
| -oręąda-
! 90.
| -orna-
|-
! 10.
| -ẽda-
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| -ênerrą-
|-
|colspan=4|
! 1000.
| -‘roska-
|}

The numbers 110, 120, (...), 190 are formed by suffixing '''-na''' to the words for 11, 12, (...), 19.
: 110 '''-nųǫdana-'''
: 170 '''-murędana-'''

More complex numerals up to 199 can be formed by compounding, with the single digit coming first (and normally attracting the word accent). Note that some numbers have special combining forms in certain environments: 3 '''-se-''' (generally); 6 '''-tohˤ-''' (before {{sc|softening}} morphemes and before /f/); 7 '''-mur‘-''', 9 '''-or‘-''' (before a vowel or a single non-fricative consonant); 20 '''-‘įgrą-''', 70 '''-‘uonna-''', 110 '''-‘rųǫdana-''', 120 '''-‘inędana-''', 170 '''-‘onędana-''' (after an obstruent).

: 22 '''-niégįgrą-'''
: 49 '''-órgebrą-'''
: 76 '''-tóhoanna-'''
: 108 '''-fiénerrą-'''
: 137 '''-móuzęądana-'''

Multiples of 100 and 1000 are formed analytically, with the multiplier as a separate relativised verb that carries the suffix '''-gą‘-''' ('''-ką‘-''' after consonants). Smaller digits may then be added using the conjunction '''xǫ'''. Only the first verb may be further inflected with additional pre- and suffixes, but any smaller-digit verb in such a construction must take an appropriate person/number/tense prefix.

: 200 '''-ênerrą-'''…''' feniekką'''
: 964 '''-ênerrą-'''…''' forgą xǫ '''…'''-kéttoššą'''
: 5118 '''-‘roska-'''…''' feregą xǫ '''…'''-fénųǫda'''
: 6402 '''-‘roska-'''…''' fetokką xǫ '''…'''-ênerrą fekettą xǫ '''…'''-niek'''

=Sample text=

==The young lion==
'''''Paha fukió.'''''

''Mufuomušųǫba paha to ferebak, fešęįvųdek, fediskapeakak, feškeakoskók.''

''Ga niššętufoši pahu fukió. Mųpąxa mųtęgeyéi psi d-ęzuenu ši mųtostakkšó numouve fek, ši eteruts mųtsųdúmekę. Nęšš{{IPA|ǫ́}}ų ši nęzęgri inųǫgu numouve fąbá: mųčekkuimma paha. Ši nesųęgas mupsegeminiu potsutteikak, ši mupaharmomoate munoggǫą, "Risuora! Rienaššemudak, ridiskapeakak, rišęįvųdek! Niššuoka še-Reba!"''

''Ni šuozu katte d-ęzuenu moškeakokuekkas paha fukió, ši katte munermomoate munoggǫą, "Rienaššemudak, rišęįvųdek, rahǫttsespek! Rinioro bųzés fereba suske-pahakiu!"''

''Hannoa mǫks{{IPA|ǫ́}} mummoáteru ši mųgietsebre wittį, "Eki egena, rįtostądúmekę numouve fek fąbá. Eteruts rįtęgeyéi psi, ši rageminiu rįgrįgas ritsutteiksu, ši rissąbr{{IPA|ą́}} eki rįčekkuimma numouve. Hą nissekkądis, risuora! Eteręgru rąpsitęgeyéi, ši rinirgenearre bradi fahoteát ši fąvǫda borreha yę-bumienas. Ruoššǫųdis, risuora! Rišęįvųdek, rienaššemudak, ridiskapeakak, riškeakoskók! Hą ešusteręgru rinirgenearre bradi, šęxoa eškęąxaru ši munęąhenearu nirmiok oksik, hą dik dietsupsegeminiok. Šęjuoka bradi šo-Pšemu."''

===Interlinear gloss===

{{gl|Paha|Ø-paha|3SG.A-lion|he-is-a-lion}}
{{gl|fukió.|fê-ukió|REL-young|he-is-young}}
{{glend|The young lion.}}

{{gl|Mufuomušųǫba|mu-<fųǫ‘>-mušuo-~°bê|3SG.A-<large_animal>-be_higher_in_rank-EXH|he-is-higher-in-rank-than-all-large-animals}}
{{gl|paha|Ø-paha|3SG.A-lion|he-is-a-lion}}
{{glend|The lion rules all the beasts}}

{{gl|to|to|because|because}}
{{gl|ferebak,|fê-‘reba-akˤ.|REL-strong-ENER,|he-is-very-strong}}
{{gl|fešęįvųdek,|fê-<šeni>-°fųde-akˤ.|REL-<body>-large-ENER,|he-is-very-large-of-body}}
{{gl|fediskapeakak,|fê-<tiska>-peaka-akˤ.|REL-<waist>-narrow-ENER,|he-is-very-narrow-of-waist}}
{{gl|feškeakoskók.|fê-<škeako>-sko-akˤ.|REL-<leg>-quick-ENER|he-is-very-quick-of-leg}}
{{glend|because he is very strong, large of body, slim of waist, and quick of leg.}}

{{gl|Ga|ga|TOP|look}}
{{gl|niššętufoši|niš-nê-tufo-ši|1SG>2.NP-3-tell-OPT|I-want-to-tell-you-about-it}}
{{gl|pahu|Ø-paha-u|3SG.A-lion-OBL|he-is-a-lion}}
{{gl|fukió.|fê-ukió|REL-young|he-is-young}}
{{glend|Well, let me tell you about a young lion.}}

{{gl|Mųpąxa|mun-.°pąxa|3SG.A>3-do_habitually|he-usually-does-it}}
{{gl|mųtęgeyéi|mun-.teni-ˤkeyei|3SG.A>3-into_area-venture|he-goes-out-into-it}}
{{gl|psi|Ø-.°psi|3SG.I-forest|it-is-a-forest}}
{{gl|d-ęzuenu|dį{{--}}esų{{IPA|ę́}}‘-u|at{{--}}morning-OBL|during{{--}}morning}}
{{glend|He always goes out into the forest in the morning}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|mųtostakkšó|mun-<.tosta>-kkšo|3SG.A.NP>3-<fitness>-compare|he-compares-to-them-in-fitness}}
{{gl|numouve|numouve|{large_animal}.PL.DIST|those-are-large-animals}}
{{gl|fek,|fê-êk|REL-other|they-are-other-ones}}
{{glend|and he compares himself to the other beasts with regard to strength,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|eteruts|eteruts|always|always}}
{{gl|mųtsųdúmekę.|mun-tsu-~dumi-akˤ.-į‘|3SG.A.NP>3-RES-surpass-ENER-DISTR|he-surpasses-each-of-them}}
{{glend|and he always surpasses every single one of them.}}

{{gl|Nęšš{{IPA|ǫ́}}ų|nen-°ššǫų|3PL.NP>3-hear|they-hear-it}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|nęzęgri|nen-sęgrî|3PL.NP>3-know|they-know-it}}
{{gl|inųǫgu|i-nųǫgu|3COLL.I-news|it-is-known}}
{{gl|numouve|numouve|{large_animal}.PL.DIST|they-are-large-animals}}
{{gl|fąbá:|fê-~°bê|REL-all|they-are-all-of-them}}
{{glend|All the animals hear and know the news:}}

{{gl|mųčekkuimma|mun-čekkųį‘-~°bê|3SG.A.NP>3-have_natural_authority-EXH|he-has-natural-authority-over-all-of-them}}
{{gl|paha.|Ø-paha|3SG.A-lion|he-is-a-lion}}
{{glend|the lion has natural authority over all of them.}}

{{gl|Ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|nesųęgas|nê-sųę‘-ˤgas|3PL.NP-be_morning-ITER|they-are-mornings-again}}
{{gl|mupsegeminiu|mu-<.°psi>-ˤgem°-iniu|3SG.A.NP-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive|he-arrives-out-of-the-forest}}
{{gl|potsutteikak,|po-tsu-°tteik.-akˤ.|3SG.A.PST-RES-win-ENER|he-has-become-a-winner}}
{{glend|And every morning he returns from the forest victorious,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|mupaharmomoate|mu-<.°paha>-ermo-°moate|3SG.A.NP-<lion>-for-praise|she-praises-the-lion}}
{{gl|munoggǫą,|mun-oggǫą|3SG.A.NP>3-be_parent_of|she-is-his-parent}}
{{glend|and his mother praises the lion,}}

{{gl|"Risuora!"|ris.-uora|2SG.NP>1-be_child_of|you-are-my-child}}
{{glend|"You are my child!"}}

{{gl|"Rienaššemudak,|rî-<ienas>-šemut-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<shoulders>-broad-ENER,|you-are-very-broad-of-shoulders}}
{{gl|ridiskapeakak,|rî-<tiska>-peaka-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<waist>-narrow-ENER,|you-are-very-narrow-of-waist}}
{{gl|rišęįvųdek!"|rî-<šeni>-°fųde-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<body>-large-ENER|you-are-very-large-of-body}}
{{glend|"You are broad of shoulders! You are slim of waist! You are large of body!"}}

{{gl|"Niššuoka|niš.-šuoka|1SG.NP>2-name|I-name-you}}
{{gl|še-Reba!"|še{{--}}Ø-‘reba-Ø|as{{--}}3SG.A-strong-DIR|as{{--}}Strong-One}}
{{glend|"I name you ‘Strong One’!"}}

{{gl|Ni|Ni|FOC|now}}
{{gl|šuozu|šuozu|today|today}}
{{gl|katte|katte|as_usual|as-usual}}
{{gl|d-ęzuenu|dį{{--}}esų{{IPA|ę́}}‘-u|at{{--}}morning-OBL|during{{--}}morning}}
{{gl|moškeakokuekkas|mu-erd-<škeako>-kuek.-ˤgas|3SG.A.NP-PFV-<leg>-be_prepared-ITER|he-stretches-his-legs-again}}
{{gl|paha|Ø-paha|3SG.A-lion|he-is-a-lion}}
{{gl|fukió,|fê-ukió|REL-young|he-is-young}}
{{glend|Now this morning the young lion stretches his legs as usual,}}

{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|katte|katte|as_usual|as-usual}}
{{gl|munermomoate|mun-ermo-°moate|3SG.A.NP>3-for-praise|she-praises-him}}
{{gl|munoggǫą,|mun-oggǫą|3SG.A.NP>3-be_parent_of|she-is-his-parent}}
{{glend|and his mother praises him as usual,}}

{{gl|"Rienaššemudak,|rî-<ienas>-šemut-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<shoulders>-broad-ENER,|you-are-very-broad-of-shoulders}}
{{gl|rišęįvųdek,|rî-<šeni>-°fųde-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<body>-large-ENER,|you-are-very-large-of-body}}
{{gl|rahǫttsespek!"|rî-<ˤhǫb>-tsespi-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<tooth>-sharp-ENER|you-are-very-sharp-of-teeth}}
{{glend|"You are broad of shoulders! You are large of body! You are sharp of teeth!"}}

{{gl|"Rinioro|rin-ioro|2SG.NP>3-be-attached|you-have-them-as-part-of-yourself}}
{{gl|bųzés|bu-nu+°pses|3.POSS-3PL.A-arm|they-are-his-arms}}
{{gl|fereba|fê-‘reba|REL-strong|they-are-strong}}
{{gl|suske-pahakiu!"|suske{{--}}Ø-.°paha-.ki-u|associated_with{{--}}3SG.A-lion-PROTOTYPE-OBL|associated-with{{--}}he-is-a-true-lion}}
{{glend|"You have the strong arms of a true lion!"}}

{{gl|Hannoa|hannoa|but_then|but-then}}
{{gl|mǫks{{IPA|ǫ́}}|mun-.ˤksǫ|3SG.A.NP>3-stop|she-stops-it}}
{{gl|mummoáteru|mun-°moate-‘ru|3SG.A.NP>3-praise-COND|she-would-praise-him}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|mųgietsebre|mun-<kieta>-sebre|3SG.A.NP>3-<voice>-say|she-speaks-them-with-her-voice}}
{{gl|wittį,|wittį|{liquid}.PROX|these-(words)}}
{{glend|But then she stops praising him and says,}}

{{gl|"Eki|eki|indeed|indeed}}
{{gl|egena,|e-gena|3SG.I.NP-obvious|it-is-obvious}}
{{gl|rįtostądúmekę|rin-<.tosta>-~dumi-akˤ.-į‘|2SG.NP>3-<fitness>-surpass-ENER-DISTR|you-surpass-each-of-them-in-fitness}}
{{gl|numouve|numouve|{large_animal}.PL.DIST|they-are-large-animals}}
{{gl|fek|fê-êk|REL-other|they-are-other-ones}}
{{gl|fąbá."|fê-~°bê|REL-all|they-are-all-of-them}}
{{glend|"Indeed, it is obvious that you surpass all the other beasts in strength."}}

{{gl|"Eteruts|eteruts|always|always}}
{{gl|rįtęgeyéi|rin-.teni-ˤkeyei|2SG.NP>3-into_area-venture|you-go-out-into-it}}
{{gl|psi,"|Ø-.°psi|3SG.I-forest|it-is-a-forest}}
{{glend|"You always go out into the forest,"}}

{{gl|"ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|rageminiu|rî--ˤgem°-iniu|2SG.NP-out_of_area-arrive|you-arrive-out-of-it}}
{{gl|rįgrįgas|rin-grįgas|2SG.NP>3-repeat|you-repeat-it}}
{{gl|ritsutteiksu,"|rî-tsu-°tteik.-‘ru|2SG.NP-RES-win-COND|you-would-become-a-winner}}
{{glend|"and you return out of there victorious every time,"}}

{{gl|"ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|rissąbr{{IPA|ą́}}|ris-nê-°brą|2SG.NP>1-3-remind|you-remind-me-of-it}}
{{gl|eki|eki|indeed|indeed}}
{{gl|rįčekkuimma|rin-čekkųį‘-~°bê|2SG.NP>3-have_natural_authority-EXH|you-have-natural-authority-over-all-of-them}}
{{gl|numouve."|numouve|{large_animal}.PL.DIST|they-are-large-animals}}
{{glend|"and you remind me that you really have natural authority over all the beasts."}}

{{gl|"Hą|hą|however|however}}
{{gl|nissekkądis,|niš.-sekka-~dis|1SG.NP>2-warn-OBL|I-must-tell-you-for-your-benefit}}
{{gl|risuora!"|ris.-uora|2SG.NP>1-be_child_of|you-are-my-child}}
{{glend|"But I must warn you, my child!"}}

{{gl|"Eteręgru|e-tere-~gru|3SG.I.NP-happen-POT|it-will-come-to-pass}}
{{gl|rąpsitęgeyéi,"|rin-<.°psi>-.teni-ˤkeyei|2SG.NP>3-<forest>-into_area-venture|you-go-out-into-the-forest}}
{{glend|"It will come to pass that you go out into the forest,"}}

{{gl|"ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|rinirgenearre|rin-irgeneahˤ-rre|2SG.NP>3-encounter-ACCID.A|you-will-meet-him-there}}
{{gl|bradi|bradi|{small_animal}.SG.PROX|this-one-is-a-small-animal}}
{{gl|fahoteát"|fê-ˤhot.-ard|REL-walk-stand|he-walks-upright}}
{{glend|"and you will come across a small creature which walks upright"}}

{{gl|"ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|fąvǫda|fen-°fǫda|REL>3-carry|he-carries-it}}
{{gl|borreha|bu-o-rreha|3.POSS-3SG.A-head|it-is-his-head}}
{{gl|yę-bumienas."|ye{{--}}bu-m-ienas-Ø|above{{--}}3.POSS-3COLL.A-shoulders-DIR|above{{--}}they-are-his-shoulders}}
{{glend|"and which carries his head above his shoulders."}}

{{gl|"Ruoššǫųdis,|ris.-°ššǫų‘-~dis|2SG.NP>1-hear-OBL|you-must-hear-me}}
{{gl|risuora!"|ris.-uora|2SG.NP>1-be_child_of|you-are-my-child}}
{{glend|"Listen to me, child of mine!"}}

{{gl|"Rišęįvųdek,|rî-<šeni>-°fųde-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<body>-large-ENER|you-are-very-large-of-body}}
{{gl|rienaššemudak,|rî-<ienas>-šemut-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<shoulders>-broad-ENER,|you-are-very-broad-of-shoulders}}
{{gl|ridiskapeakak,|rî-<tiska>-peaka-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<waist>-narrow-ENER,|you-are-very-narrow-of-waist}}
{{gl|riškeakoskók!"|rî-<škeako>-sko-akˤ.|2SG.NP-<leg>-quick-ENER|you-are-very-quick-of-leg}}
{{glend|"You are large of body! You are broad of shoulders! You are slim of waist! You are quick of leg!"}}

{{gl|"Hą|hą|however|however}}
{{gl|ešusteręgru|eš.-ut.-tere-~gru|3SG.I.NP>2SG-against-happen-POT|it-will-sadly-come-to-pass}}
{{gl|rinirgenearre|rin-irgeneahˤ-rre|2SG.NP>3-encounter-ACCID.A|you-will-meet-him-there}}
{{gl|bradi,"|bradi|{small_animal}.SG.PROX|this-one-is-a-small-animal}}
{{glend|"However, it will happen that you meet this small creature,"}}

{{gl|"šęxoa|šęxoa|and_then|and-then}}
{{gl|eškęąxaru|e-škęąxâ-‘ru|3SG.I.NP-evening-COND|it-would-be-evening}}
{{gl|ši|ši|and|and}}
{{gl|munęąhenearu|mun-ien-ˤhenea-‘ru|3SG.A.NP>3-beyond-disappear-COND|it-would-disappear-behind-it}}
{{gl|nirmiok|Ø-nirmiok|SG.I-horizon|it-is-the-edge-of-the-world}}
{{gl|oksik,"|o-ˤksik|SG.A-sun|it-is-the-sun}}
{{glend|"and then it will become evening and the sun will hide behind the horizon,"}}

{{gl|"hą|hą|however|however}}
{{gl|dik|dik|not_at_all|not-at-all}}
{{gl|dietsupsegeminiok."|de-yê-tsu-<.°psi>-ˤgem°-iniu-akˤ.|NEG-2SG.PST-RES-<forest>-out_of_area-arrive-ENER|you-would-not-have-arrived-out-of-the-forest}}
{{glend|"but you will not have returned from the forest."}}

{{gl|"Šęjuoka|šen-šuoka|1PL.NP>3-name|we-name-it}}
{{gl|bradi|bradi|{small_animal}.SG.PROX|this-one-is-a-small-animal}}
{{gl|šo-Pšemu."|še{{--}}o-°pšemu|as{{--}}3SG.A-person-DIR|as{{--}}Person}}
{{glend|"We call this small creature ‘Man’."}}

:<hr>{{comment|Source of the sample text: Roy S. Hagman, Nama Hottentot grammar, Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.}}

=Lexicon=
* [[{{FULLPAGENAME}}/Lexicon]]

[[Category:T1 languages]]
[[Category:Tuysáfa]]

Cednìtıt

2024-10-13T00:52:41Z

Corumayas:

{{Language
| language = Cednìtıt
| phonetic = [ {{IPA|ɕɛtnjʌ̀tʰəʔ}} ]
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = [[Potantrommo Bay]], in southeastern [[Tuysáfa]]
| speakers = ''unknown''
| script = ''unknown''
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />  Cednìtıt
| word-or = OV/SOV
| mor-type = agglutinating/polysynthetic with some fusion
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Treskro|Treskro]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Cednìtıt''' ('''ca-dnittobcì''' lit. ''the-dust-language'') is a [[T1 languages|T1 language]] spoken in southeastern [[Tuysáfa]]. The exact location is located slightly west of the main focus area of Cursed Relay 2, against the southern coastline of a bay area called [[Potantrommo Bay|Potantrommo]] ('''potantrommo''' [pʰotʰantʰommo] lit. ''it-flows-into-this-place''). It is a descendant of [[Proto-T1]] and was created for the reconstruction relay. Though Cednìtıt is actually the endonym of speakers of what they call '''ca-dnittobcì''', due to similarities between the two words it will be referred to as Cednìtıt throughout this article. Cednìtıt is related to [[West Yalan]], [[East Yalan]], [[Omari]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], [[Tumetıęk]] and the [[Northeastern Bay Language]].

The lexicon can be found [[Cednìtıt/Lexicon|here]].

=Phonology=
==Phoneme inventory==
===Consonants===

Consonants in parentheses are considered allophonic.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="14%" | labial
! width="14%" | dental
! width="14%" | alveolar
! width="14%" | retroflex
! width="14%" | velar
! width="14%" | glottal
|-
! plosive
| p pʰ
| {{IPA|(t̪ t̪ʰ)}}
| t tʰ
| ʈ ʈʰ
| k kʰ
| (ʔ)
|-
! nasal
| m
| {{IPA|(n̪)}}
| n
| ɳ
| ŋ
|
|-
! fricative
| ɸ
| {{IPA|s̪~θ}}
| ɕ
| ʂ
| x
|
|-
! liquid
| ʋ
|
| r l
|
|
|
|-
|}

* /p t̪ t ʈ k/ are written b d d dr g
* /pʰ t̪ʰ tʰ ʈʰ kʰ/ are written p t t tr k
* word final glottal stops are written as aspirated plosives
* l r are usually pronounced [ʋ], depending on the source word.
* /ɸ s̪ ɕ ʂ x/ are written f th c sr x
* /ʋ/ is written w

===Vowels===
The Cednìtıt vowel inventory is as follows.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! width="25%" | front
! width="25%" | central
! width="25%" | back
|-
! high
| i
|
| u
|-
! mid
| e
| ə
| o
|-
! low
|
| a
|
|-
|}

Additionally, there are two low tone diphthongs /jʌ̀ ʋʌ̀/.

==Phonotactics==
A basic syllable consists of an onset, nucleus, and coda. Of these, only the vowel is obligatory.

====Onset====
Valid onsets may consist of the following combinations:
* nothing
* any single consonant
* any fricative followed by any nasal
* /θ/ followed by any fricative
* any coronal plosive followed by a fricative at the same POA: /t̪θ t̪ʰθ tɕ tʰɕ ʈʂ tʰʂ/ <dth tth dc tc dsr tsr>. These function basically as a series of coronal affricates.
* any aspirated plosive followed by a nasal at a different POA.
* all of the above followed by the glide /ʋ/ <w>
* <l> is pronounced [ʋ] in onsets

====Nucleus====
Valid nuclei consist only of single vowels or the low tone diphthongs /jʌ̀ ʋʌ̀/.
Compounding or affixing that results in two vowels adjacent to each other is resolved by:
*epenthetic [ʋ~w] is inserted after /a o u/ and spelled <w>
*epenthetic [a] is inserted after /ə, jʌ̀, ʋʌ̀/ and spelled <a>
*epenthetic [w] is inserted after /i e/ and spelled <w>

====Coda====
Valid codas may consist of the following combinations:
* nothing
* any single consonant
* any coronal plosive followed by fricative at same POA
* <l>, which is pronounced [l]
* the glide /ʋ/ followed by a nasal
* nasal followed by plosive at same POA
* fricative followed by /t/
* /r/ followed by a plosive

==Allophony==
Cednìtıt practices coronal harmony, where all coronal consonants in a "word" (including root and bound affixes, but not including clitics) conform to the point of articulation the first coronal consonant in the word. It should be noted that {{IPA|[t̪]}} and {{IPA|[n̪]}} are not phonemic and thus trigger alveolar harmony. The three coronal series are as follows:
* Dental: {{IPA|t̪ t̪ʰ n̪ s̪~θ}} <d t n th>
* Alveolar: {{IPA|t tʰ n ɕ}} <d t n c>
* Retroflex: {{IPA|ʈ ʈʰ ɳ ʂ}} <dr tr nr sr>
Because spelling is based on principles of phonemes, the word <owdrubthık> /oʋʈupθək/ is pronounced [oʋʈupʂəʔ].

* Final plosives become glottal stop [ʔ]

* /l/ is [ʋ] in all positions except word finally.
* /r/ is [ʋ] as a coda or in a coda cluster.

* Some dialects lower high vowels in positions adjacent to velar consonants.
* Initial plosives are often dropped when found in onset clusters with nasals. The nasal takes the POA of the plosive.
* unstressed vowels may be diphthongized or centralized; /i u e o ə a/ > [jɪ wʊ jə wə ɔ aj/aw] > [ɪ ʊ ə ə ɔ æ ɒ]
* word final /i e ə/ are devoiced adjacent to voiceless consonants, and eventually dropped completely.
* /ɸ/ > [f] adjacent to dental consonants

*Neutral Vowel Allophony
**[ɨ] following front vowels and /ɕ/; [ʌ] following /ʋ/
**Coda morphs:
***/ə/ > [ʋ] > [w] / [a,o,u]_
***/ə/ > [a] / [ə, jʌ̀, ʋʌ̀]_
***/ə/ > Ø / [i, e]_
***[n t tʰ] > [ɾ] / V_ə
***[ŋ k kʰ] > [ŋʷ kʷ kʰʷ] / V_ə
**[ə] elsewhere.

*Assimilation
**Sequences of two consecutive plosives across morpheme boundaries results in deletion of plosive on bound morpheme and geminate consonant on the stem. (wit + pnim [stem] > wippnim)
**Sequences of two consecutive fricatives across morpheme boundaries results in deletion of fricative on bound morpheme and geminate consonant on the stem. (ox [stem] + thu > oxxu)
**Sequences of obstruent + nasal across morpheme boundaries results in deletion of obstruent and geminate nasal. (it + ne > inne)

=Morphology=
==Nouns==
Cednìtıt inflects for animacy/definiteness, and case. These affixes generally follow a simple template of <root>-DEF.A/I-CASE

===Animacy and Definiteness===
The following chart lists
The definite article '''=ca''' has largely become an indicator of animacy. It has, in effect, fused with original animate/inanimate affixes to the point that the animacy of the noun is only specified when a specific instance of the noun is being introduced.

Animacy/Definiteness is only specified for third person arguments.
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! singular
! plural
|-
! Animate
| '''-co'''
| '''-ncu'''*
|-
! Inanimate
| '''-ca'''
| '''-nca'''
|-
|}
*'''-ncu''' often becomes '''-nco''' by analogy.

===Case===
Cednìtıt inflects rather simply for case, generally employing only three main affixes.
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
! Nominative
| (unmarked)
| class="l"| used to mark subjects of clauses.
|-
! Accusative
| '''-(a)n''' (nasal assimilates to POA of final obstruent -ip > -im. The allomorph '''-an''' is used after nasals)
| class="l"| used to mark direct objects of transitive clauses
|-
! Oblique
| '''-ı''' (after consonants and [i])/'''-w''' (after vowels)
| class="l"| used to mark secondary objects of ditransitive clauses. Also used in some genitive constructions.
|-
|}

===Pronouns===
Because pronominal prefixes are present as verbal affixes, pronouns are often dropped in the first and second persons, but can be useful in distinguishing between third person arguments because of their similarity.

'''Nominative'''
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! singular
! plural
|-
! 1
| dop
| ithep
|-
! 2
| ıwp
| nudep
|-
! 3a
| both
| both
|-
! 3i
| poth
| poth
|-
|}

'''Accusative'''
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! singular
! plural
|-
! 1
| tom
| thim
|-
! 2
| ìm
| num
|-
! 3a
| om
| om
|-
! 3i
| om
| om
|-
|}

'''Oblique'''
{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!
! singular
! plural
|-
! 1
| odci
| idthi
|-
! 2
| ıdci
| udci
|-
! 3a
| doc
| doc
|-
! 3i
| tco
| tco
|-
|}

===Possessive Prefixes===
Possessives in Cednìtıt are indicated by modifying prefixes on the noun, indicating the possessors. Only animate nouns can act as possessors; inanimate nouns form compounds using the genitive construction.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!
! singular
! plural
|-
!1
|'''e'''
|'''de'''
|-
!2
|'''thı'''
|'''di'''
|-
!3a
|'''mupu'''
|'''o'''
|}

*Note: Nouns beginning with '''mu-''', '''nu-''', or '''ŋu''' lose '''u-''' when a prefix is attached. ie. '''nusrip''' ''ear'' → '''ensrip''' ''my ear''

===Compounding===
Compounding is a simple method of combining multiple nominals to form a more complex meaning. The most common construction takes the form of <HEAD>-OBL/GEN-<MODIFIER>, forming a general genitive compound. The genitive marker is often elided when the second part of the compound begins with a vowel, resulting in a simple concatenation of the two nouns.

Examples:
*'''dteŋ''' ''hair'' + '''paxı''' ''lion'' → '''dteŋıpaxı''' ''mane''
*'''ar''' ''star'' + '''cowo''' ''summit, peak'' → '''arıcowo''' ''North Star'' (?)

==Verbs==
Cednìtıt verbal morphology is significantly more complex than nominal morphology. Verbal complexes are formed using the following template:

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
!-3
!-2
!-1
!0
!1
!2
!3
|-
|pronoun
|modal
|preverb
|stem
|adverb/aspectual marker
|voice
|deverbalizer
|-
|prefix
|
|
|
|
|
|valence
|-
|}

===Pronoun Prefixes===
Cednìtıt employs several sets of pronominal prefixes. The first is used for simple subjects, indicating the person, number, and animacy of subjects of intransitive clauses. Tense marking, which is differentiated between nonpast and past tenses, is incorporated into the pronoun prefixes.

'''Subject Pronouns'''
{| {{softtable|c}}

|-
| class="l" colspan="4"| '''Nonpast'''
! rowspan="6"|
| class="l" colspan="4"| '''Past'''
|-
! colspan="2" |
! singular
! plural
! colspan="2" |
! singular
! plural
|-
! colspan="2" | 1
| e
| de
! colspan="2" | 1
| tr(u)
| u
|-
! colspan="2" | 2
| ù
| di
! colspan="2" | 2
| a
| t(u)
|-
! rowspan="2" | 3
! anim.
| o
| o(n)
! rowspan="2" | 3
! anim.
| th(ı)
| ù
|-
! inan.
| o(m)
| o(n)
! inan.
| p(o)
| ù
|}

* Additionally, the definite article '''ca''' can also be used as a particle which marks appositives and relative clauses when it is prefixed before nominalized predicate.
**'''cadnittobcìw onen edadthakıxt.''' <br><small>ca=dnit-dobcì-w o-ne-n eda-dthak-ıxt</small><br><small>DEF=dust-language-OBL speak-NOMINALIZER-ACC 1s>3si-have.ability-NEG </small><br>''I don't have the ability to speak Cednìtıt.''

'''Subject>Object Pronouns'''

In transitive and ditransitive clauses, the roles of the subject and primary object must be specified.

{| {{softtable|c}}
|-
| '''Nonpast'''
|-
!subj\obj
!1s
!1p
!2s
!2p
!3sa
!3pa
!3si
!3pi
!rflxs
!rflxp
|-
!1s
|
|ec(e)
|ì
|ec(i)
|mo
|no
|ed(a)
|ed(a)
|ece
|
|-
!1p
|de
|
|dì
|dc(i)
|do
|do
|dc(ì)
|dc(ì)
|
|dege
|-
!2s
|we
|w(e)
|ù
|ìc
|ùm
|ùn
|ùd(a)
|ùd(a)
|ùcı
|
|-
!2p
|de
|dc(e)
|dì
|dc(i)
|dì
|dì
|dc(a)
|dc(a)
|
|digi
|-
!3sa
|oh
|ttho
|io
|tco
|om
|on
|ot(a)
|ot(a)
|oco
|
|-
!3pa
|ne
|oth(e)
|ù
|oc(i)
|mo
|no
|od(a)
|od(a)
|
|ogo
|-
!3si
|me
|oth(e)
|ù
|oc(i)
|mo
|no
|ob(a)
|ob(a)
|onco
|
|-
!3pi
|ne
|oth(e)
|ù
|oc(i)
|mo
|no
|od(a)
|od(a)
|
|ogo
|-
!colspan="11" |
|-
| '''Past'''
|-
!subj\obj
!1s
!1p
!2s
!2p
!3sa
!3pa
!3si)
!3pi
!rflxs
!rflxp
|-
!1s
|
|tsr(e)
|ù
|tsr
|tro
|tro
|dr(a)
|dr(a)
|trucu
|
|-
!1p
|we
|
|u
|uc(i)
|mu
|nu
|ud(a)
|ud(a)
|
|ugu
|-
!2s
|e
|ath(e)
|ù
|ac(i)
|ma
|na
|ad(a)
|ad(a)
|aca
|
|-
!2p
|te
|tth(e)
|tù
|tc(i)
|to
|to
|tud(a)
|tud(a)
|
|tugu
|-
!3sa
|the
|th(e)
|thù
|th(i)
|tho
|tho
|thıd(a)
|thıd(a)
|thıcı
|
|-
!3pa
|we
|w(e)
|ù
|ìc
|ùm
|ùn
|ùd(a)
|ùd(a)
|
|ùgı
|-
!3si
|pe
|pth(e)
|pù
|poc(i)
|pom
|pon
|pth(a)
|pth(a)
|poco
|
|-
!3pi
|we
|w(e)
|ù
|ìc
|ùm
|ùn
|ùd(a)
|ùd(a)
|
|ùgı
|-
|}

===Modal Affixes===
Cednìtıt employs various modal infixes/particles to provide nuances on the meaning of the verb.

{| class="wikitable"
! width="12%" | Potential
| width="8%" | '''-tthon-'''
| align="left" | denotes ability or potential for action to occur in the future. Often functions as a future tense marker, though it can also be combined with past tense pronoun prefixes.
|-
! Volitional
| '''-r(u)-'''
'''-w(u)-'''
| align="left" | denotes desire for a nominal, or desire for oneself or someone/thing else to perform an action
|-
! Subjunctive
| '''-(o)sr-'''
| align="left" | denotes possible future outcome, implies possibility, but not absolute certainty. Certainty is of a lesser and more neutral degree than that which is implied by the Potential modal marker, which is skewed towards the fulfillment of the specified situation.
|-
! Imperative
| '''-wit-'''
| align="left" | indicates command
|}

===Preverbs===
Preverbs indicate various relationships between nominal arguments and specify manners in which actions are performed. Many verb stems associate heavily with specific preverbs to form lexicalized idiomatic compounds.

{| class="wikitable"
| width="5%"|
! align="left" width="12%" | Affix
! align="left" width="10%" | Referent Case
! align="left" | Usage
|-
|
| '''-o-'''
| ACC
| align="left" | towards, near, antibenefactive
|-
|
| '''-ath(ga)-'''
| ACC
| align="left" | away, apart, into pieces, benefactive
|-
|
| '''-rı(x)-'''
| OBL
| align="left" | up (imperfect)
|-
|
| '''-rıw-'''
| ACC*
| align="left" | above, onto
|-
|
| '''-gı-'''
| OBL
| align="left" | down (imperfect)
|-
|
| '''-gıw-'''
| ACC*
| align="left" | below, underneath
|-
|
| '''-t(a)n-'''
| ACC*
| align="left" | into
|-
|
| '''-gim-'''
| ACC*
| align="left" | out of, through
|-
|
| '''-em-''', '''-en-'''
|
| align="left" | across, along exterior surface, around, beside (without interaction)
|-
|
| '''-ut-'''
| OBL
| align="left" | without
|-
|
| '''-wot-'''
| OBL
| align="left" | wavering, no clear direction (also refers to habitual states so overcooked that they are taken to be inalienable truths at the moment of utterance)
|-
|
|'''-(i)wk-'''
| OBL
| align="left" | inside, within, with (instrumental)
|}

[*] With transitivizing suffix '''-(i)nt''', if necessary.

===Verbal Stems and Aspect Markers (Circumstantials)===

Unlike previous affixes, which are generally true prefixes (or infixes for preverbs), circumstantials are fusional in nature and may cause minor stem changes depending on the interaction between the final sounds and circumstantial affixes. In some cases, circumstantial affixes can be used to form lexical verbal compounds. For the most part, Cednìtit uses circumstantials as aspectual markers, indicating level of completion and level of volition.

====Indicative====
The indicative form is used to describe general events in sequence. It consists of a pronominal marker and the bare form of the stem, though it can never be combined with prefixes marking past tense.

*'''wucu''' ''pull'' → '''mupunsrip edawucu''' ''I pull on his/her ear''

====Aspect====
Cednìtit differentiates five aspects: prospective, inceptive, imperfective, progressive, and perfective. These can all be used to describe events in the present and past tenses.

'''Prospective''' is in anticipatory state which announces an intention for some action to occur.
*For consonantal stems, -e is suffixed: <br> '''tenir''' ''make'' → '''edatenire''' ''I intend to make (something)''
*For non-consonantal stems, the final vowel is fronted. < i e u > become '''-i''', and all other vowels become '''-e'''. <br> '''xene''' ''breathe'' → '''ùxeni''' ''you intend to breathe'' <br> '''xwù''' ''kill'' → '''thexwe''' ''he intended to kill me''

'''Inceptive''' refers to the point in time in which events have just begun.
*Consonantal stems: '''-i''' is suffixed: <br> '''ıdcap''' ''lie down'' → '''ùwıdcapi''' ''they started to lie down''
*Coronal stems <th t d n c tr dr nr sr>: final coronal consonant is dropped, '''-dci''' is suffixed: <br> '''dcıt''' ''stare at'' → '''udcıdci''' ''we started to stare at you''
*Non-consonantal: final vowel is dropped, '''-ic''' is suffixed: <br> '''wınti''' ''shine upon'' → '''tthowıntic''' ''(the sun) begins to shine down upon us''

'''Imperfective''' refers to events in progress at the time of reference but not yet completed.
*Consonantal: '''-ı''' is suffixed. If final consonant is preceded by a sonorant, it undergoes lenition: plosive > fricative; nasal/sonorant+plosive > nasal/sonorant(geminate): <br> '''cıt''' ''run'' → '''ocıcı''' ''they are running'' <br> '''aŋk''' ''apologize'' → '''ìaŋŋı''' ''I'm sorry (to you)''
*Non-consonantal: final vowel is dropped, '''-ı''' is suffixed, triggering lenition of the final consonant: <br> '''noranti''' ''wash, clean'' → '''wontan donorannı''' ''we are washing the dog''

'''Progressive''' describes events advancing towards a specific goal, or advancing towards the state describe by a stative verb.
*Consonantal: '''-a''' is suffixed. If final consonant is preceded by a sonorant, it undergoes lenition: <br> '''rìwul''' ''be drunk'' → '''erìwulla''' ''I am getting (becoming) drunk'' <br> '''triŋ''' ''rule over'' → '''otriŋŋa''' ''he will (soon) be ruling over us''
*Non-consonantal: final vowel is dropped, '''-a''' is suffixed, triggering lenition of the final consonant: <br> '''cuctcu''' ''be dry'' → '''ırnca ocuctca''' ''the flowers are drying out''

'''Perfective''' marks actions which have been completed or have ended.
*Consonantal: '''-thu''' is suffixed, assimilating as a fricative at the same POA of the final consonant. <br> '''exp''' ''be tanned'' → '''expfu''' ''I am completely tanned'' <br> '''neck''' ''climb (a mountain)'' → '''truneckxu''' ''I finished climbing (the mountain)''
*Coronal: '''-thu''' is suffixed, again, with '''th''' assimilating as a fricative at the same POA of the final consonant. <br> '''xowt''' ''pillage'' → '''ùdaxowtcu''' ''they completely pillaged it''
*Non-consonantal: '''-thu''' is suffixed: <br> '''xwù''' ''kill'' → '''thıxwùthul''' ''she was murdered (passive)''

===Voice===
Though lexical verb stems usually have a specific valence with assigned roles for subject and object(s), these can be modified through the use of voice markers, which are affixed to the verb complex. Valence affixes also exist; however, many distinctions are lexical in nature.

{| class="wikitable"
| width="8%" | '''-(a)l-'''
| align="left" | stative passive voice marker. Original subject and primary object exchange roles.
|-
| '''-(a)wk-'''
| align="left" | dynamic passive voice marker.
|-
| '''-k(a)-'''
| align="left" | causative for intransitive stems. Also marker for dynamic verbs.
|-
| '''-ca-'''
| align="left" | causative for transitive stems.
|}

===Deverbalizer/Valence===

{| class="wikitable"
| width="8%" | '''-n(i)t-'''
| align="left" | transitivizer for intransitive verbs. Also used as a comparative suffix (see below).
|}

(to be expanded)

==Derivational Morphology==

===Verb > Noun===

* '''Xne''' - general verbal nominalizer, the way one Xs (marginal) - ''-n'' assimilates to POA of final plosive, if applicable, and causes it to become a geminate nasal
**'''thın''' ''walk'' > '''thınne''' ''walking'', or '''thınne''' ''gait''
* '''Xcu''', '''Xtcu''', '''Xdcu''' - abstract nominalization of X - final syllable removed if it does not end with a coronal plosive or nasal
**'''tenir''' ''create, make'' > '''tencu''' ''idea, something that has been created''
**'''oxtı''' ''honor (someone)'' > '''oxtcu''' ''honor''
*'''Xmı''', '''Xemı''' - occupation or person associated with ''non-stative'' verb X- '''m''' assimilates to POA of final plosives or nasals and causes final plosives to become nasals. The form '''Xemı''' replaces final vowels of roots that end in < i e ı>.
**'''xwù''' ''kill'' > '''xwùmı''' ''killer, murderer''
**'''guth''' ''dig, farm'' > '''guthmı''' ''farmer''
**'''fak''' ''hit, fight'' > '''faŋŋı''' ''fighter, warrior''

===Noun > Noun===

*'''X(o)rt''' - related to X
**'''triŋìme''' ''king'' > '''triŋìmort''' ''be kingly, be royal, be regal''

=Syntax=
Basic word order is SOV. Pronouns are usually only present for emphasis or for introducing an actor in a sentence. Third person pronouns are also often used to differentiate between singular, plural, animate and inanimate third person nouns.

==Noun Phrases==
Noun phrases head consist of a nominal head, inflected for case, which are preceded by modifiers in the form of verbal compounds.

{{+|
{{gl|owancu|o-ancu|3s.A.PRS-be_white}}
{{gl|aco|a-co-Ø|horse-DEF.ANIM.SG-NOM}}
{{glend|the white horse}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|onowp|o-nowp|3p.A.PRS-be_calm}}
{{gl|paxı|paxı-Ø|lion-NOM}}
{{glend|calm lion(s)}}
}}

In noun phrases with only a single argument and a stative verb, it is common to attach the uninflected noun directly to the front of the stem, precluding the need for pronominal prefixes on the verb. In this case, definiteness is not marked as a suffix on the noun and is no longer distinguished; instead, emphasis is placed on the entire compound, which gains the relativizer '''ca=''' (also '''c'=''') and a nominalizing suffix (usually '''-ne'''). Relative clauses will be covered in more detail later.

{{+|
{{gl|c'|ca|REL}}
{{gl|awancune|a-ancu-ne|horse.DEF.ANIM.SG-be_white.NOMINALIZER}}
{{glend|white horse}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|ca|ca|REL}}
{{gl|paxınowmme|paxı-nowp-ne|lion-be_calm-NOMINALIZER}}
{{glend|calm lion(s)}}
}}

Verbal modifiers are not limited to stative verbs.
{{+|
{{gl|iowathgathınna|io-athga-thın-a|3s.A.PRS>2s-away-walk-PRG}}
{{gl|both|both|3s.a.NOM}}
{{glend|the one (person/animal) walking away from you}}
}}

Though first and second pronouns are generally not necessary, they may be included for emphasis, especially when the noun phrase is to be used as an embedded phrase within a longer sentence.

===Numerals===

For the most part, numbers and ordinal clauses pattern similarly to stative verbs and adjectival phrases.

Cednìtit has a base-10 counting system.
{| {{softtable|c}}
! width=13%| 1.
| width=20%| ot
! width=13%| 11.
| width=20%| otanatr
|colspan=2|
|-
! 2.
| nıt
! 12.
| nıtanatr
! width=13%| 20.
| width=20%| nanıt
|-
! 3.
| tha
! 13.
| thanatr
! 30.
| nantha
|-
! 4.
| gep
! 14.
| gepanatr
! 40.
| naŋep
|-
! 5.
| we
! 15.
| wenatr
! 50.
| nanwe
|-
! 6.
| dok
! 16.
| dokanatr
! 60.
| nanok
|-
! 7.
| ù
! 17.
| ùnatr
! 70.
| nanù
|-
! 8.
| fe
! 18.
| fenatr
! 80.
| name
|-
! 9.
| ola
! 19.
| olanatr
! 90.
| nanola
|-
! 10.
| anatr
|colspan=2|
! 100.
| enetr
|}

Numbers from 21-99 are formed by compounding the units digit with the corresponding tens digit. An epethentic <a> is inserted before the tens digit if preceded by a consonant.

'''21'''
{{+|
{{gl|ot-|one-}}
{{gl|ananıt|twenty}}
{{glend|otananıt}}
}}

'''75'''
{{+|
{{gl|we-|five-}}
{{gl|nanù|seventy}}
{{glend|wenanù}}
}}

Values greater than 100 are formed in a similar manner, with the multiplier for the 100s digit preceding '''enetr''' ''hundred''.

'''101'''
{{+|
{{gl|ot-|one-}}
{{gl|enetr|hundred}}
{{glend|ot enetr}}
}}

'''819'''
{{+|
{{gl|olanatr|nineteen}}
{{gl|fe-|eight-}}
{{gl|enetr|hundred}}
{{glend|olanatr fenetr}}
}}

To specify a specific quantity of a noun, the number root is inflected as a typical verb root, taking the appropriate person agreement prefix. The noun whose quantity is being specified only denotes singular or plural when a definite article is being employed. In any other case, the noun remains uninflected except for case. Note special suppletive vocabulary for definite and ordinal forms for 1 and 5.

'''paxı''' ''lion''
{| {{softtable|c}}
!
!Number
!Definite
!Ordinal
|-
|'''ot''' ''one'', '''un''' ''begin''
|'''paxı owot'''
|'''paxıco owun'''<sup>1</sup>
|'''ca paxunne'''<sup>1</sup>
|-
|'''nıt''' ''two''
|'''paxı onıt'''
|'''paxıncu onıt'''
|'''ca paxınınne'''
|-
|'''tha''' ''three''
|'''paxı otha'''
|'''paxıncu otha'''
|'''ca paxıthane'''
|-
|'''gep''' ''four''
|'''paxı ogep'''
|'''paxıncu ogep'''
|'''ca paxıgemme'''
|-
|'''we''' ''five'', '''fak''' ''hit, strike, slap''
|'''paxı owe'''
|'''paxıncu ofak'''<sup>2</sup>
|'''ca paxıfaŋŋe'''<sup>2</sup>
|-
|'''dok''' ''six''
|'''paxı odok'''
|'''paxıncu odok'''
|'''ca paxıdoŋŋe'''
|-
|'''ù''' ''seven''
|'''paxı owù'''
|'''paxıncu owù'''
|'''ca paxùne'''
|-
|'''fe''' ''eight''
|'''paxı ofe'''
|'''paxıncu ofe'''
|'''ca paxıfene'''
|-
|'''ola''' ''nine''
|'''paxı owola'''
|'''paxıncu owola'''
|'''ca paxıwola'''
|-
|'''anatr''' ''ten''
|'''paxı owanatr'''
|'''paxıncu owanatr'''
|'''ca paxıwanannre'''
|-
|'''nanıt''' ''twenty''
|'''paxı onanıt'''
|'''paxıncu onanıt'''
|'''ca paxınanıt'''
|-
|'''otananıt''' ''twenty-one''
|'''paxı owotananıt'''
|'''paxıncu owunananıt'''<sup>1</sup>
|'''ca paxunananıt'''<sup>1</sup>
|-
|'''wenanù''' ''seventy-five''
|'''paxı owenanù'''
|'''paxıncu owenanù''' (no suppletion)
|'''ca paxıwenanù''' (no suppletion)
|-
|}
<sup>1</sup>Uses the root '''un''' ''begin''<br>
<sup>2</sup>Uses the root '''fak''' ''hit, strike, slap''

==Basic Clauses==
'''Intransitive Verbs''': the simplest construction consists of an intransitive or stative verb and a single nominal argument.
{{+|
{{gl|efwuŋ|e-fwuŋ|1s.PRS-fall}}
{{glend|I am falling.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|fmolıxtncu|fmolıxt-ncu-Ø|monster-DEF.ANIM.PL-NOM}}
{{gl|ùrìwul|ù-rìwul|3p.A.PST-be_drunk}}
{{glend|The evil monsters were drunk.}}
}}

'''Transitive Verbs''' take an additional argument, and have polypersonal agreement as per the pronominal prefixes described earlier. Third person nominal arguments take appropriate case suffixes

{{+|
{{gl|triŋìmeco|triŋìme-co-Ø|king-DEF.ANIM.SG-NOM}}
{{gl|ensripan|en-srip-an|1s.POS-ear-ACC}}
{{gl|thıddenthık|thıd-denthe-ık|3s.A.PST>3s.I-cut-INTENS}}
{{glend|The king sliced my ear off.}}
}}

'''Ditransitive Verbs''' function similarly to transitive verbs, the only difference being that an additional nominal argument is added, taking the role of indirect object (recipient) or instrumental (by means of). Verbal morphology does not receive any affixes to agree with the oblique argument; oblique case pronouns are used instead.

{{+|
{{gl|enìbitan|e-nuìbit-an|1s.POS-rope-ACC}}
{{gl|doc|doc|3s.A.OBL}}
{{gl|draŋuxedthu|dra-ŋuxedı-thu|1s.PST>3p.I-lend-PERF}}
{{glend|I lent him my rope.}}
}}

==Relative Clauses==
Relative clauses can be thought of as glorified versions of noun phrases. Cednìtit has three relative particles, which precedes the modifier clause. The full relative clause precedes the noun which is being modified.

*'''ca''' is a general use particle, and is found before clauses modifying abstract nominals:
**'''ca dìomuìxınal dacuŋŋe''' ''the heresy you forced us to perform''
*'''cin''' is found before clauses modifying animate nouns:
**'''cin oxosr xa bcìm''' ''the man who can pick me up''
*'''sru''' is used before clauses modifying inanimate concrete nouns:
**'''sru owotak ne''' ''the cloud that is floating''

==Comparatives==

Cednitıt circumfixes '''n(u)t- -n(i)t''' around a bare stative verb stem to form a comparative verb. It should be noted that the two individual parts of this affix fit within the general verbal template, with '''n(u)t-''' patterning with as a preverb in the -1 slot and '''-n(i)t''' in the +3 valence slot. This essentially forms a transitive verb with the two subjects being compared taking the role of subject and object, where the subject exhibits the quality in question in a greater quantity or intensity.

{{+|
{{gl|entthun|en-tthun-Ø|1s.POS-skin-NOM}}
{{gl|thıntthunan|thın-tthun-an|2s.POS-skin-ACC}}
{{gl|obantıwdint|oba-nt-ıwd-int|3s.I.PRS>3s.I-COMP-be_dark_TRANS}}
{{glend|My skin is darker than your skin.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|exnutowant|eh-nut-owa-nt|3s.A.PRS>1s-COMP-clean-TRANS}}
{{glend|She is cleaner than I am.}}
}}

Simple comparisons between two noun phrases are not necessarily limited to stative verbs. When other intransitive verbs and transitive verbs are used in comparative constructions, the meaning "more often" or "more" is implied.

{{+|
{{gl|othentotint|othe-nt-ot-int|3p.A>1p-COMP-sleep-TRANS}}
{{glend|They sleep more than we do.}}
}}

The original object of a transitive verb is moved to the oblique case, while the original subject of the verb becomes the object of comparison. The noun taking the nominative case is the one that performs the activity in question more often than the original subject.

{{+|
{{gl|enunan|en-un-an|1s.POS-brother-ACC}}
{{gl|tcotcancaw|tcotca-nca-w|berry-DEF.I.PL-OBL}}
{{gl|mantdruxent|ma-nt-druxe-nt|2s.PST>3s.A-COMP-remove-TRANS}}
{{glend|You used to pick berries more often than my brother.}}
}}

===Stative Verbs & Adjectivals===

The status of adjectivals in Cednìtit is debatable. In many situations, adjectivals function simply as stative verbs, following verbal morphology and using the same derivational affixes. However, there are also situations in which the same roots function independent of the verb template and directly modify nouns or other verbs. Most notably, these situations include but are not limited to comparative constructions and noun modifiers.

==Interrogatives==

===Yes-No Questions===
Simple yes-no questions have two forms, depending on whether the expected answer is affirmative or negative. The affirmative form uses the interrogative verb '''ca''' after a nominalized verb complex. '''ca''' is almost exclusively found in the forms '''oca''' or '''poca''' (past), which simply prefixes the third person singular inanimate prefix to the verb, which denotes the nominalized verb as subject.

*Q
{{+|
{{gl|acıdci|a-cıt-i|2s.PST-run-INCEP}}
{{gl|poca|po-ca|3si.PST-INT.AFF}}
{{glend|Did you start to run?}}
}}

*A
{{+|
{{gl|trucıdci|tru-cıt-dci|1s.PST-run-INCEP}}
{{glend|(Yes,) I started to run}}
}}

The negative equivalent to '''ca''' is '''owk''', a transitive verb with a literal meaning ''to be without''. Usage of '''owk''' is similar to that of '''ca''', but requires polypersonal agreement. The nominal subject is the same as the subject of the nominalized verb, while the action itself takes the accusative (3si). Because the expected answer is negative, the question is often associated with conveying a sarcastic or exasperated tone.

*Q
{{+|
{{gl|okmart|o-kmart|3sa.NPST-eat}}
{{gl|otowk|ota-owk|3sa.NPST>3si-INT.NEG}}
{{glend|Does he not eat?}}
}}

*A
{{+|
{{gl|okmartıxt|o-kmart-ıxt|3sa.NPST-eat-NEG}}
{{glend|(No,) he doesn't eat.}}
}}

For both '''ca''' and '''owk''', answers do not necessarily need to repeat the nominalized verb; instead, the interrogative verb can be repeated to answer ''yes'' or ''no''. Therefore, in the previous examples, '''poca''' ''(it occurred)'', and '''otowk''' ''he is without it [the act of eating]'' are also valid responses.

===Content Questions===
Questions which expect a more specific response use a series of interrogative particles to denote the type of content expected as a reponse. The most basic of these is the "what" series: '''tca''', '''tcin''', and '''tsru''' pattern with the relative clause particles '''ca''' (clauses and abstractions), '''cin''' (animates), and '''sru''' (inanimates). Following the placement of the interrogative verbs in the previous section, the "what" series directly follow the noun phrase or nominalized verb that is being modified. In all three cases, these particles are treated as verbs which take a dummy third person subject that can be either animate or inanimate, singular or plural, depending on the situation.

{{+|
{{gl|bcìm|bcìm-Ø|person-NOM}}
{{gl|otcin|o-tcin|3a.NPST-Q.A}}
{{glend|Who is (that) person? (Which person is that?)}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|kùdthec|kùdthec-Ø|drink-NOM}}
{{gl|otsru|o-tsru|3.NPST-Q.I}}
{{glend|What is that drink? (What are those drinks?)}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|ùdasrıne|ùda-drı-ı-ne|2s.NPST>3si-do-IMPF-VN}}
{{gl|otca|o-tca|3si.NPST-Q}}
{{glend|What are you doing?}}
}}

The following is a non-exhaustive list of all interrogative verbs which function similarly to the ones shown above.

{|class="wikitable"
|-
|[] (animate)<br>[] (inanimate)
|whose (possessive)
|-
|'''tca''' (generic, clausal)<br>'''tcin''' (animate)<br> '''tsru''' (inanimate)
|who, what, which
|-
|'''tin'''
|which one (ordinal) ['''in''']
|-
|'''tcam'''
|when ['''camunne''']
|-
|'''tekwıt'''
|what day ['''kwıt''']
|-
|'''tecbi'''
|where ['''cbi''']
|-
|'''teca'''
|why, whither (expects a ''goal'' as response) ['''eca''']
|-
|'''tra'''
|how ['''ra''']
|-
|'''dcıcu'''
|how many, how much (coll) ['''dıcu''']
|-
|}

=Sample Text=
{{+|
{{gl|Paxıco|paxı-co-Ø|lion-DEF.A.SG-NOM}}
{{gl|ca fmùwuncumbanen|ca fmùwu-ncu-muba-ne-n|REL large_animal-DEF.A.PL-be.all-VN-ACC}}
{{gl|onctriŋ|on-c-triŋ|3sa.NPST>3pa-beyond-rule}}
{{glend|The lion rules all the beasts}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|c'odrubthık,|ca o-drubth-ık|REL 3sa.NPST-strong-INTENS}}
{{gl|ca mupundcù|ca mupu-nudcù|REL 3sa.POS-chest}}
{{gl|obùl,|o-bùl|3si.NPST-thick}}
{{gl|ca trì|ca trì|REL waist}}
{{gl|okı,|o-kı|3si.NPST-slim}}
{{glend|because he is very strong, thick of chest, slim of waist}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|ca ocınne|ca o-cın-ne-Ø|REL 3sa-run-VN-Ø}}
{{gl|otthonethen|o-tthon-ethen|3si.NPST-POT-fast}}
{{gl|eca|eca|because}}
{{glend|and runs fast.}}
}}

<br><br>
{{+|
{{gl|Ùda|ùda|3s.NPST>3si}}
{{gl|paxıco|paxı-co|lion-DEF.A.SG}}
{{gl|ofdcomont.|o-fdco-mont|3sa.NPST-young-EVID}}
{{glend|Well, there is this young lion.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|sru|sru|REL}}
{{gl|srowinnew|sro-in-ne-w|day-each-VN-OBL}}
{{gl|tmennin|tmen-nin|be.morning-each}}
{{gl|petcan|pet-ca-n|forest-DEF.SG.I-ACC}}
{{gl|ottanthındci|ot-tan-thın-dci|3s.A.NPST>3si.I-into-walk-INCEP}}
{{glend|He always goes out into the forest in the morning}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|cin|cin|REL}}
{{gl|fmùwınnencuw|fmùwu-ıt-ne-ncu-w|large_animal-be.another-VN-DEF.P.A-OBL}}
{{gl|ocodrubthkipric|oco-drubth-kiprı-ic|3s.A.RFX.NPST-strength-compare-INCEP}}
{{glend|and compares himself to those who are the other beasts with regards to strength.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Sru|sru|REL}}
{{gl|srowinnew|sro-in-ne-w|day-each-VN-OBL}}
{{gl|cin|cin|REL}}
{{gl|pithmocon|pithmo-co-n|victor-DEF.SG.A-ACC}}
{{gl|thowotıtuthu|tho-wot-ıt-uthu|3sa.NPST>3sa-PVB-become-PERF}}
{{gl|thıcoc.|thı-coc|3sa.PST-return}}
{{glend|And every day he would return the victor.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Thıpithtuthu|thı-pitht-uthu|3sa.PST-win-PERF}}
{{gl|thıcocucu|thı-coc-uthu|3sa.PST-return-PERF}}
{{gl|sroncaw,|sro-nca-w|day-DEF.P.I-OBL}}
{{gl|mupuwmım|mupu-ımım-Ø|3s.A.POS-mother-NOM}}
{{gl|thomadci|tho-mat-ci|3sa.PST>3sa-praise-INCEP}}
{{glend|Every day that he would return victorious, his mother would praise him:}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Exwım!|e-ıxwım|1s.POS-child}}
{{gl|Thafk|thı-afk-Ø|2s.POS-neck-NOM}}
{{gl|obùl!|o-bùl|3si.NPST-thick}}
{{gl|Thıtrì|thı-trì-Ø|2s.POS-waist-NOM}}
{{gl|okı!|o-kı|3si.NPST-slim}}
{{gl|Thındcù|thı-nudcù-Ø|2s.POS-chest-NOM}}
{{gl|ofinde!|o-finde|3si.NPST-large}}
{{gl|"Gaddrubthan"|Gaddrubth-an|strongman-ACC}}
{{gl|ìcowgı!|ì-cowgı|1s.NPST>2s-name}}
{{glend|"Son of mine! Thick of neck! Slim of waist! Large of chest! I name you "He-man"!}}
}}

<br><br>
{{+|
{{gl|Ùda|ùda|2s.NPST>3si}}
{{gl|srowocı,|sro-ot-ı|morning-one-IMPF}}
{{gl|cin|cin|REL}}
{{gl|paxıdconeco|paxı-dco-ne-co-Ø|lion-young-VN-DEF.S.A-NOM}}
{{gl|nuftan|nuft-an|muscle-ACC}}
{{gl|thıdawotsrı,|thıda-wot-tri-ı|3sa.PST>3pi-HAB-stretch-IMPF}}
{{glend|But one day, the young lion was stretching as usual,}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|thomacı:|tho-wot-mat-ı|3sa.PST>3sa-HAB-praise-IMPF}}
{{gl|"Thındcù|thı-nudcù-Ø|2s.POS-chest-NOM}}
{{gl|ofinde!|o-finde|3si.NPST-large}}
{{gl|Thafk|thı-afk-Ø|2s.POS-neck-NOM}}
{{gl|obùl!|o-bùl|3si.NPST-thick}}
{{gl|Bthacıpaxı|bthacı-paxı-Ø|arm.OBL-lion-NOM}}
{{gl|ùwadth!|ù-adth|3pi.NPST-powerful}}
{{gl|Thıtrì!"|thı-trì-Ø|2s.POS-waist}}
{{gl|okı|o-kı|3si.NPST-slim}}
{{glend|and she praised him as usual, "Thick of chest! Thick of neck! Lion-armed! Slim of waist!"}}
}}

<br>
{{+|
{{gl|Thomatuthu|tho-mat-uthu|3sa.PST>3sa-praise-PERF}}
{{gl|thıwo:|thı-o|3sa.PST-say}}
{{gl|"Fmùwathŋŋencon|fmùwu-athŋŋe-nco-n|large_animal-others-DEF.P.A-ACC}}
{{gl|ùnutdrubthint|ùn-nt-drubth-int|2s.NPST>3pa-COMP-strong-TRANS}}
{{gl|ekoŋ."|e-koŋ|1s.NPST>blindly_follow}}
{{glend|She finished praising him and said, "I truly believe that you are the strongest of all the beasts.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|Sru|sru|REL}}
{{gl|srowinnew|sro-in-ne-w|day-each-VN-OBL}}
{{gl|petcan|pet-ca-n|forest-DEF.SG.I-ACC}}
{{gl|ottanthın|ot-tan-thın|3s.A.NPST>3s.I-into-walk}}
{{gl|ococ|o-coc|3s.A.NPST-return}}
{{glend|Every day you go out into the forest and return,}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|ca|ca|REL}}
{{gl|fmùwuncun|fmùwu-ncu-n|large_animal-DEF.A.PL-ACC}}
{{gl|ùnctriŋŋe|ùn-c-triŋ-ne|2s.NPST>3pa-beyond-rule-VN}}
{{gl|ateneku|atene-ku|truth-that}}
{{gl|wewoŋ|we-oŋ|2s.NPST>1s-show}}
{{glend|and show me that you are truly king of the beasts.}}
}}

<br>
{{+|
{{gl|Ogù,|o-gù|3s.I.NPST-contrary}}
{{gl|ca|ca|REL}}
{{gl|petcan|pet-ca-n|forest-DEF.S.I-ACC}}
{{gl|ùdatthon|ùda-tthon|2s.NPST>3s-POT=}}
{{gl|tanthın|tan-thın|into-go_out}}
{{gl|sroca|sro-ca-Ø|day-DEF.S.I-NOM}}
{{gl|otthon|o-tthon|3s.I-POT}}
{{gl|comfa.|com-a|occur.PROG}}
{{glend|But, a day will come when you go out into the forest,}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|idca|idca|there}}
{{gl|cin|cin|REL}}
{{gl|otthon|o-tthon|3s.A-POT}}
{{gl|wotthınıxt|wot-thın-ıxt|waver-walk-NEG}}
{{gl|xi|xi|nor}}
{{gl|muputrìxa|mupu-trìxa-Ø|3s.POS-head-NOM}}
{{gl|srùw|srù-w|shoulders-OBL}}
{{gl|ogıwfdutal|o-gıw-fdut-al|3s.I.NPST>3s-below-carry-PASS}}
{{gl|ocoŋ|o-coŋ|3s.A.NPST-small}}
{{gl|mìwin|mìwi-n|creature-ACC}}
{{gl|ùmosr|um-osr|2s.NPST>3s-SUBJ}}
{{gl|ınoxxu.|ınox-thu|meet-PERF}}
{{glend|and there you will meet a small creature which walks straight and carries his head above his shoulders.}}
}}

<br>
{{+|
{{gl|Wewıppnım,|we-wıt-pnım|2s.NPST>1s-IMP hear}}
{{gl|exwım!|e-ıxwım|1s.POS-child}}
{{gl|Thındcù|thı-nudcù-Ø|2s.POS-chest-NOM}}
{{gl|ofinde!|o-finde|3si.NPST-large}}
{{gl|Thafk|thı-afk-Ø|2s.POS-neck-NOM}}
{{gl|obùl!|o-bùl|3si.NPST-thick}}
{{gl|Thıtrì|thı-trì-Ø|2s.POS-waist}}
{{gl|okı!|o-kı|3si.NPST-slim}}
{{glend|Listen, Son of mine! Thick of chest! Thick of neck! Slim of waist!,}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|cin|cin|REL}}
{{gl|idrnokucoŋan|idrno-ku-coŋ-an|thing-that-be.small-ACC}}
{{gl|ùmtthonınox|ùm-tthon-ınox|2s.NPST>3sa-POT-meet}}
{{gl|sro|sro|day}}
{{glend|the day you meet that little thing,}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|srokun|sro-ku-n|day-that-ACC}}
{{gl|dricco|dric-co-Ø|sun-DEF.ANIM-NOM}}
{{gl|otagimfwuŋŋit,|ota-gim-fwuŋ-nit|3sa.NPST>3si-out.of-fall-TRANS}}
{{gl|ùcocowk.|ù-coc-owk|2s.NPST-return-without}}
{{glend|on that day the sun will set while you have not returned.}}
}}

{{+|
{{gl|ocoŋ|o-coŋ|3sa.NPST-be.small}}
{{gl|idrnoku|idrno-ku|thing-that}}
{{gl|"bcìm"|bcìm-Ø|person-NOM}}
{{gl|ocowgıl.|o-cowgı-al|3sa.NPST-name-PASS}}
{{glend|The name of that little thing is called 'man'.}}
}}

{{comment|Source of the sample text: Roy S. Hagman, Nama Hottentot grammar, Bloomington/Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1977.}}

[[Category:T1 languages]]
[[Category:Tuysáfa]]

Proto-Ronquian (reconstructed)

2024-10-13T00:38:24Z

Corumayas:

{{Article}}
'''Proto-Ronquian''' (a.k.a. Proto-Rompian) is the last common ancestor of the [[Ronquian languages]]; described here as reconstructed by T2. The name "Ronquian" comes from the reconstructed word for 'language':

*roxʷ < *roŋxʷ < *əromb ARN
*ɻɔ̃ʔ < *rɔ̃p < *əromb RT
*rǒp < *rɔ̃p < *əromb RTJ
*rɔm < *əromb MT
*raj (< rV(V)(C) < *əromb) RTI
*reː < *raj (< rV(V)(C) < *əromb) RRK

Initially the word for language was thought to be *roŋkʷ, and thus the name Proto-Ronquian was coined. However as serious reconstructing began, it became obvious that labiovelars were an innovation of [[A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa]] from labials under some conditions and consequently the word for language was rather *romp. Therefore the term Proto-Rompian is more accurate. Nevertheless, Proto-Ronquian is more widely used.

Proto-Northwest-Tuysáfa was also sometimes used.

List of abbreviations:

* ARN - [[A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa]]
* MT - [[Mhakh Thandim‎]]
* PR - Proto-Ronquian
* RT - [[Ronc Tyu]]
* RTJ - [[Rrób Tè Jĕhnò]]
* RRK - [[Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa]]
* RTI - [[Ray Tyuwey Išup]]
* ƏD - [[Əktoś Duəmeuk]]

See also [[Proto-Ronquian Lexicon]].

= Phonology =

== Sound inventory ==

Zju has suggested the following consonant inventory.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Consonants
! Labial
! Coronal
! Dorsal
! Uvular
! Glottal
|-
! Fortis stop
| p || t || k || q || ʔ
|-
! Lenis stop
| b || d || g || ɢ
|-
! Fricative
| f || s ɬ || x || χ || h
|-
! Sonorant
| w || r l || j || ʀ
|-
! Nasal
| m || n || ŋ || (ɴ)
|}

*R denotes a consonant phoneme of unknown quality that appears after a coronal onset and which is reflexed as w in RT and MT, but as retroflexing of the onset in RTJ. It was not deleted by the CRV > CVː sound change in MT, unlike most other liquids, but lengthened the following vowel nevertheless.
*As there is very limited evidence for *ɴ in positions other than in front of word-final *ɢ, it's likely it didn't have phoneme status.

KathAveara has suggested the following consonant inventory.

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Consonants
! Labial
! Coronal
! Palatal
! Velar
! Labio-velar
! Uvular
! Glottal
|-
! V.less Stop
| p
| t
|
| k
| kʷ
| q
| ʔ
|-
! Voiced Stop
| b
| d
|
| g
| gʷ
| ɢ
|-
! Fricative
| f
| s, ɬ
|
| x
| xʷ
| χ
|-
! Approximant
|
| l, r
| j
|
| w
|-
! Nasal
| m
| n
|
| ŋ
| ŋʷ
| ɴ
|}

Vowel inventory:

{| {{softtable|c}}
! Vowels
! Front
! Central
! Back
|-
! High
| i
|
| u
|-
! Mid
| e
|
| o
|-
! Low
|colspan=3|a
|}

'''ə''' stands for a vowel of unknown quality that shows up variously as '''e''' or '''a''' and probably was one of either in PR. In premainsyllable interconsonantal position - '''CəCV(C)''' - '''ə''' may just be an artifact of the reconstruction and not have existed at all. Polysyllabic root are reconstructed for PR, however.

Due to its limited reconstruction in positions other than after stops, what is reconstructed as glottal stop may have not existed in PR at all; instead what are reconstructed as sequencies of voiceless and voiced stops followed by a glottal stop might have been respectively ejectives and implosives.

=== Allophony ===

One allophonic process can be safely reconstructed for PR.

==== Lenition ====

Onsets of strong syllables lenited intervocally when being a single consonant and in some consonant clusters:

* hC > C
* p t k q > b d g ɢ
* f s ɬ x χ > w r l j ʀ (<β z ɮ ɣ ʁ at pre PR stage)
* b d g ɢ > f s x χ
* m n ŋ ɴ w r l j ʀ > m n ŋ ɴ w r l j ʀ (sonorants don't lenite)

Consonant clusters containing plain stops and non-stop consonant lenited only the stop:

* *trip 'offense, insult'
* *sədrip < *sətrip 'offenses, insults'

Clusters of a plain stop and a glottal stop also behaved in this way:

* *əbʔik 'once' < *pʔik 'one'

==== Plosive series ====

On the account of allophonic processes * p t k q > * b d g ɢ and * b d g ɢ > * f s x χ, * p t k q and * b d g ɢ likely were * pʰ tʰ kʰ qʰ and * p t k q instead.

=== Phonotactics ===

At least the following sets of onsets are likely to have existed:

*(h)(C)C(r l)(ʔ h j w)
*NC
*∅

Where C doesn't include glottal consonants and NC is a cluster of a homorgranic nasal and plain stop. It's quite possible that not all combinations of (h)(C)C(r l ʔ)(j w) were permitted.

When -j-, -ʔ- or -w- was infixed, any of preceding j, w, ʔ was deleted.

A liquid and ʔ were metathesized for the purpose of forming an ejective at a later stage.

The following codas seem to have been permitted:

* Fortis stops: p t k q ʔ
* Sonorants: w r l j ʀ
* Nasals: m n ŋ ɴ
* Nasal+lenis stops: mb nd ŋg ɴɢ

== Strong syllables ==

Strong syllables probably carried some kind of tone or stress. Words had one and only one strong syllable.

== Weak syllables ==

Weak (reduced) syllables had the same set of onsets as strong syllables. However they had no coda and a limited set of vowels, or only one vowel - ə. Additionally they were atonic or unstressed if there was phonemic tone or stress in PR.

It's possible that PR words had no weak syllables at all and only one syllable instead.

= Grammar =

PR grammar was largely analitical, however with some traces of inflectional morphology.

== Nouns ==

Nouns likely had multiple ways of forming plural number, or it was that plurality was not yet a well defined category in PR and there were several concurrent ways of expressing plural meaning.<br/>
Many, if not all, of the following affixes were likely derivational rather than inflectional, which were later grammaticalised differently.

=== Prefixes ===

* *ə- - forming construct state in some cases.
* *h- - forming plural number in some cases.
* *t- - paucal or collective prefix.
* *m- - deverbal prefix forming abstract nouns.
* *s(ə)- - deverbative prefix, perhaps for resultative nouns. A vowel was inserted before consonants.
* *r- - augmentative prefix.
* *Vr- - agent prefix.
* *Vk- - instrumental prefix.

=== Infixes ===

* *-j- - singulative infix, placed between onset and nucleus of the main syllable.
* *-w- - plurative infix, placed between onset and nucleus of the main syllable, forming plural number in some cases.
* A paucal infix of the shape *-nt- could also have existed.
* *-ʔ- - of unknown exact function. An example is *pʔom 'hat' < *pom 'head'.
* *-r- - diminutive infix.

The usage of singulative and plurative infix was lexicalised in some cases, if they were not originally a part of the derivational morphology in the first place.

=== Suffixes ===

* *-t - dual or plural suffix
* *-Ri - diminutive suffix.
* *-nu - agent suffix.
* *-(h)it - resultative suffix.
* *-Ra - instrumental suffix.

=== Construct state ===

Construct state was formed by prefixing a lone vowel of unknown quality (probably already reduced in PR), which on its part triggered consonant lenition. That vowel was subsequently lost in most cases, leaving consonant lenition as the marker of the construct state.<br/>There might have been some other changes involved in forming the construct state, such as deleting glottalic consonants in the onset.

The construct state had various functions, such as marking the possessee. It contrasted with absolute state, which was the unmarked form of the noun.

== Verbs ==

A verb in PR was either transitive or intransitive - transitive verbs couldn't be used in intransitive constructions and vice versa. Instead, derivational morphology existed.

=== Attributive forms ===

Verbs had an attributive form, which essentially turned the verb into an adjective. It was formed by the prefix g-.

== Affixes ==

=== Prefixes ===

* *g- - turning verbs into adjectives(called attributive verbs). It had the allomorph *k- before voiced obstruents probably already in PR. Additionally the allomorphs *gə-, *kə- before certain consonant clusters existed either in PR or at a later stage.
* *n- - antipassive prefix; reduces the valency of the verb, e.g. pʔi 'grow' > mpʔi 'grow up, become an adult'
* *nr- - the state of resembling a noun.
* *b- - turns adjectives and nouns into state verbs - 'to be X'
* *ʀ- - forms abstract nouns
* *m- - forms abstract nouns
* *so- - forms causatives

=== Infixes ===

* *-Ert- - reversing the meaning of a verb.

=== Suffixes ===

== Particles ==

PR had at least the particle *ni for indicating plural number in nouns. It was placed before its head noun.<br/>
Two particles *t and *n also existed, marking the noun for paucal and/or plural number.

== Pronouns & Determiners ==

=== Personal Pronouns ===

Proto-Ronquian had 3 persons in at least 3 numbers, singular, dual and plural. It also had a 3rd person collective pronoun. There may have been an animacy distinction in the 3rd person too.

{| {{softtable|c}}
!
! sing.
! dual
! plur.
! coll.
|-
! 1st
| na
| nat
| haj
|-
! 2nd
| muŋ
| mint < miŋt
| wor
|-
! 3rd Anim.
| gi
| gut
|
| -
|-
! 3rd Inan.
| mdo
|
|
| do
|}

*mdo seems to be formed from *do with prefixation of *m-; its connection with the other two *m- prefixes is unclear.

=== Indefinite Determiners ===

=== Demonstratives ===

=== Interrogative Determiners ===

=== Indefinite Quantifiers ===

== Numerals ==

Proto-Ronquian uses a mixed base-6/24 number system. The basic numerals are reconstructed as:

{| {{softtable|c}}
!
!colspan=2| KathAveara
!colspan=3| Zju
|-
!
! cardinal
! ordinal
! cardinal || multiplier || ordinal
|-
! 1
| pʔik
| mʔək
| *pʔik || *əbʔik || *hmək
|-
! 2
| ki:
| kso
| *qis || *əɢis || *qzo
|-
! 3
| tʔuq
| ntoq
| *tʔuq || *ədʔuq || *ntoq
|-
! 4
| paɬ
|
| *pjaɬ, *paɬ || *əbaɬ ||
|-
! 5
| fəɴ
|
| *fjaŋ, *faŋ || *əwjaŋ, *əwaŋ ||
|-
! 6
| ɬja ~ ɬa
|
| *ɬja, *ɬa || *ɐla ||
|-
! 12
| ɬat
|
| *ɬat || ||
|-
! 18
| qoɬ
|
| *quɬ || ||
|-
! 24
| tram
|
| *tram || ||
|}

Numbers 4, 5, 6 had variants with and without singulative infix. Numbers 6 and 12 shared the same root, with 12 having dual suffix, and 6 having either the bare root or singulative infix.

The construct state of a numeral was used as a multiplier.

== Syntax ==

=== Prepositions ===

There were two sets of prepositions - noun-like (nouns in construct state) and primary.

= Sound changes =

Sound changes preceeded by an interrogative are entirely speculative (or nearly so) and rather have the status of suggestions.

Conditions preceeded by an interrogative mark are unknown and/or speculative.

== To [[A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa]] ==

* Tʔ > Tʼ
* Tʼ > T / _V[-stress]
* NT > NÞ > Þ / _#
* V > ɐ / _[-full syllable]
* ɬ > ʃ / _#
* C > Cʲ / _i, ?
* C > Cʷ / _u, ?
* Cj Cw > Cʲ Cʷ / _V
* P > Kʷ / ?_{a o u}
* P > Kʷ / {o u}_#
* C > Cʲ / {e i}_#, _Cʲ
* C > Cʷ / {o u}_#, _Cʷ
* ɬj ɬ > ʃʲ ʂ
* q > χ / #_
* ɐ > ɪ / _Cʲ; ʊ / _Cʷ
* ʀ > ʁ
* ɢʲ ɢ ɢʷ > ʁʲ ʁ ʁʷ
* ɲʲ ŋʲ > nʲ
* ɳʷ > nʷ
* si > ʃi
* tj > tʃ

* N > Þ / _# '''NB:''' Only two cases found, neither from an original NT coda, details about this SC are unclear. It may or may not be connected with NT > NÞ > Þ / _#. <br/>It may also have not occured at all, but rather such a correspondance being raised via a single consonant suffix being attached to those two words('thou' and 'five') before NT > NÞ > Þ / _#.

== To [[Mhakh Thandim]] ==

* T[-voice]ʔ > Tʼ
* b > w / V_V
* tr > dr / V_V
* drV dlV > rV[+length] lV[+length]
* CC{ʔ r l w j s}V > C{ʔ r l w j s}V[+length]
* C{ʔ r l w j s}V > CV[+length]
* md sd ng rg > mr sr nl rl
* rl > ral
* ŋ > ʔ / #_VN
* D T > T Tʰ
* ? ʀ > ∅ / _VC[+uvular]
* ʀV, Vʀ > V[+breathy]
* hN > N[-voice]
* hV hCV > V[+breathy] CV[+breathy]
* ? Vh > V[+breathy]
* q > h / #_
* ? g > h / #_, ?
* q > ʔ / _#
* ɬ l > u / _#
* ɬ > s / #_
* ? V > a/ə / ?
* ek > ak / _#, ?
* ij uw ow > ii uu uu
* a o u e i > ə ɔ ʊ ɛ ɪ
* jɛ > e
* aa oo uu ee ii > a o u e i
* CCC Cj > CCəC Cɪj / ?
* Q > K
* NT > N / _#
* ? NT > N[-voice] / #_
* hV > jV[+breathy]
* ? k kʼ > ʔ / #_[+ ?]
* NT > ND / V_V
* x > χ
* pʰ tʰ kʰ > ɸ θ x / _#, #_
* p t k > pʰ tʰ kʰ / when not in CCs; however #_TV is a valid condition
* m > ∅ / #_u
* ɸ > w / V_V
* r > j / i_, rV_, _#, ?

At some point there was a reduplication process word initially that affected some of the words, which took place before changing NT clusters. The reduplicated vowel was a, which agreed in length with the main vowel.

Metathesis of onset consonants also took place, e.g. in klu /kʰlʊ/ destroy, but salcu /səlʔʊ/ destruction, ruin < *lku, *s(a)-lku

== To [[Ronc Tyu]] ==

* ? u > o / [+uvular]_
* Q > K
* V > ∅ / [-full syllable] (almost unconditional - some RT words are not monosyllabic)
* regressive voicing assimilation (e.g. sd > zd)
* D > N / _[+stop]
* C[-stop +voice]V > C[-stop +voice]V[+mid tone] / ?
* ? CwV > CwV[+high tone]
* ʔV > V[+low tone]
* C[+stop +voice] > C[+nasal] / _V[+low tone]
* C[+stop +voice]V > C[+stop -voice]V[+mid tone]
* hNV > NV[+high tone] / #_
* md > mr > nr > ndr > nɖʐ
* zt > zd > d
* sm > sb > zb > b
* tr > r / #_
* q χ ɴ > g x ŋ
* s > ʣ / #_, ? (or was it tz/dz > ʣ with initial d being lost elsewhere?)
* j > dʑ / #_V[+full syllable], ?
* ∅ > j / #_i
* Simplification of consonant clusters in the onset leads to new voiced consonants.
* hV > hV[+mid tone]
* h > ∅ / N_V
* hC[-voiced obstruent]{w y ∅}V[+mid tone] > C[-voiced obstruent]{w y ∅}V[+high tone]
* t d k g > ts dz tɕ dʑ / _{V[+front] j}
* s > r / #_V, ?
* r > ∅ / #_u, ?
* ɬ > u / _#
* ɬ > ∅ / #_j
* ɬ > l / #_, ?
* ɬ > hl / #_, ?
* ij uw aː> iə uə aə / ?
* ja wa > iə uə
* ij uw > ɛɪ ɔʊ / ?
* aj aw > ɛɪ ɔʊ / ?
* aL > a
* a > o / _{p m}
* VN(T) > V[+nasal](T) / _#
* p t k > ʔ / _#
* tj dj kj gj sj zj ŋj lj rj wj > ts dz tɕ dʑ ɕ ʑ nj j j j
* x > ɕ / _V[+front]
* x > h
* kwu > ku

Evidence from the multiplier numbers (mìc nòc < *bʔik *dʔuq < *əbʔik *ədʔuk < *pʔik *tʔuk) suggests that all instances of a nasal followed by low tone vowel could go back to clusters of a voiced stop and glottal stop.

=== Construct state development ===

Construct state fell out of RT when unstressed vowels were deleted and initial consonant clusters were simplified. This completely distorted lenition patterns, they become unproductive and soon ceased to be used. Marking possession by simple juxtapostion without any morphological change is the sole reflex of the construct state.

== To [[Rrób Tè Jĕhnò]] ==

* Tʔ > Tʼ
* Vɬ > V[+length] / _#
* tr > dr / V_V
* VN > V[+nasal +low tone] /_#
* VNT > V[+nasal +what tone?]T / _#
* ? VNT > V[+nasal +?]T / V_V
* C[+stop]N[+voice] > N[-voice]
* hN > N[-voice]
* NT > əT ~ əD / #_, ?
* ? ja aj > e / ?, eː /?
* ? wa aw > o / ?, oː /?
* ? ẽ õ → ɛ̃ ɔ̃
* Vʀ > Vː
* oɬ > oː
* wi > uː
* i u > e o / _#
* V[+nasal] > V[-nasal +length] / lengthens only in open syllables
* V[+?] > V[+low tone] / ?
* V[-low tone] > V[+high tone]
* V > V[+low tone] / N_C
* D > N / _V[+low tone]
* D T > T Tʰ
* V > ə / _[-full syllable]
* ? l N > ə / #_C, ?
* rk > rək
* q > k / _i
* ? u > o / [+uvular]_
* ? səf > sf > fʰ / _[+full syllable] (? sC > Cʰ)
* ? sʔ > sʰ
* kC[+obstruent -aspiration -ejectiveness] > Cʰ
* kN[+voice] > N[-voice]
* regressive PoA assimilation for stops
* C[+stop]C[+stop] > C[+stop]əC[+stop]
* C[+stop -aspiration]h > C[+stop +aspiration]
* kw kʰ kʼw > p pʰ pʼ
* ə > e / [+full syllable]

===Retroflection and r loss===

r stands for any liquid other than lʲ

* tʰr tr tʼr > ʈʰ ʈ ʈʼ
* tsʰr tsr tsʼr > ʈʰ ʈ ʈʼ
* tɕʰr tɕr tɕʼr > ʈʰ ʈ ʈʼ
* kʰr kr kʼr > ʈʰ ʈ ʈʼ
* qr qʼr qʰr > ʀ
* hr > r[-voice]
* sr sʰr ɕr ɕʰr xr xʰr χr χʰr > ʂ ʂʰ ʂ ʂʰ ʂ ʂʰ ʂ ʂʰ
* ɬr ɬʰr ɬʲr ɬʲʰr > ꞎ ꞎʰ ꞎ ꞎʰ (ɬ[+retroflex])
* lr ʎr > ər
* rt rtʼ rtʰ > ʈ ʈʼ ʈʰ
* rts rtsʼ rtsʰ > ʈ ʈʼ ʈʰ
* rtɕ rtɕʼ rtɕʰ > ʈ ʈʼ ʈʰ
* rk rkʼ rkʰ > ʈ ʈʼ ʈʰ
* rs rsʰ rɕ rɕʰ > ʂ ʂʰ ʂ ʂʰ
* nr rn > ɳ
* r > ∅ / {V C}_C

===Palatalisation===

* s sʰ tʰ t tʼ ɫ > ɕ ɕʰ tsʰ ts tsʼ ɬʲ / _V[+front]
* tʰ t tʼ > tsʰ ts tsʼ / #_(a?)
* ts > ʦ
* sj sʰj tʰj tj tʼj ɫj > ɕ ɕʰ tsʰ ts tsʼ ɬʲ
* k kʰ kʼ > tɕ tɕʰ tɕʼ / _V[+front]
* kj kʰj kʼj > tɕ tɕʰ tɕʼ
* klʲ kʰlʲ kʼlʲ > tɕ tɕʰ tɕʼ
* nj ŋj > ɲ
* n ŋ > ɲ / _V[+front]

===χ loss===

* χ > ɕ / _V[+front]
* χ > h / ?
* χ > f / ?

== To [[Ray Tyuwey Išup]] ==

As of now not necessarily in chronological order.

* ʔ ʀ > ∅ w
* s f x χ > h
* t n l > ty ny ly / _i
* kj gj > c dz
* k g ŋ > č dž ň
* q ɢ ɴ > k g ŋ
* pm tn čň kn > p t č k / #_
* Vn > V[+nasal]
* m n > w r / ?
* č > š
* t > s / ?
* dz dž b d g > c č m n ŋ
* V[+nasal] > V[-nasal][+other quality]
* CC > CiC / some clusters only

== To [[Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa]] ==

* sn sm > st sp
* m > v / _VN
*m > ∅ / #_u
* D > T
* Tʔ > D
* Q > K
* i > ɨ / K_
* i > ɨ / ?
* tr > tw
* s > ʃ
* ɬ > s / #_
* ɬ > l / _#
* VN > V[+length]
* p’ t’ k’ b d > b d g v r / V_V
* n > r / ? #_V
* ?i ?ɨ ?e > ı u a
* ?iː ?ɨː ?ɛː > ɛː aː ːɨ

= Important correspondances =

== Numerals comparison ==

{| {{softtable|c}}
! || RTJ || RT || MT || ARN || pre ARN || RRK || ƏT || RTI || PR
|-
!1
| p’íg || pìc || p’ikh || pʲik || *pjik² || bik || bek || piš || *pʔik
|-
!2
| kú || káe || hí || x̠i || *qi || kıı || kuś || čey || *qis
|-
!3
| t’úgh || tòc || t’uc || tʷ'uq || *tʔuq || duk || dok || truk || *tʔuq
|-
!4
| pé || pyáo || phau || ʃʷaʃ || *xwaʃ³ || pal || pel || pal || *pjaɬ, *paɬ
|-
!5
| fàì || fyein || fang || ʃʷax̠ || *fjax̠ || huu || fən || huu || *fjaŋ, *faŋ
|-
!6
| dlyă || yé || sa || ŋʷoʃkʲe || *ʃe || sa || ɬa || sa || *ɬja, *ɬa
|-
!12
| dlád || lác || sath || ʂat || || sat || ɬat || šat || *ɬat
|-
!18
| khó || kóu || hú || (24: x̠oʃ) || || kol || qul || kol || *quɬ
|-
!24
| crà || tróun || thám || (36:sram) || || twaa || trən || tree || *tram
|}

¹ In RTJ none of qʰ q qʼ appears before /i/.<br/>
² The singulative infix -j- was inserted, which deleted the glottal stop.<br/>
³ The plurative infix -w- was likely inserted, which caused the dissimilation pw > xw to occur, which was subsequently assimilated to ʃw, due to the influence of coda ʃ. This onset ʃʷ later replaced the original onset in the word for 5.

4, 5 and 6 all seem to have had variants with and without the singulative infix.

== Pronouns comparison ==

== Onset correspondances ==

The following correspondances are only for single consonants or the specified clusters word initially; word-medial consonants and different word-initial clusters often have different reflexes.

{|class="wikitable sortable"
! scope="col" | PR, *
! scope="col" | RT
! scope="col" | RTJ
! scope="col" | MT
! scope="col" | RTI
! scope="col" | RRK
|-
|p t k q||p t k/tś¹ k ˥||p t/c¹ k/tr/q¹ kh||ph th kh k/c/h²||p t/tr/ty¹ č k||p t k k
|-
|pʔ tʔ kʔ qʔ||p t k/tś¹ k ˩||pʼ tʼ/cʼ/crʼ¹ kʼ/trʼ/qʼ¹ khʼ/qʼ¹||pʼ tʼ kʼ/c/h² kʼ/c²||p t/tr/ty¹ č/c/š¹² k||b d kʼ/g² g
|-
|b d g ɢ||p t k/tś¹ k ˧||b d/z¹ g/j¹ gh||p t k/c/h² h||p t/tr/ty¹ č/c¹ k||pʼ/b² tʼ kʼ/g/s² kʼ
|-
|bʔ dʔ gʔ||m n ŋ ˩||b d/z¹ g/j¹||b d g/c²||m n/ň¹ ň||m n ŋ
|-
|pm tn kŋ||m/mb² n ng/ngg² ˥||hm hn/hny¹ hng/hny¹||mh nh ngh||p t/tr/ty¹ č/c¹||p t k/ng²
|-
|m n ŋ||m n ŋ ˧||m n/ny¹ ng||m n ng||w r ň/y²||v r ŋ/y²
|-
|ʔm||m ˩||hm||b||(m)||m
|-
|f fł||f fw ˧||f ł||f fV:||h h/w?²||h/pʼ² s
|-
|h||h ˧||h||h||h||h
|-
|j||y ˧||y||y||y||y/∅²
|-
|l||l ˧||l/ly¹||l||l/ly¹||l
|-
|ł||l ˥||dl/dly/dlr¹||s/l²||š||s
|-
|r||r ˧||r||r||r||r
|-
|ʀ||x ˧||gr||y/w/[+breathiness]²||w||g/∅²
|-
|s||s/ś¹ ˧||s/x¹||s||h||š
|-
|w||w ˧||w||w||w||w/v/∅²
|-
|x||h/y?² ˧||v||x||h||?
|-
|χ||fw?/ś/h² ˧||f/x²||x||h||h
|}

¹ Conditioning due to palatalisation and/or retroflexion.

² Unknown conditioning.

== Intervocalic correspondances ==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
! scope="col" | MT
! scope="col" | RT
! scope="col" | RTJ
! scope="col" | PR
|-
| r || || ʈʂ
|-
| r || || ʈ
|-
| mb || || m || bʔ
|-
| nd || ∅ || n || dʔ
|-
| jV[+breathy] || h || h
|-
|l || g || tɕʰ
|-
|r || || ʈʂ
|-
|}

== Nucleus correspondances ==

Assuming no coda.

{|class="wikitable sortable"
! scope="col" | PR, *
! scope="col" | MT
! scope="col" | RT
! scope="col" | RTJ
! scope="col" | RTI
! scope="col" | RRK
! scope="col" | ARN
! scope="col" | ƏD
|-
| a o u e i
|-
| aj oj uj ej ij
|-
| aw ow uw ew iw
|-
|}

== Coda correspondances ==

{|class="wikitable sortable"
! scope="col" | MT
! scope="col" | RT
! scope="col" | RTJ
! scope="col" | RTI
! scope="col" | PR
|-
|m n ŋ ŋ || ~ || ∅ || ∅ || m n ŋ ɴ
|-
|m n ŋ ŋ || ~ʔ || p t k q || m n ɲ ɲ || mb nd ŋg ɴɢ
|-
|ɸ θ x ʔ || ʔ || p t k q || p t~s ʃ k || p t k q
|-
|}

= Lexicon =

The partially reconstructed lexicon is available here: [[RED|Ronquian Etymological Dictionary]]

= Internal reconstruction =

In all likelihood the liquid series comes from voiced fricative series:

w r l j ʀ < β z ɮ ɣ ʁ

Firstly, this makes the reconstruction of two stop series - voiceless and voiced - all the more more likely. And secondly, it raises the question was there ɦ, and if it was present, what are its reflexes? Some or all of w, r, l, j could already have been present before this shift, however.

[[Category:Ronquian languages|*]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Ronquian]]

AkanaWiki:Abbreviations and acronyms

2024-10-12T21:19:04Z

Corumayas:

The table below shows customarily used abbreviations and acronyms used in Akana for languages, families, and other purposes. Abbreviations in {{gray|gray}} are deprecated, although they may still appear in older articles.

For most of the languages listed here, there is a wiki template available which marks text as being text in that language, with the abbreviation linking to the article about the language. For instance, <tt><nowiki>{{Ad|text}}</nowiki></tt> returns {{Ad|text}}, with a link to the Adāta page. If you want the native text to be bolded instead of italicized, simply write <tt><nowiki>{{Ad|'text'}}</nowiki></tt> with single quotes around <tt>text</tt>: {{Ad|'text'}}.

A few languages with short names do not have a common abbreviation, but are nevertheless listed here because there is a wiki template for them.

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg sortable l}}
|-
! Abbreviation
! Full name
! Template
|-
| Ad. || [[Adāta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ad|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ad|text}}
|-
| Adh. || [[Adhāsth|Adhāsth (Old Ayāsthi)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Adh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Adh|text}}
|-
| Æð. || [[Æðadĕ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Aedh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Aedh|text}}
|-
| Aff. || [[Affanonic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Aff|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Aff|text}}
|-
| AhH || [[Ājat he-Heloun]] || <tt><nowiki>{{AhH|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{AhH|text}}
|-
| ARN || [[A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{ARN|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{ARN|text}}
|-
| AT || [[Arósen tayīgan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{AT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{AT|text}}
|-
| Aθ. || [[Aθáta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ath|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ath|text}}
|-
| Ay. || [[Ayāsthi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ay|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ay|text}}
|-
| Ayč. || [[Ayčasamo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ayč|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ayč|text}}
|-
| Ayl. || [[Kuyʔūn#Aylatu dialect|Aylatu Kuyʔūn]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ayl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ayl|text}}
|-
| B.H. || [[Habeo languages#Blue Habeo|Blue Habeo]] ||
|-
| B.Nz. {{gray|(Bur.)}} || [[Buruya Nzaysa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{BNz|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{BNz|text}}
|-
| Ced. || [[Cednìtıt]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ced|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ced|text}}
|-
| Çet. {{gray|(Ç.)}} || [[Çetázó]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Cet|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Cet|text}}
|-
| Cex. || [[Kuyʔūn#Cexotúri dialect|Cexotúri Koyhǫ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Cex|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Cex|text}}
|-
| Cəs. || [[Cəssın]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Cəs|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Cəs|text}}
|-
| Der. || [[Deraighaw]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Der|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Der|text}}
|-
| Dim. {{gray|(Lok.)}} || [[Dimana Lokud]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Dim|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Dim|text}}
|-
| D.L. {{gray|(Do.L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Doanu dialect|Doanu Lukpanic (U Adonupu)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{DoL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{DoL|text}}
|-
| Doa. || [[Doayâu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Doa|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Doa|text}}
|-
| Dor. || [[Doroh]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Dor|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Dor|text}}
|-
| Dum. {{gray|(T2)}} || [[Proto-Dumic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Dum|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Dum|text}}
|-
| EI || the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus]] language family ||
|-
| EaIsth. {{gray|(PEaI, EaI)}} || [[Proto-Isthmus#Eastern_Isthmus|Eastern Isthmus]] ||
|-
| EMiw. || [[Miwan languages|Eastern Miwan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{EMiw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{EMiw|text}}
|-
| Emp. || [[Empotle7á]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Emp|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Emp|text}}
|-
| ENY || [[Early North Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{ENY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{ENY|text}}
|-
| EV || the [[Eigə Valley languages|Eigə Valley]] language family ||
|-
| EY || [[East Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{EY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{EY|text}}
|-
| ƏD {{gray|(Duəm.)}} || [[Əktoś Duəmeuk]] || <tt><nowiki>{{ƏD|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{ƏD|text}}
|-
| F. {{gray|(Fá.)}} || [[Fáralo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Fá|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Fá|text}}
|-
| Far. || [[Faraghin]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Far|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Far|text}}
|-
| Fer. || [[Feråjin]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Fer|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Fer|text}}
|-
| FnA || [[Farwo n-Abebbu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{FnA|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{FnA|text}}
|-
| FnM || [[Fallo na Mendia]] || <tt><nowiki>{{FnM|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{FnM|text}}
|-
| FMiw. || [[Miwan languages|Forest Miwan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{FMiw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{FMiw|text}}
|-
| Gaa. || [[Gaadràmarneš]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Gaa|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Gaa|text}}
|-
| Gez. || [[Gezoro]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Gez|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Gez|text}}
|-
| Ham. || [[Hamoluan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ham|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ham|text}}
|-
| Hk. || [[Hkətl’ohnim]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Hk|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Hk|text}}
|-
| Ìl. || [[Ìletlégbàku]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ile|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ile|text}}
|-
| Iŋ. {{gray|(I.)}} || [[Iŋomœ́|Iŋom{{IPA|œ́}}]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ing|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ing|text}}
|-
| Ish. || [[Ishoʻu ʻOhu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ish|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ish|text}}
|-
| I.L. {{gray|(Isi L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Isi dialect|Isi Lukpanic (U Ishe)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{IL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{IL|text}}
|-
| JS {{gray|(J.)}} || [[Jouki Stəy]] || <tt><nowiki>{{JS|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{JS|text}}
|-
| Kat. {{gray|(Kt.)}} || [[Kataputi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kat|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kat|text}}
|-
| Kib. || [[Kibülʌiṅ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kib|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kib|text}}
|-
| Kom. || [[Komejech]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kom|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kom|text}}
|-
| Kop. || [[Kopoıves]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kop|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kop|text}}
|-
| Koz. || [[Kozado]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Koz|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Koz|text}}
|-
| Kp.L. {{gray|(K.L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Kpitamoa dialect|Kpitamoa Lukpanic (Fu Pitão)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{KpL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{KpL|text}}
|-
| Kt. || [[Ktacwa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kt|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kt|text}}
|-
| Ɫɑcc. || [[Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Lacc|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Lacc|text}}
|-
| Lot. || [[Lotoka]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Lot|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Lot|text}}
|-
| Máo. || [[Máotatšàlì]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Mao|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Mao|text}}
|-
| Mav. {{gray|(Mk.)}} || [[Mavakhalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Mav|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Mav|text}}
|-
| Me. || [[Meshi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Me|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Me|text}}
|-
| Mer. || [[Merneha]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Mer|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Mer|text}}
|-
| Meš. {{gray|(Meš.K., M.K.)}} || [[Kuyʔūn|Mešmo Koyʔōn]] || <tt><nowiki>{{MešK|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{MešK|text}}
|-
| Miw. || the [[Miwan languages|Miwan]] language family || <tt><nowiki>{{Miw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Miw|text}}
|-
| MT || [[Mhakh Thandim]] || <tt><nowiki>{{MT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{MT|text}}
|-
| Mûts. || [[Mûtsipsa']] || <tt><nowiki>{{Muts|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Muts|text}}
|-
| MW || [[Mountain Western]] || <tt><nowiki>{{MW|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{MW|text}}
|-
| N.A. {{gray|(NA)}} || [[Ndok Aisô]] || <tt><nowiki>{{NAis|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{NAis|text}}
|-
| Ng. {{gray|(Ŋ.)}} || [[Ngauro]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ng|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ng|text}}
|-
| N.L. {{gray|(Na.L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Naəgbum dialect|Naəgbum Lukpanic (Ru Negwẽ)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{NL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{NL|text}}
|-
| Nam. || [[Namɨdu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Nam|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Nam|text}}
|-
| Nåm. || [[Nåmúþ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Nåm|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Nåm|text}}
|-
| Nax. || [[Naxuutayi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Nax|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Nax|text}}
|-
| Ndd. || [[Naidda]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ndd|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ndd|text}}
|-
| NT || [[Ndak Ta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{NT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{NT|text}}
|-
| Num. || [[Numəsūr]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Num|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Num|text}}
|-
| Óh. || [[Óhylvídós]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Oh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Oh|text}}
|-
| Om. || [[Omari]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Om|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Om|text}}
|-
| OY || [[Old Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{OY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{OY|text}}
|-
| PAnat. {{gray|(PA)}} || [[Proto-Anatolionesian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PAnat|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PAnat|text}}
|-
| PCW || [[Proto-Coastal-Western]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PCW|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PCW|text}}
|-
| PEI || [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PEI|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PEI|text}}
|-
| Pen. || [[Pencek]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Pen|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Pen|text}}
|-
| PEV || [[User:Corumayas/Proto-Eigə_Valley|Proto-Eigə Valley]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PEV|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PEV|text}}
|-
| PHab. || [[Habeo languages|Proto-Habeo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PHab|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PHab|text}}
|-
| PHt. || [[Proto-Hitatc]] ||
|-
| PIsth. {{gray|(PI)}} || [[Proto-Isthmus]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PIsth|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PIsth|text}}
|-
| PIsl. {{gray|(PIl., PIs.)}} || [[Proto-Isles]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PIsl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PIsl|text}}
|-
| PL || [[Proto-Lukpanic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PL|text}}
|-
| PLe. {{gray|(PL)}} || [[Proto-Leic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PLe|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PLe|text}}
|-
| Pl.H. || [[Habeo languages#Plains Habeo|Plains Habeo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PlH|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PlH|text}}
|-
| PMA {{gray|(PMAnat.)}} || [[Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PMA|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PMA|text}}
|-
| PMb. || [[Proto-Mbingmik]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PMb|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PMb|text}}
|-
| PNE || [[Proto-Northeastern]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PNE|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PNE|text}}
|-
| P-N-T {{gray|(PNT)}} || [[Proto-Núalís-Takuña]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PNT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PNT|text}}
|-
| Pot. {{gray|(P.)}} || [[Potɑnsʉti]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Pot|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Pot|text}}
|-
| Ppã. || [[Ppãrwak]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ppa|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ppa|text}}
|-
| PPI || [[Proto-Peninsular]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PPI|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PPI|text}}
|-
| PR || [[Proto-Ronquian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PR|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PR|text}}
|-
| PTE || [[Proto-Talo-Edastean]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PTE|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PTE|text}}
|-
| PTul. || [[Proto-Tulameya]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PTul|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PTul|text}}
|-
| Pu. || [[Puoni]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Pu|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Pu|text}}
|-
| PW || [[Proto-Western]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PW|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PW|text}}
|-
| PX || [[Proto-Xoronic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PX|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PX|text}}
|-
| R.H. || [[Habeo languages#River Habeo|River Habeo]] ||
|-
| RRK || [[Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{RRK|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{RRK|text}}
|-
| RT || [[Ronc Tyu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{RT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{RT|text}}
|-
| RTJ || [[Rrób Tè Jĕhnò]] || <tt><nowiki>{{RTJ|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{RTJ|text}}
|-
| Saw. || [[Aθáta/Sawîyaran|Arâta Sawîyaran]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Saw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Saw|text}}
|-
| Sat. || [[Satnímʔa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Sat|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Sat|text}}
|-
| Šet. || [[Šetâmol]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Šet|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Šet|text}}
|-
| Sht. || [[Shtåså]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Sht|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Sht|text}}
|-
| S.L. || [[Lukpanic languages/Siŋmeasita dialect|Siŋmeasita Lukpanic (Hu Shĩmyashta)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{SL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{SL|text}}
|-
| SÞ|| [[Sanap Þoi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{SÞ|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{SÞ|text}}
|-
| Sw. {{gray|(Kam., Kz.)}} || [[Swopsoch]] {{gray|(a.k.a. ''Kamaistzoch'')}} || <tt><nowiki>{{Sw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Sw|text}}
|-
| T1 || [[User:Thedukeofnuke/Proto-T1|''Proto-T1'']] || <tt><nowiki>{{T1|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{T1|text}}
|-
| Tak. || [[Takuña]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tak|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tak|text}}
|-
| Tari || [[Tari]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tari|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tari|text}}
|-
| Thok. || [[Thokyunèhòta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Thok|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Thok|text}}
|-
| Tl. || [[Tlaliolz]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tl|text}}
|-
| Tm. || [[Tmaśareʔ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tm|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tm|text}}
|-
| Trin. {{gray|(Tr.)}} || [[Trinesian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Trin|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Trin|text}}
|-
| Tsem. || [[Tsemehkiooni]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tsem|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tsem|text}}
|-
| Ttl. {{gray|(Tl.)}} || [[Tetlo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ttl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ttl|text}}
|-
| Tty. {{gray|(Ty.)}} || [[Tetey]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tty|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tty|text}}
|-
| Tum. || [[Tumetıęk]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tum|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tum|text}}
|-
| UB || [[U Bol]] || <tt><nowiki>{{UB|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{UB|text}}
|-
| V.Ad. || [[Vulgar Adāta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{VAd|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{VAd|text}}
|-
| Vij. || [[Vijiš]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Vij|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Vij|text}}
|-
| Vyl. || [[User:Zhen Lin/Vylessa|Vylessa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Vyl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Vyl|text}}
|-
| Wen. || [[Wendoth]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wen|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wen|text}}
|-
| WF || [[Woltu Falla]] || <tt><nowiki>{{WF|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{WF|text}}
|-
| Wih. || [[Wihəs]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wih|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wih|text}}
|-
| Wipp. || [[Wippwo|Neire Wippwo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wipp|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wipp|text}}
|-
| WIsth. {{gray|(PWI, WI)}} || [[Proto-Isthmus#Western_Isthmus|Western Isthmus]] ||
|-
| Wok. {{gray|(W.)}} || [[Wokatasuto]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wok|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wok|text}}
|-
| WY || [[West Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{WY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{WY|text}}
|-
| Xš. || [[Xšali]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Xsh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Xsh|text}}
|-
| Yād || [[Yād]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Yad|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Yad|text}}
|-
| Y.H. || [[Habeo languages#Yellow Habeo|Yellow Habeo]] ||
|-
| YP || [[Year of the Prophet]] <br>(the external standard calendar for Akana) || --
|-
| ʔuul. || [[ʔuuleomoh]] || <tt><nowiki>{{7uul|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{7uul|text}}
|-
|}

[[Category:Meta]]
[[Category:Language abbreviations|*]]

Tumetıęk

2024-10-12T21:11:59Z

Corumayas:

{{Article}}
{{Language
| language = Tumetıęk <br> kıeta kı·Tumetıęk
| phonetic = {{IPA|[ˈcʰɛ.tɑ cʰɪ.tʊ.mɛˈtĩ̯ɛ̃k]}}
| date = c. 0 YP
| place = northern Wohata plain
| speakers = 150,000 ~ 200,000
| script = unknown
| family = [[T1 languages]]<br />  '''Tumetıęk'''
| word-or = SVO
| mor-type = agglutinative/fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Clıck|Click]], with help from [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}

'''Tumetıęk''' was a language spoken in the northern reaches of Wohata plain in eastern [[Tuysáfa]] around 0 YP. It is part of the [[T1 languages|T1 language family]], and thus related to [[Asséta]], [[Cednìtıt]], [[Early North Yalan|Early North]], [[East Yalan|East]] and [[West Yalan]], [[Hkətl’ohnim]], [[Omari]], and [[Tari]].

Its speakers called their language ''Tumetıęk'', an abbreviated form of ''kıeta kı·Tumetıęk'' – “the language of the Newcomers.”

As corroborated by archeologists, the name of the language opens a window into the region’s early history: the demonym ''Tumetıę'' “the Newcomers” dates to the time when Tumetıęk speakers were settling the northern Wohata plain. There, they encountered the Omari, who called them ''tomeč'', their word for “new”. This exonym quickly took on among the new people who borrowed it as ''tumet''. As it now referred to a people, it got turned into a noun, completing the process of lexical adaptation.

A short reference grammar and a lexicon have been published on Tumetıęk.

* [http://akana.conlang.org/w/images/1/1d/Tumet%C4%B1%C4%99k.pdf '''Tumetıęk grammar'''] (PDF, 3982 KB)

* '''[[Tumetıęk/Lexicon|Tumetıęk lexicon]]'''

[[Category:T1 languages]]

AkanaWiki:External history

2024-10-12T17:02:19Z

Corumayas:

The world of [[Akana]] is a collaborative conlanging and conworlding effort, with a focus on family diachronics and a shared historical basis for these linguistic developments. The world grew out of two different games on the Zompist Bulletin Board: a linguistic reconstruction game in 2005 for which Akana was originally created, and a diachronic derivation relay in 2006, which gradually metamorphosed into the conworld of today and its flagship language family, the [[Edastean languages]].

== Historical telephone (2005) ==

In 2005 [[User:Legion|Legion]] had an idea that met with enthusiastic response: he challenged the members of the ZBB to create a proto-language and a set of daughter languages, and then have people try to reconstruct the proto-language from the daughters only. Due to a vague similarity with the ever-popular ''Polyglottal Telephone'' games on the ZBB, this game was called ''Historical Polyglottal Telephone''. There were two teams, each with a secret protolanguage; [[Proto-Isles]] was created by [[User:Ran|Ran]] for the first team, and [[Ndak Ta]] was created for the second by [[User:Radius|Radius Solis]].

Work on the daughter languages was supplemented with some basic conworlding to provide a historical setting. Much of the basis for Akana grew out of Team Two's creation of the [[Aiwa valley]], including both a local and a world map and brief descriptions of other peoples in the region. The original maps were drawn by Radius following the setting description originally proposed by [[User:zompist|Zompist]], who later revised the world map to allow the [[Eastern Isles]] setting of Team One to be on the same planet.

After the game was over, work on Akana slowed and then stopped. A summary of the state of the world at this time can be found in the [http://www.almeopedia.com/Ke%C4%8D%C7%BDn%C9%99 Kečǽnə articles] on Almeopedia. The linguistic reconstruction of the two proto-languages did not get all too far; only Zompist [http://www.zompist.com/proto-ran.html published his results], and he did so only several years later, when Akana had long become a more comprehensive collaborative conworlding project.

== The Cursed Relay (2006-2007) ==

In 2006, Radius suggested another game for the ZBB: starting with one protolanguage, to develop several long chains of daughter languages, to explore linguistic change over great time depths. While there was no original intention to connect this "derivation relay" to the world of Akana, a protolanguage was needed as a base to start from, and Dewrad offered his [[Adāta]] language from the Historical Telephone game. The structure of the relay began with each participant having ten days to complete at least a certain minimal level of description of their daughter language so that the next person in the chain could begin deriving a subsequent daugther from it.

Three teams were formed. In the first generation, three direct daughters of Adāta - [[Æðadĕ]], [[Aθáta]], and [[Ayāsthi]] - were derived by [[User:ebilein|ebilein]], [[User:RHaden|RHaden]], and [[User:Zhen Lin|Zhen Lin]] respectively. [[User:gsandi|gsandi]], [[User:Rory|Rory]], and [[User:Legion|Legion]] provided the second generation, and the chains of descent continued for several months. Unfortunately, during this period a number of participants were forced to drop out for various personal reasons, some of them after losing their work in computer crashes. This gave rise to the game's nickname, "The Cursed Relay". The relay continued for months, gradually slowing as each link in the chains tended to take longer than previous ones had. Eventually work on these branches petered out, leaving only a few of the game's core participants still involved. By this time the three branches had reached their sixth, fourth, and fifth generations.

The languages created during the Cursed Relay were:

* [[Adāta]]  (Dewrad)
** [[Æðadĕ]] [http://wiki.frath.net/%C3%86%C3%B0ad%C4%95] (ebilein)
*** [[Yād]]  (gsandi) [http://web.archive.org/web/20081004173914/http://www.tundria.com/Zompist/Yad-1.shtml ''{backup link}'']
**** [[Zhaj]]  (con quesa) [http://akana.conlang.org/files/zhaj.htm ''{backup link}'']
***** [[Aríe]]  (TzirTzi) [http://akana.conlang.org/files/arie_.htm ''{backup link}'']
****** [[Arie]] (Nuntar)
******* [[ʔAghïyï]]  (kodé) [http://akana.conlang.org/files/aghiyi-IPA.html ''{backup link}'']
**** [[Yēt]]  [http://akana.conlang.org/files/yet.pdf] (TzirTzi)
** [[Aθáta]] [http://wiki.frath.net/A%CE%B8%C3%A1ta] (RHaden)
*** [[E'át]]  (Rory) [http://akana.conlang.org/files/e'at.html ''{backup link}'']
**** [[Yhát]] [http://www.stokesinternet.com/lang/yhat.html] (Starsinger)
***** [[Öhat]] (Whimemsz) [http://akana.conlang.org/files/oehat.htm ''{backup link}'']
***** [[Erhadzy]] [http://zhenlin.nfshost.com/akana/erhadzy] (Zhen Lin)
****** [http://conlang.awardspace.com/orrotx/orrotx.htm Orrótx] (Cedh) ''{never finished}''
** [http://zhenlin.nfshost.com/akana/ayasth/ayasth.html Ayāsth] (Zhen Lin) ''{later revised as [[Ayāsthi]]}''
*** [[A'gɑf]] [http://thelegion.free.fr/agaf/introduction.htm] (Legion)
**** [[Yïåf]]  (jmcd) [http://akana.conlang.org/files/yiaf.txt ''{backup link}'']
***** [[Ghaf]]  (Corumayas) [http://akana.conlang.org/files/ghaf2.html ''{backup link}'']
****** Xa' (Ink Pudding) ''{description lost}''
** [[Mavakhalan]] [http://zhenlin.nfshost.com/akana/mavakhalan] (Zhen Lin)
*** [[Ājat he-Heloun]] [http://000024.org/conlang/AhH/05-11.html] (4pq1injbok)
** [[Kozado]] [http://thelegion.free.fr/kozado.htm] (Legion)
** [[Pencek]] (Radius Solis)

== Revival (2007-2009) ==

The modern game is far less structured than its two predecessors; as the Cursed Relay's original setup and progression slowly ground to a halt, those still interested in the world began creating other languages, broadening the [[Edastean languages|Edastean language family]] for fun. In mid 2007 Radius suggested that this new "contribute how and when you like" paradigm be made official. This led to a substantial fleshing out of the conworld's history and, in turn, to the return of several prior Akana contributors from both games to the active conworlding/conlanging scene.

In late 2007 the level of activity reached a new high, with new maps, new historical descriptions, and new conlang proposals, among other things, appearing sometimes almost daily, with fast-paced discussion in between. Since then, work has slowed, and sometimes nearly halted for substantial lengths of time - but each time, progress has resumed. The central Edak sphere has reached an impressive level of description, and a body of work in other cultural spheres and language families is growing.

In June 2008, the team launched the [[Main Page|AkanaWiki]] as an official project website, where articles on all kinds of topics relating to Akana are being published. In August 2009, the [http://akana.conlang.org/forum/ AkanaForum] was opened as a place for detailed discussion about Akana.

== The Second Derivation Relay (2009-2010) ==

In October 2009, a second Derivation Relay was started - modelled on the Cursed Relay that produced the Edastean language family, but with a few conceptual differences. Most importantly, this game aimed for broader, more realistic language family trees, so each protolanguage was to have several descendants per generation. In order to flesh out regions that needed more attention, two protolanguages were chosen: [[User:Dewrad|Dewrad]]'s [[Proto-Western]] and [[User:Zhen Lin|Zhen Lin]]'s [[Proto-Peninsular]]. The relay progressed quite slowly and did not manage to attract as many new long-term participants as the team had hoped, but it resulted in the creation of several highly interesting languages.

The languages created during the Second Derivation Relay were:

'''Western family'''
* [[Proto-Western]] (Dewrad)
** [[Proto-Coastal-Western]] (Legion, TzirTzi)
*** [[Ìletlégbàku]] (Alces)
*** [[Ishoʻu ʻOhu]] (thedukeofnuke)
*** [[Doayâu]] (Cedh)
** [[Iŋomœ́|Iŋom{{IPA|œ́}}]] (eodrakken)
*** [[Satnímʔa]] (Kohorik)
*** [[Hāňheliubľ]] (Nortaneous)
** [[Çetázó]] (WeepingElf)
*** [[Óhylvídós]] (Ingolemo)
*** [[Šetâmol]] (Curlyjimsam)
*** [[Shtåså]] (Arzena)
*** [[Hośər]] (caedes)
** [[Empotle7á]] (Arzena)
** [[Tmaśareʔ]] (Cedh)

'''Peninsular family'''
* [[Proto-Peninsular]] (Zhen Lin)
** [[Gaadràmarneš]] (Vortex)
** [[Kibülʌiṅ]] (4pq1injbok)
** [[Merneha]] (Nebula Wind Phone)

== LCC4 Presentation (2011) ==

In May 2011, [[User:Cedh|Cedh]] and [[User:Tzirtzi|TzirTzi]] held a talk about the Akana project at [http://conference.conlang.org/lcc4 LCC4] in Groningen, NL. The slides of this presentation can be viewed [http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByfFAGMBy-9XNDNiMzBjM2ItNGRjZi00YzcwLWI0OTAtMjFlM2VmYTMwOGY0&hl=en&authkey=CI3JoogB here]. ''{broken link → [http://conlang.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/jstblcc4.pdf backup]}''

Two posters were also made for this event:
* [http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByfFAGMBy-9XMTgwN2EyMTMtY2IxZC00ZjIyLWIyYWUtNzU0YjlhYmMwZmZh&hl=en&authkey=CI6q6doD The World Of Akana]
* [http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByfFAGMBy-9XNDJjMGJlNDMtN2IzYS00OTNmLTllNWQtMDY0OGRkYjA2MWU0&hl=en&authkey=CKWyvtAP The Edastean Languages]

== The Second Reconstruction Relay (2011-2013) ==

A new linguistic reconstruction relay was started in November 2011, modelled on the original Historical Telephone game. Again, two teams were created, each of them producing a small language family from a secret protolanguage, which were to be reconstructed by the other team once all the relevant daughter languages had been published. An overview of the game, which was set on the continent of [[Tuysáfa]] this time, can be found at the [http://akana.conlang.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=11 AkanaForum].

Although the two teams got out of sync with each other (with Team 1 publishing most of their daughter languages about a year later than Team 2), the game produced some very interesting results. [[Proto-Dumic]] was reconstructed quite successfully by Team 1, with most of the work being done by [[User:Pole, the|Pole, the]]. The reconstruction of [[User:Thedukeofnuke:Proto-T1|Proto-T1]] proved more difficult for a variety of reasons, and is currently on indefinite hiatus as of September 2017.

The following languages were created during the Second Reconstruction Relay:

'''T1 family'''
* [[Proto-T1]] (group effort, coordinated by Cedh)
** [[Cednìtıt]] (Treskro)
** [[Old Yalan]] (Pole, the)
*** [[West Yalan]] (Pole, the)
*** [[East Yalan]] (Pole, the)
*** [[Early North Yalan]] (Pole, the)
** [[Hkətl’ohnim]] (Cedh)
** [[Omari]] (Cedh)
** [[Tumetıęk]] (Clıck)
** [[Tari]] (Pole, the)
** [[Asséta]] (Caleone)

'''T2 (Dumic) family'''
* [[Proto-Dumic]] (WeepingElf) {{context|(reconstructed by Pole, the & others)}}
** [[Wokatasuto]] (caedes)
** [[Tetey]] (Basilius)
** [[Tetlo]] (Basilius)
** [[Potɑnsʉti]] (brandrinn)
** [[Kataputi]] (thedukeofnuke)
** [[Trinesian]] (WeepingElf)
** [[Jouki Stəy]] (Dunomapuka)
** [[Swopsoch]] (Serafín)

== The Third Reconstruction Relay (2014) ==

In December 2013, yet another Reconstruction game was launched on the ZBB by dhok and Serafín. It was originally an independent game, but a few weeks later the participants decided to use Akana as the setting for the resulting language families, once more focusing on the continent of Tuysáfa. The game progressed quickly, so that both protolanguages were declared finished within two months. As of the summer of 2014, several daughterlanguages have appeared, and reconstruction efforts have already started. Latest news can be found at the dedicated [http://conrelay2014.prophpbb.com game forum].

The following languages were created during the Third Reconstruction Relay:

'''Ronquian family'''
* [[Proto-Ronquian]] (vec & Cedh) {{context|(currently being reconstructed by Zju, KathAveara & Pole, the)}}
** [[Rrób Tè Jĕhnò]] (CatDoom)
** [[Mhakh Thandim]] (CatDoom)
** [[Ronc Tyu]] (Cedh)
** [[Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa]] (Cedh)
** [[Əktoś Duəmeuk]] (vec)
** [[A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa]] (kanejam)

'''Leic family'''
* [[Proto-Leic]]
** [[Vijiš]] (Zju)
** [[Wihəs]] (Pole, the)
** [[Arósen tayīgan]] (Pole, the)
** [[Kopoıves]] (Pole, the)
** [[Sanap Þoi]] (KathAveara)
** [[Hamoluan]] (Pole, the)
** [[Deraighaw]] (Pole, the)
** [[Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk]] (Zju)

== Contributors to Akana, past and present ==
{{AkanaWiki:Contributors}}

New participants are welcome to join; see the [[AkanaWiki:About|Akana Project FAQ]] for more information.

[[Category:Meta]]

MediaWiki:Filedelete-reason-dropdown

2024-10-12T16:19:54Z

Corumayas: Created page with "*Common delete reasons ** Copyright violation ** Duplicated file ** Deprecated"

*Common delete reasons
** Copyright violation
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Corumayas: Created page with "* Common delete reasons ** Spam ** Vandalism ** Copyright violation ** Author request ** Broken redirect ** Deprecated"

* Common delete reasons
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User:Pole, the/T2

2024-10-10T18:48:33Z

Corumayas: Reverted edits by TheAdder (talk) to last revision by Cedh

#REDIRECT [[Proto-Dumic]]

Lewsfárah

2024-09-30T14:45:07Z

Corumayas:

Lewsfárah was a country.

{{stub}}

Culture of Kasca

2024-09-30T14:15:59Z

Corumayas: Reverted edits by TheAdder (talk) to last revision by Thedukeofnuke

{{Article}}

The culture of Classical-period [[Kasca|Kascans]] is somewhat dysfunctional. Their traditions of close families and colorful celebrations, and their reputations for quick wit and resilient survival are balanced by their outlook of cynicism, apathetic inertia, and slowness to accept change, with the result that most Kascans live in poverty.

Nevertheless, Kasca is home to a fairly diverse range of cultural practices, because it is a land in transition. Politically, independent city-states struggle to remain viable next door to the imperial backwater that Kasca's own heartland has become. Economically, buy-and-sell market practices rub shoulders with the traditional tithe-based command economy. Ethnically, native Ëda intermix with [[Fáralo]] traders and [[Miw]] immigrants. In religion, [[Etúgə]] gains ground even while traditional polytheism prospers.

= Discussions =

== Timekeeping ==
''coming soon''

== Personal Names ==

''This section is specific to the Delta dialect of Naidda, although the Southern dialect is similar.''

Personal names are granted by mothers on the child's Naming Day (native: ''seza pabosa''), which is generally the day of the full moon nearest to the first anniversary of the child's birth, if the child is healthy. Sickly children may not be given their names until they become stronger, but rarely later than the third year of life. Thereafter, a Kascan's age is counted from their ''seza pabosa'', not their date of birth. A child who has not yet been named is always called a ''nåvåm'', "little one" - this is treated as a common noun, not a proper name.

Names are virtually always single, unanalyzable words: a name has no other meaning than to name a person. Etymologically, they are mostly derived from sources like placenames; names of long-dead lords and rulers; virtues, or animals or geographic features thought to embody them; and names borrowed from other languages, principally Fáralo. That much is true for both sexes, but there remains a great difference between how men and women are named, and between how they are addressed on a daily basis.

''' Names for Women'''

Female names are very nearly a closed word class. While it's hard to get an exact count of female names due to regional differences, the figure is somewhere between forty and fifty, discounting alternate forms - so rather than discuss what they're like, we can simply list them. Following are the names one can find across the entire delta:

{|
|| ''full name''
| ''diminutive''
|-
|| Amudan
| Amul
|-
|| Åji
| Åjil
|-
|| Byasti, Basti
| Basïl
|-
|| Cadin
| Cadïl
|-
|| Di'n, Din
| Di'ïl, Dinïl
|-
|| Duvren
| Duvel
|-
|| Gasha, Gashla
| Gashal
|-
|| Gwelin
| Gwel
|-
|| Gizësa
| Gizël
|-
|| Ilyam
| Ilyal
|-
|| Isamïng
| Isamïl, Samïl
|-
|| Ïbi
| Ïbïl
|-
|| Koili
| Koïl
|-
|| Larasi
| Laral
|-
|| Loiddi
| Loïl
|-
|| Levëir
| Levël
|-
|| Mëswalan
| Mësal
|-
|| Midin
| Midïl
|-
|| Moddong
| Modol
|-
|| Måyuro
| Måyul
|-
|| Ñazin
| Ñazal
|-
|| Pegoña
| Pegoil
|-
|| Reyën, Reñën
| Reyël
|-
|| Råjëgun
| Råjël
|-
|| Såri
| Sårïl
|-
|| Sëiwi, Sëoi
| Sëil
|-
|| Sharëlïn
| Sharïl
|-
|| Shën, Shiyën
| Shël
|-
|| Sïdwa
| Sal
|-
|| Tushtin
| Tushïl
|-
|| Taizin
| Taizïl
|-
|| Una
| Unal
|-
|| Uslin, Wusëlin
| Usïl
|-
|| Virigë, Vizgë
| Virïl, Vizël
|-
|| Yåva
| Yåval
|}

''Notable in the formation of female name diminutives is that '''i''' changes to '''ï''' before the diminutive '''-l''', which usually means a reduction to schwa - a behavior not otherwise found in Naidda diminutives.''

A woman is normally addressed by her diminutive name; the full name is more formal. Generally the full name is used for any of the following:
* introductions, or otherwise naming a woman unknown to the listener
* in ceremonies
* marking a serious tone of conversation
* addressing a woman older than you if you do not know her well (regardless of your sex)
* referring to any woman who is not present, unless she is close family

''' Names for Men '''

By contrast, men are normally addressed by their full names. Even good friends will normally use each other's full names, unless they have known each other from childhood. Male diminutive names are restricted mainly to the following uses:
* addressing and referring to children
* addressing one's significant other, if you are female
* addressing a male younger than you, if you are also male and know him well
* close family members (regardless of age or presence of the person named)

The class of male names is more open than female ones, with a wide variety in common use - in principle, mothers are free to make up their own names from scratch, and sometimes do. However, it is very common for boys to be named after recently deceased male relatives, or after their fathers. In some families firstborn sons are given the same name in every generation in the male line. A system has arisen to distinguish between such people, although it is not entirely comparable to the English system for "junior, III, IV" and so forth, in which the oldest living bearer of the name is the unmarked case. Instead, the unmarked case in Naidda is the man in his prime years, and both older and younger bearers of the name in the family will take informal appellations to distinguish them. For example, with the name Gado, it works like this:

Man: ''Gado''<br>
His father: ''Gado ånzo'' (literally, "old Gado")<br>
His grandfather: ''Gado malë'' ("old man Gado") <br>
His son: ''Gado lize'' ("young Gado")

''' '' male name diminutives '' '''

Most male names have two different diminutives - the reduced diminutive, used only for children, and the full diminutive, for adults. The reduced diminutive adds the suffix '''-l''' to a clipped form of the name. Generally this is the first syllable or (V)(C)CVC of the name, followed by either the next vowel or the ''last'' vowel in the name, followed by the suffix. Full diminutives instead simply add the suffix, which replaces any final consonant.

Examples:

{|
|| ''full name''
| ''full diminutive''
| ''reduced diminutive''
|-
|| Kïrone
| Kïronel
| Kïrol
|-
|| Mazudonën
| Mazudonël
| Mazël
|-
|| Dwavlam
| Dwavlal
| Dwaval
|}

''' '' name roots '' '''

A majority of male Kascans actually have a two-part name, consisting of a monosyllabic "root" plus some additional material appended to it. This derives from a full two-name system that was in use many centuries ago, but the second name has eroded to the point where it is now more like a "suffix" on the name's root. Each root name can appear with many different suffixes, which each tend to be used only with a particular root. For example, a very commonly used root is ''Mur-''. From this, dozens of names can be built. Some common ones are ''Murzar, Murëbë, Muraskam, Murisi, Muruno, Murshåi, Murovan, Muryuri,'' and ''Murëdïn''. While many such names are used time and again, new suffix portions are often invented at the whim of the mother. The list of name roots, meanwhile, is rarely added to.

Reduced diminutives are formed directly from the root name whenever possible, while full diminutives are always formed from the full name.

Some common name roots: ''Kïr-, Mur-, Dwav-, Cen-, Nëm-, Dod-, Slan-, Rig-, Beå-, Tais-, Sur-, Ji-, Gëil-, Gav-''

== The Miw ==

The Miw are a group of related peoples who live primarily in the forests south and east of Kasca. They are pre-agricultural, in the sense of large-scale grain growing. They do practice garden-scale agriculture, but still practice hunting and gathering. They are pre-literate and organized tribally. They had long had only minor trade contact with the Kascans, but this began to change about a hundred and fifty years ago.

Around that time, a drought in the forest led some Miw to seek better prospects elsewhere. They were aware of the existence of more prosperous lands elsewhere, but where the emigrants ended up was Kasca. But conditions there were still better, and word spread back to the forest of a richer lifestyle and abundant food, so immigration was substantial for a time. The newly arrived Miw assimilated reasonably well into poorer segments of Kascan society, and a moderate number of immigrants continue to arrive through the present day.

Kascans tend to see the Miw as stupid and backwards, and it's true that a number of them have gravitated to the wilder parts of the delta and retained their tribal ways of life there. Nevertheless, the Miw arrived without many of the foot-bullets of the Kascan mindset, having the adaptability of immigrants rather than the cynical apathy of a stagnant society, and as a result many of the most enterprising and innovative people in the land are now of Miwan descent. This is particularly true in the south; as many as half of the merchants and shopkeepers of Påwe are part Miw. The upwardly mobile Miw have been much quicker to embrace Fáralo capitalism and Etúge, forming a small but distinct middle class in Påwe. Their poorer counterparts are in the majority, however, and work in the fields or on the fishing boats just like other poor Kascans.

There can be no doubt that Miwan contributions have been a significant factor in the continuing modest success of southern Kasca. The introduction of numerous ideas (like voting) and even crops (like oranges) can be credited to them. But anyone detectably Miw remains a second-class citizen with relatively low social standing, and there is some resentment towards them by many poor Kascans who often do not quite understand why some of those "stupid backwards Miw" are actually richer than them.

== Death ==

In Kasca, there are a number of religious traditions, which co-exist and sometimes get mixed together. So there are a wide range of approaches to the topic of death. One of the most common beliefs though, is that when a person dies, their ''nalïn'' (soul, spirit, lifeforce) goes to rest in a thing or object, thereafter called a ''sonïdda'', which then contains their ''nalïn''. Usually the ''sonïdda'' will be something that was important to the person - a blacksmith's soul may come to rest in his favorite anvil, for example - but it can be anything. Frequently it's a tree or a building.

Identification of a ''sonïdda'' after someone dies can be difficult, or it can be easy. Quite often, one or more of their family members will simply know where their soul came to rest. At other times, a search is required. Typically the personal possessions of the person are searched through, and items and indeed whole buildings they used to use or go to regularly - and trees nearby are examined. Such a search may need to be repeated in other locales where the person had previously lived. If no ''sonïdda'' can still be found, a priest will probably be called in to ask the gods where to look. In all cases it is up to the family to find it, however; the priest can only offer helpful advice for where to look and how to recognize when you've found it.

In a few cases the ''sonïdda'' is found dozens of miles away and only after a great deal of time and effort has been expended. Young men or even elderly ladies have been known to spend months on a quest for this purpose. And the fact that they may well return from it with a new wife or valuable trading ties is ''completely irrelevent,'' so hush.

Once the ''sonïdda'' is identified or located, the family will bring it home if it is portable and wasn't already there. Otherwise, they will thereafter visit it often, especially at first and if it's closeby, or as often as they reasonably can if it's far away. Most Ëda believe that by praying to ''sonïdda'', they can communicate to the dead person, or at least their ''nalïn'' - asking them to intercede in the spirit world on their behalf, for example. Or they may simply seek closeness with their departed loved one. Either way, this contact with the dead is a great comfort and brings about what we might call "closure" - a measure of peace and resolution to the grief of loss. A family who cannot find where someone's soul rests might live in grief and despair for a very long time.

= Culture Test =

''The Kascans are culturally very diverse for being a single people. I could have written this culture test to focus on things that are common to all of them, like the above discussions, but here my preference was to go into more depth for a subset of the people.''

''Therefore I have written it primarily from the viewpoint of the rural folk of the delta. I chose them for being the single largest demographic in the land and also for being the most relevent to future developments by Zompist. A number of the following points would be rather different if they focused on southerners, or the larger towns and cities. Momuva'e and Påwe in particular have cultural overtones all their own (and differ sharply in the socioeconomic sphere).''

''Another important thing to keep in mind is that the set of ways of life we collectively call "civilization" can be lost as well as gained. In the south they're doing a bit better, but in many parts of the rural delta, Kascans are perilously close to the edge. They continue to hold on, by and large, by clinging to traditional ways, but some have already fallen off the edge.''

=== If you're Kascan... ===

* The land you live on is "owned" by a Fáralo nobleman somewhere, but he's never been there and you don't know who he is. You've heard about foreigners being picky about which bits of land belong to whom, but what use is that? It all washes away sooner or later. You and your neighbors negotiate the use of land, year to year and even week to week, as needs arise.
* But the insides of houses are sacrosanct property. You ''never'' enter anyone's home without invitation - it'd be like seeing them naked. Respect for privacy is similarly important.
* You've likely never been more than 20 miles from home, unless traveling is important for what you do (like traders and priests). Most travel is by water, and just about everyone owns or has access to a rowboat. Overland roads are uncommon and typically connect only major towns.
* The only form of government familiar to you is the village/town council, which usually operates by consensus rather than voting. You know that if you had a problem with your neighbors, or others you do business with, you could take it up with the council.
* In principle you live in the empire of Huyfárah, but it's been over a century since it last tried exerting actual authority here. You aren't used to taking orders and don't think it's a good way to run things, so eventually the Fáralo stopped trying it in Kasca.
* Bribing councilmen is normal, but you still expect the merits of the case to be considered too.
* You expect many problems not to be solveable. Often all you can do is crack jokes and cope with unpleasant outcomes.
* You don't think messing around with traditional ways is a very good idea, and probably oppose change. Our way of life is what separates us from the ferals, after all, and we wouldn't want to be like ''them''.
* You work hard to do the things that need doing, but probably no more. When someone is ambitious, you are suspicious of their motives.

=== Are you religious? Yes... I guess.===

* You are probably a follower of the traditional faith, unless you're an Etúgeist or an Anaitist or a Sun-cultist or just don't care, but it usually doesn't take up a lot of your time. You say the proper blessings over meals and you are reverent of ceremonies and holy things, but unless there's been a recent birth or death, there's not much more to it.
* Even so: of course the gods exist. How would the sun keep rising if they didn't?
* Unless you live in a large town or city there are no churches or services. You've met priests many times, but they're always full of elaborate ideas about which gods require which forms of respect. You still go to them when you really need to, though.
* It's up to everyone to decide what they believe. Some people don't seem to believe much anything; this may bother you if you're devout.
* If you've met any Anaitists you don't mind them, they don't cause trouble. You've definitely met Etúgeists and the same goes for them, although they're a lot louder about it. Unless you live in Momuva'e you've only heard about the Tolyists... but what you've heard is disturbing.

:*''Some further information: [[Culture of Kasca/Religions]]''

===Letters and Numbers===

* All the towns have schools, and some of the larger villages may as well. But most education is practical in nature, like how to do things, and occurs at home; children learn from their family and anyone else who's around. Schools are for the few who show aptitude and interest, and typically lasts from age 9 or 10 to around 13 or so - for those who stay the whole time.
* After 13 or 14 you are expected to work as hard as anyone else, there's too little time for school. But if you show exceptional promise, you might instead go to a religious school afterward to enter the priesthood.
* You can tell where someone is from by hearing how they speak. Often you can pinpoint a specific town or island, and other times all you can say is that they're from far away. You've met people you can hardly understand at all, but not often.
* Educated people, like priests, can usually speak Fáralo. Everyone else gets by fine with only Naidda, but occasionally a Fáralo trader will come through. Usually there's someone around who can translate, if only very basic sentences.
* The Fáralo who travel through expect you to know their language, they never bother learning yours - and that's ridiculous. You've probably met Fáralo who've settled nearby, too, but most of them can speak Naidda.
* If you went to school you may have learned reading, writing, and figuring, though you might not remember them very well anymore. Otherwise, it's mainly something priests and traders do, or doctors or councilmen.
* You know the names of several nearby lands and countries, but maybe not much more about them. You know a little about Buruya and maybe Lasomo or far-off Rathedan, and you've certainly heard of the Miw, but any foreigner who isn't from some other land is Miw to you. You know a lot more about Huyfárah, and you've definitely met Fáralo.
* You know what money is, but rarely use it. Copper coins from Huyfárah are sometimes accepted as a payment, but most transactions take the form of barter.
* Teachers and the literate are respected, even when they don't know much more than you do.

===We eat ''everything''===

* To drink water straight from the well is ''really'' stupid... but you've had to do it before. The well-off mix wine with their water; you usually drink tea or beer.
* It's not even a good idea to bathe or swim in it - when somebody does something stupid you call it "swimming". Instead you wash with a pail of boiled water and a rag, every few days or as needed. But you wouldn't dream of going to bed without washing your feet first.
* There are few domesticated food animals - mainly just ducks and chickens. Sheep are kept in most places, mainly for their wool; they are too valuable to eat regularly, but mutton will likely be served at important feasts. Instead you eat whatever you can catch or fish for yourself: fish, squirrels, opossums, eels, snakes, crabs, or even frogs or crayfish. There's a saying, "If it's on a Kascan's dinner table, it crossed his path an hour before."
* The bulk of your diet, however, consists of vegetables and grain-based foods. You eat bread every day, but only foreigners drink cow milk. When you have milk or cheese, it came from a sheep. If you live in a coastal town, you eat fish on a daily basis.
* There are few animals you don't consider to be food. Except insects, blech!
* You always eat at home together with the rest of the household, unless there's a feast. On feastdays, the entire village will eat together.
* There are two meals on most days, a light midmorning meal and a larger evening meal. You eat them sitting on the floor around a low table.
* Dirt floors just aren't practical because of the frequency with which they become mud floors instead, so you probably have at least a rough wooden floor even if you're very poor. It's worth the effort. Many floors are knee-height or higher above the ground, to allow for mild flooding.
* Everyone grows barley and oats in the cool season. In the summer you grow all manner of vegetables on the same ground, especially beans, cabbage, and onions. The biggest non-food crop is flax.
* If you're especially poor, you may wear wool; otherwise you use this only for blankets and other coarse fabrics, and wear linen clothing - though you'll still use a woolen coat in cold weather if you're well off. If you can afford linen clothing you can probably afford linen bedsheets too. Animal skins are used only by the Miw.
* A toilet consists of a hole in the ground, often covered by a wooden platform with a hole - which makes it safer to squat. Holes tend naturally to fill with water, so toilets also function as cesspools and can last for years before you need to dig a new one. So that works out okay... except for when there's a flood. You don't even want to ''think'' about that.

===The priests call it moral decay===

* Maintaining the household is hard work. Meals require labor: chopping firewood, killing animals, cooking. Cooking, cleaning, and necessary household crafts and chores take hours out of the day. But you'd better not be lazy - you don't want to end up like the ferals, do you?
* There's always someone around who brews beer. You drink it all the time, but some people drink nothing else, and dealing with them can be frustrating. Grapes grow everywhere - they're almost weeds - but you usually just eat them. It's hard to get wine to turn out right, so you reserve it for special occasions.
* You know of several wild plants that produce interesting effects when consumed in various ways, but you probably don't do it much. Some folks are very attached to a particular one, and that's their business, but to you it seems like they're wasting a lot of time.
* There's even that tale about the guy who found a bush that made him really happy and he just sat there next to it eating its leaves until he died of starvation... but his name is different every time you hear it. From the things you've seen, you suspect it might have happened more than once.
* Others have just completely lost touch with civilized life. They live out in the wilder parts of the swamp and you've probably even seen them, dressed in filthy rags or nothing at all. Only the gods know how they survive, but keep your distance - they're dangerous. Sometimes they sneak up to houses in the night and steal anything they can. Protecting yourselves from ferals is a major hassle.

===It's crowded in here===

* Households tend to be large. Often an entire extended family will live together in one building - which is named.
* You have only one name. There are no family names ''per se'', but you may mention the name of the house someone lives in if there is any question who you're talking about. Nobles always have multiple names, sometimes a dozen or more, but they're strange like that.
* Sickness is part of life. It catches up with everyone sooner or later, so if you live into your 50s you'll count yourself fortunate. Far too many people you've known have died much younger than that... but a few make it a lot longer, too.
* When you get sick, you take care of yourself at home and listen to the advice of the local wise woman. You know of a doctor in the next town over who can help with some things, like poultices and setting broken bones, but you wouldn't expect him to be able to do much about most illnesses.
* A lot of the land is too swampy to live on. You think it's natural, on the usefully dry land, for a hundred or so people to live within a mile's radius - even if it's quite isolated. Or more if there's a village, and villages of one or two hundred people are ''everywhere''.
* Speaking is done close and softly. If you're talking to someone, you get uncomfortable if they stand more than about arm's length away. Raising your voice so as to be heard from further away is considered crude, unless of course it's to warn somebody of a danger.
* You haggle for all manner of things, even with your own family. When you do it, you often do not say exactly what you mean, and you expect the same from everyone else. Negotiation is an artform of posturing.
* If you wish to speak to a priest or doctor or anyone else, you might make an appointment, but it's rarely more specific than "come over tomorrow in the early afternoon". You do not expect anybody to notice or care if you are late.

===That's just the way things are===

* You've probably never seen a nobleman - they live off in the cities and spend their time going to balls and dressing funny. You don't think about them often, except when it comes time to tithe a portion of your grain. If you live a long way from any large towns you might escape even this.
* If a woman is plumper than average, it means she's healthy, and probably a good mother.
* Unless your religion requires you to marry if you want to start a family, you probably won't. Just about everyone forms stable relationships, but you do not necessarily expect these to be formalized or last forever. Some do marry though, and if you do, divorce is inconceivable - period. Marriage is a binding contract and is taken extremely seriously.
* Monogamy for unmarried couples is always expected, but if someone breaks it... well, that's between him and his woman. But you'll gossip about it anyway.
* The natural order of things is that men have all the power to make decisions and act on them, and women have all the power to make men's lives miserable if something upsets them.
* When women try to speak out in public, you wonder where their men are. Both, however, work in the fields side by side, unless he is well off.
* What family someone comes from is one of the most important things you can know about them.
* Nothing men do with other men is considered sex, nor will it count as infidelity, but such things are still disgusting and cause for public humiliation and you try to avoid speaking directly about the subject. What women do with each other in private is their own business, but that's disgusting too.

===Rhythms of life===

* The summer heat is sultry rather than scorching, but it stays like that for months. You don't get much relief at night, either.
* You haven't seen snow more than once or twice in your life, and both times it was gone by morning. There are frosts several times a year.
* You're all too familiar with insect bites; the stenches of sour mud, pit toilets, and retting flax; and having muddy feet for the entire springtime. On the brighter side, you've rarely gone hungry for long - no matter how poor.
* You think it's natural for the annual grain harvest to be in spring. You always know the current phase of the moon. You can predict how many days it will be before the lilacs bloom or the plums ripen and not be too far off.
* Winter is the best time of the year. It's pleasantly cool out, and there's more free time because the grain can mostly take care of itself for a little while. Instead you work on maintenance and repair of buildings and tools, weaving, doing business in town, and diverse other needful tasks - and you find this variety a refreshing break.
* Music isn't something you listen to, it's something you do - or at least dance to. The odds are good that you can play a flute or drum well enough to join in with the group.
* Music is mainly an evening passtime and you play in groups of whoever's around. It tends to be improvised, rhythm-focused, and repetetive, with a theme naturally developing among players and then getting complexified and elaborated on as it repeats.
* Singing is considered separate from music, and is usually unaccompanied by more than perhaps a single drum. Anyone can make music, but it takes talent to sing. It is not, however, considered separate from poetry - this is normally sung, not recited, though rhythmic chanting is a frequent alternative for those who can compose poetry but not sing it well. Many traditional poems work best with multiple singers.
* You wonder how the good poets find lines that work so well. You may come up with a short bawdy rhyme from time to time, but that's about the limit of your talents.
* You like colors. Your clothing is brightly colored and there is always someone in the area who knows how to find and use dyes - it's an artform, which extends even to creatively disguising stains. Your roof is probably painted red or yellow or purple, too.

=See also=
*[[Kasca]]

[[Category:Culture]]
[[Category:Kasca]]

Antarctica

2024-09-29T03:02:56Z

Corumayas: cat

<div style="position:relative">
[[Image:Antarctica.png|thumb|right|250px|A map of Antarctica and surrounding continents.]]
<div style="position:absolute; top:140px; right:220px; font-size:smaller">
'''Peilaš'''
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; top:210px; right:110px; font-size:smaller">
'''East<br/>Twin'''
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; top:210px; right:20px; font-size:smaller">
'''West<br/>Twin'''
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; top:10px; right:100px; font-size:smaller">
'''Zeluzhia'''
</div>
</div>

'''Antarctica''' is a large continent. It covers most of the South-Pole, and it's the least populated continent in the world. The mighty nomadic folk called '''Zashai-kas''' (sun folk) is the only folk lives in there.

== See also ==
* [[Peilaš]]
* [[Zeluzhia]]

{{Article}}
{{Stub}}

[[Category:Geography]]

Main Page

2024-09-29T01:32:57Z

Corumayas:

{| style="border:0; background:transparent; margin:0 auto;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10"
|-

| colspan="2"|
==<center>Welcome to the AkanaWiki!</center>==
[[Image:NE-Peilash-physical3.png|thumb|right|300px|A map of northeastern Peilaš, the focus area of the Akana project.]]

The world of [[Akana]] is a collaborative conlanging and conworlding effort, with a focus on family diachronics and a shared historical basis for these linguistic developments. The world grew out of two different games on the [http://www.incatena.org/ Zompist Bulletin Board]: a linguistic reconstruction game in 2005 for which Akana was originally created, and a diachronic derivation relay in 2006, which gradually metamorphosed into the conworld of today and its flagship language family, the [[Edastean languages]].

'''Overview: [http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByfFAGMBy-9XMTgwN2EyMTMtY2IxZC00ZjIyLWIyYWUtNzU0YjlhYmMwZmZh&hl=en&authkey=CI6q6doD The World Of Akana]'''
|-

| style="width:50%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid #b38d7d; background-color:#fffaf7" |
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">History</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Akana timeline|Timeline]] • [[Year of the Prophet]] • [[:Category:Akana by period|Akana by period]]
:''([[:Category:History|more...]])''

</div>
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d; border-top:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Geography</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Maps of Akana|Maps]]
:Continents • ''[[Peilaš]]'' • ''[[Tuysáfa]]'' • ''[[Zeluzhia]]''
:Regions • ''[[Aiwa valley]]'' • ''[[Kasca]]'' • ''[[Lasomo]]'' • ''[[Rathedān]]''
:Cities • ''[[Ngahêxôldod]]'' • ''[[Oigop'oibauxeu]]'' • ''[[Buruya]]'' • ''[[Momuva'e]]'' • ''[[Ussor]]'' • ''[[Azbǽbu]]'' • ''[[Mæmedéi]]'' • ''[[Sertek]]'' • ''[[Isi]]'' • ''[[Naəgbum]]''
:''([[:Category:Geography|more...]])''

</div>
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d; border-top:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Nations</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Ndak Empire]] • [[Empire of Athalē]] • [[Huyfárah]] • [[Woldulaš]] • [[Affalinnei]] • [[Zeluzh]] • [[Xšalad]] • ''([[:Category:Nations|more...]])''

</div>
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d; border-top:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Culture</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:Edastean sphere: ''[[Ngauro]]'' • ''[[Ndak Calendar]]'' • ''[[Ndok]]'' • ''[[Dāiadak]]'' • ''[[Anaitism]]'' • ''[[Etúgə]]'' • ''[[Culture of Kasca|Kasca]]'' • ''[[Culture of Mɨdu|Mɨdu]]'' • ''[[Talo]]''
:Western sphere: ''[[Proto-Western/Culture|Proto-Westerners]]'' • ''[[Culture of Ishe|Ishe]]'' • ''[[Ìletlégbàku culture|Nugbùn]]''
:''([[:Category:Culture|more...]])''

</div>

| style="width:50%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid #b38d7d; background-color:#fffaf7" |
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Languages</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Eigə-Isthmus languages]] • ''[[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]''
:[[Talo-Edastean languages]] • ''[[Proto-Talo-Edastean]]''
::Talo languages • ''[[Tlaliolz]]''
::[[Edastean languages]] • ''[[Ndak Ta]]''
:::''[[Adāta]]'' • ''[[Ndok Aisô]]'' • ''[[Buruya Nzaysa]]'' • ''[[Delta Naidda|Naidda]]'' • ''[[Fáralo]]''
:[[Xoronic languages]] • ''[[Proto-Xoronic]]''
:[[Isles languages]] • ''[[Proto-Isles]]''
:::''[[Mûtsipsa']]'' • ''[[Thokyunèhòta]]'' • ''[[Naxuutayi]]'' • ''[[Zele]]'' • ''[[Affanonic]]''
:[[T1 languages]] • ''[[Proto-T1]]''
:::''[[Cednìtıt]]'' • ''[[Hkətl’ohnim]]'' • ''[[Omari]]'' • ''[[Yalan]]'' • ''[[Tumetıęk]]'' • ''[[Tari]]'' • ''[[Asséta]]''
:[[Dumic languages]] • ''[[Proto-Dumic]]''
:::''[[Potɑnsʉti]]'' • ''[[Wokatasuto]]'' • ''[[Trinesian]]'' • ''[[Kataputi]]'' • ''[[Jouki Stəy]]'' • ''[[Kaspzoch]]''
:[[Núalís-Takuña languages]] • ''[[Proto-Núalís-Takuña]]''
:[[Peninsular languages]] • ''[[Proto-Peninsular]]''
:::''[[Kibülʌiṅ]]'' • ''[[Merneha]]'' • ''[[Gaadràmarneš]]'' • ''[[Lotoka]]''
:[[Western languages]] • ''[[Proto-Western]]''
:::''[[Proto-Coastal-Western]]'' • ''[[Çetázó]]'' • ''[[Iŋomœ́|Iŋom{{IPA|œ́}}]]'' • ''[[Gezoro]]'' • ''[[Tmaśareʔ]]''
:[[:Category:Ronquian languages|Ronquian languages]] • ''[[Proto-Ronquian]]''
:[[:Category:Leic languages|Leic languages]] • ''[[Proto-Leic]]''
:''([[Languages of Akana|more...]])''

</div>
|-

| colspan="2" align="center" style="border:1px solid #8091ab; background-color: #f7faff" |
<div class="bluebg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #8091ab;"></div>

[[:Category:Articles|All articles]] • [[AkanaWiki:External history|External history]] • [[AkanaWiki:About|FAQ]] • [[AkanaWiki:Todo List|To Do]] • [https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=40 The Cursed Relay Thread (ZBB)] • [http://akana.conlang.org/forum AkanaForum] • [irc://irc.sorcery.net/akana #akana (IRC)]

|-
|}

<center><small>{{CURRENTDAYNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}. AkanaWiki currently has [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] articles.<br />{{AkanaWiki:Copyright}}</small></center>

[[Category:Meta]]

Antarctica

2024-09-29T01:28:40Z

Corumayas: Corumayas moved page Njemnetsa to Antarctica over a redirect without leaving a redirect

Main Page

2024-09-29T01:27:27Z

Corumayas: Njemnetsa no more

{| style="border:0; background:transparent; margin:0 auto;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="10"
|-

| colspan="2"|
==<center>Welcome to the AkanaWiki!</center>==
[[Image:NE-Peilash-physical3.png|thumb|right|300px|A map of northeastern Peilaš, the focus area of the Akana project.]]

The world of [[Akana]] is a collaborative conlanging and conworlding effort, with a focus on family diachronics and a shared historical basis for these linguistic developments. The world grew out of two different games on the [http://www.incatena.org/ Zompist Bulletin Board]: a linguistic reconstruction game in 2005 for which Akana was originally created, and a diachronic derivation relay in 2006, which gradually metamorphosed into the conworld of today and its flagship language family, the [[Edastean languages]].

'''Overview: [http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0ByfFAGMBy-9XMTgwN2EyMTMtY2IxZC00ZjIyLWIyYWUtNzU0YjlhYmMwZmZh&hl=en&authkey=CI6q6doD The World Of Akana]'''
|-

| style="width:50%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid #b38d7d; background-color:#fffaf7" |
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">History</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Akana timeline|Timeline]] • [[Year of the Prophet]] • [[:Category:Akana by period|Akana by period]]
:''([[:Category:History|more...]])''

</div>
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d; border-top:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Geography</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Maps of Akana|Maps]]
:Continents • ''[[Peilaš]]'' • ''[[Tuysáfa]]'' • ''[[Zeluzhia]]''
:Regions • ''[[Aiwa valley]]'' • ''[[Kasca]]'' • ''[[Lasomo]]'' • ''[[Rathedān]]''
:Cities • ''[[Ngahêxôldod]]'' • ''[[Oigop'oibauxeu]]'' • ''[[Buruya]]'' • ''[[Momuva'e]]'' • ''[[Ussor]]'' • ''[[Azbǽbu]]'' • ''[[Mæmedéi]]'' • ''[[Sertek]]'' • ''[[Isi]]'' • ''[[Naəgbum]]''
:''([[:Category:Geography|more...]])''

</div>
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d; border-top:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Nations</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Ndak Empire]] • [[Empire of Athalē]] • [[Huyfárah]] • [[Woldulaš]] • [[Affalinnei]] • [[Zeluzh]] • [[Xšalad]] • ''([[:Category:Nations|more...]])''

</div>
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d; border-top:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Culture</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:Edastean sphere: ''[[Ngauro]]'' • ''[[Ndak Calendar]]'' • ''[[Ndok]]'' • ''[[Dāiadak]]'' • ''[[Anaitism]]'' • ''[[Etúgə]]'' • ''[[Culture of Kasca|Kasca]]'' • ''[[Culture of Mɨdu|Mɨdu]]'' • ''[[Talo]]''
:Western sphere: ''[[Proto-Western/Culture|Proto-Westerners]]'' • ''[[Culture of Ishe|Ishe]]'' • ''[[Ìletlégbàku culture|Nugbùn]]''
:''([[:Category:Culture|more...]])''

</div>

| style="width:50%; vertical-align:top; border:1px solid #b38d7d; background-color:#fffaf7" |
<div class="brownbg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;"></div>

<div class="big" style="padding:5px; border-bottom:1px solid #b38d7d;">Languages</div>
<div style="padding-right:10px">

:[[Eigə-Isthmus languages]] • ''[[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]''
:[[Talo-Edastean languages]] • ''[[Proto-Talo-Edastean]]''
::Talo languages • ''[[Tlaliolz]]''
::[[Edastean languages]] • ''[[Ndak Ta]]''
:::''[[Adāta]]'' • ''[[Ndok Aisô]]'' • ''[[Buruya Nzaysa]]'' • ''[[Delta Naidda|Naidda]]'' • ''[[Fáralo]]''
:[[Xoronic languages]] • ''[[Proto-Xoronic]]''
:[[Isles languages]] • ''[[Proto-Isles]]''
:::''[[Mûtsipsa']]'' • ''[[Thokyunèhòta]]'' • ''[[Naxuutayi]]'' • ''[[Zele]]'' • ''[[Affanonic]]''
:[[T1 languages]] • ''[[Proto-T1]]''
:::''[[Cednìtıt]]'' • ''[[Hkətl’ohnim]]'' • ''[[Teyetáti]]'' • ''[[Tkeḏ]]'' • ''[[Omari]]'' • ''[[Yalan]]'' • ''[[Tumetıęk]]'' • ''[[Tari]]'' • ''[[Asséta]]''
:[[Dumic languages]] • ''[[Proto-Dumic]]''
:::''[[Potɑnsʉti]]'' • ''[[Wokatasuto]]'' • ''[[Trinesian]]'' • ''[[Kataputi]]'' • ''[[Jouki Stəy]]'' • ''[[Kaspzoch]]''
:[[Núalís-Takuña languages]] • ''[[Proto-Núalís-Takuña]]''
:[[Peninsular languages]] • ''[[Proto-Peninsular]]''
:::''[[Kibülʌiṅ]]'' • ''[[Merneha]]'' • ''[[Gaadràmarneš]]'' • ''[[Lotoka]]''
:[[Western languages]] • ''[[Proto-Western]]''
:::''[[Proto-Coastal-Western]]'' • ''[[Çetázó]]'' • ''[[Iŋomœ́|Iŋom{{IPA|œ́}}]]'' • ''[[Gezoro]]'' • ''[[Tmaśareʔ]]''
:[[:Category:Ronquian languages|Ronquian languages]] • ''[[Proto-Ronquian]]''
:[[:Category:Leic languages|Leic languages]] • ''[[Proto-Leic]]''
:''([[Languages of Akana|more...]])''

</div>
|-

| colspan="2" align="center" style="border:1px solid #8091ab; background-color: #f7faff" |
<div class="bluebg" style="font-size:1px; height:8px; border-bottom:1px solid #8091ab;"></div>

[[:Category:Articles|All articles]] • [[AkanaWiki:External history|External history]] • [[AkanaWiki:About|FAQ]] • [[AkanaWiki:Todo List|To Do]] • [https://www.verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=40 The Cursed Relay Thread (ZBB)] • [http://akana.conlang.org/forum AkanaForum] • [irc://irc.sorcery.net/akana #akana (IRC)]

|-
|}

<center><small>{{CURRENTDAYNAME}} {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}. AkanaWiki currently has [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] articles.<br />{{AkanaWiki:Copyright}}</small></center>

[[Category:Meta]]

Zeluzhia

2024-09-29T01:18:07Z

Corumayas: back to Antarctica

{{Article}}
<div style="position:relative">
[[Image:Akana-blank-NE_hemisphere.jpg|thumb|right|400px|A map of Zeluzhia and surrounding continents.]]
<div style="position:absolute; top:50px; right:260px; font-size:smaller">
'''Peilaš'''
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; top:45px; right:60px; font-size:smaller">
'''Tuysáfa'''
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; top:115px; right:120px; font-size:smaller">
'''Zeluzhia'''
</div>
</div>

'''Zeluzhia''' is a large continent in the world of [[Akana]]. It is located mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, south of [[Tuysáfa]]. It is separated from [[Antarctica]] by a small, island-filled sea.

A large, high mountain range, formed by the collision of the Western Zeluzhia plates with the Eastern Zeluzhia Plate, runs north to south through the southeastern part of the continent. The far north is also mountainous.
Most of Zeluzhia is tropical savannah and grasslands; the equatorial regions, and much of the east coast, are covered by rainforest. There are small areas of desert and scrubland in the north and the southwest, and the far south is temperate.

Zeluzhia was populated at some point between -14000 and -12000 [[YP]] by paleolithic hunter-gatherers belonging to the [[Theory of Three Waves#First wave|first wave of human settlement]] of Tuysáfa. Accordingly, most of the indigenous language families of Zeluzhia are considered to belong to the [[Primundic languages|Primundic]] phylum. A couple of [[Mediundic languages|Mediundic]] and [[Ultimundic languages|Ultimundic]] languages are spoken in Zeluzhia as well, but these arrived much later, being clearly related to languages spoken elsewhere.

The word ''Zeluzhia'' is derived from [[Zeluzh]], the name of a kingdom in the northwestern part of the continent, because Zeluzh was the first nation of Zeluzhia contacted by the great nations of [[Peilaš]].

==Names==

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg}}
|-
! Language
! Name
! Pronunciation
! Source
|-
! [[Jamna Kopiai]]
| Hioah
| [ˈhɪ.wah]
| "everyone", "the world"
|-
! [[Zele]]
| Tsashagimi
| [tsaˈʃa.ɡi.mi]
| [[Proto-Isles|PI]] ''ta sákimi'', "great South"
|-
! [[Wippwo]]
| Saγãi
| ['sa.ɣãj]
| <-- reflex of ''Tsashagimi''
|-
|}

{{Stub}}

[[Category:Zeluzhia|*]]
[[Category:Geography]]

Timeline/2nd millennium

2024-09-29T00:47:31Z

Corumayas: cat

<noinclude>{{DEFAULTSORT:Timeline 4}}</noinclude>
= 1000 – 2000 YP ([[:Category:2nd millennium|2nd millennium]]) =
== 11th century ==
{{Event|Rathedan|c. 1000|The [[Empire of Athalē]] becomes defunct, and fragments into several successor states.}}
{{Event|Huyfarah|c. 1000–1100|[[Woldulaš]] acquires [[Mæmedéi]], and a revitalized [[Lasomo]] takes over the [[Lu Tal|Tal]] and adjacent areas.}}
{{Event|Kasca|c. 1030|Major flood creates new channel through delta in desolate [[Wï'makwå]] region.}}

== 12th century ==
{{Event|Kasca|c. 1140|Emerging town of Wï'makwå turns channel into a stable, navigable canal.}}
{{Event|Kasca|1175|[[Luyosha]] and [[Mospiñor]] declare war on Wï'makwå and are occupied.}}

== 13th century ==
{{Event|Kasca|c. 1250|Wï'makwå takes over [[Ñolo]] and [[Momuva'e]], ending three wars with Ñolo.}}
{{Event|Rathedan|1289|Printing press invented, probably in Rathedān.}}

<noinclude>[[Category:2nd millennium|*]]</noinclude>

Languages of Akana

2024-09-29T00:42:59Z

Corumayas: Undo revisions by Thethief3 (talk)

{{Article}}
:''Note: Language families are sorted by continent, according to where most of the relevant languages are spoken.''

= Northern Peilaš =
[[Image:Peilaš_linguistic_0YP.jpg|thumb|right|500px|A linguistic map of Northern Peilaš around 0 YP, showing the approximate distribution of the major language families. From west to east:<br>
<ul><li>Gray-blue: [[Lukpanic languages]]</li>
<li>Purple: [[Western languages]]</li>
<li>Pink: [[Dimana Lokud|Lokud languages]]</li>
<li>Gold: [[!Ho languages]]</li>
<li>Blue: [[Macro-Edastean languages]]
<ul><li>Light blue: [[Xoronic languages]]</li>
<li>Medium blue: [[Edastean languages]]</li>
<li>Slightly darker medium blue: Other [[Talo-Edastean languages]] (Talo, Zod & Antaggic)</li></ul></li>
<li>Yellow: [[Hitatc languages]]</li>
<li>Red: [[Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
<ul><li>Dark red: Eigə Valley languages</li>
<li>Bright red: Isthmus languages</li></ul></li>
<li>Dark green: [[Peninsular languages]]</li>
<li>Orange: [[Isles languages]]</li>
<li>Bright green: [[Núalís-Takuña languages]]</li>
<li>Brown: [[Mbingmik languages]] ''(on Tuysáfa)''</li>
<li>Olive green: [[Wendoth|Wendoth languages]] ''(on Tuysáfa)''</li></ul>]]

== [[Isles languages]] ==
{{/Isles}}

== [[Macro-Edastean languages]] ==
=== [[Talo-Edastean languages]] ===
*[[Proto-Talo-Edastean]] {{context|(Bwimbai valley, c. -2500 YP)}}
==== [[Edastean languages]] ====
[[Image:Languages-1st-generation-edastean-100.png|thumb|right|500px|A map showing the distribution of Edastean languages around 100 YP. From southwest to northeast:<br>
<ul><li>Red: [[Adāta]]</li>
<li>Purple: [[Ndok Aisô]]</li>
<li>Blue: [[Buruya Nzaysa]]</li>
<li>Dark green: [[Naidda]]</li>
<li>Light green: [[Komejech]]</li>
<li>Olive green: [[Fáralo]]</li>
<li>Orange: [[Qedik]]</li></ul>]]
{{/Edastean}}
==== Talo languages ====
*[[Tlaliolz]] {{context|(Lu Tal, c. 100-300 YP - [[User:Radius|Radius Solis]])}}
==== Zod languages ====
*[[User:Radius/Zod|Zod]] {{context|(Šišin mountains, c. 500 YP - [[User:Radius|Radius Solis]])}}
==== Antaggic languages ====
* Antagg {{context|(Bwimbai valley, c. -1500 YP - [[User:Salmoneus|Salmoneus]])}}
** Mohudza
*** Móyay

=== [[Xoronic languages]] ===
* [[Proto-Xoronic]] {{context|(Eiwəl Gourun, c. -3500 - -2500 YP - pocketful of songs)}}
** [[Habeo languages]]: {{context|(Eiwəl Gourun, c. -1000 - 1000 YP - pocketful of songs)}}
*** Hill Habeo
*** Plains Habeo
*** River Habeo
** [[Damak]]

== [[Eigə-Isthmus languages]] ==
{{/Eigə-Isthmus}}

== [[Western languages]] ==
{{/Western}}

== [[Lukpanic languages]] ==
{{/Lukpanic}}

== Tulameya languages ==
* [[Proto-Tulameya]] {{context|(western Lukpanic coast, c. -2100 YP - [[User:Thedukeofnuke|Thedukeofnuke]])}}

== Lokud languages ==
* [[Dimana Lokud]] {{context|(Western mountains, c. -2000 YP - [[User:Radius|Radius]])}}

== Tæm-Hou languages ==
=== [[Peninsular languages]] ===
{{/Peninsular}}
=== [[Hitatc languages]] ===
{{/Hitatc}}

== !Ho languages ==
* [[Ancient !Ho]] {{context|(central Xšalad, c. -2200 YP - [[User:Radius|Radius]])}}
** [[Old Xšali]] {{context|(central Xšalad, c. -1200 YP - [[User:Xshalad|Xshalad]])}}
*** [[Xšali]] (Xša) {{context|(central Xšalad, c. 100 YP - [[User:Radius|Radius]])}}
*** [[!Huwan]] {{context|(somewhere in Xšalad, c. 100 YP - tentative)}}

== Núalís-Takuña languages ==
{{/Núalís-Takuña}}

<hr />

= Tuysáfa =
[[Image:TuysafaY0.PNG|thumb|right|500px|A map showing the distribution of languages on Tuysáfa around 0 YP.]]
== [[Ronquian languages]] ==
{{/Ronquian}}

== [[Leic languages]] ==
{{/Leic}}

== Wendoth languages ==
* [[Pre-Wendoth]] {{context|(western Tuysáfa, c. -3000 YP - [[User:Alces|Alces]])}}
** [[Wendoth]] {{context|(western Tuysáfa, c. -2000 YP - [[User:Alces|Alces]])}}
*** [[Yèwèdu]] {{context|(northwestern Tuysáfa, c. 0 YP - [[User:CatDoom|CatDoom]])}}
*** [[Hỳng]] {{context|(western Tuysáfa, c. -200 YP - [[User:Alces|Alces]])}}
*** Mboroth {{context|(southwestern Tuysáfa, c. 0 YP - [[User:Alces|Alces]])}}

== Mbingmik languages ==
* [[Proto-Mbingmik]] {{context|(southwestern Tuysáfa, c. -2000 YP - [[User:Cedh|Cedh]])}}

== Muyan languages ==
* [[Proto-Muyan]] {{context|(northwestern Tuysáfa, c. -2000 YP - [[User:Frislander|Frislander]])}}
** [[Omok]] {{context|(northwestern Tuysáfa, c. -500 YP - [[User:Frislander|Frislander]])}}

== [[Dumic languages]] ==
{{/Dumic}}

== [[T1 languages]] ==
{{/T1}}

== Macro-Anatolionesian languages ==
* [[Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian]] {{context|(eastern Tuysáfa, c. -4000 YP)}}
** [[Proto-Anatolionesian]] {{context|(Kyosshin & Ōshin, c. -1200 YP)}}
*** [[Imperial Ōmishiman]] {{context|(Ōmishima, c. 2500 YP - [[User:Thedukeofnuke|Thedukeofnuke]])}}

== Northeastern Tuysáfa languages ==
* [[Proto-Northeastern]] {{context|(northeastern Tuysáfa, c. -6000 YP - [[User:NeonFox|NeonFox]])}}

<hr />

= Zeluzhia =

== Kopian languages ==
* [[Jamna Kopiai]] {{context|(Zeluzh savanna, c. 1500 YP - [[User:Radius|Radius]])}}

== Damo-Tingreya languages ==
* [[Jamna Kopiai/Tipatirápai|Tipatirápai]] {{context|(Zeluzh savanna, c. 1500 YP - [[User:Radius|Radius]])}}

<hr />

= Southern Peilaš =

== Island-Highland languages (Team B) ==
* [[Dzoqi]] {{context|(southwestern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - [[User:Akam Chinjir|akam chinjir]])}}
* [[Ethange]] {{context|(southwestern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - H13)}}
* [[Jarang]] {{context|(southwestern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - Nortaneous)}}
* [[Kʰajlun]] {{context|(southwestern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - Zju)}}
* [[Pʰeśin]] {{context|(southwestern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - Zju)}}
* [[Puvaŋeŋo]] {{context|(southwestern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - [[User:Frislander|Frislander]])}}
* [[Thud]] {{context|(Vüha Island, c. 0 YP - Nortaneous)}}
* [[Tomē Nilōyi]] {{context|(southwestern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - dhok)}}

== Southern languages (Team A) ==
* [[Klazoo|Klazoo]] {{context|(far southern Peilaš, c. -200 YP - Moose-tache)}}
* [[Màpxèracáma|Màpxèracáma]] {{context|(southern Peilaš, c. 0 YP - Kodane, a.k.a. kodé)}}

[[Category:Languages|*]]

Zeluzhia

2024-09-29T00:31:27Z

Corumayas: Reverted edits by Thethief3 (talk) to last revision by Rorschach

{{Article}}
<div style="position:relative">
[[Image:Akana-blank-NE_hemisphere.jpg|thumb|right|400px|A map of Zeluzhia and surrounding continents.]]
<div style="position:absolute; top:50px; right:260px; font-size:smaller">
'''Peilaš'''
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; top:45px; right:60px; font-size:smaller">
'''Tuysáfa'''
</div>
<div style="position:absolute; top:115px; right:120px; font-size:smaller">
'''Zeluzhia'''
</div>
</div>

'''Zeluzhia''' is a large continent in the world of [[Akana]]. It is located mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, south of [[Tuysáfa]]. It is separated from [[Njemnetsa]] by a small, island-filled sea.

A large, high mountain range, formed by the collision of the Western Zeluzhia plates with the Eastern Zeluzhia Plate, runs north to south through the southeastern part of the continent. The far north is also mountainous.
Most of Zeluzhia is tropical savannah and grasslands; the equatorial regions, and much of the east coast, are covered by rainforest. There are small areas of desert and scrubland in the north and the southwest, and the far south is temperate.

Zeluzhia was populated at some point between -14000 and -12000 [[YP]] by paleolithic hunter-gatherers belonging to the [[Theory of Three Waves#First wave|first wave of human settlement]] of Tuysáfa. Accordingly, most of the indigenous language families of Zeluzhia are considered to belong to the [[Primundic languages|Primundic]] phylum. A couple of [[Mediundic languages|Mediundic]] and [[Ultimundic languages|Ultimundic]] languages are spoken in Zeluzhia as well, but these arrived much later, being clearly related to languages spoken elsewhere.

The word ''Zeluzhia'' is derived from [[Zeluzh]], the name of a kingdom in the northwestern part of the continent, because Zeluzh was the first nation of Zeluzhia contacted by the great nations of [[Peilaš]].

==Names==

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg}}
|-
! Language
! Name
! Pronunciation
! Source
|-
! [[Jamna Kopiai]]
| Hioah
| [ˈhɪ.wah]
| "everyone", "the world"
|-
! [[Zele]]
| Tsashagimi
| [tsaˈʃa.ɡi.mi]
| [[Proto-Isles|PI]] ''ta sákimi'', "great South"
|-
! [[Wippwo]]
| Saγãi
| ['sa.ɣãj]
| <-- reflex of ''Tsashagimi''
|-
|}

{{Stub}}

[[Category:Zeluzhia|*]]
[[Category:Geography]]

Agriculture

2024-09-28T23:37:52Z

Corumayas: Reverted edits by Thethief3 (talk) to last revision by Frislander

{{Invitation}}
{{Article}}
=Agriculture in Peilaš=

==Aiwa Valley System==

One of the earliest and most successful forms of agriculture in [[Peilaš]], the Aiwa Valley system originated with the [[Ngauro]] and neighboring peoples in the general vicinity of the [[Aiwa]] delta. The system ultimately spread northeast into [[Huyfárah]], southern [[Siixtaguna]], and the valleys of the [[Šišin mountains]], south into Hitatc and [[Miwan languages|Miwan]]-speaking regions in and around the [[Ici forest]], and west as far as [[Rathedān]] and the [[Xōron Eiel]]. The relatively narrow range of cultivated species somewhat limits the areas where the system can be successfully employed, but it has proven very successful in the river valleys of eastern Peilaš, where it long supported the growth of towns and cities. The introduction of new legume crops from [[Tuysáfa]] by Isles-speakers would in later years significantly enrich the Aiwa valley system and allow for improved forms of crop rotation.

The primary staple crops of the Aiwa Valley were wheat and barley. By the rise of the [[Ndak Empire]], alluvial land was mostly reserved for irrigated fields of grain, but oxen were kept as beasts of burden and some cattle and sheep were raised. Goats were introduced from the Isthmus region, and horses from the west. Cultivated foods were supplemented with fishing where possible, and with hunting in the hinterlands away from the coast and the river.

{{Commentbox|(Note: Ndak Ta has no known word for "beer," but it is believed that the earliest grain agriculturalists in Peilaš must have used part of their crop to make alcohol. Somewhat later, their selection of intoxicants expanded to include wine and rice alcohol, and probably cider and millet beer as well.)}}

==Lukpanic Coast System==

The [[Lukpanic languages|Lukpanic]] city-states (and likely peoples farther to the northwest) relied on buckwheat as their primary staple, supplemented with figs, Peilaš beans (useful for their nitrogen-fixing ability), and root vegetables like carrots and onions. They also raised cattle (mainly for milk), goats (probably introduced from the east), and bees, whose honey they used as a sweetener and to make mead. Grapes were cultivated for making wine, which was likely an important trade good in the region, and herbs like parsley and hibiscus were grown for their flavor. In addition to cultivated foods, they ate a great deal of fish and gathered insects and other wild foods.

The conquest of the Lukpanic coast by [[Western languages|Western]] speakers didn't drastically change the agricultural system of the region, though it did introduce several important new domestic species, including horses, millet, pigs, and sheep.

{{Commentbox|(Note: It's possible that Aiwa Valley grains might eventually be introduced to the region, possibly partly displacing the cultivation of buckwheat and millet.)}}

==Northeast Coast Subsistence Strategies==

The northern coasts of [[Siixtaguna]] and the Isthmus are difficult places for agricultural societies to survive, but the expansion of the [[Kennan]] demonstrates that this harsh land can support complex societies. This area was one of the first centers of goat domestication, and herding goats and sheep is a major subsistence strategy in the more temperate reaches of the northeast coast. Fishing and hunting marine mammals is another important component, particularly in the relatively barren Kennan homeland and on Tymytỳs and surrounding islands. The Kennan and other peoples in the far north have also taken to herding reindeer, which is better suited to the environment compared to goats and sheep.

==Peilaš Steppe Pastoralism==

Generally similar forms of nomadic pastoralism are practiced in the great [[Western steppe]] and in much of the [[Xōron Eiel]]. These lifestyles emerged out of the earlier Aiwa Valley and western mixed agricultural systems, specializing in order to adapt to marginal regions not well suited to crop cultivation. Steppe pastoralists rely heavily on meat and dairy products, and keep mixed herds consisting mostly of cattle, goats, horses, and sheep. Mobility is essential to the success of the system, as forage is sparse in the semi-arid regions where it is practiced.

==Western Mixed Agriculture==

Although the expansion of the Western-speaking peoples was driven in large part by their domestication of the horse and, to a lesser extent, the pig, within much of their range they practice a form of mixed agriculture which places roughly equal emphasis on farming and animal husbandry. Versions of this system remain the dominant form of agriculture in parts of the Coastal Corridor, [[Kipceʔ desert]], [[Wañelín]], and the [[Tjakori]] and [[Western plateau]]s many thousands of years later, although new crops from the east did eventually enter the region. The Western system also had a significant influence on the forms of agriculture practiced in the neighboring steppe regions and the Lukpanic coast.

The primary staple crop in the Western system is millet, supplemented with Peilaš beans. By -2000 YP at the latest, some Western-speaking peoples were cultivating grapes for wine, and it appears to have been the [[Gezoro]] who introduced winemaking to the Edastean cultural sphere. As far as livestock, this system incorporated horses, pigs, and sheep, and later adopted cattle and goats as well. Where possible, agriculture was supplemented with hunting, fishing and, at times, widespread cannibalism.

==Xšali Wet Rice Agriculture==

Originating in tropical southern [[Xšalad]], this system spread throughout the well-watered lands of the [[Xšali Empire]] and eastward along the coast as far as [[Mrisaŋfa]]. In the peninsula, rice cultivation was supplemented with fruit orchards, including both citrus fruits and apple, and in Xšalad spices were cultivated for cooking and trade. The [[Peninsular languages|Peninsular]] peoples would later carry this system to the islands of [[Fmana-hŋ-Talam]] and to the Lotoka region of the Isthmus. Rice cultivation had also spread at least as far as Buruya by 400 YP, and in later years it thrived on the lower Aiwa and in the Milīr valley, co-existing with the Aiwa valley system throughout much of the Edastean cultural sphere.

=Agriculture in Tuysáfa=
{{Noticebox|<big>'''''To Be Continued...'''''</big><br />''This section is not finished yet. If you can contribute to its content, feel free to do so!''|green}}

==The Hazāka==

The main crop of the Hazāka is rice, grown in large paddies for which space has been cleared from the forest. These rice paddies are also home to semi-domesticated varieties of fish, with the fish keeping the rice pest-free while fertilising the rice with their droppings. At the coast large salts pans are found, with the salt being an important trading good with inland regions.

==The Northwest Coast/the Ronquian Zone==

Agriculture was not begun natively on the Tuysáfan Northwest coast, and most of the domesticates used in farming are not native to this region, including the main staples, varieties of oats and legumes, notably peas, beans and lentils. These would be grown in specially made plots made through either the draining of swampland or the clearing of a patch of forest. Similar clearing processes are required in order to produce suitable pasture land for their domesticated animals, however once that land has been cleared their it requires relatively little maintenance due to the grazing action of the animals in question, most notably including semi-domesticated herds of deer. Settled hunter-gathering is still important as a source of food, and wild deer, river-fish and nuts and berries remain important sources of food. There is a marked geographical gradiation of the relative dominance of these types, with the cultivation of crops being more disfavoured nearer the coast due to the harsher oceanic weather.

=Agriculture in Zeluzhia=
{{Noticebox|<big>'''''To Be Continued...'''''</big><br />''This section is not finished yet. If you can contribute to its content, feel free to do so!''|green}}

[[Category:Culture]]

Category:For deletion

2024-09-28T20:24:33Z

Corumayas: Created page with "These articles and categories have been marked for deletion."

These articles and categories have been marked for deletion.

File:Zeluzhia climates orthographic.png

2021-02-05T00:54:00Z

Corumayas: Draft of a revised climate map for Zeluzhia

Draft of a revised climate map for Zeluzhia

File:Zeluzhian plateau.png

2021-01-13T00:27:40Z

Corumayas: approximate location of Zeluzhian plateau?

approximate location of Zeluzhian plateau?

Proto-Isthmus

2020-12-01T06:41:56Z

Corumayas: /* Pronouns */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

==Phonology==
===Phoneme inventory===
====Consonants====
{| {{softtable}}
|
! scope="col" | labial
! scope="col" | dental
! scope="col" | retroflex
! scope="col" | palatal
! scope="col" | velar
|-
! scope="row" | plosive
| p b
| t d
| ʈ ɖ
|
| k g
|-
! scope="row" | affricate
|
| ts dz
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | fricative
| f
| s
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | nasal
| m
| n
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | approximant
|
| l
|
| j
|
|}

====Vowels====
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
! scope="col" | front
! scope="col" | back
|-
! scope="row" | close
| i
| u
|-
! scope="row" | mid
| e
| o
|-
! scope="row" | open
| colspan="2"| a
|}

===Phonotactics===
Proto-Isthmus syllable structure was fairly complex, allowing up to two consonants in onsets and three in codas: '''(C(l,j))V((j)(l,n,s)C)'''.

Any single consonant '''C''' could appear as onset or coda. Syllables with no onset consonant were only possible word-initially; there were no vowels in hiatus, and a single intervocalic consonant was always treated as an onset.

Onset clusters of the forms '''Cl Cj''' were found with most consonants; however, the first element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll''' was not a possible onset.

Possible two-consonant coda clusters were '''jC lC nC sC'''. The final element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll nn ss''' were not possible codas. Interestingly, '''ns sn''' both occured as coda clusters, and it may be that '''nl sl''' were possible too.

Three-consonant coda clusters '''jlC jnC jsC''' were also possible word-finally (with the same limitations on '''C''' as above).

In '''nC''' clusters, the '''n''' normally assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant (this produced allophonic '''[ŋ]''' before '''k g'''); '''nf''' may have been an exception. In '''sC''' clusters, the development in Eastern Isthmus (where voiced obstruents were devoiced after '''s''') shows that the '''s''' must have been pronounced voiceless even when the following consonant was voiced.

When a coda and onset met, a medial cluster could form. These clusters were pretty free, but there were a few restrictions; in particular, a coda retroflex never formed a cluster with an onset approximant—if morphology brought them together, the retroflex usually mutated into a dental or velar plosive.

===Stress===
While stress in Isthmus has not been thoroughly studied, it seems likely that primary stress fell on the first syllable of the root or stem, leaving any prefixes unstressed.

==Nouns==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for number and case.

===Number===
Two numbers were distinguished: ''singular'' and ''plural''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix '''-o''', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
! scope="col" | stem ending
! scope="col" | SG
! scope="col" | PL
|-
! consonant
| -C
| -Co
|-
! rowspan="3" | unstressed vowel
| -a, -e
| -a
|-
| -i
| -ja
|-
| -o, -u
| -o
|-
! stressed vowel
| -ˈV
| -ˈV (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in '''-a''' or '''-o''', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in '''-Cli''' to form their plurals with '''-Cla''' instead of '''**-Clja''', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in '''-Cji''' regularly formed their plurals with '''-Cuja'''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in '''-Cju''' formed their plurals with '''-Cjo''', but some used '''-Cja''' or '''-Cuja''' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in '''-Clu''' had plurals with '''-Clo''' but some used '''-Cla''' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops '''-ʈ -ɖ''': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals ('''-to -do''') in some nouns and velars ('''-ko -go''') in others. Some nouns ending in '''-ʈu -ɖu''' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials ('''-po -bo''') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included '''-s''' → '''-tso''', '''-su''' → '''-fo''', '''-n''' → '''-jno''', and '''-nu''' → '''-mo'''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel '''i''', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming '''ju''' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became '''u'''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: '''u''' → '''ju''' and '''o''' → '''e'''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in '''-s''', '''-n''', or '''-l'''.

Finally, some nouns ending in '''-j''' formed their plurals with '''-jno''' (rather than '''-jo'''), and some vowel-final nouns added '''-dzo''' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(In Faraghin some plurals were lexicalized with a collective meaning: '''tekh''' 'sword' → '''tekha''' 'army' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''tisk''' → '''tisko'''.)

===Case===
Four cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: ''nominative'', ''accusative'', ''genitive'', and ''dative''. Case was marked with prefixes; the paradigms fall into a small number of declension classes, defined mostly by animacy:

{| {{softtable}}
| colspan="2" |
! scope="col" | NOM
! scope="col" | ACC
! scope="col" | GEN
! scope="col" | DAT
|-
! rowspan="2" | Pronouns
! style="text-align:right;" | 1SG, 2SG, 3SG.ANIM
| –
| as-
| as-
| dza-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | 3SG.INAN, PL, INT/REL
| –
| as-
| as-
| ?
|-
! rowspan="2" | Nouns
! style="text-align:right;" | ANIM
| –
| ?
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | INAN
| –
| –
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|}

The accusative case had no marker of its own; it was syncretic with the genitive for pronouns, and with the nominative for inanimate nouns. Animate nouns must have followed one of these two patterns, but it's probably impossible to tell which: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(Both the accusative and genitive uses of '''as-''' seem to have originated in Pre-Proto-Isthmus from an earlier dative or locative function.)

The vowel in the dative prefix '''dz(a)-''' was probably deleted before another vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are only a few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of this prefix in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain; it may have been a locative or allative prefix rather than a true dative (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion above]]).

(While the case prefixes are no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few Faraghin nouns that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, '''Faragh''' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''as-pes-dosg''' 'of the camp-people'.)

===Gender===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was gender: all nouns were inherently either ''animate'' or ''inanimate''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate nouns formed the accusative case with '''as-''' like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns and verbs had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

===Derivation===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

====Diminutive and Augmentative====
Diminutive and augmentative nouns were formed with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel '''(a)''' was used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms, for example:
* Faraghin '''badeu''' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]bad-aɖu''' 'little father'
* '''deu''' 'daughter' < '''[V]da-ɖu''' '? little girl' or '? little daughter'

The augmentative suffix can be seen in
* Faraghin '''kert''' 'anger' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]kisd-at''' '? great violence'
* '''khunt''' 'devil' < '''as-kun-at''' '? great malevolent one'
* '''mašt''' 'house, palace' < '''mas-at''' 'great house'
* '''nagat''' 'lord, baron' < '''naga-t''' 'great lord'
and maybe in '''sat''' 'gold' < '''tso-t''' '?? great gold'.)

====Verbalization====
It appears that Proto-Isthmus nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology to the noun stem, as one way of forming predicate nominals. There are some hints of similar behavior in Meshi and Old Eastern Miwan, so this way of forming predicate nominals may be inherited from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

(In Faraghin, causative verbs can be derived from nouns by adding the causative suffix '''-oi''', followed by a regular verbal agreement suffix; there are several examples in the lexicon:
* '''bar''' 'master' → '''baroin''' 'appoint, bestow'
* '''ben''' 'nothing' → '''benoin''' 'annul'
* '''bran''' 'front, face' → '''branoin''' 'advance, march'
* '''tat''' 'law, rule' → '''tatoin''' 'legalize; permit, allow'
This suffix '''-oi''' reflects Proto-Isthmus '''-aj'''. It's not clear whether the active voice can be similarly applied to nouns in Faraghin.)

====Adjectivization====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix '''-ʔa''' or '''-ha''' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix '''-dja''', derived from the verbal noun suffix '''-di''' + '''-ʔa'''/'''-ha''') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus. If it did, it would have the form '''-a''' in most environments.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: '''-(i)ts''' and '''-ujn''' (> Far. '''-s''' and '''-in'''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably '''-(i)ts''' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition '''its''' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was '''-ujn''', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives:
* '''čints''' 'on the left, north' → '''Čintsin''' 'the northern mountains'
* '''muns''' 'soft, weak' → '''Munsin''' 'weakish; the Ngauro'
* '''porat''' 'clean, pure' → '''Porats''' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'
In fact, the use of unmarked adjectives as nouns is perfectly regular (see [[#Nominalization|below]]); in each of these examples the suffix seems to function as a semantically empty derivation that, without directly changing the adjective's meaning, produces a modified form of the word that can then be used in a narrowed sense as a proper noun.

===Compounding===
Two types of compound nouns are attested:

* Adjective-Noun: Faraghin '''khoir''' 'goat' < Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'good' + '''idz''' 'head; head of livestock, domesticated animal'

* Noun-Genitive: Faraghin '''nagho''' 'bear' < Proto-Isthmus '''nag(a)''' 'lord' + '''su[n]''' '(of the) forest'

Exactly the same compound patterns are also found in Forest Miwan, suggesting that they may be inherited from Proto-Eigǝ-Isthmus.

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. '''**dzaguʈ'''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

==Adjectives==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways (taking verbal morphology in some predicative constructions, for example), while in other ways they seem somewhat noun-like.

===Derivation===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

====Intensification====
Proto-Isthmus had an adjective-intensifying prefix '''as-'''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin '''khar''' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'very good'.

====Nominalization====
An attributive adjective could stand as the head of a noun phrase when the modified noun was understood or unspecified; in the Faraghin wordlist several examples are found where this has become lexicalized as a noun (e.g. '''českod''' 'hidden; hidden one; mythical pixie-like being'). There's a particularly notable instance where a Faraghin participle with a noun-like definition takes the regular negative prefix used for adjectives:
* '''rantan''' 'test (by experience), prove' → '''rantod''' 'veteran, experienced man' → '''fisrantud''' 'untried person, rookie'
(Cf. '''tats''' 'lawful, legal' → '''fistats''' 'unlawful, illegal'.) So '''rantod''' seems to carry its adjectival morphology with it, even when it's used in this noun-like way.

Similar behavior can be observed in Ngauro (e.g. '''dyaka''' 'kingly, royal; royal one, (his/her) majesty', borrowed into [[Ndak Ta]] as '''diàka''' 'king, ruler'), suggesting that this may be a shared inheritence from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

There's also an old and rather obscure suffix '''-(a)k''' that seems to derive nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin '''ghisk''' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus '''gujts''' 'sharp' + '''-ak'''; Faraghin '''českan''' 'to hide' may be another, if it comes from an adjective '''ʈits''' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + '''-ak''' + verbal suffixes. This suffix seems to have become unproductive quite early in the prehistory of Faraghin (perhaps even by the Western Isthmus stage).

====Verbalization====
It seems that Proto-isthmus adjectives, like nouns, could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology, as one way of forming predicate adjectives.

(In the Faraghin lexicon, adjectives are found with regular causative verb morphology:
* '''leus''' 'free' → '''leusoin''' 'liberate'
* '''naks''' 'outside (adj.)' → '''naksoin''' 'exile, cast out'
* '''šes''' 'holy' → '''šesoin''' 'anoint; ordain; crown'
There's also '''rušnen''' 'paint, color; insult, accuse' < PIsth. '''dzus<i>n-i-''' 'redden (something); paint, color', which has an older form of causative marking that's no longer productive in Faraghin. It must date to before Western Isthmus, and it's cognate with Eastern Miwan '''tun''' 'red'. This shows both that this pattern of causative verbs formed directly from adjectives goes back to Proto-Isthmus, and that the grades/infixes could also be applied to adjectives in this way.)

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus adjectives were negated by adding a morpheme '''pjuts[V]''' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) '''aspjuts[V]''' immediately before the adjective. This morpheme became a prefix ('''fis-''') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

It's not known whether this construction was also used to negate clauses.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2020-12-01T06:40:41Z

Corumayas: /* Nouns */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

==Phonology==
===Phoneme inventory===
====Consonants====
{| {{softtable}}
|
! scope="col" | labial
! scope="col" | dental
! scope="col" | retroflex
! scope="col" | palatal
! scope="col" | velar
|-
! scope="row" | plosive
| p b
| t d
| ʈ ɖ
|
| k g
|-
! scope="row" | affricate
|
| ts dz
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | fricative
| f
| s
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | nasal
| m
| n
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | approximant
|
| l
|
| j
|
|}

====Vowels====
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
! scope="col" | front
! scope="col" | back
|-
! scope="row" | close
| i
| u
|-
! scope="row" | mid
| e
| o
|-
! scope="row" | open
| colspan="2"| a
|}

===Phonotactics===
Proto-Isthmus syllable structure was fairly complex, allowing up to two consonants in onsets and three in codas: '''(C(l,j))V((j)(l,n,s)C)'''.

Any single consonant '''C''' could appear as onset or coda. Syllables with no onset consonant were only possible word-initially; there were no vowels in hiatus, and a single intervocalic consonant was always treated as an onset.

Onset clusters of the forms '''Cl Cj''' were found with most consonants; however, the first element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll''' was not a possible onset.

Possible two-consonant coda clusters were '''jC lC nC sC'''. The final element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll nn ss''' were not possible codas. Interestingly, '''ns sn''' both occured as coda clusters, and it may be that '''nl sl''' were possible too.

Three-consonant coda clusters '''jlC jnC jsC''' were also possible word-finally (with the same limitations on '''C''' as above).

In '''nC''' clusters, the '''n''' normally assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant (this produced allophonic '''[ŋ]''' before '''k g'''); '''nf''' may have been an exception. In '''sC''' clusters, the development in Eastern Isthmus (where voiced obstruents were devoiced after '''s''') shows that the '''s''' must have been pronounced voiceless even when the following consonant was voiced.

When a coda and onset met, a medial cluster could form. These clusters were pretty free, but there were a few restrictions; in particular, a coda retroflex never formed a cluster with an onset approximant—if morphology brought them together, the retroflex usually mutated into a dental or velar plosive.

===Stress===
While stress in Isthmus has not been thoroughly studied, it seems likely that primary stress fell on the first syllable of the root or stem, leaving any prefixes unstressed.

==Nouns==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for number and case.

===Number===
Two numbers were distinguished: ''singular'' and ''plural''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix '''-o''', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
! scope="col" | stem ending
! scope="col" | SG
! scope="col" | PL
|-
! consonant
| -C
| -Co
|-
! rowspan="3" | unstressed vowel
| -a, -e
| -a
|-
| -i
| -ja
|-
| -o, -u
| -o
|-
! stressed vowel
| -ˈV
| -ˈV (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in '''-a''' or '''-o''', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in '''-Cli''' to form their plurals with '''-Cla''' instead of '''**-Clja''', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in '''-Cji''' regularly formed their plurals with '''-Cuja'''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in '''-Cju''' formed their plurals with '''-Cjo''', but some used '''-Cja''' or '''-Cuja''' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in '''-Clu''' had plurals with '''-Clo''' but some used '''-Cla''' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops '''-ʈ -ɖ''': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals ('''-to -do''') in some nouns and velars ('''-ko -go''') in others. Some nouns ending in '''-ʈu -ɖu''' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials ('''-po -bo''') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included '''-s''' → '''-tso''', '''-su''' → '''-fo''', '''-n''' → '''-jno''', and '''-nu''' → '''-mo'''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel '''i''', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming '''ju''' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became '''u'''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: '''u''' → '''ju''' and '''o''' → '''e'''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in '''-s''', '''-n''', or '''-l'''.

Finally, some nouns ending in '''-j''' formed their plurals with '''-jno''' (rather than '''-jo'''), and some vowel-final nouns added '''-dzo''' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(In Faraghin some plurals were lexicalized with a collective meaning: '''tekh''' 'sword' → '''tekha''' 'army' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''tisk''' → '''tisko'''.)

===Case===
Four cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: ''nominative'', ''accusative'', ''genitive'', and ''dative''. Case was marked with prefixes; the paradigms fall into a small number of declension classes, defined mostly by animacy:

{| {{softtable}}
| colspan="2" |
! scope="col" | NOM
! scope="col" | ACC
! scope="col" | GEN
! scope="col" | DAT
|-
! rowspan="2" | Pronouns
! style="text-align:right;" | 1SG, 2SG, 3SG.ANIM
| –
| as-
| as-
| dza-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | 3SG.INAN, PL, INT/REL
| –
| as-
| as-
| ?
|-
! rowspan="2" | Nouns
! style="text-align:right;" | ANIM
| –
| ?
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | INAN
| –
| –
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|}

The accusative case had no marker of its own; it was syncretic with the genitive for pronouns, and with the nominative for inanimate nouns. Animate nouns must have followed one of these two patterns, but it's probably impossible to tell which: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(Both the accusative and genitive uses of '''as-''' seem to have originated in Pre-Proto-Isthmus from an earlier dative or locative function.)

The vowel in the dative prefix '''dz(a)-''' was probably deleted before another vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are only a few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of this prefix in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain; it may have been a locative or allative prefix rather than a true dative (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion above]]).

(While the case prefixes are no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few Faraghin nouns that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, '''Faragh''' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''as-pes-dosg''' 'of the camp-people'.)

===Gender===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was gender: all nouns were inherently either ''animate'' or ''inanimate''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate nouns formed the accusative case with '''as-''' like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns and verbs had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

===Derivation===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

====Diminutive and Augmentative====
Diminutive and augmentative nouns were formed with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel '''(a)''' was used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms, for example:
* Faraghin '''badeu''' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]bad-aɖu''' 'little father'
* '''deu''' 'daughter' < '''[V]da-ɖu''' '? little girl' or '? little daughter'

The augmentative suffix can be seen in
* Faraghin '''kert''' 'anger' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]kisd-at''' '? great violence'
* '''khunt''' 'devil' < '''as-kun-at''' '? great malevolent one'
* '''mašt''' 'house, palace' < '''mas-at''' 'great house'
* '''nagat''' 'lord, baron' < '''naga-t''' 'great lord'
and maybe in '''sat''' 'gold' < '''tso-t''' '?? great gold'.)

====Verbalization====
It appears that Proto-Isthmus nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology to the noun stem, as one way of forming predicate nominals. There are some hints of similar behavior in Meshi and Old Eastern Miwan, so this way of forming predicate nominals may be inherited from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

(In Faraghin, causative verbs can be derived from nouns by adding the causative suffix '''-oi''', followed by a regular verbal agreement suffix; there are several examples in the lexicon:
* '''bar''' 'master' → '''baroin''' 'appoint, bestow'
* '''ben''' 'nothing' → '''benoin''' 'annul'
* '''bran''' 'front, face' → '''branoin''' 'advance, march'
* '''tat''' 'law, rule' → '''tatoin''' 'legalize; permit, allow'
This suffix '''-oi''' reflects Proto-Isthmus '''-aj'''. It's not clear whether the active voice can be similarly applied to nouns in Faraghin.)

====Adjectivization====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix '''-ʔa''' or '''-ha''' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix '''-dja''', derived from the verbal noun suffix '''-di''' + '''-ʔa'''/'''-ha''') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus. If it did, it would have the form '''-a''' in most environments.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: '''-(i)ts''' and '''-ujn''' (> Far. '''-s''' and '''-in'''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably '''-(i)ts''' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition '''its''' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was '''-ujn''', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives:
* '''čints''' 'on the left, north' → '''Čintsin''' 'the northern mountains'
* '''muns''' 'soft, weak' → '''Munsin''' 'weakish; the Ngauro'
* '''porat''' 'clean, pure' → '''Porats''' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'
In fact, the use of unmarked adjectives as nouns is perfectly regular (see [[#Nominalization|below]]); in each of these examples the suffix seems to function as a semantically empty derivation that, without directly changing the adjective's meaning, produces a modified form of the word that can then be used in a narrowed sense as a proper noun.

===Compounding===
Two types of compound nouns are attested:

* Adjective-Noun: Faraghin '''khoir''' 'goat' < Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'good' + '''idz''' 'head; head of livestock, domesticated animal'

* Noun-Genitive: Faraghin '''nagho''' 'bear' < Proto-Isthmus '''nag(a)''' 'lord' + '''su[n]''' '(of the) forest'

Exactly the same compound patterns are also found in Forest Miwan, suggesting that they may be inherited from Proto-Eigǝ-Isthmus.

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

==Adjectives==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways (taking verbal morphology in some predicative constructions, for example), while in other ways they seem somewhat noun-like.

===Derivation===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

====Intensification====
Proto-Isthmus had an adjective-intensifying prefix '''as-'''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin '''khar''' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'very good'.

====Nominalization====
An attributive adjective could stand as the head of a noun phrase when the modified noun was understood or unspecified; in the Faraghin wordlist several examples are found where this has become lexicalized as a noun (e.g. '''českod''' 'hidden; hidden one; mythical pixie-like being'). There's a particularly notable instance where a Faraghin participle with a noun-like definition takes the regular negative prefix used for adjectives:
* '''rantan''' 'test (by experience), prove' → '''rantod''' 'veteran, experienced man' → '''fisrantud''' 'untried person, rookie'
(Cf. '''tats''' 'lawful, legal' → '''fistats''' 'unlawful, illegal'.) So '''rantod''' seems to carry its adjectival morphology with it, even when it's used in this noun-like way.

Similar behavior can be observed in Ngauro (e.g. '''dyaka''' 'kingly, royal; royal one, (his/her) majesty', borrowed into [[Ndak Ta]] as '''diàka''' 'king, ruler'), suggesting that this may be a shared inheritence from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

There's also an old and rather obscure suffix '''-(a)k''' that seems to derive nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin '''ghisk''' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus '''gujts''' 'sharp' + '''-ak'''; Faraghin '''českan''' 'to hide' may be another, if it comes from an adjective '''ʈits''' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + '''-ak''' + verbal suffixes. This suffix seems to have become unproductive quite early in the prehistory of Faraghin (perhaps even by the Western Isthmus stage).

====Verbalization====
It seems that Proto-isthmus adjectives, like nouns, could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology, as one way of forming predicate adjectives.

(In the Faraghin lexicon, adjectives are found with regular causative verb morphology:
* '''leus''' 'free' → '''leusoin''' 'liberate'
* '''naks''' 'outside (adj.)' → '''naksoin''' 'exile, cast out'
* '''šes''' 'holy' → '''šesoin''' 'anoint; ordain; crown'
There's also '''rušnen''' 'paint, color; insult, accuse' < PIsth. '''dzus<i>n-i-''' 'redden (something); paint, color', which has an older form of causative marking that's no longer productive in Faraghin. It must date to before Western Isthmus, and it's cognate with Eastern Miwan '''tun''' 'red'. This shows both that this pattern of causative verbs formed directly from adjectives goes back to Proto-Isthmus, and that the grades/infixes could also be applied to adjectives in this way.)

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus adjectives were negated by adding a morpheme '''pjuts[V]''' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) '''aspjuts[V]''' immediately before the adjective. This morpheme became a prefix ('''fis-''') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

It's not known whether this construction was also used to negate clauses.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2020-12-01T06:36:28Z

Corumayas: /* Negation */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

==Phonology==
===Phoneme inventory===
====Consonants====
{| {{softtable}}
|
! scope="col" | labial
! scope="col" | dental
! scope="col" | retroflex
! scope="col" | palatal
! scope="col" | velar
|-
! scope="row" | plosive
| p b
| t d
| ʈ ɖ
|
| k g
|-
! scope="row" | affricate
|
| ts dz
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | fricative
| f
| s
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | nasal
| m
| n
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | approximant
|
| l
|
| j
|
|}

====Vowels====
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
! scope="col" | front
! scope="col" | back
|-
! scope="row" | close
| i
| u
|-
! scope="row" | mid
| e
| o
|-
! scope="row" | open
| colspan="2"| a
|}

===Phonotactics===
Proto-Isthmus syllable structure was fairly complex, allowing up to two consonants in onsets and three in codas: '''(C(l,j))V((j)(l,n,s)C)'''.

Any single consonant '''C''' could appear as onset or coda. Syllables with no onset consonant were only possible word-initially; there were no vowels in hiatus, and a single intervocalic consonant was always treated as an onset.

Onset clusters of the forms '''Cl Cj''' were found with most consonants; however, the first element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll''' was not a possible onset.

Possible two-consonant coda clusters were '''jC lC nC sC'''. The final element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll nn ss''' were not possible codas. Interestingly, '''ns sn''' both occured as coda clusters, and it may be that '''nl sl''' were possible too.

Three-consonant coda clusters '''jlC jnC jsC''' were also possible word-finally (with the same limitations on '''C''' as above).

In '''nC''' clusters, the '''n''' normally assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant (this produced allophonic '''[ŋ]''' before '''k g'''); '''nf''' may have been an exception. In '''sC''' clusters, the development in Eastern Isthmus (where voiced obstruents were devoiced after '''s''') shows that the '''s''' must have been pronounced voiceless even when the following consonant was voiced.

When a coda and onset met, a medial cluster could form. These clusters were pretty free, but there were a few restrictions; in particular, a coda retroflex never formed a cluster with an onset approximant—if morphology brought them together, the retroflex usually mutated into a dental or velar plosive.

===Stress===
While stress in Isthmus has not been thoroughly studied, it seems likely that primary stress fell on the first syllable of the root or stem, leaving any prefixes unstressed.

==Nouns==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for number and case.

===Number===
Two numbers were distinguished: ''singular'' and ''plural''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix '''-o''', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
! scope="col" | stem ending
! scope="col" | SG
! scope="col" | PL
|-
! consonant
| -C
| -Co
|-
! rowspan="3" | unstressed vowel
| -a, -e
| -a
|-
| -i
| -ja
|-
| -o, -u
| -o
|-
! stressed vowel
| -ˈV
| -ˈV (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in '''-a''' or '''-o''', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in '''-Cli''' to form their plurals with '''-Cla''' instead of '''**-Clja''', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in '''-Cji''' regularly formed their plurals with '''-Cuja'''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in '''-Cju''' formed their plurals with '''-Cjo''', but some used '''-Cja''' or '''-Cuja''' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in '''-Clu''' had plurals with '''-Clo''' but some used '''-Cla''' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops '''-ʈ -ɖ''': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals ('''-to -do''') in some nouns and velars ('''-ko -go''') in others. Some nouns ending in '''-ʈu -ɖu''' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials ('''-po -bo''') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included '''-s''' → '''-tso''', '''-su''' → '''-fo''', '''-n''' → '''-jno''', and '''-nu''' → '''-mo'''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel '''i''', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming '''ju''' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became '''u'''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: '''u''' → '''ju''' and '''o''' → '''e'''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in '''-s''', '''-n''', or '''-l'''.

Finally, some nouns ending in '''-j''' formed their plurals with '''-jno''' (rather than '''-jo'''), and some vowel-final nouns added '''-dzo''' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(In Faraghin some plurals were lexicalized with a collective meaning: '''tekh''' 'sword' → '''tekha''' 'army' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''tisk''' → '''tisko'''.)

===Case===
Four cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: ''nominative'', ''accusative'', ''genitive'', and ''dative''. Case was marked with prefixes; the paradigms fall into a small number of declension classes, defined mostly by animacy:

{| {{softtable}}
| colspan="2" |
! scope="col" | NOM
! scope="col" | ACC
! scope="col" | GEN
! scope="col" | DAT
|-
! rowspan="2" | Pronouns
! style="text-align:right;" | 1SG, 2SG, 3SG.ANIM
| –
| as-
| as-
| dza-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | 3SG.INAN, PL, INT/REL
| –
| as-
| as-
| ?
|-
! rowspan="2" | Nouns
! style="text-align:right;" | ANIM
| –
| ?
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | INAN
| –
| –
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|}

The accusative case had no marker of its own; it was syncretic with the genitive for pronouns, and with the nominative for inanimate nouns. Animate nouns must have followed one of these two patterns, but it's probably impossible to tell which: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(Both the accusative and genitive uses of '''as-''' seem to have originated in Pre-Proto-Isthmus from an earlier dative or locative function.)

The vowel in the dative prefix '''dz(a)-''' was probably deleted before another vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are only a few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of this prefix in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain; it may have been a locative or allative prefix rather than a true dative (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion above]]).

(While the case prefixes are no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few Faraghin nouns that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, '''Faragh''' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''as-pes-dosg''' 'of the camp-people'.)

===Gender===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was gender: all nouns were inherently either ''animate'' or ''inanimate''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate nouns formed the accusative case with '''as-''' like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns and verbs had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

===Derivation===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

====Diminutive and Augmentative====
Diminutive and augmentative nouns were formed with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel '''(a)''' was used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms, for example:
* Faraghin '''badeu''' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]bad-aɖu''' 'little father'
* '''deu''' 'daughter' < '''[V]da-ɖu''' '? little girl' or '? little daughter'

The augmentative suffix can be seen in
* Faraghin '''kert''' 'anger' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]kisd-at''' '? great violence'
* '''khunt''' 'devil' < '''as-kun-at''' '? great malevolent one'
* '''mašt''' 'house, palace' < '''mas-at''' 'great house'
* '''nagat''' 'lord, baron' < '''naga-t''' 'great lord'
and maybe in '''sat''' 'gold' < '''tso-t''' '?? great gold'.)

====Verbalization====
It appears that Proto-Isthmus nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal [[#Voice|voice]] and [[#Subject_Agreement|agreement]] suffixes to the noun stem, as one way of forming predicate nominals. There are some hints of similar behavior in Meshi and Old Eastern Miwan, so this way of forming predicate nominals may be inherited from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

(In Faraghin, causative verbs can be derived from nouns by adding the causative suffix '''-oi''', followed by a regular verbal agreement suffix; there are several examples in the lexicon:
* '''bar''' 'master' → '''baroin''' 'appoint, bestow'
* '''ben''' 'nothing' → '''benoin''' 'annul'
* '''bran''' 'front, face' → '''branoin''' 'advance, march'
* '''tat''' 'law, rule' → '''tatoin''' 'legalize; permit, allow'
This suffix '''-oi''' reflects Proto-Isthmus '''-aj'''. It's not clear whether the active voice can be similarly applied to nouns in Faraghin.)

====Adjectivization====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix '''-ʔa''' or '''-ha''' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix '''-dja''', derived from the verbal noun suffix '''-di''' + '''-ʔa'''/'''-ha''') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus. If it did, it would have the form '''-a''' in most environments.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: '''-(i)ts''' and '''-ujn''' (> Far. '''-s''' and '''-in'''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably '''-(i)ts''' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition '''its''' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was '''-ujn''', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives:
* '''čints''' 'on the left, north' → '''Čintsin''' 'the northern mountains'
* '''muns''' 'soft, weak' → '''Munsin''' 'weakish; the Ngauro'
* '''porat''' 'clean, pure' → '''Porats''' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'
In fact, the use of unmarked adjectives as nouns is perfectly regular (see [[#De-adjectivization|below]]); in each of these examples the suffix seems to function as a semantically empty derivation that, without directly changing the adjective's meaning, produces a modified form of the word that can then be used in a narrowed sense as a proper noun.

===Compounding===
Two types of compound nouns are attested:

* Adjective-Noun: Faraghin '''khoir''' 'goat' < Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'good' + '''idz''' 'head; head of livestock, domesticated animal'

* Noun-Genitive: Faraghin '''nagho''' 'bear' < Proto-Isthmus '''nag(a)''' 'lord' + '''su[n]''' '(of the) forest'

Exactly the same compound patterns are also found in Forest Miwan, suggesting that they may be inherited from Proto-Eigǝ-Isthmus.

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

==Adjectives==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways (taking verbal morphology in some predicative constructions, for example), while in other ways they seem somewhat noun-like.

===Derivation===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

====Intensification====
Proto-Isthmus had an adjective-intensifying prefix '''as-'''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin '''khar''' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'very good'.

====Nominalization====
An attributive adjective could stand as the head of a noun phrase when the modified noun was understood or unspecified; in the Faraghin wordlist several examples are found where this has become lexicalized as a noun (e.g. '''českod''' 'hidden; hidden one; mythical pixie-like being'). There's a particularly notable instance where a Faraghin participle with a noun-like definition takes the regular negative prefix used for adjectives:
* '''rantan''' 'test (by experience), prove' → '''rantod''' 'veteran, experienced man' → '''fisrantud''' 'untried person, rookie'
(Cf. '''tats''' 'lawful, legal' → '''fistats''' 'unlawful, illegal'.) So '''rantod''' seems to carry its adjectival morphology with it, even when it's used in this noun-like way.

Similar behavior can be observed in Ngauro (e.g. '''dyaka''' 'kingly, royal; royal one, (his/her) majesty', borrowed into [[Ndak Ta]] as '''diàka''' 'king, ruler'), suggesting that this may be a shared inheritence from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

There's also an old and rather obscure suffix '''-(a)k''' that seems to derive nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin '''ghisk''' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus '''gujts''' 'sharp' + '''-ak'''; Faraghin '''českan''' 'to hide' may be another, if it comes from an adjective '''ʈits''' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + '''-ak''' + verbal suffixes. This suffix seems to have become unproductive quite early in the prehistory of Faraghin (perhaps even by the Western Isthmus stage).

====Verbalization====
It seems that Proto-isthmus adjectives, like nouns, could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology, as one way of forming predicate adjectives.

(In the Faraghin lexicon, adjectives are found with regular causative verb morphology:
* '''leus''' 'free' → '''leusoin''' 'liberate'
* '''naks''' 'outside (adj.)' → '''naksoin''' 'exile, cast out'
* '''šes''' 'holy' → '''šesoin''' 'anoint; ordain; crown'
There's also '''rušnen''' 'paint, color; insult, accuse' < PIsth. '''dzus<i>n-i-''' 'redden (something); paint, color', which has an older form of causative marking that's no longer productive in Faraghin. It must date to before Western Isthmus, and it's cognate with Eastern Miwan '''tun''' 'red'. This shows both that this pattern of causative verbs formed directly from adjectives goes back to Proto-Isthmus, and that the grades/infixes could also be applied to adjectives in this way.)

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus adjectives were negated by adding a morpheme '''pjuts[V]''' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) '''aspjuts[V]''' immediately before the adjective. This morpheme became a prefix ('''fis-''') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

It's not known whether this construction was also used to negate clauses.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2020-12-01T06:23:09Z

Corumayas: /* Adjectives */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

==Phonology==
===Phoneme inventory===
====Consonants====
{| {{softtable}}
|
! scope="col" | labial
! scope="col" | dental
! scope="col" | retroflex
! scope="col" | palatal
! scope="col" | velar
|-
! scope="row" | plosive
| p b
| t d
| ʈ ɖ
|
| k g
|-
! scope="row" | affricate
|
| ts dz
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | fricative
| f
| s
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | nasal
| m
| n
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | approximant
|
| l
|
| j
|
|}

====Vowels====
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
! scope="col" | front
! scope="col" | back
|-
! scope="row" | close
| i
| u
|-
! scope="row" | mid
| e
| o
|-
! scope="row" | open
| colspan="2"| a
|}

===Phonotactics===
Proto-Isthmus syllable structure was fairly complex, allowing up to two consonants in onsets and three in codas: '''(C(l,j))V((j)(l,n,s)C)'''.

Any single consonant '''C''' could appear as onset or coda. Syllables with no onset consonant were only possible word-initially; there were no vowels in hiatus, and a single intervocalic consonant was always treated as an onset.

Onset clusters of the forms '''Cl Cj''' were found with most consonants; however, the first element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll''' was not a possible onset.

Possible two-consonant coda clusters were '''jC lC nC sC'''. The final element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll nn ss''' were not possible codas. Interestingly, '''ns sn''' both occured as coda clusters, and it may be that '''nl sl''' were possible too.

Three-consonant coda clusters '''jlC jnC jsC''' were also possible word-finally (with the same limitations on '''C''' as above).

In '''nC''' clusters, the '''n''' normally assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant (this produced allophonic '''[ŋ]''' before '''k g'''); '''nf''' may have been an exception. In '''sC''' clusters, the development in Eastern Isthmus (where voiced obstruents were devoiced after '''s''') shows that the '''s''' must have been pronounced voiceless even when the following consonant was voiced.

When a coda and onset met, a medial cluster could form. These clusters were pretty free, but there were a few restrictions; in particular, a coda retroflex never formed a cluster with an onset approximant—if morphology brought them together, the retroflex usually mutated into a dental or velar plosive.

===Stress===
While stress in Isthmus has not been thoroughly studied, it seems likely that primary stress fell on the first syllable of the root or stem, leaving any prefixes unstressed.

==Nouns==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for number and case.

===Number===
Two numbers were distinguished: ''singular'' and ''plural''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix '''-o''', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
! scope="col" | stem ending
! scope="col" | SG
! scope="col" | PL
|-
! consonant
| -C
| -Co
|-
! rowspan="3" | unstressed vowel
| -a, -e
| -a
|-
| -i
| -ja
|-
| -o, -u
| -o
|-
! stressed vowel
| -ˈV
| -ˈV (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in '''-a''' or '''-o''', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in '''-Cli''' to form their plurals with '''-Cla''' instead of '''**-Clja''', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in '''-Cji''' regularly formed their plurals with '''-Cuja'''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in '''-Cju''' formed their plurals with '''-Cjo''', but some used '''-Cja''' or '''-Cuja''' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in '''-Clu''' had plurals with '''-Clo''' but some used '''-Cla''' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops '''-ʈ -ɖ''': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals ('''-to -do''') in some nouns and velars ('''-ko -go''') in others. Some nouns ending in '''-ʈu -ɖu''' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials ('''-po -bo''') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included '''-s''' → '''-tso''', '''-su''' → '''-fo''', '''-n''' → '''-jno''', and '''-nu''' → '''-mo'''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel '''i''', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming '''ju''' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became '''u'''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: '''u''' → '''ju''' and '''o''' → '''e'''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in '''-s''', '''-n''', or '''-l'''.

Finally, some nouns ending in '''-j''' formed their plurals with '''-jno''' (rather than '''-jo'''), and some vowel-final nouns added '''-dzo''' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(In Faraghin some plurals were lexicalized with a collective meaning: '''tekh''' 'sword' → '''tekha''' 'army' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''tisk''' → '''tisko'''.)

===Case===
Four cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: ''nominative'', ''accusative'', ''genitive'', and ''dative''. Case was marked with prefixes; the paradigms fall into a small number of declension classes, defined mostly by animacy:

{| {{softtable}}
| colspan="2" |
! scope="col" | NOM
! scope="col" | ACC
! scope="col" | GEN
! scope="col" | DAT
|-
! rowspan="2" | Pronouns
! style="text-align:right;" | 1SG, 2SG, 3SG.ANIM
| –
| as-
| as-
| dza-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | 3SG.INAN, PL, INT/REL
| –
| as-
| as-
| ?
|-
! rowspan="2" | Nouns
! style="text-align:right;" | ANIM
| –
| ?
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | INAN
| –
| –
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|}

The accusative case had no marker of its own; it was syncretic with the genitive for pronouns, and with the nominative for inanimate nouns. Animate nouns must have followed one of these two patterns, but it's probably impossible to tell which: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(Both the accusative and genitive uses of '''as-''' seem to have originated in Pre-Proto-Isthmus from an earlier dative or locative function.)

The vowel in the dative prefix '''dz(a)-''' was probably deleted before another vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are only a few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of this prefix in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain; it may have been a locative or allative prefix rather than a true dative (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion above]]).

(While the case prefixes are no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few Faraghin nouns that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, '''Faragh''' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''as-pes-dosg''' 'of the camp-people'.)

===Gender===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was gender: all nouns were inherently either ''animate'' or ''inanimate''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate nouns formed the accusative case with '''as-''' like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns and verbs had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

===Derivation===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

====Diminutive and Augmentative====
Diminutive and augmentative nouns were formed with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel '''(a)''' was used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms, for example:
* Faraghin '''badeu''' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]bad-aɖu''' 'little father'
* '''deu''' 'daughter' < '''[V]da-ɖu''' '? little girl' or '? little daughter'

The augmentative suffix can be seen in
* Faraghin '''kert''' 'anger' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]kisd-at''' '? great violence'
* '''khunt''' 'devil' < '''as-kun-at''' '? great malevolent one'
* '''mašt''' 'house, palace' < '''mas-at''' 'great house'
* '''nagat''' 'lord, baron' < '''naga-t''' 'great lord'
and maybe in '''sat''' 'gold' < '''tso-t''' '?? great gold'.)

====Verbalization====
It appears that Proto-Isthmus nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal [[#Voice|voice]] and [[#Subject_Agreement|agreement]] suffixes to the noun stem, as one way of forming predicate nominals. There are some hints of similar behavior in Meshi and Old Eastern Miwan, so this way of forming predicate nominals may be inherited from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

(In Faraghin, causative verbs can be derived from nouns by adding the causative suffix '''-oi''', followed by a regular verbal agreement suffix; there are several examples in the lexicon:
* '''bar''' 'master' → '''baroin''' 'appoint, bestow'
* '''ben''' 'nothing' → '''benoin''' 'annul'
* '''bran''' 'front, face' → '''branoin''' 'advance, march'
* '''tat''' 'law, rule' → '''tatoin''' 'legalize; permit, allow'
This suffix '''-oi''' reflects Proto-Isthmus '''-aj'''. It's not clear whether the active voice can be similarly applied to nouns in Faraghin.)

====Adjectivization====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix '''-ʔa''' or '''-ha''' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix '''-dja''', derived from the verbal noun suffix '''-di''' + '''-ʔa'''/'''-ha''') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus. If it did, it would have the form '''-a''' in most environments.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: '''-(i)ts''' and '''-ujn''' (> Far. '''-s''' and '''-in'''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably '''-(i)ts''' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition '''its''' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was '''-ujn''', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives:
* '''čints''' 'on the left, north' → '''Čintsin''' 'the northern mountains'
* '''muns''' 'soft, weak' → '''Munsin''' 'weakish; the Ngauro'
* '''porat''' 'clean, pure' → '''Porats''' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'
In fact, the use of unmarked adjectives as nouns is perfectly regular (see [[#De-adjectivization|below]]); in each of these examples the suffix seems to function as a semantically empty derivation that, without directly changing the adjective's meaning, produces a modified form of the word that can then be used in a narrowed sense as a proper noun.

===Compounding===
Two types of compound nouns are attested:

* Adjective-Noun: Faraghin '''khoir''' 'goat' < Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'good' + '''idz''' 'head; head of livestock, domesticated animal'

* Noun-Genitive: Faraghin '''nagho''' 'bear' < Proto-Isthmus '''nag(a)''' 'lord' + '''su[n]''' '(of the) forest'

Exactly the same compound patterns are also found in Forest Miwan, suggesting that they may be inherited from Proto-Eigǝ-Isthmus.

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

==Adjectives==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways (taking verbal morphology in some predicative constructions, for example), while in other ways they seem somewhat noun-like.

===Derivation===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

====Intensification====
Proto-Isthmus had an adjective-intensifying prefix '''as-'''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin '''khar''' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'very good'.

====Nominalization====
An attributive adjective could stand as the head of a noun phrase when the modified noun was understood or unspecified; in the Faraghin wordlist several examples are found where this has become lexicalized as a noun (e.g. '''českod''' 'hidden; hidden one; mythical pixie-like being'). There's a particularly notable instance where a Faraghin participle with a noun-like definition takes the regular negative prefix used for adjectives:
* '''rantan''' 'test (by experience), prove' → '''rantod''' 'veteran, experienced man' → '''fisrantud''' 'untried person, rookie'
(Cf. '''tats''' 'lawful, legal' → '''fistats''' 'unlawful, illegal'.) So '''rantod''' seems to carry its adjectival morphology with it, even when it's used in this noun-like way.

Similar behavior can be observed in Ngauro (e.g. '''dyaka''' 'kingly, royal; royal one, (his/her) majesty', borrowed into [[Ndak Ta]] as '''diàka''' 'king, ruler'), suggesting that this may be a shared inheritence from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

There's also an old and rather obscure suffix '''-(a)k''' that seems to derive nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin '''ghisk''' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus '''gujts''' 'sharp' + '''-ak'''; Faraghin '''českan''' 'to hide' may be another, if it comes from an adjective '''ʈits''' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + '''-ak''' + verbal suffixes. This suffix seems to have become unproductive quite early in the prehistory of Faraghin (perhaps even by the Western Isthmus stage).

====Verbalization====
It seems that Proto-isthmus adjectives, like nouns, could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology, as one way of forming predicate adjectives.

(In the Faraghin lexicon, adjectives are found with regular causative verb morphology:
* '''leus''' 'free' → '''leusoin''' 'liberate'
* '''naks''' 'outside (adj.)' → '''naksoin''' 'exile, cast out'
* '''šes''' 'holy' → '''šesoin''' 'anoint; ordain; crown'
There's also '''rušnen''' 'paint, color; insult, accuse' < PIsth. '''dzus<i>n-i-''' 'redden (something); paint, color', which has an older form of causative marking that's no longer productive in Faraghin. It must date to before Western Isthmus, and it's cognate with Eastern Miwan '''tun''' 'red'. This shows both that this pattern of causative verbs formed directly from adjectives goes back to Proto-Isthmus, and that the grades/infixes could also be applied to adjectives in this way.)

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2020-12-01T05:05:05Z

Corumayas: /* Nouns */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

==Phonology==
===Phoneme inventory===
====Consonants====
{| {{softtable}}
|
! scope="col" | labial
! scope="col" | dental
! scope="col" | retroflex
! scope="col" | palatal
! scope="col" | velar
|-
! scope="row" | plosive
| p b
| t d
| ʈ ɖ
|
| k g
|-
! scope="row" | affricate
|
| ts dz
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | fricative
| f
| s
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | nasal
| m
| n
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | approximant
|
| l
|
| j
|
|}

====Vowels====
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
! scope="col" | front
! scope="col" | back
|-
! scope="row" | close
| i
| u
|-
! scope="row" | mid
| e
| o
|-
! scope="row" | open
| colspan="2"| a
|}

===Phonotactics===
Proto-Isthmus syllable structure was fairly complex, allowing up to two consonants in onsets and three in codas: '''(C(l,j))V((j)(l,n,s)C)'''.

Any single consonant '''C''' could appear as onset or coda. Syllables with no onset consonant were only possible word-initially; there were no vowels in hiatus, and a single intervocalic consonant was always treated as an onset.

Onset clusters of the forms '''Cl Cj''' were found with most consonants; however, the first element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll''' was not a possible onset.

Possible two-consonant coda clusters were '''jC lC nC sC'''. The final element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll nn ss''' were not possible codas. Interestingly, '''ns sn''' both occured as coda clusters, and it may be that '''nl sl''' were possible too.

Three-consonant coda clusters '''jlC jnC jsC''' were also possible word-finally (with the same limitations on '''C''' as above).

In '''nC''' clusters, the '''n''' normally assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant (this produced allophonic '''[ŋ]''' before '''k g'''); '''nf''' may have been an exception. In '''sC''' clusters, the development in Eastern Isthmus (where voiced obstruents were devoiced after '''s''') shows that the '''s''' must have been pronounced voiceless even when the following consonant was voiced.

When a coda and onset met, a medial cluster could form. These clusters were pretty free, but there were a few restrictions; in particular, a coda retroflex never formed a cluster with an onset approximant—if morphology brought them together, the retroflex usually mutated into a dental or velar plosive.

===Stress===
While stress in Isthmus has not been thoroughly studied, it seems likely that primary stress fell on the first syllable of the root or stem, leaving any prefixes unstressed.

==Nouns==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for number and case.

===Number===
Two numbers were distinguished: ''singular'' and ''plural''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix '''-o''', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
! scope="col" | stem ending
! scope="col" | SG
! scope="col" | PL
|-
! consonant
| -C
| -Co
|-
! rowspan="3" | unstressed vowel
| -a, -e
| -a
|-
| -i
| -ja
|-
| -o, -u
| -o
|-
! stressed vowel
| -ˈV
| -ˈV (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in '''-a''' or '''-o''', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in '''-Cli''' to form their plurals with '''-Cla''' instead of '''**-Clja''', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in '''-Cji''' regularly formed their plurals with '''-Cuja'''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in '''-Cju''' formed their plurals with '''-Cjo''', but some used '''-Cja''' or '''-Cuja''' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in '''-Clu''' had plurals with '''-Clo''' but some used '''-Cla''' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops '''-ʈ -ɖ''': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals ('''-to -do''') in some nouns and velars ('''-ko -go''') in others. Some nouns ending in '''-ʈu -ɖu''' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials ('''-po -bo''') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included '''-s''' → '''-tso''', '''-su''' → '''-fo''', '''-n''' → '''-jno''', and '''-nu''' → '''-mo'''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel '''i''', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming '''ju''' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became '''u'''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: '''u''' → '''ju''' and '''o''' → '''e'''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in '''-s''', '''-n''', or '''-l'''.

Finally, some nouns ending in '''-j''' formed their plurals with '''-jno''' (rather than '''-jo'''), and some vowel-final nouns added '''-dzo''' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(In Faraghin some plurals were lexicalized with a collective meaning: '''tekh''' 'sword' → '''tekha''' 'army' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''tisk''' → '''tisko'''.)

===Case===
Four cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: ''nominative'', ''accusative'', ''genitive'', and ''dative''. Case was marked with prefixes; the paradigms fall into a small number of declension classes, defined mostly by animacy:

{| {{softtable}}
| colspan="2" |
! scope="col" | NOM
! scope="col" | ACC
! scope="col" | GEN
! scope="col" | DAT
|-
! rowspan="2" | Pronouns
! style="text-align:right;" | 1SG, 2SG, 3SG.ANIM
| –
| as-
| as-
| dza-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | 3SG.INAN, PL, INT/REL
| –
| as-
| as-
| ?
|-
! rowspan="2" | Nouns
! style="text-align:right;" | ANIM
| –
| ?
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | INAN
| –
| –
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|}

The accusative case had no marker of its own; it was syncretic with the genitive for pronouns, and with the nominative for inanimate nouns. Animate nouns must have followed one of these two patterns, but it's probably impossible to tell which: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(Both the accusative and genitive uses of '''as-''' seem to have originated in Pre-Proto-Isthmus from an earlier dative or locative function.)

The vowel in the dative prefix '''dz(a)-''' was probably deleted before another vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are only a few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of this prefix in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain; it may have been a locative or allative prefix rather than a true dative (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion above]]).

(While the case prefixes are no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few Faraghin nouns that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, '''Faragh''' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''as-pes-dosg''' 'of the camp-people'.)

===Gender===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was gender: all nouns were inherently either ''animate'' or ''inanimate''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate nouns formed the accusative case with '''as-''' like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns and verbs had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

===Derivation===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

====Diminutive and Augmentative====
Diminutive and augmentative nouns were formed with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel '''(a)''' was used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms, for example:
* Faraghin '''badeu''' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]bad-aɖu''' 'little father'
* '''deu''' 'daughter' < '''[V]da-ɖu''' '? little girl' or '? little daughter'

The augmentative suffix can be seen in
* Faraghin '''kert''' 'anger' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]kisd-at''' '? great violence'
* '''khunt''' 'devil' < '''as-kun-at''' '? great malevolent one'
* '''mašt''' 'house, palace' < '''mas-at''' 'great house'
* '''nagat''' 'lord, baron' < '''naga-t''' 'great lord'
and maybe in '''sat''' 'gold' < '''tso-t''' '?? great gold'.)

====Verbalization====
It appears that Proto-Isthmus nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal [[#Voice|voice]] and [[#Subject_Agreement|agreement]] suffixes to the noun stem, as one way of forming predicate nominals. There are some hints of similar behavior in Meshi and Old Eastern Miwan, so this way of forming predicate nominals may be inherited from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus.

(In Faraghin, causative verbs can be derived from nouns by adding the causative suffix '''-oi''', followed by a regular verbal agreement suffix; there are several examples in the lexicon:
* '''bar''' 'master' → '''baroin''' 'appoint, bestow'
* '''ben''' 'nothing' → '''benoin''' 'annul'
* '''bran''' 'front, face' → '''branoin''' 'advance, march'
* '''tat''' 'law, rule' → '''tatoin''' 'legalize; permit, allow'
This suffix '''-oi''' reflects Proto-Isthmus '''-aj'''. It's not clear whether the active voice can be similarly applied to nouns in Faraghin.)

====Adjectivization====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix '''-ʔa''' or '''-ha''' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix '''-dja''', derived from the verbal noun suffix '''-di''' + '''-ʔa'''/'''-ha''') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus. If it did, it would have the form '''-a''' in most environments.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: '''-(i)ts''' and '''-ujn''' (> Far. '''-s''' and '''-in'''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably '''-(i)ts''' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition '''its''' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was '''-ujn''', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives:
* '''čints''' 'on the left, north' → '''Čintsin''' 'the northern mountains'
* '''muns''' 'soft, weak' → '''Munsin''' 'weakish; the Ngauro'
* '''porat''' 'clean, pure' → '''Porats''' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'
In fact, the use of unmarked adjectives as nouns is perfectly regular (see [[#De-adjectivization|below]]); in each of these examples the suffix seems to function as a semantically empty derivation that, without directly changing the adjective's meaning, produces a modified form of the word that can then be used in a narrowed sense as a proper noun.

===Compounding===
Two types of compound nouns are attested:

* Adjective-Noun: Faraghin '''khoir''' 'goat' < Proto-Isthmus '''as-koɖ[V]''' 'good' + '''idz''' 'head; head of livestock, domesticated animal'

* Noun-Genitive: Faraghin '''nagho''' 'bear' < Proto-Isthmus '''nag(a)''' 'lord' + '''su[n]''' '(of the) forest'

Exactly the same compound patterns are also found in Forest Miwan, suggesting that they may be inherited from Proto-Eigǝ-Isthmus.

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2020-10-19T07:26:54Z

Corumayas: /* Nouns */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

==Phonology==
===Phoneme inventory===
====Consonants====
{| {{softtable}}
|
! scope="col" | labial
! scope="col" | dental
! scope="col" | retroflex
! scope="col" | palatal
! scope="col" | velar
|-
! scope="row" | plosive
| p b
| t d
| ʈ ɖ
|
| k g
|-
! scope="row" | affricate
|
| ts dz
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | fricative
| f
| s
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | nasal
| m
| n
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | approximant
|
| l
|
| j
|
|}

====Vowels====
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
! scope="col" | front
! scope="col" | back
|-
! scope="row" | close
| i
| u
|-
! scope="row" | mid
| e
| o
|-
! scope="row" | open
| colspan="2"| a
|}

===Phonotactics===
Proto-Isthmus syllable structure was fairly complex, allowing up to two consonants in onsets and three in codas: '''(C(l,j))V((j)(l,n,s)C)'''.

Any single consonant '''C''' could appear as onset or coda. Syllables with no onset consonant were only possible word-initially; there were no vowels in hiatus, and a single intervocalic consonant was always treated as an onset.

Onset clusters of the forms '''Cl Cj''' were found with most consonants; however, the first element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll''' was not a possible onset.

Possible two-consonant coda clusters were '''jC lC nC sC'''. The final element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll nn ss''' were not possible codas. Interestingly, '''ns sn''' both occured as coda clusters, and it may be that '''nl sl''' were possible too.

Three-consonant coda clusters '''jlC jnC jsC''' were also possible word-finally (with the same limitations on '''C''' as above).

In '''nC''' clusters, the '''n''' normally assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant (this produced allophonic '''[ŋ]''' before '''k g'''); '''nf''' may have been an exception. In '''sC''' clusters, the development in Eastern Isthmus (where voiced obstruents were devoiced after '''s''') shows that the '''s''' must have been pronounced voiceless even when the following consonant was voiced.

When a coda and onset met, a medial cluster could form. These clusters were pretty free, but there were a few restrictions; in particular, a coda retroflex never formed a cluster with an onset approximant—if morphology brought them together, the retroflex usually mutated into a dental or velar plosive.

===Stress===
While stress in Isthmus has not been thoroughly studied, it seems likely that primary stress fell on the first syllable of the root or stem, leaving any prefixes unstressed.

==Nouns==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for ''number'' and ''case''.

===Number===
Two numbers were distinguished: ''singular'' and ''plural''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix '''-o''', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
! scope="col" | stem ending
! scope="col" | SG
! scope="col" | PL
|-
! consonant
| -C
| -Co
|-
! rowspan="3" | unstressed vowel
| -a, -e
| -a
|-
| -i
| -ja
|-
| -o, -u
| -o
|-
! stressed vowel
| -ˈV
| -ˈV (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in '''-a''' or '''-o''', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in '''-Cli''' to form their plurals with '''-Cla''' instead of '''**-Clja''', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in '''-Cji''' regularly formed their plurals with '''-Cuja'''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in '''-Cju''' formed their plurals with '''-Cjo''', but some used '''-Cja''' or '''-Cuja''' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in ''-Clu'' had plurals with '''-Clo''' but some used '''-Cla''' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops '''-ʈ -ɖ''': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals ('''-to -do''') in some nouns and velars ('''-ko -go''') in others. Some nouns ending in '''-ʈu -ɖu''' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials ('''-po -bo''') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included '''-s''' → '''-tso''', '''-su''' → '''-fo''', '''-n''' → '''-jno''', and '''-nu''' → '''-mo'''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel '''i''', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming '''ju''' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became '''u'''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: '''u''' → '''ju''' and '''o''' → '''e'''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in '''-s''', '''-n''', or '''-l'''.

Finally, some nouns ending in '''-j''' formed their plurals with '''-jno''' (rather than '''-jo'''), and some vowel-final nouns added '''-dzo''' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(In Faraghin some plurals were lexicalized with a collective meaning: '''tekh''' 'sword' → '''tekha''' 'army' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''tisk''' → '''tisko'''.)

===Case===
Four cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: ''nominative'', ''accusative'', ''genitive'', and ''dative''. Case was marked with prefixes; the paradigms fall into a small number of declension classes defined by animacy:

{| {{softtable}}
| colspan="2" |
! scope="col" | NOM
! scope="col" | ACC
! scope="col" | GEN
! scope="col" | DAT
|-
! rowspan="2" | Pronouns
! style="text-align:right;" | 1SG, 2SG, 3SG.ANIM
| –
| as-
| as-
| dza-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | 3SG.INAN, PL, INT/REL
| –
| as-
| as-
| ?
|-
! rowspan="2" | Nouns
! style="text-align:right;" | ANIM
| –
| ?
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|-
! style="text-align:right;" | INAN
| –
| –
| as-
| ? dz(a)-
|}

The accusative case had no marker of its own; it was syncretic with the genitive for pronouns, and with the nominative for inanimate nouns. Animate nouns must have followed one of these two patterns, but it's probably impossible to tell which: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(Both the accusative and genitive uses of '''as-''' seem to have originated in Pre-Proto-Isthmus from an earlier dative or locative function.)

The vowel in the dative prefix '''dz(a)-''' was probably deleted before another vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are only a few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of this prefix in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain; it may have been a locative or allative prefix rather than a true dative (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion above]]).

(While the case prefixes are no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few Faraghin nouns that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, '''Faragh''' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus '''as-pes-dosg''' 'of the camp-people'.)

===Gender===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was ''gender'': all nouns were inherently either ''animate'' or ''inanimate''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate nouns formed the accusative case with '''as-''' like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns, and probably verbs as well, had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

===Derivation===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

====Compounding====
Two types of compound nouns are attested in [[Faraghin]]: ''adjective-noun'' and ''noun-genitive''. It's likely that both patterns go back to Proto-Isthmus.

(An example of an old adjective-noun compound is Faraghin '''khoir''' 'goat', from Proto-Isthmus '''(as)-koɖ[V]''' 'good' + '''idz''' 'head of livestock, domesticated animal'; a similar noun-genitive example is Faraghin '''nagho''' 'bear', from Proto-Isthmus '''nag(a)-su[n]''' 'lord of the forest'.)

====Denominalization====
It's possible that nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology; the Faraghin wordlist contains a couple of causative verbs built on nominal roots in this way ('''bar''' 'master' → '''baroin''' 'appoint, bestow' and '''bran''' 'face, front' → '''branoin''' 'advance, march').

Although Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix that derived adjectives from nouns, and Faraghin has developed two more such suffixes, it may be that none of these were productive at the Proto-Isthmus stage; see the discussion under [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] below.

====Diminutive and Augmentative====
Nouns could also be made ''diminutive'' or ''augmentative'' with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel '''(a)''' was used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms, for example '''badeu''' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus '''[V]bad-aɖu''' and '''deu''' 'daughter' < '''[V]da-ɖu'''. The augmentative suffix can be seen in '''kert''' 'anger' < '''[V]kisd-at''', '''khunt''' 'devil' < '''as-kun-at''', '''mašt''' 'house, palace' < '''mas-at''', '''nagat''' 'lord, baron' < '''naga-t''', and maybe '''sat''' 'gold' < '''tso-t'''.)

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2020-10-19T05:36:23Z

Corumayas: /* A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

==Phonology==
===Phoneme inventory===
====Consonants====
{| {{softtable}}
|
! scope="col" | labial
! scope="col" | dental
! scope="col" | retroflex
! scope="col" | palatal
! scope="col" | velar
|-
! scope="row" | plosive
| p b
| t d
| ʈ ɖ
|
| k g
|-
! scope="row" | affricate
|
| ts dz
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | fricative
| f
| s
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | nasal
| m
| n
|
|
|
|-
! scope="row" | approximant
|
| l
|
| j
|
|}

====Vowels====
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
! scope="col" | front
! scope="col" | back
|-
! scope="row" | close
| i
| u
|-
! scope="row" | mid
| e
| o
|-
! scope="row" | open
| colspan="2"| a
|}

===Phonotactics===
Proto-Isthmus syllable structure was fairly complex, allowing up to two consonants in onsets and three in codas: '''(C(l,j))V((j)(l,n,s)C)'''.

Any single consonant '''C''' could appear as onset or coda. Syllables with no onset consonant were only possible word-initially; there were no vowels in hiatus, and a single intervocalic consonant was always treated as an onset.

Onset clusters of the forms '''Cl Cj''' were found with most consonants; however, the first element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll''' was not a possible onset.

Possible two-consonant coda clusters were '''jC lC nC sC'''. The final element '''C''' could not be a retroflex or '''j''', and '''ll nn ss''' were not possible codas. Interestingly, '''ns sn''' both occured as coda clusters, and it may be that '''nl sl''' were possible too.

Three-consonant coda clusters '''jlC jnC jsC''' were also possible word-finally (with the same limitations on '''C''' as above).

In '''nC''' clusters, the '''n''' normally assimilated to the place of articulation of the following consonant (this produced allophonic '''[ŋ]''' before '''k g'''); '''nf''' may have been an exception. In '''sC''' clusters, the development in Eastern Isthmus (where voiced obstruents were devoiced after '''s''') shows that the '''s''' must have been pronounced voiceless even when the following consonant was voiced.

When a coda and onset met, a medial cluster could form. These clusters were pretty free, but there were a few restrictions; in particular, a coda retroflex never formed a cluster with an onset approximant—if morphology brought them together, the retroflex usually mutated into a dental or velar plosive.

===Stress===
While stress in Isthmus has not been thoroughly studied, it seems likely that primary stress fell on the first syllable of the root or stem, leaving any prefixes unstressed.

== Nouns ==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for '''number''' and '''case'''.

=== Number ===
Two numbers were distinguished: '''singular''' and '''plural'''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix ''-o'', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Consonant
! colspan="3" | Unstressed vowel
! Stressed vowel
|-
! SG
| -C
| -a -e
| -i
| -o -u
| -V
|-
! PL
| -Co
| -a
| -ja
| -o
| -V (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in ''-a'' or ''-o'', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in ''-Cli'' to form their plurals with ''-Cla'' instead of ''-Clja'', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in ''-Cji'' regularly formed their plurals with ''-Cuja''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in ''-Cju'' formed their plurals with ''-Cjo'', but some used ''-Cja'' or ''-Cuja'' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in ''-Clu'' had plurals with ''-Clo'' but some used ''-Cla'' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops ''-ʈ -ɖ'': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals (''-to -do'') in some nouns and velars (''-ko -go'') in others. Some nouns ending in ''-ʈu -ɖu'' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials (''-po -bo'') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included ''-s'' → ''-tso'', ''-su'' → ''-fo'', ''-n'' → ''-jno'', and ''-nu'' → ''-mo''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel ''i'', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming ''ju'' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became ''u''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: ''u'' → ''ju'' and ''o'' → ''e''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in ''-s'', ''-n'', or ''-l''.

Finally, some nouns ending in ''-j'' formed their plurals with ''-jno'' (rather than ''-jo''), and some vowel-final nouns added ''-dzo'' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(Faraghin ''tekh'' 'sword' → ''tekha'' 'army' is an example of a lexicalized plural, from Proto-Isthmus ''tisk'' → ''tisko''.)

=== Case ===
Three cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: '''nominative''', '''genitive''', and '''dative'''. The nominative was unmarked, while the other two cases were marked with prefixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! NOM
| —
|-
! GEN
| as-
|-
! DAT
| dz(a)-
|}

The vowel in the dative prefix ''dz(a)-'' was probably omitted when the noun began with a vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are very few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of the Proto-Isthmus dative is uncertain (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion of the dative]] above).

The functions of the other two cases are much better understood, but they were slightly different from what their names might suggest. The nominative was originally used not only for subjects, but also for direct objects; inanimate nouns behaved this way in Proto-Isthmus, and still do in many of its attested descendants. However, for Proto-Isthmus pronouns, and possibly also for animate nouns, the genitive prefix ''as-'' came to be used to mark direct objects as well as possessors (for this reason it's sometimes called '''genitive/accusative''', especially when discussing the pronouns). The following table summarizes this situation:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Pronouns
! Animates
! Inanimates
|-
! Subject
| —
| —
| —
|-
! Direct Object
| as-
| ?
| —
|-
! Possessor
| as-
| as-
| as-
|}

It's probably impossible to tell which pattern animate nouns followed in Proto-Isthmus: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(While the case prefixes are mostly no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few words that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, ''Ferogh'' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus ''as-pes-dosg'' 'of the people of the camp'.)

=== Gender ===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was '''gender''': all nouns were inherently either '''animate''' or '''inanimate'''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate direct objects took genitive/accusative marking like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns, and probably verbs as well, had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

=== Derivation ===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

==== Compounding ====
Two types of compound nouns are attested in [[Faraghin]]: '''adjective-noun''' and '''noun-genitive'''. It's likely that both patterns go back to Proto-Isthmus.

(An example of an old adjective-noun compound is Faraghin ''khoir'' 'goat', from Proto-Isthmus ''(as)-koɖ[V]'' 'good' + ''idz'' 'head of livestock, domesticated animal'; a similar noun-genitive example is Faraghin ''nagho'' 'bear', from Proto-Isthmus ''nag(a)-su[n]'' 'lord of the forest'.)

==== Denominalization ====
It's possible that nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology; the Faraghin wordlist contains a couple of causative verbs built on nominal roots in this way (''bar'' 'master' → ''baroin'' 'appoint, bestow' and ''bran'' 'face, front' → ''branoin'' 'advance, march').

Although Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix that derived adjectives from nouns, and Faraghin has developed two more such suffixes, it may be that none of these were productive at the Proto-Isthmus stage; see the discussion under [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] below.

==== Diminutive and Augmentative ====
Nouns could also be made '''diminutive''' or '''augmentative''' with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel ''(a)'' was probably used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms: cf. ''badeu'' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus ''[V]bad-aɖu'' and ''deu'' 'daughter' < ''[V]da-ɖu''. The augmentative suffix can be seen in ''kert'' 'anger' < ''[V]kisd-at'', ''khunt'' 'devil' < ''as-kun-at'', ''mašt'' 'house, palace' < ''mas-at'', ''nagat'' 'lord, baron' < ''naga-t'', and maybe ''sat'' 'gold' < ''tso-t''.)

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2020-10-18T23:30:16Z

Corumayas: /* Ferogh Languages */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

==== Ṭømjuñar ====
Ṭømjuñar was a widely-spoken Central Doroh dialect originating in the city-state of Ẓaṛmott. This describes the state of the language ca. 800.

The 3sg pronouns resolved in favor of the '''mih''' form. The original 2pl form '''ve''' supplanted the singular, while a new suffixed form '''venah''' supplied the new 2pl.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attarin || attaþ || attavum || attamin || daris || attaril || attanum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṛ || okkuṛ || okkuṛin || okkuþ || okkuṛum || — || guṛis || okkuṛil || okkunum
|-
| '''2sg''' || ve || aṣø || aṣørin || aṣøþ || aṣøvum || aṣømin || veris || aṣøril || aṣønum
|-
| '''2pl''' || venah || aṣønah || aṣønašin || aṣønaþ || aṣønašum || — || venašis || aṣønašir || aṣønaþum
|-
| '''3sg''' || mih || ašmih || ašmišin || ašmiþ || ašmišum || ašmifin || mišis || ašmišir || ašmiþum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lus || oþus || oþučin || oþut || oþuṭum || — || lučis || oþučir || oþuþum
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkerin || akkaþi || akkerum || — || keris || akkeril|| akkanjum
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || apperin || appaþi || apperum || — || beris || apperil || appanjum
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

== Nouns ==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for '''number''' and '''case'''.

=== Number ===
Two numbers were distinguished: '''singular''' and '''plural'''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix ''-o'', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Consonant
! colspan="3" | Unstressed vowel
! Stressed vowel
|-
! SG
| -C
| -a -e
| -i
| -o -u
| -V
|-
! PL
| -Co
| -a
| -ja
| -o
| -V (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in ''-a'' or ''-o'', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in ''-Cli'' to form their plurals with ''-Cla'' instead of ''-Clja'', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in ''-Cji'' regularly formed their plurals with ''-Cuja''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in ''-Cju'' formed their plurals with ''-Cjo'', but some used ''-Cja'' or ''-Cuja'' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in ''-Clu'' had plurals with ''-Clo'' but some used ''-Cla'' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops ''-ʈ -ɖ'': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals (''-to -do'') in some nouns and velars (''-ko -go'') in others. Some nouns ending in ''-ʈu -ɖu'' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials (''-po -bo'') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included ''-s'' → ''-tso'', ''-su'' → ''-fo'', ''-n'' → ''-jno'', and ''-nu'' → ''-mo''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel ''i'', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming ''ju'' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became ''u''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: ''u'' → ''ju'' and ''o'' → ''e''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in ''-s'', ''-n'', or ''-l''.

Finally, some nouns ending in ''-j'' formed their plurals with ''-jno'' (rather than ''-jo''), and some vowel-final nouns added ''-dzo'' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(Faraghin ''tekh'' 'sword' → ''tekha'' 'army' is an example of a lexicalized plural, from Proto-Isthmus ''tisk'' → ''tisko''.)

=== Case ===
Three cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: '''nominative''', '''genitive''', and '''dative'''. The nominative was unmarked, while the other two cases were marked with prefixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! NOM
| —
|-
! GEN
| as-
|-
! DAT
| dz(a)-
|}

The vowel in the dative prefix ''dz(a)-'' was probably omitted when the noun began with a vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are very few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of the Proto-Isthmus dative is uncertain (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion of the dative]] above).

The functions of the other two cases are much better understood, but they were slightly different from what their names might suggest. The nominative was originally used not only for subjects, but also for direct objects; inanimate nouns behaved this way in Proto-Isthmus, and still do in many of its attested descendants. However, for Proto-Isthmus pronouns, and possibly also for animate nouns, the genitive prefix ''as-'' came to be used to mark direct objects as well as possessors (for this reason it's sometimes called '''genitive/accusative''', especially when discussing the pronouns). The following table summarizes this situation:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Pronouns
! Animates
! Inanimates
|-
! Subject
| —
| —
| —
|-
! Direct Object
| as-
| ?
| —
|-
! Possessor
| as-
| as-
| as-
|}

It's probably impossible to tell which pattern animate nouns followed in Proto-Isthmus: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(While the case prefixes are mostly no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few words that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, ''Ferogh'' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus ''as-pes-dosg'' 'of the people of the camp'.)

=== Gender ===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was '''gender''': all nouns were inherently either '''animate''' or '''inanimate'''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate direct objects took genitive/accusative marking like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns, and probably verbs as well, had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

=== Derivation ===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

==== Compounding ====
Two types of compound nouns are attested in [[Faraghin]]: '''adjective-noun''' and '''noun-genitive'''. It's likely that both patterns go back to Proto-Isthmus.

(An example of an old adjective-noun compound is Faraghin ''khoir'' 'goat', from Proto-Isthmus ''(as)-koɖ[V]'' 'good' + ''idz'' 'head of livestock, domesticated animal'; a similar noun-genitive example is Faraghin ''nagho'' 'bear', from Proto-Isthmus ''nag(a)-su[n]'' 'lord of the forest'.)

==== Denominalization ====
It's possible that nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology; the Faraghin wordlist contains a couple of causative verbs built on nominal roots in this way (''bar'' 'master' → ''baroin'' 'appoint, bestow' and ''bran'' 'face, front' → ''branoin'' 'advance, march').

Although Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix that derived adjectives from nouns, and Faraghin has developed two more such suffixes, it may be that none of these were productive at the Proto-Isthmus stage; see the discussion under [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] below.

==== Diminutive and Augmentative ====
Nouns could also be made '''diminutive''' or '''augmentative''' with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel ''(a)'' was probably used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms: cf. ''badeu'' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus ''[V]bad-aɖu'' and ''deu'' 'daughter' < ''[V]da-ɖu''. The augmentative suffix can be seen in ''kert'' 'anger' < ''[V]kisd-at'', ''khunt'' 'devil' < ''as-kun-at'', ''mašt'' 'house, palace' < ''mas-at'', ''nagat'' 'lord, baron' < ''naga-t'', and maybe ''sat'' 'gold' < ''tso-t''.)

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2017-10-15T23:52:35Z

Corumayas: /* The Verbal Noun */ borrowing must postdate Proto-Ferogh ɨ > Faraghin i

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ?ai ''or'' au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| ?oi ''or'' u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

== Nouns ==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for '''number''' and '''case'''.

=== Number ===
Two numbers were distinguished: '''singular''' and '''plural'''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix ''-o'', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Consonant
! colspan="3" | Unstressed vowel
! Stressed vowel
|-
! SG
| -C
| -a -e
| -i
| -o -u
| -V
|-
! PL
| -Co
| -a
| -ja
| -o
| -V (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in ''-a'' or ''-o'', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in ''-Cli'' to form their plurals with ''-Cla'' instead of ''-Clja'', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in ''-Cji'' regularly formed their plurals with ''-Cuja''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in ''-Cju'' formed their plurals with ''-Cjo'', but some used ''-Cja'' or ''-Cuja'' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in ''-Clu'' had plurals with ''-Clo'' but some used ''-Cla'' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops ''-ʈ -ɖ'': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals (''-to -do'') in some nouns and velars (''-ko -go'') in others. Some nouns ending in ''-ʈu -ɖu'' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials (''-po -bo'') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included ''-s'' → ''-tso'', ''-su'' → ''-fo'', ''-n'' → ''-jno'', and ''-nu'' → ''-mo''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel ''i'', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming ''ju'' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became ''u''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: ''u'' → ''ju'' and ''o'' → ''e''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in ''-s'', ''-n'', or ''-l''.

Finally, some nouns ending in ''-j'' formed their plurals with ''-jno'' (rather than ''-jo''), and some vowel-final nouns added ''-dzo'' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(Faraghin ''tekh'' 'sword' → ''tekha'' 'army' is an example of a lexicalized plural, from Proto-Isthmus ''tisk'' → ''tisko''.)

=== Case ===
Three cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: '''nominative''', '''genitive''', and '''dative'''. The nominative was unmarked, while the other two cases were marked with prefixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! NOM
| —
|-
! GEN
| as-
|-
! DAT
| dz(a)-
|}

The vowel in the dative prefix ''dz(a)-'' was probably omitted when the noun began with a vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are very few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of the Proto-Isthmus dative is uncertain (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion of the dative]] above).

The functions of the other two cases are much better understood, but they were slightly different from what their names might suggest. The nominative was originally used not only for subjects, but also for direct objects; inanimate nouns behaved this way in Proto-Isthmus, and still do in many of its attested descendants. However, for Proto-Isthmus pronouns, and possibly also for animate nouns, the genitive prefix ''as-'' came to be used to mark direct objects as well as possessors (for this reason it's sometimes called '''genitive/accusative''', especially when discussing the pronouns). The following table summarizes this situation:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Pronouns
! Animates
! Inanimates
|-
! Subject
| —
| —
| —
|-
! Direct Object
| as-
| ?
| —
|-
! Possessor
| as-
| as-
| as-
|}

It's probably impossible to tell which pattern animate nouns followed in Proto-Isthmus: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(While the case prefixes are mostly no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few words that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, ''Ferogh'' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus ''as-pes-dosg'' 'of the people of the camp'.)

=== Gender ===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was '''gender''': all nouns were inherently either '''animate''' or '''inanimate'''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate direct objects took genitive/accusative marking like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns, and probably verbs as well, had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

=== Derivation ===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

==== Compounding ====
Two types of compound nouns are attested in [[Faraghin]]: '''adjective-noun''' and '''noun-genitive'''. It's likely that both patterns go back to Proto-Isthmus.

(An example of an old adjective-noun compound is Faraghin ''khoir'' 'goat', from Proto-Isthmus ''(as)-koɖ[V]'' 'good' + ''idz'' 'head of livestock, domesticated animal'; a similar noun-genitive example is Faraghin ''nagho'' 'bear', from Proto-Isthmus ''nag(a)-su[n]'' 'lord of the forest'.)

==== Denominalization ====
It's possible that nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology; the Faraghin wordlist contains a couple of causative verbs built on nominal roots in this way (''bar'' 'master' → ''baroin'' 'appoint, bestow' and ''bran'' 'face, front' → ''branoin'' 'advance, march').

Although Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix that derived adjectives from nouns, and Faraghin has developed two more such suffixes, it may be that none of these were productive at the Proto-Isthmus stage; see the discussion under [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] below.

==== Diminutive and Augmentative ====
Nouns could also be made '''diminutive''' or '''augmentative''' with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel ''(a)'' was probably used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms: cf. ''badeu'' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus ''[V]bad-aɖu'' and ''deu'' 'daughter' < ''[V]da-ɖu''. The augmentative suffix can be seen in ''kert'' 'anger' < ''[V]kisd-at'', ''khunt'' 'devil' < ''as-kun-at'', ''mašt'' 'house, palace' < ''mas-at'', ''nagat'' 'lord, baron' < ''naga-t'', and maybe ''sat'' 'gold' < ''tso-t''.)

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in early Faraghin as a nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2017-10-15T23:46:15Z

Corumayas: /* The Participle */ add glosses

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ?ai ''or'' au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| ?oi ''or'' u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

== Nouns ==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for '''number''' and '''case'''.

=== Number ===
Two numbers were distinguished: '''singular''' and '''plural'''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix ''-o'', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Consonant
! colspan="3" | Unstressed vowel
! Stressed vowel
|-
! SG
| -C
| -a -e
| -i
| -o -u
| -V
|-
! PL
| -Co
| -a
| -ja
| -o
| -V (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in ''-a'' or ''-o'', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in ''-Cli'' to form their plurals with ''-Cla'' instead of ''-Clja'', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in ''-Cji'' regularly formed their plurals with ''-Cuja''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in ''-Cju'' formed their plurals with ''-Cjo'', but some used ''-Cja'' or ''-Cuja'' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in ''-Clu'' had plurals with ''-Clo'' but some used ''-Cla'' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops ''-ʈ -ɖ'': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals (''-to -do'') in some nouns and velars (''-ko -go'') in others. Some nouns ending in ''-ʈu -ɖu'' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials (''-po -bo'') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included ''-s'' → ''-tso'', ''-su'' → ''-fo'', ''-n'' → ''-jno'', and ''-nu'' → ''-mo''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel ''i'', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming ''ju'' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became ''u''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: ''u'' → ''ju'' and ''o'' → ''e''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in ''-s'', ''-n'', or ''-l''.

Finally, some nouns ending in ''-j'' formed their plurals with ''-jno'' (rather than ''-jo''), and some vowel-final nouns added ''-dzo'' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(Faraghin ''tekh'' 'sword' → ''tekha'' 'army' is an example of a lexicalized plural, from Proto-Isthmus ''tisk'' → ''tisko''.)

=== Case ===
Three cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: '''nominative''', '''genitive''', and '''dative'''. The nominative was unmarked, while the other two cases were marked with prefixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! NOM
| —
|-
! GEN
| as-
|-
! DAT
| dz(a)-
|}

The vowel in the dative prefix ''dz(a)-'' was probably omitted when the noun began with a vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are very few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of the Proto-Isthmus dative is uncertain (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion of the dative]] above).

The functions of the other two cases are much better understood, but they were slightly different from what their names might suggest. The nominative was originally used not only for subjects, but also for direct objects; inanimate nouns behaved this way in Proto-Isthmus, and still do in many of its attested descendants. However, for Proto-Isthmus pronouns, and possibly also for animate nouns, the genitive prefix ''as-'' came to be used to mark direct objects as well as possessors (for this reason it's sometimes called '''genitive/accusative''', especially when discussing the pronouns). The following table summarizes this situation:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Pronouns
! Animates
! Inanimates
|-
! Subject
| —
| —
| —
|-
! Direct Object
| as-
| ?
| —
|-
! Possessor
| as-
| as-
| as-
|}

It's probably impossible to tell which pattern animate nouns followed in Proto-Isthmus: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(While the case prefixes are mostly no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few words that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, ''Ferogh'' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus ''as-pes-dosg'' 'of the people of the camp'.)

=== Gender ===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was '''gender''': all nouns were inherently either '''animate''' or '''inanimate'''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate direct objects took genitive/accusative marking like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns, and probably verbs as well, had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

=== Derivation ===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

==== Compounding ====
Two types of compound nouns are attested in [[Faraghin]]: '''adjective-noun''' and '''noun-genitive'''. It's likely that both patterns go back to Proto-Isthmus.

(An example of an old adjective-noun compound is Faraghin ''khoir'' 'goat', from Proto-Isthmus ''(as)-koɖ[V]'' 'good' + ''idz'' 'head of livestock, domesticated animal'; a similar noun-genitive example is Faraghin ''nagho'' 'bear', from Proto-Isthmus ''nag(a)-su[n]'' 'lord of the forest'.)

==== Denominalization ====
It's possible that nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology; the Faraghin wordlist contains a couple of causative verbs built on nominal roots in this way (''bar'' 'master' → ''baroin'' 'appoint, bestow' and ''bran'' 'face, front' → ''branoin'' 'advance, march').

Although Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix that derived adjectives from nouns, and Faraghin has developed two more such suffixes, it may be that none of these were productive at the Proto-Isthmus stage; see the discussion under [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] below.

==== Diminutive and Augmentative ====
Nouns could also be made '''diminutive''' or '''augmentative''' with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel ''(a)'' was probably used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms: cf. ''badeu'' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus ''[V]bad-aɖu'' and ''deu'' 'daughter' < ''[V]da-ɖu''. The augmentative suffix can be seen in ''kert'' 'anger' < ''[V]kisd-at'', ''khunt'' 'devil' < ''as-kun-at'', ''mašt'' 'house, palace' < ''mas-at'', ''nagat'' 'lord, baron' < ''naga-t'', and maybe ''sat'' 'gold' < ''tso-t''.)

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
{{gli|ɖujfadja|ɖujf-a-dja|leap-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askoɖidz|as-koɖ-idz|INTENS-good-domesticated.animal}}
{{glendi|‘leaping goat’}}

{{gli|lupadja|lup-a-dja|deceive-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|askunat|askun-at|devil-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘lying devil’}}

{{gli|plunjadja|plun-j-a-dja|cut.up-INCHO-ACT-PTCP}}
{{gli|tisko|tisk-o|sword-PL}}
{{glendi|‘slashing swords’}}

Causative:
{{gli|dadajidja|da~daj-i-dja|ITER-dance-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|Bleɖus|Bleɖus|Fate}}
{{glendi|‘Fate who makes (us) dance’}}

{{gli|nopolidja|nopol-i-dja|be.bored-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|taʈa|taʈa|sister}}
{{gli|astujn|as-tujn|GEN-2SG}}
{{glendi|‘your boring sister’}}

{{gli|kijbajdja|kijb-aj-dja|eat-CAUS-PTCP}}
{{gli|badaɖu|bad-aɖu|father-DIM}}
{{gli|asludz|as-ludz|GEN-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘their little father who feeds (them)’}}

Detransitive:
{{gli|asgospudja|as-go<s>p-u-dja|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|tsot|tso-t|gold-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘stolen gold’}}

{{gli|lupudja|lup-u-dja|deceive-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|nagat|naga-t|lord-AUG}}
{{glendi|‘deceived lord’}}

{{gli|dzusinudja|dzus<i>n-u-dja|red<INCHO>-DETR-PTCP}}
{{gli|asgujtsak|as-gujts-ak|INTENS-sharp-NMLZ}}
{{glendi|‘reddened knife’}}

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in Proto-Ferogh or early Faraghin to produce the Faraghin nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2017-10-04T05:21:02Z

Corumayas: /* Number */ slightly clearer?

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ?ai ''or'' au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| ?oi ''or'' u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

== Nouns ==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for '''number''' and '''case'''.

=== Number ===
Two numbers were distinguished: '''singular''' and '''plural'''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix ''-o'', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Consonant
! colspan="3" | Unstressed vowel
! Stressed vowel
|-
! SG
| -C
| -a -e
| -i
| -o -u
| -V
|-
! PL
| -Co
| -a
| -ja
| -o
| -V (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in ''-a'' or ''-o'', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in ''-Cli'' to form their plurals with ''-Cla'' instead of ''-Clja'', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in ''-Cji'' regularly formed their plurals with ''-Cuja''. Others were synchronically unpredictable: some nouns ending in ''-Cju'' formed their plurals with ''-Cjo'', but some used ''-Cja'' or ''-Cuja'' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in ''-Clu'' had plurals with ''-Clo'' but some used ''-Cla'' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops ''-ʈ -ɖ'': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became dentals (''-to -do'') in some nouns and velars (''-ko -go'') in others. Some nouns ending in ''-ʈu -ɖu'' had a related alternation in which the retroflexes became labials (''-po -bo'') in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included ''-s'' → ''-tso'', ''-su'' → ''-fo'', ''-n'' → ''-jno'', and ''-nu'' → ''-mo''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants was preceded by the vowel ''i'', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming ''ju'' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became ''u''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns that contained the sequence ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: ''u'' → ''ju'' and ''o'' → ''e''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in ''-s'', ''-n'', or ''-l''.

Finally, some nouns ending in ''-j'' formed their plurals with ''-jno'' (rather than ''-jo''), and some vowel-final nouns added ''-dzo'' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(Faraghin ''tekh'' 'sword' → ''tekha'' 'army' is an example of a lexicalized plural, from Proto-Isthmus ''tisk'' → ''tisko''.)

=== Case ===
Three cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: '''nominative''', '''genitive''', and '''dative'''. The nominative was unmarked, while the other two cases were marked with prefixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! NOM
| —
|-
! GEN
| as-
|-
! DAT
| dz(a)-
|}

The vowel in the dative prefix ''dz(a)-'' was probably omitted when the noun began with a vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are very few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of the Proto-Isthmus dative is uncertain (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion of the dative]] above).

The functions of the other two cases are much better understood, but they were slightly different from what their names might suggest. The nominative was originally used not only for subjects, but also for direct objects; inanimate nouns behaved this way in Proto-Isthmus, and still do in many of its attested descendants. However, for Proto-Isthmus pronouns, and possibly also for animate nouns, the genitive prefix ''as-'' came to be used to mark direct objects as well as possessors (for this reason it's sometimes called '''genitive/accusative''', especially when discussing the pronouns). The following table summarizes this situation:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Pronouns
! Animates
! Inanimates
|-
! Subject
| —
| —
| —
|-
! Direct Object
| as-
| ?
| —
|-
! Possessor
| as-
| as-
| as-
|}

It's probably impossible to tell which pattern animate nouns followed in Proto-Isthmus: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(While the case prefixes are mostly no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few words that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, ''Ferogh'' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus ''as-pes-dosg'' 'of the people of the camp'.)

=== Gender ===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was '''gender''': all nouns were inherently either '''animate''' or '''inanimate'''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate direct objects took genitive/accusative marking like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns, and probably verbs as well, had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

=== Derivation ===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

==== Compounding ====
Two types of compound nouns are attested in [[Faraghin]]: '''adjective-noun''' and '''noun-genitive'''. It's likely that both patterns go back to Proto-Isthmus.

(An example of an old adjective-noun compound is Faraghin ''khoir'' 'goat', from Proto-Isthmus ''(as)-koɖ[V]'' 'good' + ''idz'' 'head of livestock, domesticated animal'; a similar noun-genitive example is Faraghin ''nagho'' 'bear', from Proto-Isthmus ''nag(a)-su[n]'' 'lord of the forest'.)

==== Denominalization ====
It's possible that nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology; the Faraghin wordlist contains a couple of causative verbs built on nominal roots in this way (''bar'' 'master' → ''baroin'' 'appoint, bestow' and ''bran'' 'face, front' → ''branoin'' 'advance, march').

Although Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix that derived adjectives from nouns, and Faraghin has developed two more such suffixes, it may be that none of these were productive at the Proto-Isthmus stage; see the discussion under [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] below.

==== Diminutive and Augmentative ====
Nouns could also be made '''diminutive''' or '''augmentative''' with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel ''(a)'' was probably used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms: cf. ''badeu'' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus ''[V]bad-aɖu'' and ''deu'' 'daughter' < ''[V]da-ɖu''. The augmentative suffix can be seen in ''kert'' 'anger' < ''[V]kisd-at'', ''khunt'' 'devil' < ''as-kun-at'', ''mašt'' 'house, palace' < ''mas-at'', ''nagat'' 'lord, baron' < ''naga-t'', and maybe ''sat'' 'gold' < ''tso-t''.)

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
* ''ɖujfadja askoɖidz'' ‘leaping goat’
* ''lupadja askunat'' ‘lying devil’
* ''plunjadja tisko'' ‘slashing swords’

Causative:
* ''dadajidja Bleɖus'' ‘Fate who makes (us) dance’
* ''nopolajdja taʈa astujn'' ‘your boring sister’
* ''kijbajdja badaɖu asludz'' ‘their little father who feeds (them)’

Detransitive:
* ''asgospudja tsot'' ‘stolen gold’
* ''lupudja nagat'' ‘deceived lord’
* ''dzusinudja asgujtsak'' ‘reddened knife’

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in Proto-Ferogh or early Faraghin to produce the Faraghin nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Isthmus

2017-09-30T07:09:26Z

Corumayas: /* Number */ all the irregular plurals (could probably be described better but it's a start)

{{Language
| language = Proto-Isthmus
| date = -3000 YP
| place = Huyfárah/Isthmus region
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = Eigə-Isthmus languages <br> Proto-Isthmus
| word-or = SOV?
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Radius|Radius]], [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], [[User:Cedh|Cedh]]
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Isthmus''' was spoken perhaps a thousand years before [[Ndak Ta]] (ca. -3000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]), in the isthmus region separating the main continent of [[Peilaš]] from the northeastern subcontinent of [[Siixtaguna]]. The '''Isthmus languages''' descended from it form one of the two divisions of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus family]]; the other division is the '''Eigə Valley languages''', comprising [[Ngauro]], [[Meshi]], and the [[Miwan languages]].

Seven Isthmus languages are attested by the first millenium YP; they fall into two branches. In '''Western Isthmus''' we find the closely related sister languages '''[[Feråjin]]''' and '''[[Faraghin]]''', spoken in [[Huyfárah]], and the more divergent '''[[Boésin]]''' ([[Fáralo]] exonym), spoken in [[Qedik]] territory north of the Šišin Mountains. Three '''Eastern Isthmus''' languages survive on the north and northwest coasts of the Siixtaguna subcontinent ('''[[Kennan]]''', '''[[Kietek]]''', and '''[[Ka'alikora]]'''), and a fourth remains on the Isthmus itself, known in Fáralo as '''[[Doroh]]'''. Of them all, only Doroh and Kennan were spoken by a great number of people, perhaps half a million apiece in 100 YP, and only these and perhaps Feråjin (or rather, descendants of them) survived into the second millennium YP.

= Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus =

''NOTE: not all diachronic changes between Proto-Isthmus and its daughters are listed, only those that are known at this time. However, the list of developments from Proto-Isthmus to Faraghin is more or less complete.''

Phonemes that have been reconstructed for Proto-Isthmus are /p t ʈ ts k b d ɖ dz g f s m n l j a e i o u/.

Prefixes for pronouns included:
* as- (genitive/accusative)
* dza- (dative)

We will be using the pronouns of Isthmus languages to illustrate their development. The reconstructed personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus are as follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asda || dzada
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || asguʈ || ?
|-
| '''2sg''' || tujn || astujn || dzatujn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe || ?
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || njo || asnjo || dzanjo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || asmis || ?
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || asludz || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || askej || ?
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || asbej || ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the other dative pronouns, shown as "?" (e.g. **dzaguʈ), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language. Indeed, Faraghin is the only Isthmus language to retain any of the dative pronouns, and their reconstruction - or if they were truly even datives - remains uncertain. The only corroboration comes from, firstly, certain locative adverbs in Doroh that appear to be reflexes of Proto-Isthmus nouns with the same morphology; and secondly, some adverbial noun forms that appear in archaic Boésin poetry, in which the meaning is directional (comparable to English ''-wards'').

== Western Isthmus ==

''' Pre-Western Isthmus '''

Developments leading to pre-Western Isthmus include the following.

*First, stress moved to the first syllable of each word that had an onset of at least one consonant. Then, any unstressed vowels before the onset were lost. At some point after this, some final vowels were also dropped, particularly from grammatical words.

*s became voiced when adjacent to a voiced consonant.

*j was lost as a phone in all environments. At the beginning of words and between vowels, it merged into dz. It was also lost outright when adjacent to i, except that the sequences *tji *dji merged into tsi dzi, and medial *kji *gji became ksi gzi. After this, the sequences oj, ej, and aj merged into the diphthong ai, after which all remaining instances of j before or after a vowel merged into ɨ.

At this stage, the inventory of personal pronouns is reconstructed as follows.
{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || zda || dzad
|-
| '''1pl''' || guʈ || zguʈ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || stɨn || dzatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || sfe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || znɨ || dzan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || zmis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || ludz || zludz ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || skai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || zbai ||
|}

''' Western Isthmus '''

Further developments led to Western Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Boésin and the Ferogh languages.

*Before or after s, or z, all stops became their corresponding fricatives: <br>p t ʈ k b d ɖ g > ɸ θ ʂ x β ð ʐ ɣ / _s, _z, s_, z_
*This included the affricates ts and dz. Then, s and z were lost not only from clusters with the new fricatives but also from all other clusters, no matter their position in the cluster. This too included the former affricates.

*The fricative ɸ subsequently merged into the preexisting phoneme f. The retroflex fricatives then became postalveolar ʃ ʒ, and the retroflex stops became postalveolar affricates tʃ dʒ.

*Sporadically, obstruents at the same POA in adjacent syllables dissimilate (e.g. ''dadaða-'' > ''daðada-'' "dance").

The reconstructed pronoun table for Western Isthmus follows.

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ða || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || ɣutʃ ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || θɨn || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || fe ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨ || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || mis ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luð ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || xai ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || βai ||
|}

=== Ferogh Languages ===

It was a change in grammar rather than a change in sounds that most greatly marked the initial divergence of Western Isthmus into Boésin and the Ferogh languages. Many of the genitive/accusative personal pronouns had merged with the nominatives in Western Isthmus, leaving the pronoun system highly defective. In Proto-Boésin, the loss of many gen/acc forms was simply tolerated, while in pre-Proto-Ferogh, it was resolved by the suffixation of postpositions. The nominative forms were left alone, while new accusatives were formed by suffixing -iθ to the nominatives, and new genitives were formed by suffixing -um to the old genitive/accusatives. This resulted in:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || daiθ || ðaum || ðad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃiθ || ɣutʃum ||
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨniθ || θɨnum || ðatɨn
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feiθ || feum ||
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nɨiθ || nɨum || ðan
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || misiθ || misum ||
|-
| '''3pl''' || luð || luðiθ || luðum ||
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kaiiθ || xaium ||
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || baiiθ || βaium ||
|}

Sound developments that led to Proto-Ferogh include the following.

* s > ʃ
* θ > s
* dʒ, ʒ > ɻ
* ɻ > ∅ / V_V, l_V, n_V
* ð, ɻ > r
* l > r / $C_V, V_C$

* Sequences of vowels are resolved according to this chart:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
!
! -a
! -ai
! -au
! -e
! -i
! -ɨ
! -o
! -oi
! -u
|-
! a-
| a(ː)
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! ai-
| ai
| ai
| ?ai ''or'' au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
| ai
|-
! au-
| au
| ai
| au
| ai
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! e-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| e(ː)
| ai
| ai
| au
| ai
| au
|-
! i-
| e(ː)
| ai
| au
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| i(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
|-
! ɨ-
| a
| ai
| au
| e
| i
| ɨ(ː)
| o
| oi
| u
|-
! o-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
|-
! oi-
| oi
| oi
| ?oi ''or'' u(ː)
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
| oi
|-
! u-
| o(ː)
| oi
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
| ɨ(ː)
| u(ː)
|}

(Long vowels only occurred in the dialect that became Feråjin.)

* e > ɛ
* o oi > ɔ ɔi
* n > ∅ / finally after unstressed vowels, except in certain suffixes

* Some pronouns and other grammatical forms were contracted to monosyllables, but not all.

* The remaining dative forms became used for both singular and plural, instead of being restricted to singular as in Western Isthmus.

* The dative forms also took on a locative function; and for 3sg-inanimate, 3-pl, and interrogative/relative, the genitive pronouns took on the additional functions of both dative and locative.

After these sound changes, the Proto-Ferogh pronouns were as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dais || raum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gutʃ || gutʃis || ɣutʃum || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tɨn || tɨnis || sum || ratɨ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fɛ || fais || faum || ratɨ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nɨ || nis || num || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃum || miʃum
|-
| '''3pl''' || lur || luris || lum || lum
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kai || kais || xaim || xaim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bai || bais || βaim || βaim
|}

==== Faraghin ====

The development of Faraghin from Proto-Ferogh included the following sound changes:

* ɛ, ɔ > a
* i > e
* ɨ > i
* ai ɔi > oi
* au > eu
* β > b
* t > tʃ / _i
* i > ∅ / tʃ_#
* u > o / except before n or labials, or after the second syllable

* x > k / _s,ʃ (maybe also ɣ > g)
* t + s > tʃ / V_V (but remains ts / _#, and in loans from [[Ndak Ta]])
* ʃ + s > s
* t > ∅ / _m,n
* sporadic syncope of unstressed vowels

Thus, the personal pronouns of Faraghin (in phonemic transcription) are:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || DAT
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || dois || reum || rad
|-
| '''1pl''' || gotʃ || gotʃes || ɣotʃom || rad
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʃin || tʃines || som || ratʃ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fa || fois || feum || ratʃ
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nes || nom || ran
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || meʃ || mes || meʃom || meʃom
|-
| '''3pl''' || lor || lores || lom || lom
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || koi || kois || xoim || xoim
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || boi || bois || boim || boim
|}

==== Feråjin ====

The Feråjin began as a tribal division of the Faraghin. Later their speech diverged. The following developments left Feråjin in the position of being neither clearly a dialect of Faraghin nor clearly a separate language.

* ɔ(ː) ɔi > ɒ(ː) ɒi
* u(ː) > o(ː)
* ɨ(ː) > u(ː) (stressed)
* ɨ(ː) > i(ː) (unstressed)
* ɛ(ː) > e(ː)
* ai > eː
* au > aː
* ɒi > ɒː
* a(ː) > æ(ː)
* β > w
* ɣ > j
* tʃ > ʃ
* Vr, Vl > Vː / _C, _#
* Vm > Vː / _#

* Separate dative forms were lost. The functions of dative and locative were taken on, as in some of Faraghin's pronouns, by the genitive form.

After these changes, the table of Feråjin pronouns was as follows:

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN
|-
| '''1sg''' || dæ || deːs || ræː
|-
| '''1pl''' || goʃ || gos || joʃoː
|-
| '''2sg''' || tin || tins || soː
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || feːs || fæː
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ni || nis || noː
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || miʃ || mis || miʃoː
|-
| '''3pl''' || loː || loːs || loː
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || keː || keːs || xeː
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || beː || beːs || weː
|}

=== Boésin ===

== Eastern Isthmus ==

Developments between Proto-Isthmus and Eastern Isthmus, the last common ancestor of Doroh, Kennan, Kietek, and Ka'alikora, include the following:

* p t ʈ ts k > [+asp]
* b d ɖ dz g > p t ʈ ts k / [-voice]_, _[-voice], _# (but no aspiration gained)
* l > ɬ / [+asp]_
* n l s > ɳ ɭ ʂ / [+rflex]_, _[+rflex]
* mf ms ns > mpf mps nts
* a > o / _C+(o,u) when unstressed
* C > Cʷ / _u, except /j/ was not labialized
* "V > V: / _[+vcd], unless _CC$ or _CC+ or part of a diphthong other than jV
* (s)C > (sʲ)Cʲ / _j, _i (swallowing the j) except where C = /ɬ/ or a retroflex
* jC > Cʲ / _# with the same exceptions
* i: u: > ij uj
* ij uj > ej oj

{|
| || NOM    || GEN/ACC
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || asta
|-
| '''1pl''' || gʷuʈ || oskʷuʈʰ
|-
| '''2sg''' || tʰʷunʲ || ostʰʷunʲ
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || asfe
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || nʲo || osʲnʲo
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mʲis || asʲmʲis
|-
| '''3pl''' || lʷuts || oslʷuts
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kʰej || askʰej
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || aspej
|}

=== Doroh ===

Phonetic developments leading to Proto-Doroh most notably include lenition of intervocalic plosives on the one hand and the appearance of front rounded vowels on the other. The latter appears to have been an areal development that Doroh has in common with its neighbours [[Lotoka]] and [[Affanonic]].

* ʰ > ∅ / _#
* f > ʷ / C_
* s > h / V_C, except where the s is palatalized
* hl > ɬ
* b d ɖ dz g > β ɾ ɻ z ɣ / V_(ʲ,ʷ)V
* p t ʈ k > b d ɖ g / V_V
* n l > ɲ j / _ʲ (but not if preceded by sʲ zʲ)
* s z > ʃ ʒ / _(i,ʲ)
* ʂ sʷ > ʂʷ
* ɻ ɾʷ > ɻʷ
* zʷ > ʐʷ
* tsʷ > ʈʂʷ
* dzʷ > ɖʐʷ
* Cʲa Cʷa > Cʲe Cʷo
* Cʲo Cʷe > C(ʲ,ʷ)ø
* Cʲu Cʷi > C(ʲ,ʷ)y
* pʲ bʲ tʲ dʲ > ps bz ts dz
* tsʲ dzʲ kʲ gʲ > tʃ dʒ tʃ dʒ
* ɾʲ ɣʲ > j
* fʲ βʲ > ʃ ʒ
* pʷ bʷ > pf β
* βʷ ɣʷ > w
* ʲ ʷ > ∅
* dz dʒ ɖʐ > z ʒ ʐ / #_, C[+voice]_

The development from Eastern Isthmus to Proto-Doroh is marked by a proliferation of suffixed case forms, with the old ACC/GEN becoming the accusative, but also forming the stem of the oblique cases, except for the locative.

Following standard Dorological practice, retroflexes are written with an underdot, /ɬ/ is written ł.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   

|-
| '''1sg''' || da || ahta || ahtajin || ahtała || ahtawum || ahtamina || dajits || ahtajila || ahtanogum
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || ohkuṭ || ohkuḍin || ohkuḍła || ohkuḍum || ohkuṭmina || guḍits || ohkuḍila || ohkuṇogum
|-
| '''2sg''' || tuñ || ohtuñ || ohtuñin || ohtuñeła || ohtuñum || ohtuñemina || tuñits || ohtuñila || ohtuñogum
|-
| '''2pl''' || fe || aṣø || aṣøjin || aṣøła || aṣøwum || aṣømina || fejits || aṣøjila || aṣønogum
|-
| '''3sg-anim''' || ñø || ošnø || ošnøjin || ošnøła || ošnøwum || ošnømina || ñøjits || ošnøjila || ošnøgum
|-
| '''3sg-inan''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmiṣum || ašmihmina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmihnogum
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || ołutsmina† || lučits || ołučila || ołutsnogum†
|-
| '''int/rel-anim''' || kej || ahkej || ahkejin || ahkejła || ahkejum || ahkejmina || kejits || ahkejila || ahkejnogum
|-
| '''int/rel-inan''' || bej || ahpej || ahpejin || ahpejła || ahpejum || ahpejmina || bejits || ahpejila || ahpejnogum
|}
†Or ''ołuhmina'', ''ołuhnogum''.

==== Central Doroh ====

This is a somewhat idealized representation of the pronoun forms of the central cluster of Doroh dialects, ca. -500 YP.

Preaspiration on plosives simplified to geminates by -500. This change also occurs in Western dialects, though at a later date. In the case of the Central group only, /hm hn/ simplify to voiceless /m̥ n̥/.

The animacy distinction collapsed, with the '''kai''' and '''bai''' series being reassigned according to grammatical role, and the '''ñø''' and '''mis''' series retained as competing forms with the same meaning.

The comitative case fell out of general use and was replaced by the instrumental, but it remained for singular personal pronouns only.

Finally, the 2pl began to take on a formal singular role alongside its original plural sense. The comitative '''aṣømina''' was only used in this singular role.

{|
| || NOM    || ACC    || GEN    || BEN    || INST    || COM    || LOC    || LAT    || ABL   
|-
| '''1sg''' || da || atta || attažin || attała || attavum || attamina || dažits || attažila || attanūm
|-
| '''1pl''' || guṭ || okkuṭ || okkuḍin || okkuła || okkuḍum || — || guḍits || okkuḍila || okkunūm
|-
| '''2sg inf.''' || tuñ || ottuñ || ottuñin || ottuñeła || ottuñum || ottuñemina || tuñits || ottuñila || ottuñūm
|-
| '''2pl''' || ve || aṣø || aṣøžin || aṣøła || aṣøvum || (aṣømina) || vežits || aṣøžila || aṣønūm
|-
| '''3sg-A''' || ñø || øšnø || øšnøžin || øšnøła || øšnøvum || øšnømina || ñøžits || øšnøžila || øšnȳm
|-
| '''3sg-B''' || mis || ašmis || ašmišin || ašmiła || ašmišum || ašmim̥ina || mišits || ašmišila || ašmin̥ūm
|-
| '''3pl''' || luts || ołuts || ołučin || ołutła || ołuṭṣum || — || lučits || ołučila || ołun̥ūm
|-
| '''interrogative''' || kai || akkai || akkežin || akkałja || akkežum || — || kežits || akkežila || akkanjūm
|-
| '''relative''' || bai || appai || appežin || appałja || appežum || — || bežits || appežila || appanjūm
|}

= A Preliminary Sketch of Proto-Isthmus Grammar =
This sketch summarizes most of what is currently known about Proto-Isthmus grammar. More information may be added as research progresses.

== Nouns ==
Proto-Isthmus nouns were inflected for '''number''' and '''case'''.

=== Number ===
Two numbers were distinguished: '''singular''' and '''plural'''. The plural was marked with a suffix which varied depending on the phonological form of the word. For the most part, nouns ending in a consonant formed their plurals by adding a suffix ''-o'', while nouns ending in a vowel formed their plurals by changing the final vowel. The most common patterns are shown here:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Consonant
! colspan="3" | Unstressed vowel
! Stressed vowel
|-
! SG
| -C
| -a -e
| -i
| -o -u
| -V
|-
! PL
| -Co
| -a
| -ja
| -o
| -V (no change)
|}

Nouns already ending in ''-a'' or ''-o'', as well as those ending in a stressed vowel, had no overt marking of the plural.

Sound changes from Proto-Eigə-Isthmus to Proto-Isthmus produced various complications. A couple of these were entirely regular: syllable constraints caused nouns ending in ''-Cli'' to form their plurals with ''-Cla'' instead of ''-Clja'', and (less obviously, perhaps) nouns ending in ''-Cji'' regularly formed their plurals with ''-Cuja''. Other plurals were unpredictable (at least synchronically): for example, some nouns ending in ''-Cju'' formed their plurals with ''-Cjo'', but some used ''-Cja'' or ''-Cuja'' instead; similarly, some nouns ending in ''-Clu'' had plurals with ''-Clo'' but some used ''-Cla'' instead.

A number of nouns had consonant and/or vowel alternations in the plural. The most common of these affected nouns ending in the retroflex stops ''-ʈ -ɖ'': before the plural suffix, the retroflexes became ''-t -d'' in some nouns and ''-k -g'' in others. Some nouns ending in ''-ʈu -ɖu'' had a related alternation, replacing those syllables with ''-po -bo'' in the plural. Other consonant alternations behaved similarly, but were less common (and less predictable): these included ''-s'' → ''-ts'', ''-su'' → ''-fo'', ''-n'' → ''-jn'', and ''-nu'' → ''-mo''.

Moreover, when any of these alternating consonants were preceded by the vowel ''i'', this vowel regularly changed as well, becoming ''ju'' in the plural—unless there was already an onset cluster immediately preceding it, in which case it became ''u''. Less predictably, in some (but not all) nouns with syllables of the form ''[labial onset]+[rounded back vowel]+[alternating consonant]'' another vowel alternation applied in the plural: ''u'' → ''ju'' and ''o'' → ''e''. All three of these vowel alternation patterns also occured in some (otherwise regular) nouns ending in ''-s'', ''-n'', or ''-l''.

Finally, some nouns ending in ''-j'' formed their plurals with ''-jno'' (rather than ''-jo''), and some vowel-final nouns added ''-dzo'' in the plural instead of changing the final vowel. These changes were not regularly accompanied by vowel alternations.

Some of these inherited irregularities were probably smoothed away by analogy, either in Proto-Isthmus itself or in its descendants. More data and examples are needed!

(Faraghin ''tekh'' 'sword' → ''tekha'' 'army' is an example of a lexicalized plural, from Proto-Isthmus ''tisk'' → ''tisko''.)

=== Case ===
Three cases were distinguished in Proto-Isthmus: '''nominative''', '''genitive''', and '''dative'''. The nominative was unmarked, while the other two cases were marked with prefixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! NOM
| —
|-
! GEN
| as-
|-
! DAT
| dz(a)-
|}

The vowel in the dative prefix ''dz(a)-'' was probably omitted when the noun began with a vowel; however, this detail is uncertain since there are very few reflexes of dative forms to compare. In fact, even the actual function of the Proto-Isthmus dative is uncertain (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion of the dative]] above).

The functions of the other two cases are much better understood, but they were slightly different from what their names might suggest. The nominative was originally used not only for subjects, but also for direct objects; inanimate nouns behaved this way in Proto-Isthmus, and still do in many of its attested descendants. However, for Proto-Isthmus pronouns, and possibly also for animate nouns, the genitive prefix ''as-'' came to be used to mark direct objects as well as possessors (for this reason it's sometimes called '''genitive/accusative''', especially when discussing the pronouns). The following table summarizes this situation:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Pronouns
! Animates
! Inanimates
|-
! Subject
| —
| —
| —
|-
! Direct Object
| as-
| ?
| —
|-
! Possessor
| as-
| as-
| as-
|}

It's probably impossible to tell which pattern animate nouns followed in Proto-Isthmus: in some descendant languages they behave like the pronouns, while in others they behave like inanimate nouns, and either pattern could easily have spread by analogy.

(While the case prefixes are mostly no longer productive in the Ferogh languages, there are a few words that descend from old lexicalized genitives; in fact, ''Ferogh'' is an example, from Proto-Isthmus ''as-pes-dosg'' 'of the people of the camp'.)

=== Gender ===
A third category affecting nouns in Proto-Isthmus was '''gender''': all nouns were inherently either '''animate''' or '''inanimate'''. Gender assignment was semantic—that is, which gender a noun belonged to was predictable from its meaning, with at most a handful of exceptions. Gender may not have affected the behavior of the nouns themselves (unless animate direct objects took genitive/accusative marking like the pronouns), but it did affect agreement: pronouns, and probably verbs as well, had distinct animate and inanimate forms in the third person singular, and there may also have been adjective agreement.

=== Derivation ===
A few derivational processes affecting nouns can be traced to Proto-Isthmus.

==== Compounding ====
Two types of compound nouns are attested in [[Faraghin]]: '''adjective-noun''' and '''noun-genitive'''. It's likely that both patterns go back to Proto-Isthmus.

(An example of an old adjective-noun compound is Faraghin ''khoir'' 'goat', from Proto-Isthmus ''(as)-koɖ[V]'' 'good' + ''idz'' 'head of livestock, domesticated animal'; a similar noun-genitive example is Faraghin ''nagho'' 'bear', from Proto-Isthmus ''nag(a)-su[n]'' 'lord of the forest'.)

==== Denominalization ====
It's possible that nouns could be treated as verbs simply by adding verbal morphology; the Faraghin wordlist contains a couple of causative verbs built on nominal roots in this way (''bar'' 'master' → ''baroin'' 'appoint, bestow' and ''bran'' 'face, front' → ''branoin'' 'advance, march').

Although Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix that derived adjectives from nouns, and Faraghin has developed two more such suffixes, it may be that none of these were productive at the Proto-Isthmus stage; see the discussion under [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] below.

==== Diminutive and Augmentative ====
Nouns could also be made '''diminutive''' or '''augmentative''' with suffixes:

{| {{softtable}}
! DIM
| -(a)ɖu
|-
! AUG
| -(a)t
|}

The linking vowel ''(a)'' was probably used when these suffixes followed a consonant.

(Traces of the diminutive suffix can be seen in some Faraghin kinship terms: cf. ''badeu'' 'father' < Proto-Isthmus ''[V]bad-aɖu'' and ''deu'' 'daughter' < ''[V]da-ɖu''. The augmentative suffix can be seen in ''kert'' 'anger' < ''[V]kisd-at'', ''khunt'' 'devil' < ''as-kun-at'', ''mašt'' 'house, palace' < ''mas-at'', ''nagat'' 'lord, baron' < ''naga-t'', and maybe ''sat'' 'gold' < ''tso-t''.)

== Pronouns ==
The personal pronouns of Proto-Isthmus were as follows:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! NOM
! GEN/ACC
! DAT
|-
! 1SG
| da
| asda
| dzada
|-
! 1PL
| guʈ
| asguʈ
| ?
|-
! 2SG
| tujn
| astujn
| dzatujn
|-
! 2PL
| fe
| asfe
| ?
|-
! 3SG.ANIM
| njo
| asnjo
| dzanjo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| mis
| asmis
| ?
|-
! 3PL
| ludz
| asludz
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.ANIM
| kej
| askej
| ?
|-
! INT/REL.INAN
| bej
| asbej
| ?
|}

Though we can posit the forms of the missing dative pronouns (e.g. ''**dzaguʈ''), no reflexes of such forms can be identified in any Isthmus language (see the [[#Diachronics of Proto-Isthmus|discussion]] above).

== Verbs ==
Proto-Isthmus verbs were inflected for '''aspect''', '''voice''', and '''subject agreement'''. Verbal inflection is both more complex and less well-understood than nominal morphology, and many details of what follows are uncertain.

The structure of the Proto-Isthmus verb can be described by this template:

{| {{softtable}}
| (prefix or reduplication)-
| INNER STEM
| -aspect
| -(stem consonant)
| -voice
| -subject agreement
|}

Here are a couple of examples of fully inflected verbs:

{{gli|asgospumis|as-go<s>p-u-mis|PREFIX-take<RES>-DETR-3SG.INAN}}
{{glendi|‘it’s been stolen’}}

{{gli|dadajaludz|da~daj-a-ludz|ITER~dance-ACT-3PL}}
{{glendi|‘they danced and danced’}}

=== Verbal Prefix(es) ===
Proto-Isthmus had at least one verbal prefix of the form ''Vs-''. While this has been identified with the adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-'' (see [[#Intensification|Intensification]] below), with verbs the prefix's function seems less clear: cf. ''as-gosp-'' 'steal', ''as-kjustil-'' 'bequeath', ''as-pusg-'' 'make, craft', and maybe ''as-gont-'' 'fly'. Perhaps there were multiple ''Vs-'' prefixes that we haven't quite sorted out yet.

=== Aspect ===
Aspect marking in Proto-Isthmus is probably best thought of as derivational (with the possible exception of the imperfective/durative n-grade, which is said to form a consistent aspectual operation in [[Kennan]]). The values marked included '''perfective/punctual''', '''imperfective/durative''', '''resultative''', '''inceptive/inchoative''', and '''iterative/intensive'''. (These names are intentionally slightly vague; the precise meanings that most of these categories had at the Proto-Isthmus stage are not known for certain.)

==== Forms: the Grades ====
The forms that expressed these categories are traditionally called '''grades''', and are a somewhat mixed bag. The iterative/intensive was formed by reduplicating the first CV of the verb, while most of the others were formed with infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others—thus forming two major inflectional classes, '''infixing verbs''' and '''suffixing verbs'''.

The forms found in Proto-Isthmus included the following:

{| {{softtable}}
|
! Grade
! Infixing
! Suffixing
|-
! Perfective/Punctual
| Zero-grade
| -
| -
|-
! Imperfective/Durative
| N-grade
| <(i)n>
| -(i)n
|-
! Resultative
| S-grade
| <(u)s>
| -(u)s
|-
! Inceptive/Inchoative
| J-grade
| <i>, <j>
| -j
|-
! Iterative/Intensive
| Reduplicated grade
| REDUP~
| REDUP~
|}

There may have been other grades as well; the possibilities include an l-grade (similar to the n- and s-grades) and maybe a retroflex grade (which would turn root-final stops into retroflexes). It's not known what categories such grades might have marked.

Various inflectional subclasses probably existed. At the least, both infixes and suffixes had syllabic and non-syllabic allomorphs (though the j-grade suffix was probably never syllabic). The syllabic forms of the n-grade and s-grade might each have had several variants.

==== Functions ====
As noted above, the '''n-grade''' may have been inflectional in Proto-Isthmus; if so, it probably marked a basic imperfective aspect, contrasting with the perfective zero-grade. (There is one possible example of a noun derived from an n-grade: Faraghin ''ghantač'' 'dragon', apparently cognate with Miwan ''kwintas'' 'bird'; but at present it's not clear whether the ''n'' in this word is an infix or part of the root.)

The '''s-grade''' could be used to derive [[#The Resultative Noun|resultative nouns]], a process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. S-grade forms could also be used as verbs: examples of this include ''dog-'' 'set down' → ''dosg-'' 'camp, stay', ''gop-'' 'take, carry' → ''(as)-gosp-'' 'steal', ''pleg-'' 'meet' → ''plesg-'' 'get to know, get or be used to', and perhaps ''meg-'' 'boil, behave wildly or badly' → ''mesg-'' 'raid, capture'.

The '''j-grade''' derived inceptive or inchoative verbs, i.e. verbs denoting the beginning of an action or (especially) a state. Examples include ''[V]dludz-'' 'be awake' → ''[V]dludzj-'' 'awaken', ''dzusn-'' 'be red' → ''dzusin-'' 'turn red', ''plun-'' (perhaps meaning 'cut' or 'cut up') → ''plunj-'' 'stab, slash', and possibly ''tlub-'' 'be married' → ''tlujb-'' 'get married'.

The '''reduplicated grade''' formed iterative or intensive verbs; the sole example currently in the lexicon is ''daj-'' 'dance' → ''da~daj-'' 'dance and dance, dance a lot or intensely'.

=== Voice ===
Voice marking in Proto-Isthmus is not completely understood yet, but the system was probably simpler than in its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus#Voice_and_valency:_the_stem_vowel|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]]. The primary voices were '''active''', '''causative''', and '''detransitive'''; in PEI these could be combined with one another to form compound voices such as '''detransitive of causative''' and '''causative of detransitive'''. The full set of inherited voice suffixes (traditionally called '''stem vowels''') would have looked like this:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a
|-
! Causative
| -i, -aj
|-
! Detransitive
| -u
|-
! Detransitive of Causative
| -ju
|-
! Causative of Detransitive
| -uj
|}

But not all of these forms remained productive, perhaps even in Proto-Isthmus. In the branch of Isthmus that led to [[Faraghin]], the simple causative suffix ''-i'' was replaced by the compound suffix ''-aj'' (except for a few fossilized forms such as ''dim-i-'' 'give'), while the detransitive suffix ''-u'' seems to be preserved only in the participle. It's not yet known at what stage the basic causative and detransitive forms were abandoned. Moreover, the detransitive of causative and causative of detransitive forms are entirely unattested in Faraghin, and it seems likely that they were not in fact found in Proto-Isthmus at all.

The exact function of the detransitive voice in Proto-Isthmus is unknown; it could have been a passive, an anticausative, a middle voice, or a general intransitivizer with several functions. (The Faraghin reflex appears to be a passive participle, but passives can easily develop from other kinds of intransitivizers.)

=== Subject Agreement ===
Verbs agreed with their subjects in '''person''', '''number''', and probably (for third person singulars) '''gender'''. The first and second person forms have not been determined yet; but the third person forms were probably marked with suffixes that were identical to the pronouns:

{| {{softtable}}
! 3SG.ANIM
| -njo
|-
! 3SG.INAN
| -mis
|-
! 3PL
| -ludz
|}

=== Deverbalization===
==== The Participle ====
Proto-Isthmus had a verbal adjective, the '''participle''', formed with the suffix ''-dja''. The participle was inflected for voice; it may be helpful to list the voice forms separately:

{| {{softtable}}
! Active
| -a-dja
|-
! Causative
| -i-dja, -aj-dja
|-
! Detransitive
| -u-dja
|}

Here are some examples:

Active:
* ''ɖujfadja askoɖidz'' ‘leaping goat’
* ''lupadja askunat'' ‘lying devil’
* ''plunjadja tisko'' ‘slashing swords’

Causative:
* ''dadajidja Bleɖus'' ‘Fate who makes (us) dance’
* ''nopolajdja taʈa astujn'' ‘your boring sister’
* ''kijbajdja badaɖu asludz'' ‘their little father who feeds (them)’

Detransitive:
* ''asgospudja tsot'' ‘stolen gold’
* ''lupudja nagat'' ‘deceived lord’
* ''dzusinudja asgujtsak'' ‘reddened knife’

Like other adjectives, the participle could be used as a noun with zero-derivation (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below); this could be used to form agentive and patientive nouns. (The detransitive participle is the only form currently attested in Faraghin, whose lexicon includes several lexicalized examples.)

==== The Verbal Noun ====
There was probably also a '''verbal noun''' formed with the related suffix ''-di''; this noun may have been inflected for voice much like the participle. (The cognate form in [[Ngauro]] and [[Miwan languages|Old Eastern Miwan]] is an action noun formed with ''-ti''; this was borrowed in Proto-Ferogh or early Faraghin to produce the Faraghin nominalizing suffix ''-(a)č''.)

==== The Resultative Noun ====
An important use of the s-grade was to derive a '''resultative noun''', a nominalizing process which was highly productive in Proto-Isthmus. This noun was not inflected for voice; examples include ''gad-'' 'flow' → ''gasd'' 'stream', ''kid-'' 'be angry' → ''kisd'' 'anger', ''sud-'' 'go around, move in a circle' → ''susd'' 'circle, year', ''tsik-'' 'to call, to name' → ''tsisk'' 'name', and ''ʈuk-'' 'squeeze, clench' → ''ʈusk'' 'fist'.

== Adjectives ==
Little is known about Proto-Isthmus adjectives so far. They seem to have behaved like verbs in some ways: in [[Faraghin]] they can take some verbal morphology (e.g. causative and negative affixes), and they may have had agreement marking (though probably not identical to verbal subject agreement). In other ways they seem somewhat noun-like; in particular, Faraghin allows adjectives to be used as nouns with zero-derivation, a process that does not seem to be available for verbs (see [[#De-adjectivization|De-adjectivization]] below).

=== Derivation ===
We do know a little about derivational processes involving adjectives.

==== Adjectivization ====
Proto-Eigə-Isthmus had a suffix ''-ʔa'' or ''-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns; but (aside from the participle suffix ''-dja'', derived from the verbal noun suffix ''-di'' + ''-ʔa''/''-ha'') it's not known whether this suffix remained productive in Proto-Isthmus.

Two later derivational suffixes that form adjectives are known from the Faraghin evidence: ''-(i)ts'' and ''-ujn'' (> Far. ''-s'' and ''-in''). Both were probably grammaticalized after the Proto-Isthmus stage, but it's convenient to discuss them here.

* The older of these was probably ''-(i)ts'' (glossed 'quality' in the Faraghin wordlist). It derived adjectives from various parts of speech, including nouns, verbs, and other adjectives. This suffix comes from the postposition ''its'' 'on'; it is tentatively dated to the Western Isthmus stage.

* Probably somewhat younger was ''-ujn'', which mainly derived adjectives from nouns. In the [[/Lexicon|Proto-Isthmus lexicon]] it's treated as a separate word, tentatively glossed 'like'; perhaps it originally meant something like 'shape, likeness'.

These two suffixes are similar in many ways. Their semantics appear to be nearly identical; both are sometimes glossed '-ish' in the Faraghin wordlist. Also, both of them sometimes seem to work in reverse in Faraghin, deriving proper nouns from adjectives: cf. ''čints'' 'on the left, north' → ''Čintsin'' 'the northern mountains', ''muns'' 'soft, weak' → ''Munsin'' 'weakish; the Ngauro', ''porat'' 'clean, pure' → ''Porats'' 'the river dividing Faraghin and Feråjin territory'. (The use of these forms as nouns is actually an example of zero-derivation; see De-adjectivization below.)

==== De-adjectivization ====
In addition to the adjectivizing suffixes, a much more obscure (and thus probably older) suffix ''-(a)k'' seems to have done the opposite, deriving nouns from adjectives. An example of this is Faraghin ''ghisk'' 'knife', apparently from Proto-Isthmus ''gujts'' 'sharp' + ''-ak''; Faraghin ''českan'' 'to hide' may be another if it comes from an adjective ''ʈits'' (perhaps meaning 'over, covering') + ''-ak'' + verbal suffixes.

In Faraghin, adjectives can also be used as nouns with zero-derivation; several examples are found in the Faraghin wordlist. Perhaps this pattern developed by dropping the modified noun or pronoun from phrases like 'the hidden one', leaving a bare adjective ('the hidden', Far. ''českod''). Whether this derivational process was available in Proto-Isthmus is uncertain.

==== Intensification ====
Proto-Isthmus also had an adjective-intensifying prefix ''as-''. Some intensified adjectives came to replace the corresponding unmarked adjective: e.g. Faraghin ''khar'' 'good' from Proto-Isthmus ''as-koɖ[V]'' 'very good'.

== Syntax ==
Very little is known about Proto-Isthmus syntax at present; this section briefly notes a few bits that can be inferred from the current evidence.

=== Word Order ===
It appears that Proto-Isthmus word order in general tended to be head-final: Proto-Isthmus had postpositions, adjectives preceded the nouns they modified, and auxiliaries apparently followed their main verbs (at least in the variety that led to Faraghin). However, its ancestor [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] seems to have had a number of head-initial structures, and traces of these survived into Proto-Isthmus: for example, the [[#Case|case prefixes]] and [[#Compounding|noun-genitive compounds]] mentioned above. It's also possible that Proto-Isthmus kept some prepositions alongside its postpositions, or allowed genitives to follow their possessed nouns in full noun phrases (that is, not just in compounds).

Postverbal auxiliaries are typical of OV languages, and on this basis it's been posited that Proto-Isthmus had a basic SOV order. However, if these auxiliary constructions developed later (perhaps in Western Isthmus or Proto-Ferogh) the Proto-Isthmus order could have been different.

=== Postpositions ===
A few Isthmus postpositions are known so far (because they became case suffixes in daughter languages).

* ''um'' 'of' became a genitive suffix in [[#Ferogh Languages|Ferogh]]. This morpheme dates back to Proto-Eigə-Isthmus, where it was probably a preposition (its cognate in the Eigǝ Valley languages is a prefix ''m-''); how its use differed from that of the genitive prefix ''as-'' is unknown.

Some of the other postpositions may have been grammaticalized later from nouns and/or verbs; it's possible that a few of them didn't develop until after the Proto-Isthmus stage.

* ''its'' 'on' (probably related to ''idz'' 'head') became both an adjectivizing suffix (see [[#Adjectivization|Adjectivization]] above) and an accusative suffix in Ferogh, and a locative suffix in [[#Doroh|Doroh]]. Its locational meaning can be seen in a few older derivations, e.g. ''tjunt'' 'left hand' → ''tjunt-its'' 'on the left, north', and probably ''gasd'' 'stream' → ''gasd-its'' 'boat'; Faraghin ''lets'' 'longsword' may be similarly derived from ''lit'' (a noun of unknown meaning) + ''its''.
* ''in'' (original meaning unknown) became a genitive suffix in Doroh.
* ''mina'' 'with, together with' became a comitative suffix in Doroh.
* ''ila'' 'to, toward' became an allative suffix in Doroh.
* ''asla'' 'for, for the sake of' (possibly related to ''ila'') became a benefactive suffix in Doroh.
* ''nak'' 'outside' became an extraessive suffix in [[Faraghin]].

=== Auxiliary Verb Constructions ===
Periphrastic constructions may have been used to express additional verbal distinctions (such as tense, aspect, and/or modal categories); certainly such constructions existed in later Isthmus languages. One example is represented by the Faraghin iterative suffix ''-čan'', which appears to be a contracted form of an earlier auxiliary verb. At present it's not known whether this verb was used as an auxiliary as early as Proto-Isthmus, but it certainly could have been.

=== Negation ===
Proto-Isthmus clauses were negated by adding a morpheme ''pjuts[V]'' or (with what appears to be the [[#Intensification|intensifying prefix]]) ''aspjuts[V]'' immediately before the verb. This morpheme became a prefix (''fis-'') in Faraghin, but may have been a separate word in Proto-Isthmus.

= Proto-Isthmus Lexicon =

See [[Proto-Isthmus/Lexicon]]

[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Isthmus]]

Proto-Eigə-Isthmus

2017-09-28T04:34:26Z

Corumayas: /* Proto-Eigə-Isthmus > Proto-Isthmus */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Eigə-Isthmus
| date = 5th millenium [[YP|BP]]
| place = [[Huyfárah]]
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = [[Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
| word-or = VO
| mor-type = agglutinative
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], with help from [[User:Cedh|Cedh]], [[User:Radius|Radius]], and others
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Eigə-Isthmus''' is the reconstructed ancestor of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages]]. It was spoken in eastern Peilaš, probably in the region that later became [[Huyfárah]], during the 5th millenium [[YP|BP]].

The reconstruction of Proto-Eigə-Isthmus is based primarily on comparison of [[Miwan languages|Eastern and Forest Miwan]], [[Ngauro]] loans found in [[Ndak Ta]], and [[Faraghin]] and its ancestor [[Proto-Isthmus]].

= Phonology =

== Syllable structure ==

The Proto-Eigə-Isthmus syllable may be conceived in terms of the following structure:

# an '''onset''' consisting of an initial consonant '''''*C<sub>i</sub>''''', which may be followed by an optional liquid or glide '''''*(G)''''' (one of ''*r *l *j *w'');
# a '''vocalic nucleus''' consisting of a vowel '''''*V'''''; and
# an optional '''coda''', consisting of a final consonant '''''*(C<sub>f</sub>)''''', which may optionally be preceded by one of '''''*s *n *r *l *j *w''''' to form a coda cluster.

The syllable structure is thus '''''*C<sub>i</sub>(G)V((s,n,G)C<sub>f</sub>)'''''.

There are of course some further restrictions on possible syllables; for example, the combinations ''*ji *wu'' do not occur (although ''*ij *uw'' do). For restrictions on onset and coda clusters, see the more detailed discussions below.

Many PEI roots consist of a single syllable with this structure. However, no attested EI language is as monosyllabic as this might suggest; compounding and affixation are highly productive derivational processes in all branches of the family, and have been for thousands of years. Indeed, the difficulties of reconstructing PEI arise in large part from the multiple layers of prefixes and suffixes that have attached themselves to roots over time, often causing changes in the root itself before wearing away and being replaced by new affixes.

A prevocalic glide ''*(G)'' sometimes acts as part of the vocalic nucleus rather than the onset. For example, in the changes leading to Proto-Isthmus, sequences of [''*w'' + vowel] have distinct vocalic reflexes when they follow an initial consonant (e.g. PEI ''*Cwa'' > PIsth. ''*Co''). Similarly, postvocalic glides form diphthongs with distinct reflexes in the daughter languages.

== Onsets ==

=== Onset consonant inventory ===

The following onset consonants are reconstructed for Proto-Eigə-Isthmus:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | Labial
! scope="col" colspan="2" | Coronal
! scope="col" | Dorsal
! scope="col" | Glottal
|-
| *p *b
| *t *d
| *ts *dz
| *k *g
| *ʔ
|-
|
| *θ *ð
| *s *z
|
| rowspan="4" valign="top" | (*h)
|-
| *m
| colspan="2" | *n
| *ŋ
|-
| rowspan="2" | *w
| colspan="2" | *r
| rowspan="2" | *j
|-
| colspan="2" | *l
|}

Plosives are reconstructed at three places of articulation: labial '''''*p *b''''', coronal (possibly dental) '''''*t *d''''', and dorsal (presumably velar) '''''*k *g'''''.

There are also coronal affricates '''''*ts *dz''''', and two pairs of coronal fricatives: sibilant '''''*s *z''''' and non-sibilant (probably dental) '''''*θ *ð'''''. These sounds have tended to shift around in the descendant languages, making them considerably more difficult to reconstruct than the plosives. (Labial fricatives are not reconstructed for PEI, although many descendant languages have one or both of /f v/; the Miwan labial fricatives are mainly descended from ''*θ *ð'', while Proto-Isthmus ''*f'' descends from ''*w'' word-initially and ''*θ'' elsewhere.)

Nasals are reconstructed at the same three places of articulation as plosives. The labial and coronal nasals '''''*m *n''''' are perhaps the easiest to reconstruct of the PEI onsets, as they remain unchanged in most of the descendant languages and are found in many clear cognates. By comparison, the evidence for the dorsal nasal '''''*ŋ''''' is extremely murky: it seems to be uncommon, and has merged with other phonemes in many languages.

Liquids '''''*r *l''''' and glides '''''*j *w''''' are reconstructed as well. Of these, ''*l'' survives unchanged in most of the descendant languages; the others are preserved most clearly in the Miwan branch. A number of Eigə-Isthmus languages do not contrast /r l/ with each other, having deleted ''*r'' or shifted it to something else; on the other hand, several Isthmus languages (including Faraghin and Doroh) have innovated new /r/ despite its absence in Proto-Isthmus.

A glottal stop '''''*ʔ''''' is reconstructed for what would otherwise be vowel-initial syllables; this simplifies the syllable structure by making the onset obligatory, and explains some developments in the daughter languages. Most notably, the final consonants of verbal roots regularly develop as codas, even though they're nearly always followed by a stem vowel; this makes sense if the stem vowel was preceded by an onset ''*ʔ''. Further evidence may be found in the tonal systems of the Eigə Valley languages: it's been suggested that ''*ʔ'' induced glottalization or creaky voice on nearby vowels. It's also possible that the phonemic glottal stop found in some Eigə Valley languages is partly descended from PEI ''*ʔ''.

Finally, a second glottal onset '''''*h''''' has been suggested to account for some words which unexpectedly show breathy voice in Eigə Valley languages. However, since it has no consonantal reflexes and only affects one branch of the family, it may make more sense to simply reconstruct this as a tonal distinction in Proto-Eigə Valley.

=== Voicing ===

A simple two-way voicing contrast is reconstructed for all PEI obstruents (plosives, affricates, and fricatives). In plosives and affricates this contrast seems to have been somewhat unstable in the early Eigə-Isthmus family; the regular correspondences in onset position are:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="row" | Proto-Isthmus
| *p
| *t
| *k
| *b
| *d
| *g
| *ts
| *dz
|-
! scope="row" | Proto-Eigə Valley
| *b
| *d
| *g
| *p
| *t
| *k
| *ts
| *ts
|}

That is, Proto-Isthmus voiceless plosives correspond to Proto-Eigə Valley voiced plosives and vice versa, while Proto-Isthmus voiced and voiceless affricates both correspond to Proto-Eigə Valley voiceless ones.

The evidence (notably from the affricates ''*ts *dz'', whose PIsth. reflexes are not predictable from the merged PEV form) suggests that Proto-Isthmus preserves the original voicing, and that Proto-Eigə Valley onsets underwent the following changes:

# *b *d *dz *g > *bʱ *dʱ *dzʱ *gʱ > *pʰ *tʰ *tsʰ *kʰ
# *p *t *k > *b *d *g
# *pʰ *tʰ *tsʰ *kʰ > *p *t *ts *k

The murmured or breathy-voiced onsets ''*bʱ *dʱ *dzʱ *gʱ'' induced breathy voice on the following vocalic nucleus before being devoiced to aspirates. This may have been the first step in the process of tonogenesis among the Eigə Valley languages.

Fricatives did not undergo these changes. The voiced fricatives ''*ð *z'' are reconstructed where Proto-Isthmus ''*d *dz'' correspond to Miwan ''/v z/'': e.g. Faraghin ''daradan'' and Miwan ''varja(:)'' 'dance', both from PEI ''*ða(r)j-ʔa''.

=== Onset clusters ===

Onset consonants may form clusters with a following liquid or glide (''*r *l *j *w''). Miwan preserves more of these clusters than the other branches; the following table shows the clusters found in wordlists from three Miwan languages:

{|
! scope="col" | Forest Miwan
| rowspan="2" |  
! scope="col" | Old Eastern Miwan
| rowspan="2" |  
! scope="col" | Eastern Miwan
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| pr
| ''pl''
|  
|
| rowspan="11" |
|
| bl
|
|
|-
| tr
|
|
| tw
| ''dr''
|
|
| ''dw''
|-
|
| kl
|
| kw
| gr
| ''gl''
|
| gw
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
| fl
|
| fw
|
|
|
|
|-
|
| sl
|
| sw
|
|
| ''zj''
| ''zw''
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''rj''
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''lj''
|
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
|
|
|
| rowspan="11" |
|
|  
| bj
|
|-
| tr
|
| tj
| tw
| dr
|
| dj
| dw
|-
| ''kr''
|
| ''kj''
| kw
|
|
| ''gj''
| gw
|-
|
|
|
| qw
|
|
|
|
|-
| fr
| ''fl''
| fj
| fw
| ''vr''
|
|
| ''vw''
|-
|
|
| sj
|
|
|
|
| ''zw''
|-
|
|
| ''χj''
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''nj''
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ŋw
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''rj''
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| pr
| pl
| pj
|
| rowspan="11" |
|  
|  
|
|
|-
| ''tr''
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
| fw
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| zw
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''rj''
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''lj''
| ''lw''
|}
|}
(The entries in ''italics'' are attested only medially, and thus some of them might not represent original onset clusters.)

The set observed in the reconstructed lexicon for Proto-Isthmus is somewhat different:
{|
! Proto-Isthmus
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| *pl
| *pj
| rowspan="6" |
| *bl
|
|-
| *tl
| *tj
| *dl
|
|-
|
|
|
| ''*dzj''
|-
| *kl
| *kj
|
|
|-
|
| ''*sj''
|
|
|-
|
|
|
| *nj
|}
|}

Comparing these two sets, we can see that Proto-Isthmus has entirely lost ''*r'' and ''*w''; other interesting differences include PIsth.'s lack of clusters beginning in ''*f'' (because this corresponds to Miwan ''w''), and its very frequent ''*tl *dl'' (which have simplified to ''d t'' in Miwan).

Based on this comparison, a probable set of onset clusters may be reconstructed for Proto-Eigə-Isthmus (those in parentheses are unattested in any reconstructable vocabulary so far):

{|
! Proto-Eigə-Isthmus
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| (*pr)
| *pl
| *pj
|
| rowspan="11" |
| *br
| *bl
| *bj
|
|-
| *tr
| *tl
| *tj
| *tw
| *dr
| *dl
| *dj
| *dw
|-
|
| (*tsl)
| (*tsj)
| *tsw
|
| (*dzl)
| *dzj
| (*dzw)
|-
| *kr
| *kl
| *kj
| *kw
| *gr
| *gl
| *gj
| *gw
|-
| *θr
| *θl
| *θj
| *θw
| *ðr
| (*ðl)
| (*ðj)
| *ðw
|-
|
| *sl
| *sj
| *sw
|
| (*zl)
| *zj
| *zw
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| (*mj)
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| *nj
| (*nw)
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| (*ŋj)
| *ŋw
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| *rj
| (*rw)
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| *lj
| *lw
|}
|}

A few phonotactic restrictions can be discerned here: onset clusters of [labial + ''*w''] are forbidden, as are [sibilant (''*ts *dz *s *z'') + ''*r'']; ''*r *l'' cannot cluster with each other, nor with nasals. On the other hand, the absence of ''*pr'', ''*tsj'', and ''*dzw'' is doubtless just an accident of our incomplete knowledge of these languages. In between these extremes, it's difficult to tell what the status of such unattested clusters as ''*tsl *dzl'', ''*ðl *ðj'', or ''*mj *ŋj'' is. Further work is needed here; it may also be that some of the clusters found only in one branch or the other are innovations.

Another question worth exploring is whether there are onset clusters ''*ʔr *ʔl *ʔj *ʔw'': if so, they would contrast with plain ''*r *l *j *w'', and would develop differently in some instances (for example ''*wa *ʔwa'' would become ''*fa *o'' respectively in Proto-Isthmus).

=== Proposed correspondences ===

The charts below show the development of onset consonants and clusters in three early daughters of Proto-Eigə-Isthmus: [[Proto-Isthmus]], [[Ngauro]], and [[Miwan languages|Proto-Miwan]]. It will be updated as comparative work continues.

(NB: Correspondences in '''bold''' are attested in fairly certain cognate pairs; those in ''italics'' are postulated to exist but currently unattested. Entries in (parentheses) are not actually found in the relevant lexicon at all. Particularly uncertain correspondences are marked with a "?", whether attested or not. As-of-yet unknown reflexes are left blank.)

==== Onset consonants ====

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| *p
| *p
| (''b'')
| *b
|-
| *t
| '''*t'''
| '''d'''
| '''*d'''
|-
| *ts
| '''*ts'''
| '''s'''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *k
| *k
| (''g'')
| *g
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *b
| '''*b'''
| ''p''
| '''*p'''
|-
| *d
| '''*d'''
| '''t'''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *dz
| '''*dz'''
| ''s''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *g
| '''*g'''
| '''k'''
| '''*k'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *θ
| ''*t''¹, ''*f''²
| (''h'')
| ''*f''
|-
| *s
| ''*s''
| (''ś'')³
| ''*s''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *ð
| '''*d'''
| (''∅'')
| '''*v'''
|-
| *z
| '''*dz'''
| '''z'''
| '''*z'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *m
| '''*m'''
| '''m'''
| '''*m'''
|-
| *n
| '''*n'''
| '''n'''
| '''*n'''
|-
| *ŋ
| ''*nj''¹, ''*jn''²
| ?(''ŋ'')
| ''*ŋ''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *r
| ''∅''
| (''j'')
| ''*r''
|-
| *l
| '''*l'''
| ''l''
| '''*l'''
|-
| *j
| ''*j''
| ''z''
| ''*j''
|-
| *w
| ''*f''¹, ''∅''²
| (''w'')
| ''*w''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *ʔ
| ''∅''
| (''∅'')⁴
| ''∅''⁴
|-
| (*h)
| ''∅''
| (''∅'')⁴
| ''∅''⁴
|}
1. Initial.

2. Medial.

3. Possibly pronounced [θ].

4. Presumably with tonal effects.

==== Onset clusters ====

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| (*pr) *br
| ''*ʈ *ɖ¹''
|
| (''*br'') ''*pr''
|-
| *pl *bl
| ''*pl *bl''
|
| ''*bl *pl''
|-
| *pj *bj
| ''*pj *bj''
|
| ''*bj *pj''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *tr *dr
| '''*ʈ''' *ɖ
| '''dj''' (''tj'')
| ''*dr'' *tr
|-
| *tl *dl
| '''*tl *dl'''
|
| '''*d *t'''
|-
| *tj *dj
| ''*tj'' (''*dj'')
|
| ''*dj *tj''
|-
| *tw *dw
| ''*t *d''¹
|
| ''*dw *tw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*tsl *dzl)
| (''*tsl'' ''*dzl'')
|
|
|-
| (*tsj) *dzj
| (''*tsj'') ''*dzj''
|
| ''*tj *tj''
|-
| *tsw (*dzw)
| '''*ts''' ''*dz''¹
|
| '''*tw''' ''*tw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *kr *gr
| ''*ʈ *ɖ''
|
| ''*gr *kr''
|-
| *kl *gl
| *kl (''*gl'')
|
| *g(l) ''*kl''
|-
| *kj *gj
| ''*kj'' (''*gj'')
|
| ''*gj *kj''
|-
| *kw *gw
| ''*k'' '''*g'''¹
|
| ''*gw'' '''*kw'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *θr *ðr
| ''*ʈ''² ''*ɖ''
|
| ''*fr *vr''
|-
| *θl (*ðl)
| ''*tl *dl''
|
| ''*fl'' (''*vl'')
|-
| *θj (*ðj)
| ''*tj'' (''*dj'')
|
| ''*fj'' (''*vj'')
|-
| *θw *ðw
| ''*t *d''¹
|
| ''*fw *vw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *sl (*zl)
| (?''*sl *dzl'')
|
| ''*sl'' (''*zl'')
|-
| *sj *zj
| ''*sj *dzj''
|
| ''*sj *zj''
|-
| *sw *zw
| ''*s'' '''*dz'''¹
|
| ''*sw'' '''*zw'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*mj)
| (''*mj'')
|
| (''*mj'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *nj
| '''*nj'''
| '''z'''
| ''*nj''
|-
| (*nw)
| ''*n''¹
|
| (''*nw'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*ŋj)
| ?''*nj''
|
| (''*ŋj'')
|-
| *ŋw
| ?''*nj''¹
|
| ''*ŋw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *rj
| ?''*j''
|
| ''*rj''
|-
| (*rw)
| ?''∅''¹
|
| (''*rw'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *lj
| (''*lj'')
|
| ''*lj''
|-
| *lw
| ''*l''¹
|
| ''*lw''
|}
1. With w-coloring of the following vowel; see vowel correspondences below.

2. Medially > ''*f'', possibly with w-coloring of the following vowel.

== Vowels ==

=== Vowel inventory ===

The vowel systems of the Eigə-Isthmus family show a large amount of variation, even among closely related languages:

{|
|-
! scope="col" | Faraghin
|  
! scope="col" | Feråjin
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i
|
| rowspan=2 | eu
|
| rowspan=2 | oi
|
|-
|
| e
|
| o
|-
|
|
|
| a
|
|
|}
|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i iː
|
|
|
| u uː
|-
|
| e eː
|
|
| o oː
|-
|
|
| æ æː
|
| ɒ ɒː
|}
|}

The Miwan languages tend to have particularly small inventories (which they make up for by having length and tone distinctions):

{|
|-
! scope="col" | Forest Miwan
|  
! scope="col" | Old Eastern Miwan
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i iː
| iw iːw
|
| u uː
|-
|  
|
|
|
|-
|
|
| a aː
|
|}
|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i iː
| iw iːw
|
| u uː
|-
|
| e eː
|
|
|-
|
|
| a aː
|
|}
|}

Comparison of Ngauro with the reconstruction of Proto-Isthmus is particularly important for understanding the PEI vowel system.

{|
|-
! scope="col" | Ngauro
|  
! scope="col" | Proto-Isthmus
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i
|
|
|
| u
|-
|
| e
| colspan=2 | aü
|
|-
|
|
| ai~ɛ
|
| au~o
|-
|
|
|
| a
|
|}
|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| *i *ij
|
|
| *u *uj
|-
|  
| rowspan=2 | *e *ej
|
| rowspan=2 | *o *oj
|-
|  
|
|-
|
|
| *a *aj
|
|}
|}

A simple 4-vowel system is reconstructed for PEI, but with a full inventory of diphthongs formed by following semivowels:

{|
! '''Proto-Eigə-Isthmus'''
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| '''*i''' *ij *iw
|
|
| '''*u''' *uj *uw
|-
|
| '''*e''' *ej *ew
|
|
|-
|
|
| '''*a''' *aj *aw
|
|}
|}

The open vowel '''''*a''''' and close vowels '''''*i *u''''' are quite easy to reconstruct, being unchanged in many of the descendant languages. The front mid vowel '''''*e''''' appears somewhat less frequently, and seems to occur only in roots, not in affixes.

All of the diphthongs have tended to merge with monophthongs in many descendant languages, again making them somewhat difficult to reconstruct. In particular, only Isthmus languages distinguish between ''*e'' and ''*aj'' or ''*i'' and ''*ej''; and only Eigə Valley languages distinguish between ''*a'' and ''*aw'', ''*e'' and ''*ew'', or ''*u'' and ''*uw''. (On the other hand, ablaut patterns in the verbal morphologies of the EI languages help quite a bit to clarify the picture.)

===Proposed correspondences ===

Here Old Eastern Miwan and Forest Miwan are listed separately, as they seem to have simplified the vowel system in slightly different ways. Vowels with preceding ''*w-'' are included to show their distinctive reflexes in Proto-Isthmus. There are many points of uncertainty here; the bold, italics, and parentheses have the same meanings as in the consonant charts above.

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | OEMiw
! scope="col" | FMiw
|-
| *a
| '''*a'''
| '''a'''
| '''a'''
| '''a'''
|-
| *e
| '''*e'''
| ai~ɛ
| '''e'''
| i
|-
| *i
| '''*i'''
| '''i'''
| i
| '''i'''
|-
| *u
| '''*u'''
| ''u''
| u
| '''u'''
|-
| colspan="5" |
|-
| *aj
| (''*aj'')
| ai~ɛ
| ''e''
| i
|-
| *ej
| ''*ej''
| ''i''
| ''i''
| ''i''
|-
| *ij
| *ij
| ''e''
|
| ?a, u
|-
| *uj
| '''*uj'''
| '''aü'''¹
| a
| i
|-
| colspan="5" |
|-
|-
| *aw
| '''*a'''
| ''au''~'''o'''
| ''u''
| ''u''
|-
| *ew
| '''*e'''
| '''e'''
| '''iw'''
| ''iw''
|-
| *iw
| ''*(j)u''
| e
| ''iw''
| ''iw''
|-
| *uw
| *u
| ?aü¹
|
| ?i
|-
| colspan="5" |
|-
| *wa
| '''*o'''
| (''wa'')
| ''wa''
| '''wa'''
|-
| *we
| '''*o'''
| (''wai~wɛ'')
| ''we''
| '''wi'''
|-
| *wi
| *ji
| wi
| wi
| ''wi''
|}
1. Borrowed as /au/ in Ndak Ta, but /oi/ in Faraghin; probably pronounced something like [œy] in early Ngauro.

== Codas ==

=== Coda inventory ===

Most consonants may be found in coda position:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | Labial
! scope="col" colspan="2" | Coronal
! scope="col" | Dorsal
! scope="col" | Glottal
|-
| *p *b
| *t *d
| *ts *dz
| *k *g
| (*ʔ)
|-
|
| *θ
| *s
|
| rowspan="4" valign="top" | (*h)
|-
| *m
| colspan="2" | *n
| *ŋ
|-
| rowspan="2" | (*w)
| colspan="2" | *r
| rowspan="2" | (*j)
|-
| colspan="2" | *l
|}

There is no evidence for a voicing contrast in coda fricatives. On the other hand, although ''*ŋ'' is not well attested in codas, it seems clear that it must have existed. Coda glottals ''*ʔ *h'', like the glottal onsets, might be reflected in the tonal systems of the Eigə Valley languages; there is no other evidence for them.

Postvocalic ''*j *w'' form diphthongs, which are discussed with vowels in the previous section. Coda ''*ts *dz *s'' seem to have merged to ''*s'' in PEV; when followed by a consonant in Proto-Miwan, this usually becomes breathy voice on the preceding vowel (indicated by ''*ʱ'' in the correspondence charts). (However, Forest Miwan does contrast coda /s z/, so it may be that coda ''*dz'' sometimes remained voiced in that branch.)

Coda clusters, consisting of a final consonant (usually a stop or affricate) preceded by one of ''*s *n *r *l *j *w'', are well attested. In this prefinal position, ''*n'' assimilates to the place of articulation of the following stop, giving ''*mp *mb *ŋk *ŋg''. However, ''*s'' does not assimilate to the voicing of the following consonant: in clusters of ''*s'' + a voiced consonant, the voicelessness of ''*s'' is preserved. Again, ''*j'' and ''*w'' produce diphthongs which are discussed above. The other coda clusters behave differently in different daughter languages, with the prefinal consonant sometimes affecting the vowel (as in Proto-Miwan, where ''*sC'' clusters were one source of breathy-voiced vowels) and sometimes the final consonant (as in Proto-Isthmus, where ''*rC'' clusters became retroflex stops).

Codas were not affected by the changes that reversed the voicing of onset stops and affricates in Proto-Eigə Valley, so voicing in codas is normally consistent across the entire family.

=== Proposed correspondences ===

==== Coda consonants ====
(For coda ''*j *w'', see the diphthongs under Vowels.)

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| *p
| '''*p'''
| ?(''p'')
| '''*p'''
|-
| *t
| '''*t'''
| '''t'''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *ts
| ''*ts''
| ''s''
| ''*s'', ''*ʱ''
|-
| *k
| '''*k'''
| '''k'''
| ?''*k''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *b
| *b
| ?(''b'')
| ?(''*b'')
|-
| *d
| '''*d'''
| '''d'''
| ?''*d''
|-
| *dz
| '''*dz'''
| ?s
| ?''*s'', '''*ʱ'''
|-
| *g
| '''*g'''
| ?(''g'')
| '''*g'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *θ
| *f
|
| *f
|-
| *s
| '''*s'''
| '''s'''
| '''*s''', ''*ʱ''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *m
| *m
| m
| *m
|-
| *n
| '''*n'''
| (''n'')
| '''*n'''
|-
| *ŋ
| ''*j''
| (''*ŋ'')
| (''*ŋ'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *r
| ?''∅''
|
| *r
|-
| *l
| *l
|
| *l
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*ʔ)
| ''∅''
|
| ?''*ˀ''
|-
| (*h)
| ''∅''
|
| ?''*ʱ''
|}

==== Coda clusters ====

(For ''*jC *wC'', see the diphthongs under Vowels.)

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| *sC
| '''*sC'''
| '''sC'''
| '''*ʱC'''
|-
| *nC
| '''*nC'''
| '''nC'''
| '''*nC'''
|-
| *rC
| *ʈ, *ɖ, ?''*C''¹
| ?*jC
| ?*rC
|-
| *lC
| *lC
| ?C
| ''*lC''
|}
1. Plosives > ''*ʈ *ɖ''. Medial ''*rp *rb'' trigger w-coloring of a following vowel; word-finally, they become ''*ʈu *ɖu''.

== Sound changes ==

These are partly tentative and definitely incomplete.

=== Proto-Eigə-Isthmus > Proto-Isthmus ===

* Fricative changes:
** ð z > d dz
** initial θ > t
** remaining θ > f

* Retroflexion:
** tr, kr, rt, rk > ʈ
** dr, gr, rd, rg > ɖ
** pr, rp > ʈw
** br, rb > ɖw
** rts rs > ʂ
** rdz > r
** fr, rf > ʂw
** rn, rŋ > ɳ
** rm > ɳw
** rl > ɭ (if this cluster occurs)
* Retroflexion is blocked when the cluster is immediately followed by l, j, or w.

* initial r > ∅
* remaining r > w

* initial w > f

* geminate consonants simplify

* ʔ, (h) > ∅
* intervocalic w > ∅ (probably not including /Vj_V)

* Hiatus reduction: before any vowel, or after a stressed vowel
** first, unstressed a, e > ∅
** then unstressed i u > j w

* W-coloring:
** wa, we > o
** wi > ji
** wo wu > o u

* iw > ju
* remaining coda w > ∅

* w > u when not adjacent to a vowel

*ŋ changes:
** initial ŋ > (ɲ) > nj
** intervocalic ŋ > (ɲ) > jn
** coda ŋ > (ɲ) > j (except perhaps before k g)

* j > ∅ after a retroflex consonant, an onset Cl cluster, or another j

* i e > u o between a labial consonant and a following retroflex consonant

* ʂ ɳ ɭ > s n l

(For subsequent changes in the Isthmus family, see [[Proto-Isthmus]].)

=== Proto-Eigə-Isthmus > Proto-Eigə Valley ===

* onset voicing shift (and rise of breathy voice on vowels)
** b d dz g > bʱ dʱ dzʱ gʱ > pʰ tʰ tsʰ kʰ + breathy voice on following vowel
** p t k > b d g
** pʰ tʰ tsʰ kʰ > p t ts k
** (this shift is blocked in medial clusters of two stops with the same voicing, e.g. PEI ''gasd~gasd'' ‘stream~PL’ > PEV ''kasd~ga(s)d'' > Ng. ''kasdgad'' > NT ''kasadgad'')
(Since *ts doesn't become voiced, *ts and *dz merge: cf. EMiw ''tun'' 'red' < ''*dzusn-'', ''timpi:za'' 'necklace' < ''*tsimp-''.)

* coda ts dz > s z
* ? z > s /V_C

* vowel mergers: e ej ew > aj i iw (although maybe ej > ij in some environments)

* intervocalic ʔ h (if they both existed) induce phonation—creaky voice and breathy voice respectively—on adjacent syllables, then are deleted

* the preposition ''ʔum'' > a prefix ''m-'', which then assimilates to the POA of a following stop (perhaps some other unstressed initial vowels are deleted too; but ''ʔas-'' seems to be preserved as Miwan ''as-'')

* onset tl dl > tɬ dɮ > ts dz (I think it'd be fun to have some hints of the lateral affricate stage in the daughters)
(This change has to happen after the merger of original *ts *dz > *ts; cf. FMiw ''dimbal'' 'wife' < ''*tlujb-''.)

==== Proto-Eigə Valley > Ngauro ====

(Not all these changes occur before the beginning of Ngauro writing.)

* *aj *aw > ai au in open syllables, > ɛ o in closed syllables
* *iw, *ij > e (maybe [ei])
* *uw, *uj > aü (maybe [œy])

* ? *ɛl > a before a coda consonant
* (other changes involving coda liquids)

* ? *s > θ in onsets
* *ts *dz > s z

* *nj > *ɲ > *j
* *j > z (at least initial)
* *r > j (at least /C_V)

* *m > n /_[+coronal]

==== Proto-Eigə Valley > Meshi ====

* *a̰j *a̰w > *əj *əw
* phonation contrast becomes non-phonemic
* *aj *aw > e o
* *ʔ > ∅ / (if this is still present in PEV)
* *ts *dz > t d
* *w > v / #_ , V_V
* *a *e *o > ∅ / _#
* nasals assimilate in place to a following obstruent
* C > ∅ / _# in polysyllabic words
* C > ∅ / C_#
* [+obstruent] > ∅ / [+nasal]_, [+obstruent]_
* *kw *gw > fw zw
* *e *o > i u
* t d s z > ʧ ʤ ʃ ʒ / _i
* *iw *uj > *ø > e / _C, _#
* *uj > *øj > ej / _V
* *ij *uw > *əj *əw > aj aw
* *θ *ð > s z
* *ŋ > g / V_V
* *ŋ > ∅ (elsewhere)
* *r *l > j w / C_
* tj dj sj zj > ʧ ʤ ʃ ʒ (persistent)

==== Proto-Eigə Valley > Proto-Miwan ====

* *ts *dz > *t *d (only occurs in onsets)
* *θ *ð > *f *v

* *aj *aw > *e *o
* *o > *u
* ? *uw > *uj (maybe)

* *s > *ʱ (breathy voice on preceding vowel) /V_C$
(This change may be blocked by morpheme boundaries in the dialect that led to Forest Miwan.)

Breathy voice is now phonemic and found in at least a third of Proto-Miwan roots.

* ? *t, *d > *s~z /_[+plosive] (voicing assimilates to the following consonant)

* tonogenesis

===== Proto-Miwan > Forest Miwan =====

* *e > i
* ? *ij *uj > i/a/u (depending on environment)
* *ŋ > n

===== Proto-Miwan > Old Eastern Miwan =====

* ? some instances of *k *g > q χ (possibly due to early Hitatc influence)
* intervocalic ʔ develops (maybe *wu *ji > ʔu ʔi; possible Hitatc influence here too)
* *z > *s in codas (if this hasn't happened already)

====== Old Eastern Miwan > Eastern Miwan ======

* loss of e (probably > i)
* ? u > o /_m (maybe not)
* loss of q χ ʔ (maybe χ > ʁ)
* loss of ŋ (mostly > n)
* loss of coda obstruents
* ? loss of b d g (maybe by lenition to v z ʁ; or by devoicing to p t k, with tonal effects on adjacent vowels; or maybe both: devoiced word-initially, lenited medially?)

====== Old Eastern Miwan > Southern Miwan ======

* r > ʀ
* ? χ > ʀ
* ? other uvulars merge into velars except adjacent to /a/
* ʔ > h
* v > w / #_
* l > w / _C, _#
* word-final obstruents become voiced and acquire a trailing short echo vowel, e.g. *dje:zuf > dje:zuvu (this last change is areal; Pirikõsu also inserted vowels after word-final consonants around 500 YP)
* sj > ʃ
* o develops from a variety of sources (< u adjacent to original uvulars, < a /Vw_, < am, etc.)

= Morphosyntax =

== Verbal morphosyntax ==

There are two layers of morphology that can be securely reconstructed for PEI verbs, traditionally known as the '''grades''' and the '''stem vowel'''.

=== Aspect: the grades ===

Aspect in PEI was marked by a somewhat heterogeneous set of inflections applied directly to the verb stem; the resulting forms are called '''grades'''. In the descendant languages, the grades have produced ablaut patterns and even, in the case of Miwan, derivational tone.

Aside from the unmarked '''Zero-grade''' and the '''Reduplicated grade''', the grades were marked by infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others (dividing the verbs into two conjugational classes). These infixes and suffixes were clearly allomorphs of one another, but were not necessarily identical in form. Both infixes and suffixes could be syllabic or non-syllabic, depending on the phonological shape of the stem to which they were attached (the nonsyllabic forms were apparently the result of a reduction of unstressed syllables sometime before the PEI stage).

In infixing verbs, the infixes were inserted immediately before a stem-final consonant. When the stem ended with a single consonant, the infix was normally non-syllabic and a coda cluster was formed. The behavior of infixes in stems that already ended with coda clusters was more complex; syllabic infixes were used here, and probably came between the two consonants of the stem coda, but the details are still being worked out.

In suffixing verbs, the suffix immediately followed the stem. When the stem ended in a consonant, the suffix was normally syllabic. Verbs whose stems ended in a vowel were always suffixing, with a non-syllabic suffix normally forming a coda consonant.

(The infixing verbs were apparently descended from forms in which another set of suffixes followed the aspect suffixes; verb forms marked with these secondary suffixes became lexicalized, leaving the aspect markers trapped inside the newly formed stems. The suffixing verbs were descended from verb forms without the secondary suffixes. The function of the lexicalized secondary suffixes can only be guessed at; one possibility is that they marked something like a telicity distinction.)

Many originally suffixing verbs (if their stems ended in a consonant) could become infixing by analogy. In this way, the infixing pattern gradually spread through the lexicon, leaving fewer suffixing verbs in the descendant languages.

The original system is further obscured by the incomplete preservation of the grades: no one EI language seems to preserve all of them, and they have tended to become derivational. As a result the precise forms and meanings of some of them are difficult to reconstruct, and even the existence of others remains uncertain.

The following grades can be reconstructed with some assurance:

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
! scope="col" | Grade
! scope="col" | Marking
! scope="col" | Aspect
|-
! scope="row" | Zero-grade
| unmarked
| perfective
|-
! scope="row" | Reduplicated grade
| partial reduplication (first *CV of stem)
| iterative and/or intensive
|-
! scope="row" | S-grade
| ''*-(u)s''
| resultative
|-
! scope="row" | N-grade
| ''*-(i)n''
| imperfective or continuous
|-
! scope="row" | J-grade
| ''*-i ~ *-j''
| inceptive, inchoative
|}

In addition to those listed above, there may have been up to three more infixing-suffixing grades (the R-, L-, and W-grades).

=== Voice and valency: the stem vowel ===

PEI verbs were obligatorily marked for voice with a suffix traditionally called the '''stem vowel''': this suffix, consisting of a vowel with a glottal stop onset, marked the verb as either '''active''' (''*-ʔa''), '''causative''' (''*-ʔi''), or '''detransitive''' (''*-ʔu''). These suffixes could also be combined with each other to recursively change the valency of verbs (''*-ʔi'' increases valency, while ''*-ʔu'' decreases it); when combined the vowels were not separated by another glottal stop, but merged into diphthongs (''*-ʔaj *-ʔaw *-ʔij *-ʔiw *-ʔuj *-ʔuw'').

This system is easiest to see in Ngauro, where it produces chains of derived verbs; for example, ''kaima'' 'learn, know' → causative ''kaimi'' 'teach' → middle of causative ''kaime'' 'study' (< PEI ''*gajm-ʔiw'' or ''*gem-ʔiw''). It's also reflected (in a more limited way) in Faraghin: most verbs end in ''-an'' (< ''*-ʔa + *ŋwaw''), but causatives are derived with ''-oin'' (< ''*-ʔaj + *ŋwaw'') and past participles with ''-od'' (< ''*-ʔu-di-ʔa'' or ''*-ʔu-di-ha'').

=== Deverbalization ===

PEI had several ways of forming nouns from verbal roots, with at least one acting at each layer of verbal morphology. At the innermost layer, the S-Grade very frequently forms resultative nouns in both branches of the family.

At the next layer, there seems to be an old nominalizing suffix ''*-ga'' that could be added to the root in place of a stem vowel. The semantics of this suffix are somewhat obscure, and it seems to have become unproductive early on; nouns derived with it were already lexicalized in PEI. Examples include ''*njadz-ga'' 'war', and possibly ''*na-ga'' 'lord, chief'.

Finally, there was a newer deverbalizing suffix ''*-di'' which followed the stem vowel. This suffix was quite regular, and remained productive in many descendant languages into the historical period. It is reflected in the Faraghin past participles in ''-od'' and the Ngauro and OEMiw action nominalizer ''-ti''. (The latter was borrowed from Ngauro into Proto-Ferogh or Early Faraghin, producing the Faraghin action nominalizer ''-č''.)

=== Other verbal marking ===

Most other verbal markers seem to be restricted to one group or another of descendant languages. A few examples are discussed here.

==== Agreement in Faraghin ====

Faraghin verbs agree with their subjects; agreement is marked by suffixes that are clearly derived from the personal pronouns. For example, the citation form of Faraghin verbs is the third person singular, marked with the suffix ''-n'' which is clearly related to the 3SG pronoun ''ni'' (both < PIsth. ''*njo'', < PEI ''*ŋwaw''). These agreement suffixes apparently date to Proto-Isthmus; it's still unknown whether any Eigə Valley languages have subject agreement.

(It seems that third person agreement affixes are often grammaticalized later than first and second person ones, if at all. So we could easily posit an older, more fusional pattern for first and second person agreement, maybe dating back to before Proto-Isthmus.)

==== Verbal markers in Miwan ====

The following is a list of verbal affixes (both inflectional and derivational) that appear in attested Miwan words:

* '''''*d-''''' appears to form patientive nouns in OEMiw, cf. '''''d'''re:χurfi:'' "speech-flow.together" ~ ''*re:'' "to speak", possibly ''saχu'''d'''wa'' "flat-food" ~ ''*wa'' "to eat"
* '''''*-ju''''' (very productive in OEMiw) forms agentive nouns
* '''''*sa:v-''''' marks a reciprocal action in OEMiw '''''sa:v'''re:χati'' "not speaking to each other"
* '''''*-s''''' might be an exhaustive plural, cf. OEMiw ''*re:'''s'''ti'' "election" (lit. "everyone speaking").
* '''''*-stu''''' appears to form a cessative aspect, cf. FMiw/OEMiw ''gwa'''stu''''' (n. or v.) "(to) dump" ~ FMiw ''gwa:'' "to use", FMiw ''nidri:'''stu''''' "to regret" ~ ''nidri:'' "to feel warm towards"
* '''''*-χa(s)''''' negative suffix (OEMiw)
* '''''*-ʔi''''' privative (with nouns) or non-potential (with verbs) suffix in OEMiw, cf. ''gwa:'''ʔi'''ti'' "not important, useless" (becomes ''-hi'' in Southern)

In addition to this, Old Eastern Miwan had a hearsay marker ''tu:zi'', which apparently was a free-standing particle (loaned into Naidda as ''tuze'' "I guess"). This appears to be an inflected verb meaning something like "(it) is told", from PEI ''*dlum'' "to tell".

== Nominal morphosyntax ==

=== Number ===

There seem to be two ways of forming plurals in Eigə-Isthmus languages:

* A PEI suffix ''*-wa'' is the source of the plural marker in Faraghin (where it's usually realized as ''-a'').

* Reduplication marks plurals in Ngauro (maybe with the additional meaning 'many', as in ''kasd~ga(s)d'' 'many streams'). It's possible that this is an innovation in the Eigə Valley branch.

=== De-nominalization ===

PEI had a suffix ''*-ʔa'' or ''*-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns. This suffix was quite regular and remained productive in both branches of the family: it can be seen in Ngauro ''dyaka'' 'kingly, royal' (< PEI ''*trelk-ʔa'' or ''*trelk-ha''), and in the Isthmus participles formed with Proto-Isthmus ''*-dja'' (< ''*-di-ʔa'' or ''*-di-ha'').

=== Case and adpositions ===

==== Case prefixes ====

PEI had two morphemes that were either prepositions or case prefixes: ''*ʔas(-)'' and ''*za(-)''.

In Proto-Isthmus they are definitely case prefixes (genitive-accusative ''*as-'' and dative ''*dza-''), and they still fill this role in the Faraghin pronoun system; some other Isthmus languages also retain an oblique noun stem reflecting the ''*as-'' prefix.

Elsewhere they seem to have become derivational:

* Several FMiw nouns and adjectives begin with ''as-'', likely < PEI ''*ʔas(-)''. There are also a good number of Faraghin nouns that exhibit the consonant mutation caused by PIsth. ''*as-''.

* It's also been proposed that the Meshi-derived word ''zafwi(:)ta(:)'' 'bird's nest' should be interpreted as < ''*za-gwenta'' 'LOC-bird', with a locative ''*za-'' < PEI ''*za(-)''. The reflexes of PIsth. ''*dza-'' also form locative adverbs in Doroh, and directional ones in archaic Boésin.

==== Other adpositions ====

There is at least one other morpheme that becomes a nominal affix in both branches of the family: the name ''Miw'' seems to be formed from PEI ''*pews'' with a nasal prefix derived from the same ''*ʔum'' that becomes a genitive case ''suffix'' in Faraghin and Feråjin. (The first syllable of ''Meshi'' is cognate with ''Miw'', so this word—including the prefix—apparently goes back to Proto-Eigə Valley.) It seems that ''*ʔum'' was a preposition in the branch that led to the Eigə Valley languages, and a postposition in Isthmus.

===== Isthmus =====

The oldest case markers in the Isthmus languages are the two prefixes mentioned above. But newer case markers (at least in Faraghin, Feråjin, and Doroh) are suffixes derived from postpositions. This suggests that the language changed from prepositional to postpositional early on—certainly before the Western Isthmus stage. Since postpositions are pretty strongly (though not exclusively) associated with OV order, that order is the most likely for Proto-Isthmus; but the old prefixes hint at an earlier VO, head-initial stage of the language.

===== Miwan =====

FMiw ''di:za:'' "to wilt" might be formed from ''za:'' "to die" (attested in OEMiw) by prefixing a morpheme possibly meaning "away". If this is derived from an adposition, it would support the assumption that PEI was prepositional.

=== Compounding and noun-phrase syntax ===

Aside from this, there are some other similar developments in both branches, and analysis of noun-noun compounds has proved fruitful for understanding the changes to word order that have happened in the EI family.

==== Compounding in Faraghin ====

In Faraghin compounds, a genitive follows its head noun (NG), but adjectives precede (AN). (These compounds are probably not very old, since they include semantic fields like political, military, and nautical terminology that were probably developed after the Faraghin conquest of Huyfárah. On the other hand the compounding rule may be older than the rule used for clauses.)

In any case, NG order normally coincides with VO order; NG with OV is much rarer, especially when combined with AN (WALS, out of a sample of 1099 languages, lists only one—Tigré—with this combination of features). Since Faraghin compounds are AN, it seems that the NG order should be associated with an earlier VO order. So once again we have evidence for an early head-initial stage.

==== Compounding in Miwan ====

In Miwan, compounds with both head-initial (NA/NG) and head-final (AN/GN) order are attested. However, the distribution of these compound patterns gives a fairly clear picture:

* Old Eastern Miwan, the best-attested language of the family, is overwhelmingly head-final. The only known compound in OEMiw that might possibly be head-initial is ''dre:-χurfi:'' "speech-flow.together", which is reflected in Naidda ''jeorvi'' "chorus, harmony", but it seems rather likely that ''*χurfī'' is actually a nominalised verb form, which would make the compound one of the common GN type.
* Later forms of Eastern Miwan seem to also contain head-initial compounds, including NA compounds such as EMiw ''zuka-tun'' "fruit-red" > "tomato" and ''pa:n-tun'' "music-red" > "guitar". This might be an indication that these dialects switched their compound order at some point during the 1st millennium YP (possibly through influence from Edastean).
* Both genitive compounds attested in Late Eastern Miwan, ''fur-zin'' "tree-life" > "elm tree" and ''za-fwita:'' "nest-bird", follow NG order and, interestingly, have almost identical cognates in western Miwan: FMiw ''fur-zi:n'' and ''za-fwi:ta'', respectively. If these are not borrowings, one can conclude that genitives followed the noun in Proto-Miwan or earlier, and that this ordering was changed later on at least in the eastern dialects. A strong argument in favour of this is presented by the word ''za-fwita:/-fwi:ta'', whose second element is clearly cognate to FMiw ''kwintas'' "bird", but exhibits - in both dialects! - several sound changes not present in the uncompounded form, and therefore appears to be a very old formation. The lenition process turning ''*kw'' into ''fw'' seems similar to the Western Isthmus change of ''*p t k > f s x'' after the genitive preposition ''*as-'', but the word can't be a loan from WI since it would have been ''*ɣonta'' there. A borrowing from Meshi, on the other hand, would be a possibility.
* Forest Miwan does have a head-final AN compound, ''ti:-vur'' "funny-tree" > "hickory tree", but this does not prove that FMiw also switched to head-final compounding because it is identical to a Late Eastern word and might be a borrowing.

As a summary, it seems likely that PEV (pending evidence from Ngauro and/or Meshi) or a slightly later form of the language (i.e. Proto-Miwan) had head-initial compounds, with at least Old Eastern Miwan—but quite possibly all Miwan languages—later switching to head-final order. My guess is that this would have happened before -2000 YP because the strong superstratum influence of Ndak Ta (which is head-initial) would certainly not have encouraged this change.

Furthermore, if PEV was probably head-initial, and a head-initial ancestral stage underlies PIsth., then it seems almost certain that PEI was head-initial.

However, if we allow that the proto-languages need not have been entirely either head-initial or head-final, a slightly different scenario emerges which may provide a simpler explanation. The attested compounds in Forest Miwan show the same orders as Faraghin: NG and AN. It may be that both languages inherited these compound orders from PEI, and that only Eastern Miwan has changed its compound orders—first shifting from NG to GN (to become more consistently head-final), and then later shifting to NG and (mostly) NA under Edastean influence.

If this scenario is correct, PEI turns out to have had a somewhat mixed word-order pattern (but not a particularly rare one according to WALS): NG, VO, and prepositions, but AN.

= Proposed roots =

:{{main|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus/Lexicon}}

[[Category:Languages]]
[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages|*]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Eigə-Isthmus]]

Proto-Eigə-Isthmus

2017-09-27T07:03:35Z

Corumayas: /* Proto-Eigə-Isthmus > Proto-Isthmus */

{{Language
| language = Proto-Eigə-Isthmus
| date = 5th millenium [[YP|BP]]
| place = [[Huyfárah]]
| speakers = unknown
| script = none
| family = [[Eigə-Isthmus languages]]
| word-or = VO
| mor-type = agglutinative
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]], with help from [[User:Cedh|Cedh]], [[User:Radius|Radius]], and others
}}
{{Article}}
'''Proto-Eigə-Isthmus''' is the reconstructed ancestor of the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages]]. It was spoken in eastern Peilaš, probably in the region that later became [[Huyfárah]], during the 5th millenium [[YP|BP]].

The reconstruction of Proto-Eigə-Isthmus is based primarily on comparison of [[Miwan languages|Eastern and Forest Miwan]], [[Ngauro]] loans found in [[Ndak Ta]], and [[Faraghin]] and its ancestor [[Proto-Isthmus]].

= Phonology =

== Syllable structure ==

The Proto-Eigə-Isthmus syllable may be conceived in terms of the following structure:

# an '''onset''' consisting of an initial consonant '''''*C<sub>i</sub>''''', which may be followed by an optional liquid or glide '''''*(G)''''' (one of ''*r *l *j *w'');
# a '''vocalic nucleus''' consisting of a vowel '''''*V'''''; and
# an optional '''coda''', consisting of a final consonant '''''*(C<sub>f</sub>)''''', which may optionally be preceded by one of '''''*s *n *r *l *j *w''''' to form a coda cluster.

The syllable structure is thus '''''*C<sub>i</sub>(G)V((s,n,G)C<sub>f</sub>)'''''.

There are of course some further restrictions on possible syllables; for example, the combinations ''*ji *wu'' do not occur (although ''*ij *uw'' do). For restrictions on onset and coda clusters, see the more detailed discussions below.

Many PEI roots consist of a single syllable with this structure. However, no attested EI language is as monosyllabic as this might suggest; compounding and affixation are highly productive derivational processes in all branches of the family, and have been for thousands of years. Indeed, the difficulties of reconstructing PEI arise in large part from the multiple layers of prefixes and suffixes that have attached themselves to roots over time, often causing changes in the root itself before wearing away and being replaced by new affixes.

A prevocalic glide ''*(G)'' sometimes acts as part of the vocalic nucleus rather than the onset. For example, in the changes leading to Proto-Isthmus, sequences of [''*w'' + vowel] have distinct vocalic reflexes when they follow an initial consonant (e.g. PEI ''*Cwa'' > PIsth. ''*Co''). Similarly, postvocalic glides form diphthongs with distinct reflexes in the daughter languages.

== Onsets ==

=== Onset consonant inventory ===

The following onset consonants are reconstructed for Proto-Eigə-Isthmus:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | Labial
! scope="col" colspan="2" | Coronal
! scope="col" | Dorsal
! scope="col" | Glottal
|-
| *p *b
| *t *d
| *ts *dz
| *k *g
| *ʔ
|-
|
| *θ *ð
| *s *z
|
| rowspan="4" valign="top" | (*h)
|-
| *m
| colspan="2" | *n
| *ŋ
|-
| rowspan="2" | *w
| colspan="2" | *r
| rowspan="2" | *j
|-
| colspan="2" | *l
|}

Plosives are reconstructed at three places of articulation: labial '''''*p *b''''', coronal (possibly dental) '''''*t *d''''', and dorsal (presumably velar) '''''*k *g'''''.

There are also coronal affricates '''''*ts *dz''''', and two pairs of coronal fricatives: sibilant '''''*s *z''''' and non-sibilant (probably dental) '''''*θ *ð'''''. These sounds have tended to shift around in the descendant languages, making them considerably more difficult to reconstruct than the plosives. (Labial fricatives are not reconstructed for PEI, although many descendant languages have one or both of /f v/; the Miwan labial fricatives are mainly descended from ''*θ *ð'', while Proto-Isthmus ''*f'' descends from ''*w'' word-initially and ''*θ'' elsewhere.)

Nasals are reconstructed at the same three places of articulation as plosives. The labial and coronal nasals '''''*m *n''''' are perhaps the easiest to reconstruct of the PEI onsets, as they remain unchanged in most of the descendant languages and are found in many clear cognates. By comparison, the evidence for the dorsal nasal '''''*ŋ''''' is extremely murky: it seems to be uncommon, and has merged with other phonemes in many languages.

Liquids '''''*r *l''''' and glides '''''*j *w''''' are reconstructed as well. Of these, ''*l'' survives unchanged in most of the descendant languages; the others are preserved most clearly in the Miwan branch. A number of Eigə-Isthmus languages do not contrast /r l/ with each other, having deleted ''*r'' or shifted it to something else; on the other hand, several Isthmus languages (including Faraghin and Doroh) have innovated new /r/ despite its absence in Proto-Isthmus.

A glottal stop '''''*ʔ''''' is reconstructed for what would otherwise be vowel-initial syllables; this simplifies the syllable structure by making the onset obligatory, and explains some developments in the daughter languages. Most notably, the final consonants of verbal roots regularly develop as codas, even though they're nearly always followed by a stem vowel; this makes sense if the stem vowel was preceded by an onset ''*ʔ''. Further evidence may be found in the tonal systems of the Eigə Valley languages: it's been suggested that ''*ʔ'' induced glottalization or creaky voice on nearby vowels. It's also possible that the phonemic glottal stop found in some Eigə Valley languages is partly descended from PEI ''*ʔ''.

Finally, a second glottal onset '''''*h''''' has been suggested to account for some words which unexpectedly show breathy voice in Eigə Valley languages. However, since it has no consonantal reflexes and only affects one branch of the family, it may make more sense to simply reconstruct this as a tonal distinction in Proto-Eigə Valley.

=== Voicing ===

A simple two-way voicing contrast is reconstructed for all PEI obstruents (plosives, affricates, and fricatives). In plosives and affricates this contrast seems to have been somewhat unstable in the early Eigə-Isthmus family; the regular correspondences in onset position are:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="row" | Proto-Isthmus
| *p
| *t
| *k
| *b
| *d
| *g
| *ts
| *dz
|-
! scope="row" | Proto-Eigə Valley
| *b
| *d
| *g
| *p
| *t
| *k
| *ts
| *ts
|}

That is, Proto-Isthmus voiceless plosives correspond to Proto-Eigə Valley voiced plosives and vice versa, while Proto-Isthmus voiced and voiceless affricates both correspond to Proto-Eigə Valley voiceless ones.

The evidence (notably from the affricates ''*ts *dz'', whose PIsth. reflexes are not predictable from the merged PEV form) suggests that Proto-Isthmus preserves the original voicing, and that Proto-Eigə Valley onsets underwent the following changes:

# *b *d *dz *g > *bʱ *dʱ *dzʱ *gʱ > *pʰ *tʰ *tsʰ *kʰ
# *p *t *k > *b *d *g
# *pʰ *tʰ *tsʰ *kʰ > *p *t *ts *k

The murmured or breathy-voiced onsets ''*bʱ *dʱ *dzʱ *gʱ'' induced breathy voice on the following vocalic nucleus before being devoiced to aspirates. This may have been the first step in the process of tonogenesis among the Eigə Valley languages.

Fricatives did not undergo these changes. The voiced fricatives ''*ð *z'' are reconstructed where Proto-Isthmus ''*d *dz'' correspond to Miwan ''/v z/'': e.g. Faraghin ''daradan'' and Miwan ''varja(:)'' 'dance', both from PEI ''*ða(r)j-ʔa''.

=== Onset clusters ===

Onset consonants may form clusters with a following liquid or glide (''*r *l *j *w''). Miwan preserves more of these clusters than the other branches; the following table shows the clusters found in wordlists from three Miwan languages:

{|
! scope="col" | Forest Miwan
| rowspan="2" |  
! scope="col" | Old Eastern Miwan
| rowspan="2" |  
! scope="col" | Eastern Miwan
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| pr
| ''pl''
|  
|
| rowspan="11" |
|
| bl
|
|
|-
| tr
|
|
| tw
| ''dr''
|
|
| ''dw''
|-
|
| kl
|
| kw
| gr
| ''gl''
|
| gw
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
| fl
|
| fw
|
|
|
|
|-
|
| sl
|
| sw
|
|
| ''zj''
| ''zw''
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''rj''
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''lj''
|
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
|
|
|
|
| rowspan="11" |
|
|  
| bj
|
|-
| tr
|
| tj
| tw
| dr
|
| dj
| dw
|-
| ''kr''
|
| ''kj''
| kw
|
|
| ''gj''
| gw
|-
|
|
|
| qw
|
|
|
|
|-
| fr
| ''fl''
| fj
| fw
| ''vr''
|
|
| ''vw''
|-
|
|
| sj
|
|
|
|
| ''zw''
|-
|
|
| ''χj''
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''nj''
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ŋw
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''rj''
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|}
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| pr
| pl
| pj
|
| rowspan="11" |
|  
|  
|
|
|-
| ''tr''
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
| fw
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| zw
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|  
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''rj''
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ''lj''
| ''lw''
|}
|}
(The entries in ''italics'' are attested only medially, and thus some of them might not represent original onset clusters.)

The set observed in the reconstructed lexicon for Proto-Isthmus is somewhat different:
{|
! Proto-Isthmus
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| *pl
| *pj
| rowspan="6" |
| *bl
|
|-
| *tl
| *tj
| *dl
|
|-
|
|
|
| ''*dzj''
|-
| *kl
| *kj
|
|
|-
|
| ''*sj''
|
|
|-
|
|
|
| *nj
|}
|}

Comparing these two sets, we can see that Proto-Isthmus has entirely lost ''*r'' and ''*w''; other interesting differences include PIsth.'s lack of clusters beginning in ''*f'' (because this corresponds to Miwan ''w''), and its very frequent ''*tl *dl'' (which have simplified to ''d t'' in Miwan).

Based on this comparison, a probable set of onset clusters may be reconstructed for Proto-Eigə-Isthmus (those in parentheses are unattested in any reconstructable vocabulary so far):

{|
! Proto-Eigə-Isthmus
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| (*pr)
| *pl
| *pj
|
| rowspan="11" |
| *br
| *bl
| *bj
|
|-
| *tr
| *tl
| *tj
| *tw
| *dr
| *dl
| *dj
| *dw
|-
|
| (*tsl)
| (*tsj)
| *tsw
|
| (*dzl)
| *dzj
| (*dzw)
|-
| *kr
| *kl
| *kj
| *kw
| *gr
| *gl
| *gj
| *gw
|-
| *θr
| *θl
| *θj
| *θw
| *ðr
| (*ðl)
| (*ðj)
| *ðw
|-
|
| *sl
| *sj
| *sw
|
| (*zl)
| *zj
| *zw
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| (*mj)
|
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| *nj
| (*nw)
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| (*ŋj)
| *ŋw
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| *rj
| (*rw)
|-
|
|
|
|
|
|
| *lj
| *lw
|}
|}

A few phonotactic restrictions can be discerned here: onset clusters of [labial + ''*w''] are forbidden, as are [sibilant (''*ts *dz *s *z'') + ''*r'']; ''*r *l'' cannot cluster with each other, nor with nasals. On the other hand, the absence of ''*pr'', ''*tsj'', and ''*dzw'' is doubtless just an accident of our incomplete knowledge of these languages. In between these extremes, it's difficult to tell what the status of such unattested clusters as ''*tsl *dzl'', ''*ðl *ðj'', or ''*mj *ŋj'' is. Further work is needed here; it may also be that some of the clusters found only in one branch or the other are innovations.

Another question worth exploring is whether there are onset clusters ''*ʔr *ʔl *ʔj *ʔw'': if so, they would contrast with plain ''*r *l *j *w'', and would develop differently in some instances (for example ''*wa *ʔwa'' would become ''*fa *o'' respectively in Proto-Isthmus).

=== Proposed correspondences ===

The charts below show the development of onset consonants and clusters in three early daughters of Proto-Eigə-Isthmus: [[Proto-Isthmus]], [[Ngauro]], and [[Miwan languages|Proto-Miwan]]. It will be updated as comparative work continues.

(NB: Correspondences in '''bold''' are attested in fairly certain cognate pairs; those in ''italics'' are postulated to exist but currently unattested. Entries in (parentheses) are not actually found in the relevant lexicon at all. Particularly uncertain correspondences are marked with a "?", whether attested or not. As-of-yet unknown reflexes are left blank.)

==== Onset consonants ====

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| *p
| *p
| (''b'')
| *b
|-
| *t
| '''*t'''
| '''d'''
| '''*d'''
|-
| *ts
| '''*ts'''
| '''s'''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *k
| *k
| (''g'')
| *g
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *b
| '''*b'''
| ''p''
| '''*p'''
|-
| *d
| '''*d'''
| '''t'''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *dz
| '''*dz'''
| ''s''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *g
| '''*g'''
| '''k'''
| '''*k'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *θ
| ''*t''¹, ''*f''²
| (''h'')
| ''*f''
|-
| *s
| ''*s''
| (''ś'')³
| ''*s''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *ð
| '''*d'''
| (''∅'')
| '''*v'''
|-
| *z
| '''*dz'''
| '''z'''
| '''*z'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *m
| '''*m'''
| '''m'''
| '''*m'''
|-
| *n
| '''*n'''
| '''n'''
| '''*n'''
|-
| *ŋ
| ''*nj''¹, ''*jn''²
| ?(''ŋ'')
| ''*ŋ''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *r
| ''∅''
| (''j'')
| ''*r''
|-
| *l
| '''*l'''
| ''l''
| '''*l'''
|-
| *j
| ''*j''
| ''z''
| ''*j''
|-
| *w
| ''*f''¹, ''∅''²
| (''w'')
| ''*w''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *ʔ
| ''∅''
| (''∅'')⁴
| ''∅''⁴
|-
| (*h)
| ''∅''
| (''∅'')⁴
| ''∅''⁴
|}
1. Initial.

2. Medial.

3. Possibly pronounced [θ].

4. Presumably with tonal effects.

==== Onset clusters ====

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| (*pr) *br
| ''*ʈ *ɖ¹''
|
| (''*br'') ''*pr''
|-
| *pl *bl
| ''*pl *bl''
|
| ''*bl *pl''
|-
| *pj *bj
| ''*pj *bj''
|
| ''*bj *pj''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *tr *dr
| '''*ʈ''' *ɖ
| '''dj''' (''tj'')
| ''*dr'' *tr
|-
| *tl *dl
| '''*tl *dl'''
|
| '''*d *t'''
|-
| *tj *dj
| ''*tj'' (''*dj'')
|
| ''*dj *tj''
|-
| *tw *dw
| ''*t *d''¹
|
| ''*dw *tw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*tsl *dzl)
| (''*tsl'' ''*dzl'')
|
|
|-
| (*tsj) *dzj
| (''*tsj'') ''*dzj''
|
| ''*tj *tj''
|-
| *tsw (*dzw)
| '''*ts''' ''*dz''¹
|
| '''*tw''' ''*tw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *kr *gr
| ''*ʈ *ɖ''
|
| ''*gr *kr''
|-
| *kl *gl
| *kl (''*gl'')
|
| *g(l) ''*kl''
|-
| *kj *gj
| ''*kj'' (''*gj'')
|
| ''*gj *kj''
|-
| *kw *gw
| ''*k'' '''*g'''¹
|
| ''*gw'' '''*kw'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *θr *ðr
| ''*ʈ''² ''*ɖ''
|
| ''*fr *vr''
|-
| *θl (*ðl)
| ''*tl *dl''
|
| ''*fl'' (''*vl'')
|-
| *θj (*ðj)
| ''*tj'' (''*dj'')
|
| ''*fj'' (''*vj'')
|-
| *θw *ðw
| ''*t *d''¹
|
| ''*fw *vw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *sl (*zl)
| (?''*sl *dzl'')
|
| ''*sl'' (''*zl'')
|-
| *sj *zj
| ''*sj *dzj''
|
| ''*sj *zj''
|-
| *sw *zw
| ''*s'' '''*dz'''¹
|
| ''*sw'' '''*zw'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*mj)
| (''*mj'')
|
| (''*mj'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *nj
| '''*nj'''
| '''z'''
| ''*nj''
|-
| (*nw)
| ''*n''¹
|
| (''*nw'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*ŋj)
| ?''*nj''
|
| (''*ŋj'')
|-
| *ŋw
| ?''*nj''¹
|
| ''*ŋw''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *rj
| ?''*j''
|
| ''*rj''
|-
| (*rw)
| ?''∅''¹
|
| (''*rw'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *lj
| (''*lj'')
|
| ''*lj''
|-
| *lw
| ''*l''¹
|
| ''*lw''
|}
1. With w-coloring of the following vowel; see vowel correspondences below.

2. Medially > ''*f'', possibly with w-coloring of the following vowel.

== Vowels ==

=== Vowel inventory ===

The vowel systems of the Eigə-Isthmus family show a large amount of variation, even among closely related languages:

{|
|-
! scope="col" | Faraghin
|  
! scope="col" | Feråjin
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i
|
| rowspan=2 | eu
|
| rowspan=2 | oi
|
|-
|
| e
|
| o
|-
|
|
|
| a
|
|
|}
|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i iː
|
|
|
| u uː
|-
|
| e eː
|
|
| o oː
|-
|
|
| æ æː
|
| ɒ ɒː
|}
|}

The Miwan languages tend to have particularly small inventories (which they make up for by having length and tone distinctions):

{|
|-
! scope="col" | Forest Miwan
|  
! scope="col" | Old Eastern Miwan
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i iː
| iw iːw
|
| u uː
|-
|  
|
|
|
|-
|
|
| a aː
|
|}
|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i iː
| iw iːw
|
| u uː
|-
|
| e eː
|
|
|-
|
|
| a aː
|
|}
|}

Comparison of Ngauro with the reconstruction of Proto-Isthmus is particularly important for understanding the PEI vowel system.

{|
|-
! scope="col" | Ngauro
|  
! scope="col" | Proto-Isthmus
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| i
|
|
|
| u
|-
|
| e
| colspan=2 | aü
|
|-
|
|
| ai~ɛ
|
| au~o
|-
|
|
|
| a
|
|}
|
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| *i *ij
|
|
| *u *uj
|-
|  
| rowspan=2 | *e *ej
|
| rowspan=2 | *o *oj
|-
|  
|
|-
|
|
| *a *aj
|
|}
|}

A simple 4-vowel system is reconstructed for PEI, but with a full inventory of diphthongs formed by following semivowels:

{|
! '''Proto-Eigə-Isthmus'''
|-
|
{| {{softtable|c}}
| '''*i''' *ij *iw
|
|
| '''*u''' *uj *uw
|-
|
| '''*e''' *ej *ew
|
|
|-
|
|
| '''*a''' *aj *aw
|
|}
|}

The open vowel '''''*a''''' and close vowels '''''*i *u''''' are quite easy to reconstruct, being unchanged in many of the descendant languages. The front mid vowel '''''*e''''' appears somewhat less frequently, and seems to occur only in roots, not in affixes.

All of the diphthongs have tended to merge with monophthongs in many descendant languages, again making them somewhat difficult to reconstruct. In particular, only Isthmus languages distinguish between ''*e'' and ''*aj'' or ''*i'' and ''*ej''; and only Eigə Valley languages distinguish between ''*a'' and ''*aw'', ''*e'' and ''*ew'', or ''*u'' and ''*uw''. (On the other hand, ablaut patterns in the verbal morphologies of the EI languages help quite a bit to clarify the picture.)

===Proposed correspondences ===

Here Old Eastern Miwan and Forest Miwan are listed separately, as they seem to have simplified the vowel system in slightly different ways. Vowels with preceding ''*w-'' are included to show their distinctive reflexes in Proto-Isthmus. There are many points of uncertainty here; the bold, italics, and parentheses have the same meanings as in the consonant charts above.

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | OEMiw
! scope="col" | FMiw
|-
| *a
| '''*a'''
| '''a'''
| '''a'''
| '''a'''
|-
| *e
| '''*e'''
| ai~ɛ
| '''e'''
| i
|-
| *i
| '''*i'''
| '''i'''
| i
| '''i'''
|-
| *u
| '''*u'''
| ''u''
| u
| '''u'''
|-
| colspan="5" |
|-
| *aj
| (''*aj'')
| ai~ɛ
| ''e''
| i
|-
| *ej
| ''*ej''
| ''i''
| ''i''
| ''i''
|-
| *ij
| *ij
| ''e''
|
| ?a, u
|-
| *uj
| '''*uj'''
| '''aü'''¹
| a
| i
|-
| colspan="5" |
|-
|-
| *aw
| '''*a'''
| ''au''~'''o'''
| ''u''
| ''u''
|-
| *ew
| '''*e'''
| '''e'''
| '''iw'''
| ''iw''
|-
| *iw
| ''*(j)u''
| e
| ''iw''
| ''iw''
|-
| *uw
| *u
| ?aü¹
|
| ?i
|-
| colspan="5" |
|-
| *wa
| '''*o'''
| (''wa'')
| ''wa''
| '''wa'''
|-
| *we
| '''*o'''
| (''wai~wɛ'')
| ''we''
| '''wi'''
|-
| *wi
| *ji
| wi
| wi
| ''wi''
|}
1. Borrowed as /au/ in Ndak Ta, but /oi/ in Faraghin; probably pronounced something like [œy] in early Ngauro.

== Codas ==

=== Coda inventory ===

Most consonants may be found in coda position:

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | Labial
! scope="col" colspan="2" | Coronal
! scope="col" | Dorsal
! scope="col" | Glottal
|-
| *p *b
| *t *d
| *ts *dz
| *k *g
| (*ʔ)
|-
|
| *θ
| *s
|
| rowspan="4" valign="top" | (*h)
|-
| *m
| colspan="2" | *n
| *ŋ
|-
| rowspan="2" | (*w)
| colspan="2" | *r
| rowspan="2" | (*j)
|-
| colspan="2" | *l
|}

There is no evidence for a voicing contrast in coda fricatives. On the other hand, although ''*ŋ'' is not well attested in codas, it seems clear that it must have existed. Coda glottals ''*ʔ *h'', like the glottal onsets, might be reflected in the tonal systems of the Eigə Valley languages; there is no other evidence for them.

Postvocalic ''*j *w'' form diphthongs, which are discussed with vowels in the previous section. Coda ''*ts *dz *s'' seem to have merged to ''*s'' in PEV; when followed by a consonant in Proto-Miwan, this usually becomes breathy voice on the preceding vowel (indicated by ''*ʱ'' in the correspondence charts). (However, Forest Miwan does contrast coda /s z/, so it may be that coda ''*dz'' sometimes remained voiced in that branch.)

Coda clusters, consisting of a final consonant (usually a stop or affricate) preceded by one of ''*s *n *r *l *j *w'', are well attested. In this prefinal position, ''*n'' assimilates to the place of articulation of the following stop, giving ''*mp *mb *ŋk *ŋg''. However, ''*s'' does not assimilate to the voicing of the following consonant: in clusters of ''*s'' + a voiced consonant, the voicelessness of ''*s'' is preserved. Again, ''*j'' and ''*w'' produce diphthongs which are discussed above. The other coda clusters behave differently in different daughter languages, with the prefinal consonant sometimes affecting the vowel (as in Proto-Miwan, where ''*sC'' clusters were one source of breathy-voiced vowels) and sometimes the final consonant (as in Proto-Isthmus, where ''*rC'' clusters became retroflex stops).

Codas were not affected by the changes that reversed the voicing of onset stops and affricates in Proto-Eigə Valley, so voicing in codas is normally consistent across the entire family.

=== Proposed correspondences ===

==== Coda consonants ====
(For coda ''*j *w'', see the diphthongs under Vowels.)

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| *p
| '''*p'''
| ?(''p'')
| '''*p'''
|-
| *t
| '''*t'''
| '''t'''
| '''*t'''
|-
| *ts
| ''*ts''
| ''s''
| ''*s'', ''*ʱ''
|-
| *k
| '''*k'''
| '''k'''
| ?''*k''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *b
| *b
| ?(''b'')
| ?(''*b'')
|-
| *d
| '''*d'''
| '''d'''
| ?''*d''
|-
| *dz
| '''*dz'''
| ?s
| ?''*s'', '''*ʱ'''
|-
| *g
| '''*g'''
| ?(''g'')
| '''*g'''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *θ
| *f
|
| *f
|-
| *s
| '''*s'''
| '''s'''
| '''*s''', ''*ʱ''
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *m
| *m
| m
| *m
|-
| *n
| '''*n'''
| (''n'')
| '''*n'''
|-
| *ŋ
| ''*j''
| (''*ŋ'')
| (''*ŋ'')
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| *r
| ?''∅''
|
| *r
|-
| *l
| *l
|
| *l
|-
| colspan="4" |
|-
| (*ʔ)
| ''∅''
|
| ?''*ˀ''
|-
| (*h)
| ''∅''
|
| ?''*ʱ''
|}

==== Coda clusters ====

(For ''*jC *wC'', see the diphthongs under Vowels.)

{| {{bluetable|softbg c}}
! scope="col" | PEI
! scope="col" | PIsth.
! scope="col" | Ngauro
! scope="col" | PMiw
|-
| *sC
| '''*sC'''
| '''sC'''
| '''*ʱC'''
|-
| *nC
| '''*nC'''
| '''nC'''
| '''*nC'''
|-
| *rC
| *ʈ, *ɖ, ?''*C''¹
| ?*jC
| ?*rC
|-
| *lC
| *lC
| ?C
| ''*lC''
|}
1. Plosives > ''*ʈ *ɖ''. Medial ''*rp *rb'' trigger w-coloring of a following vowel; word-finally, they become ''*ʈu *ɖu''.

== Sound changes ==

These are partly tentative and definitely incomplete.

=== Proto-Eigə-Isthmus > Proto-Isthmus ===

* Fricative changes:
** ð z > d dz
** initial θ > t
** remaining θ > f

* Retroflexion:
** tr, kr, rt, rk > ʈ
** dr, gr, rd, rg > ɖ
** pr, rp > ʈw
** br, rb > ɖw
** rts rs > ʂ
** rdz > r
** fr, rf > ʂw
** rn, rŋ > ɳ
** rm > ɳw
** rl > ɭ (if this cluster occurs)
* Retroflexion is blocked when the cluster is immediately followed by l, j, or w.

* initial r > ∅
* remaining r > w

* initial w > f

* geminate consonants simplify

* ʔ, (h) > ∅
* intervocalic w > ∅ (probably not including /Vj_V)

* Hiatus reduction: before any vowel, or after a stressed vowel
** first, unstressed a, e > ∅
** then unstressed i u > j w

* W-coloring:
** wa, we > o
** wi > ji
** wo wu > o u

* iw > ju
* remaining coda w > ∅

* w > u when not adjacent to a vowel

* j > ∅ after a retroflex consonant or an onset cluster (Cl or Cj)

* i e > u o between a preceding labial consonant and a following retroflex consonant

* ʂ ɳ ɭ > s n l

*ŋ changes:
** initial ŋ > (ɲ) > nj
** intervocalic ŋ > (ɲ) > jn
** coda ŋ > (ɲ) > j (except perhaps before k g)

(For subsequent changes in the Isthmus family, see [[Proto-Isthmus]].)

=== Proto-Eigə-Isthmus > Proto-Eigə Valley ===

* onset voicing shift (and rise of breathy voice on vowels)
** b d dz g > bʱ dʱ dzʱ gʱ > pʰ tʰ tsʰ kʰ + breathy voice on following vowel
** p t k > b d g
** pʰ tʰ tsʰ kʰ > p t ts k
** (this shift is blocked in medial clusters of two stops with the same voicing, e.g. PEI ''gasd~gasd'' ‘stream~PL’ > PEV ''kasd~ga(s)d'' > Ng. ''kasdgad'' > NT ''kasadgad'')
(Since *ts doesn't become voiced, *ts and *dz merge: cf. EMiw ''tun'' 'red' < ''*dzusn-'', ''timpi:za'' 'necklace' < ''*tsimp-''.)

* coda ts dz > s z
* ? z > s /V_C

* vowel mergers: e ej ew > aj i iw (although maybe ej > ij in some environments)

* intervocalic ʔ h (if they both existed) induce phonation—creaky voice and breathy voice respectively—on adjacent syllables, then are deleted

* the preposition ''ʔum'' > a prefix ''m-'', which then assimilates to the POA of a following stop (perhaps some other unstressed initial vowels are deleted too; but ''ʔas-'' seems to be preserved as Miwan ''as-'')

* onset tl dl > tɬ dɮ > ts dz (I think it'd be fun to have some hints of the lateral affricate stage in the daughters)
(This change has to happen after the merger of original *ts *dz > *ts; cf. FMiw ''dimbal'' 'wife' < ''*tlujb-''.)

==== Proto-Eigə Valley > Ngauro ====

(Not all these changes occur before the beginning of Ngauro writing.)

* *aj *aw > ai au in open syllables, > ɛ o in closed syllables
* *iw, *ij > e (maybe [ei])
* *uw, *uj > aü (maybe [œy])

* ? *ɛl > a before a coda consonant
* (other changes involving coda liquids)

* ? *s > θ in onsets
* *ts *dz > s z

* *nj > *ɲ > *j
* *j > z (at least initial)
* *r > j (at least /C_V)

* *m > n /_[+coronal]

==== Proto-Eigə Valley > Meshi ====

* *a̰j *a̰w > *əj *əw
* phonation contrast becomes non-phonemic
* *aj *aw > e o
* *ʔ > ∅ / (if this is still present in PEV)
* *ts *dz > t d
* *w > v / #_ , V_V
* *a *e *o > ∅ / _#
* nasals assimilate in place to a following obstruent
* C > ∅ / _# in polysyllabic words
* C > ∅ / C_#
* [+obstruent] > ∅ / [+nasal]_, [+obstruent]_
* *kw *gw > fw zw
* *e *o > i u
* t d s z > ʧ ʤ ʃ ʒ / _i
* *iw *uj > *ø > e / _C, _#
* *uj > *øj > ej / _V
* *ij *uw > *əj *əw > aj aw
* *θ *ð > s z
* *ŋ > g / V_V
* *ŋ > ∅ (elsewhere)
* *r *l > j w / C_
* tj dj sj zj > ʧ ʤ ʃ ʒ (persistent)

==== Proto-Eigə Valley > Proto-Miwan ====

* *ts *dz > *t *d (only occurs in onsets)
* *θ *ð > *f *v

* *aj *aw > *e *o
* *o > *u
* ? *uw > *uj (maybe)

* *s > *ʱ (breathy voice on preceding vowel) /V_C$
(This change may be blocked by morpheme boundaries in the dialect that led to Forest Miwan.)

Breathy voice is now phonemic and found in at least a third of Proto-Miwan roots.

* ? *t, *d > *s~z /_[+plosive] (voicing assimilates to the following consonant)

* tonogenesis

===== Proto-Miwan > Forest Miwan =====

* *e > i
* ? *ij *uj > i/a/u (depending on environment)
* *ŋ > n

===== Proto-Miwan > Old Eastern Miwan =====

* ? some instances of *k *g > q χ (possibly due to early Hitatc influence)
* intervocalic ʔ develops (maybe *wu *ji > ʔu ʔi; possible Hitatc influence here too)
* *z > *s in codas (if this hasn't happened already)

====== Old Eastern Miwan > Eastern Miwan ======

* loss of e (probably > i)
* ? u > o /_m (maybe not)
* loss of q χ ʔ (maybe χ > ʁ)
* loss of ŋ (mostly > n)
* loss of coda obstruents
* ? loss of b d g (maybe by lenition to v z ʁ; or by devoicing to p t k, with tonal effects on adjacent vowels; or maybe both: devoiced word-initially, lenited medially?)

====== Old Eastern Miwan > Southern Miwan ======

* r > ʀ
* ? χ > ʀ
* ? other uvulars merge into velars except adjacent to /a/
* ʔ > h
* v > w / #_
* l > w / _C, _#
* word-final obstruents become voiced and acquire a trailing short echo vowel, e.g. *dje:zuf > dje:zuvu (this last change is areal; Pirikõsu also inserted vowels after word-final consonants around 500 YP)
* sj > ʃ
* o develops from a variety of sources (< u adjacent to original uvulars, < a /Vw_, < am, etc.)

= Morphosyntax =

== Verbal morphosyntax ==

There are two layers of morphology that can be securely reconstructed for PEI verbs, traditionally known as the '''grades''' and the '''stem vowel'''.

=== Aspect: the grades ===

Aspect in PEI was marked by a somewhat heterogeneous set of inflections applied directly to the verb stem; the resulting forms are called '''grades'''. In the descendant languages, the grades have produced ablaut patterns and even, in the case of Miwan, derivational tone.

Aside from the unmarked '''Zero-grade''' and the '''Reduplicated grade''', the grades were marked by infixes in some verbs and suffixes in others (dividing the verbs into two conjugational classes). These infixes and suffixes were clearly allomorphs of one another, but were not necessarily identical in form. Both infixes and suffixes could be syllabic or non-syllabic, depending on the phonological shape of the stem to which they were attached (the nonsyllabic forms were apparently the result of a reduction of unstressed syllables sometime before the PEI stage).

In infixing verbs, the infixes were inserted immediately before a stem-final consonant. When the stem ended with a single consonant, the infix was normally non-syllabic and a coda cluster was formed. The behavior of infixes in stems that already ended with coda clusters was more complex; syllabic infixes were used here, and probably came between the two consonants of the stem coda, but the details are still being worked out.

In suffixing verbs, the suffix immediately followed the stem. When the stem ended in a consonant, the suffix was normally syllabic. Verbs whose stems ended in a vowel were always suffixing, with a non-syllabic suffix normally forming a coda consonant.

(The infixing verbs were apparently descended from forms in which another set of suffixes followed the aspect suffixes; verb forms marked with these secondary suffixes became lexicalized, leaving the aspect markers trapped inside the newly formed stems. The suffixing verbs were descended from verb forms without the secondary suffixes. The function of the lexicalized secondary suffixes can only be guessed at; one possibility is that they marked something like a telicity distinction.)

Many originally suffixing verbs (if their stems ended in a consonant) could become infixing by analogy. In this way, the infixing pattern gradually spread through the lexicon, leaving fewer suffixing verbs in the descendant languages.

The original system is further obscured by the incomplete preservation of the grades: no one EI language seems to preserve all of them, and they have tended to become derivational. As a result the precise forms and meanings of some of them are difficult to reconstruct, and even the existence of others remains uncertain.

The following grades can be reconstructed with some assurance:

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
! scope="col" | Grade
! scope="col" | Marking
! scope="col" | Aspect
|-
! scope="row" | Zero-grade
| unmarked
| perfective
|-
! scope="row" | Reduplicated grade
| partial reduplication (first *CV of stem)
| iterative and/or intensive
|-
! scope="row" | S-grade
| ''*-(u)s''
| resultative
|-
! scope="row" | N-grade
| ''*-(i)n''
| imperfective or continuous
|-
! scope="row" | J-grade
| ''*-i ~ *-j''
| inceptive, inchoative
|}

In addition to those listed above, there may have been up to three more infixing-suffixing grades (the R-, L-, and W-grades).

=== Voice and valency: the stem vowel ===

PEI verbs were obligatorily marked for voice with a suffix traditionally called the '''stem vowel''': this suffix, consisting of a vowel with a glottal stop onset, marked the verb as either '''active''' (''*-ʔa''), '''causative''' (''*-ʔi''), or '''detransitive''' (''*-ʔu''). These suffixes could also be combined with each other to recursively change the valency of verbs (''*-ʔi'' increases valency, while ''*-ʔu'' decreases it); when combined the vowels were not separated by another glottal stop, but merged into diphthongs (''*-ʔaj *-ʔaw *-ʔij *-ʔiw *-ʔuj *-ʔuw'').

This system is easiest to see in Ngauro, where it produces chains of derived verbs; for example, ''kaima'' 'learn, know' → causative ''kaimi'' 'teach' → middle of causative ''kaime'' 'study' (< PEI ''*gajm-ʔiw'' or ''*gem-ʔiw''). It's also reflected (in a more limited way) in Faraghin: most verbs end in ''-an'' (< ''*-ʔa + *ŋwaw''), but causatives are derived with ''-oin'' (< ''*-ʔaj + *ŋwaw'') and past participles with ''-od'' (< ''*-ʔu-di-ʔa'' or ''*-ʔu-di-ha'').

=== Deverbalization ===

PEI had several ways of forming nouns from verbal roots, with at least one acting at each layer of verbal morphology. At the innermost layer, the S-Grade very frequently forms resultative nouns in both branches of the family.

At the next layer, there seems to be an old nominalizing suffix ''*-ga'' that could be added to the root in place of a stem vowel. The semantics of this suffix are somewhat obscure, and it seems to have become unproductive early on; nouns derived with it were already lexicalized in PEI. Examples include ''*njadz-ga'' 'war', and possibly ''*na-ga'' 'lord, chief'.

Finally, there was a newer deverbalizing suffix ''*-di'' which followed the stem vowel. This suffix was quite regular, and remained productive in many descendant languages into the historical period. It is reflected in the Faraghin past participles in ''-od'' and the Ngauro and OEMiw action nominalizer ''-ti''. (The latter was borrowed from Ngauro into Proto-Ferogh or Early Faraghin, producing the Faraghin action nominalizer ''-č''.)

=== Other verbal marking ===

Most other verbal markers seem to be restricted to one group or another of descendant languages. A few examples are discussed here.

==== Agreement in Faraghin ====

Faraghin verbs agree with their subjects; agreement is marked by suffixes that are clearly derived from the personal pronouns. For example, the citation form of Faraghin verbs is the third person singular, marked with the suffix ''-n'' which is clearly related to the 3SG pronoun ''ni'' (both < PIsth. ''*njo'', < PEI ''*ŋwaw''). These agreement suffixes apparently date to Proto-Isthmus; it's still unknown whether any Eigə Valley languages have subject agreement.

(It seems that third person agreement affixes are often grammaticalized later than first and second person ones, if at all. So we could easily posit an older, more fusional pattern for first and second person agreement, maybe dating back to before Proto-Isthmus.)

==== Verbal markers in Miwan ====

The following is a list of verbal affixes (both inflectional and derivational) that appear in attested Miwan words:

* '''''*d-''''' appears to form patientive nouns in OEMiw, cf. '''''d'''re:χurfi:'' "speech-flow.together" ~ ''*re:'' "to speak", possibly ''saχu'''d'''wa'' "flat-food" ~ ''*wa'' "to eat"
* '''''*-ju''''' (very productive in OEMiw) forms agentive nouns
* '''''*sa:v-''''' marks a reciprocal action in OEMiw '''''sa:v'''re:χati'' "not speaking to each other"
* '''''*-s''''' might be an exhaustive plural, cf. OEMiw ''*re:'''s'''ti'' "election" (lit. "everyone speaking").
* '''''*-stu''''' appears to form a cessative aspect, cf. FMiw/OEMiw ''gwa'''stu''''' (n. or v.) "(to) dump" ~ FMiw ''gwa:'' "to use", FMiw ''nidri:'''stu''''' "to regret" ~ ''nidri:'' "to feel warm towards"
* '''''*-χa(s)''''' negative suffix (OEMiw)
* '''''*-ʔi''''' privative (with nouns) or non-potential (with verbs) suffix in OEMiw, cf. ''gwa:'''ʔi'''ti'' "not important, useless" (becomes ''-hi'' in Southern)

In addition to this, Old Eastern Miwan had a hearsay marker ''tu:zi'', which apparently was a free-standing particle (loaned into Naidda as ''tuze'' "I guess"). This appears to be an inflected verb meaning something like "(it) is told", from PEI ''*dlum'' "to tell".

== Nominal morphosyntax ==

=== Number ===

There seem to be two ways of forming plurals in Eigə-Isthmus languages:

* A PEI suffix ''*-wa'' is the source of the plural marker in Faraghin (where it's usually realized as ''-a'').

* Reduplication marks plurals in Ngauro (maybe with the additional meaning 'many', as in ''kasd~ga(s)d'' 'many streams'). It's possible that this is an innovation in the Eigə Valley branch.

=== De-nominalization ===

PEI had a suffix ''*-ʔa'' or ''*-ha'' that derived adjectives from nouns. This suffix was quite regular and remained productive in both branches of the family: it can be seen in Ngauro ''dyaka'' 'kingly, royal' (< PEI ''*trelk-ʔa'' or ''*trelk-ha''), and in the Isthmus participles formed with Proto-Isthmus ''*-dja'' (< ''*-di-ʔa'' or ''*-di-ha'').

=== Case and adpositions ===

==== Case prefixes ====

PEI had two morphemes that were either prepositions or case prefixes: ''*ʔas(-)'' and ''*za(-)''.

In Proto-Isthmus they are definitely case prefixes (genitive-accusative ''*as-'' and dative ''*dza-''), and they still fill this role in the Faraghin pronoun system; some other Isthmus languages also retain an oblique noun stem reflecting the ''*as-'' prefix.

Elsewhere they seem to have become derivational:

* Several FMiw nouns and adjectives begin with ''as-'', likely < PEI ''*ʔas(-)''. There are also a good number of Faraghin nouns that exhibit the consonant mutation caused by PIsth. ''*as-''.

* It's also been proposed that the Meshi-derived word ''zafwi(:)ta(:)'' 'bird's nest' should be interpreted as < ''*za-gwenta'' 'LOC-bird', with a locative ''*za-'' < PEI ''*za(-)''. The reflexes of PIsth. ''*dza-'' also form locative adverbs in Doroh, and directional ones in archaic Boésin.

==== Other adpositions ====

There is at least one other morpheme that becomes a nominal affix in both branches of the family: the name ''Miw'' seems to be formed from PEI ''*pews'' with a nasal prefix derived from the same ''*ʔum'' that becomes a genitive case ''suffix'' in Faraghin and Feråjin. (The first syllable of ''Meshi'' is cognate with ''Miw'', so this word—including the prefix—apparently goes back to Proto-Eigə Valley.) It seems that ''*ʔum'' was a preposition in the branch that led to the Eigə Valley languages, and a postposition in Isthmus.

===== Isthmus =====

The oldest case markers in the Isthmus languages are the two prefixes mentioned above. But newer case markers (at least in Faraghin, Feråjin, and Doroh) are suffixes derived from postpositions. This suggests that the language changed from prepositional to postpositional early on—certainly before the Western Isthmus stage. Since postpositions are pretty strongly (though not exclusively) associated with OV order, that order is the most likely for Proto-Isthmus; but the old prefixes hint at an earlier VO, head-initial stage of the language.

===== Miwan =====

FMiw ''di:za:'' "to wilt" might be formed from ''za:'' "to die" (attested in OEMiw) by prefixing a morpheme possibly meaning "away". If this is derived from an adposition, it would support the assumption that PEI was prepositional.

=== Compounding and noun-phrase syntax ===

Aside from this, there are some other similar developments in both branches, and analysis of noun-noun compounds has proved fruitful for understanding the changes to word order that have happened in the EI family.

==== Compounding in Faraghin ====

In Faraghin compounds, a genitive follows its head noun (NG), but adjectives precede (AN). (These compounds are probably not very old, since they include semantic fields like political, military, and nautical terminology that were probably developed after the Faraghin conquest of Huyfárah. On the other hand the compounding rule may be older than the rule used for clauses.)

In any case, NG order normally coincides with VO order; NG with OV is much rarer, especially when combined with AN (WALS, out of a sample of 1099 languages, lists only one—Tigré—with this combination of features). Since Faraghin compounds are AN, it seems that the NG order should be associated with an earlier VO order. So once again we have evidence for an early head-initial stage.

==== Compounding in Miwan ====

In Miwan, compounds with both head-initial (NA/NG) and head-final (AN/GN) order are attested. However, the distribution of these compound patterns gives a fairly clear picture:

* Old Eastern Miwan, the best-attested language of the family, is overwhelmingly head-final. The only known compound in OEMiw that might possibly be head-initial is ''dre:-χurfi:'' "speech-flow.together", which is reflected in Naidda ''jeorvi'' "chorus, harmony", but it seems rather likely that ''*χurfī'' is actually a nominalised verb form, which would make the compound one of the common GN type.
* Later forms of Eastern Miwan seem to also contain head-initial compounds, including NA compounds such as EMiw ''zuka-tun'' "fruit-red" > "tomato" and ''pa:n-tun'' "music-red" > "guitar". This might be an indication that these dialects switched their compound order at some point during the 1st millennium YP (possibly through influence from Edastean).
* Both genitive compounds attested in Late Eastern Miwan, ''fur-zin'' "tree-life" > "elm tree" and ''za-fwita:'' "nest-bird", follow NG order and, interestingly, have almost identical cognates in western Miwan: FMiw ''fur-zi:n'' and ''za-fwi:ta'', respectively. If these are not borrowings, one can conclude that genitives followed the noun in Proto-Miwan or earlier, and that this ordering was changed later on at least in the eastern dialects. A strong argument in favour of this is presented by the word ''za-fwita:/-fwi:ta'', whose second element is clearly cognate to FMiw ''kwintas'' "bird", but exhibits - in both dialects! - several sound changes not present in the uncompounded form, and therefore appears to be a very old formation. The lenition process turning ''*kw'' into ''fw'' seems similar to the Western Isthmus change of ''*p t k > f s x'' after the genitive preposition ''*as-'', but the word can't be a loan from WI since it would have been ''*ɣonta'' there. A borrowing from Meshi, on the other hand, would be a possibility.
* Forest Miwan does have a head-final AN compound, ''ti:-vur'' "funny-tree" > "hickory tree", but this does not prove that FMiw also switched to head-final compounding because it is identical to a Late Eastern word and might be a borrowing.

As a summary, it seems likely that PEV (pending evidence from Ngauro and/or Meshi) or a slightly later form of the language (i.e. Proto-Miwan) had head-initial compounds, with at least Old Eastern Miwan—but quite possibly all Miwan languages—later switching to head-final order. My guess is that this would have happened before -2000 YP because the strong superstratum influence of Ndak Ta (which is head-initial) would certainly not have encouraged this change.

Furthermore, if PEV was probably head-initial, and a head-initial ancestral stage underlies PIsth., then it seems almost certain that PEI was head-initial.

However, if we allow that the proto-languages need not have been entirely either head-initial or head-final, a slightly different scenario emerges which may provide a simpler explanation. The attested compounds in Forest Miwan show the same orders as Faraghin: NG and AN. It may be that both languages inherited these compound orders from PEI, and that only Eastern Miwan has changed its compound orders—first shifting from NG to GN (to become more consistently head-final), and then later shifting to NG and (mostly) NA under Edastean influence.

If this scenario is correct, PEI turns out to have had a somewhat mixed word-order pattern (but not a particularly rare one according to WALS): NG, VO, and prepositions, but AN.

= Proposed roots =

:{{main|Proto-Eigə-Isthmus/Lexicon}}

[[Category:Languages]]
[[Category:Eigə-Isthmus languages|*]]
[[Category:Reconstructed languages|Eigə-Isthmus]]

AkanaWiki:Abbreviations and acronyms

2017-09-20T05:18:59Z

Corumayas: I'm not sure what's best for Eastern Isthmus though: EIsth., EaIsth., EastIsth., ...?

The table below shows customarily used abbreviations and acronyms used in Akana for languages, families, and other purposes. Abbreviations in {{gray|gray}} are deprecated, although they may still appear in older articles.

For most of the languages listed here, there is a wiki template available which marks text as being text in that language, with the abbreviation linking to the article about the language. For instance, <tt><nowiki>{{Ad|text}}</nowiki></tt> returns {{Ad|text}}, with a link to the Adāta page. If you want the native text to be bolded instead of italicized, simply write <tt><nowiki>{{Ad|'text'}}</nowiki></tt> with single quotes around <tt>text</tt>: {{Ad|'text'}}.

A few languages with short names do not have a common abbreviation, but are nevertheless listed here because there is a wiki template for them.

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg sortable l}}
|-
! Abbreviation
! Full name
! Template
|-
| Ad. || [[Adāta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ad|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ad|text}}
|-
| Adh. || [[Adhāsth|Adhāsth (Old Ayāsthi)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Adh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Adh|text}}
|-
| Æð. || [[Æðadĕ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Aedh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Aedh|text}}
|-
| Aff. || [[Affanonic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Aff|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Aff|text}}
|-
| AhH || [[Ājat he-Heloun]] || <tt><nowiki>{{AhH|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{AhH|text}}
|-
| ARN || [[A-Rox Ŋʷoskʷuɣmʲa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{ARN|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{ARN|text}}
|-
| AT || [[Arósen tayīgan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{AT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{AT|text}}
|-
| Aθ. || [[Aθáta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ath|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ath|text}}
|-
| Ay. || [[Ayāsthi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ay|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ay|text}}
|-
| Ayč. || [[Ayčasamo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ayč|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ayč|text}}
|-
| Ayl. || [[Kuyʔūn#Aylatu dialect|Aylatu Kuyʔūn]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ayl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ayl|text}}
|-
| B.H. || [[Habeo languages#Blue Habeo|Blue Habeo]] ||
|-
| B.Nz. {{gray|(Bur.)}} || [[Buruya Nzaysa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{BNz|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{BNz|text}}
|-
| Ced. || [[Cednìtıt]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ced|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ced|text}}
|-
| Çet. {{gray|(Ç.)}} || [[Çetázó]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Cet|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Cet|text}}
|-
| Cex. || [[Kuyʔūn#Cexotúri dialect|Cexotúri Koyhǫ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Cex|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Cex|text}}
|-
| Cəs. || [[Cəssın]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Cəs|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Cəs|text}}
|-
| Der. || [[Deraighaw]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Der|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Der|text}}
|-
| Dim. {{gray|(Lok.)}} || [[Dimana Lokud]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Dim|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Dim|text}}
|-
| D.L. {{gray|(Do.L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Doanu dialect|Doanu Lukpanic (U Adonupu)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{DoL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{DoL|text}}
|-
| Doa. || [[Doayâu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Doa|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Doa|text}}
|-
| Dor. || [[Doroh]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Dor|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Dor|text}}
|-
| Dum. {{gray|(T2)}} || [[Proto-Dumic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Dum|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Dum|text}}
|-
| EI || the [[Eigə-Isthmus languages|Eigə-Isthmus]] language family ||
|-
| EaIsth. {{gray|(PEaI, EaI)}} || [[Proto-Isthmus#Eastern_Isthmus|Eastern Isthmus]] ||
|-
| EMiw. || [[Miwan languages|Eastern Miwan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{EMiw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{EMiw|text}}
|-
| Emp. || [[Empotle7á]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Emp|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Emp|text}}
|-
| ENY || [[Early North Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{ENY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{ENY|text}}
|-
| EV || the [[Eigə Valley languages|Eigə Valley]] language family ||
|-
| EY || [[East Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{EY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{EY|text}}
|-
| ƏD {{gray|(Duəm.)}} || [[Əktoś Duəmeuk]] || <tt><nowiki>{{ƏD|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{ƏD|text}}
|-
| F. {{gray|(Fá.)}} || [[Fáralo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Fá|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Fá|text}}
|-
| Far. || [[Faraghin]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Far|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Far|text}}
|-
| Fer. || [[Feråjin]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Fer|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Fer|text}}
|-
| FnA || [[Farwo n-Abebbu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{FnA|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{FnA|text}}
|-
| FnM || [[Fallo na Mendia]] || <tt><nowiki>{{FnM|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{FnM|text}}
|-
| FMiw. || [[Miwan languages|Forest Miwan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{FMiw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{FMiw|text}}
|-
| Gaa. || [[Gaadràmarneš]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Gaa|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Gaa|text}}
|-
| Gez. || [[Gezoro]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Gez|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Gez|text}}
|-
| Ham. || [[Hamoluan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ham|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ham|text}}
|-
| Hk. || [[Hkətl’ohnim]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Hk|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Hk|text}}
|-
| Ìl. || [[Ìletlégbàku]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ile|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ile|text}}
|-
| Iŋ. {{gray|(I.)}} || [[Iŋomœ́|Iŋom{{IPA|œ́}}]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ing|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ing|text}}
|-
| Ish. || [[Ishoʻu ʻOhu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ish|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ish|text}}
|-
| I.L. {{gray|(Isi L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Isi dialect|Isi Lukpanic (U Ishe)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{IL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{IL|text}}
|-
| JS {{gray|(J.)}} || [[Jouki Stəy]] || <tt><nowiki>{{JS|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{JS|text}}
|-
| Kat. {{gray|(Kt.)}} || [[Kataputi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kat|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kat|text}}
|-
| Kib. || [[Kibülʌiṅ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kib|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kib|text}}
|-
| Kom. || [[Komejech]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kom|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kom|text}}
|-
| Kop. || [[Kopoıves]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kop|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kop|text}}
|-
| Koz. || [[Kozado]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Koz|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Koz|text}}
|-
| Kp.L. {{gray|(K.L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Kpitamoa dialect|Kpitamoa Lukpanic (Fu Pitão)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{KpL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{KpL|text}}
|-
| Kt. || [[Ktacwa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Kt|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Kt|text}}
|-
| Ɫɑcc. || [[Ɫɑccekkɔmɔ lùk]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Lacc|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Lacc|text}}
|-
| Lot. || [[Lotoka]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Lot|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Lot|text}}
|-
| Máo. || [[Máotatšàlì]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Mao|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Mao|text}}
|-
| Mav. {{gray|(Mk.)}} || [[Mavakhalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Mav|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Mav|text}}
|-
| Me. || [[Meshi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Me|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Me|text}}
|-
| Mer. || [[Merneha]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Mer|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Mer|text}}
|-
| Meš. {{gray|(Meš.K., M.K.)}} || [[Kuyʔūn|Mešmo Koyʔōn]] || <tt><nowiki>{{MešK|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{MešK|text}}
|-
| Miw. || the [[Miwan languages|Miwan]] language family || <tt><nowiki>{{Miw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Miw|text}}
|-
| MT || [[Mhakh Thandim]] || <tt><nowiki>{{MT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{MT|text}}
|-
| Mûts. || [[Mûtsipsa']] || <tt><nowiki>{{Muts|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Muts|text}}
|-
| MW || [[Mountain Western]] || <tt><nowiki>{{MW|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{MW|text}}
|-
| N.A. {{gray|(NA)}} || [[Ndok Aisô]] || <tt><nowiki>{{NAis|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{NAis|text}}
|-
| Ng. {{gray|(Ŋ.)}} || [[Ngauro]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ng|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ng|text}}
|-
| N.L. {{gray|(Na.L.)}} || [[Lukpanic languages/Naəgbum dialect|Naəgbum Lukpanic (Ru Negwẽ)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{NL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{NL|text}}
|-
| Nam. || [[Namɨdu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Nam|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Nam|text}}
|-
| Nåm. || [[Nåmúþ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Nåm|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Nåm|text}}
|-
| Nax. || [[Naxuutayi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Nax|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Nax|text}}
|-
| Ndd. || [[Naidda]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ndd|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ndd|text}}
|-
| NT || [[Ndak Ta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{NT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{NT|text}}
|-
| Num. || [[Numəsūr]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Num|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Num|text}}
|-
| Óh. || [[Óhylvídós]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Oh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Oh|text}}
|-
| Om. || [[Omari]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Om|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Om|text}}
|-
| OY || [[Old Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{OY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{OY|text}}
|-
| PAnat. {{gray|(PA)}} || [[Proto-Anatolionesian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PAnat|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PAnat|text}}
|-
| PCW || [[Proto-Coastal-Western]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PCW|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PCW|text}}
|-
| PEI || [[Proto-Eigə-Isthmus]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PEI|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PEI|text}}
|-
| Pen. || [[Pencek]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Pen|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Pen|text}}
|-
| PEV || [[User:Corumayas/Proto-Eigə_Valley|Proto-Eigə Valley]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PEV|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PEV|text}}
|-
| PHab. || [[Habeo languages|Proto-Habeo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PHab|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PHab|text}}
|-
| PHt. || [[Proto-Hitatc]] ||
|-
| PIsth. {{gray|(PI)}} || [[Proto-Isthmus]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PIsth|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PIsth|text}}
|-
| PIsl. {{gray|(PIl., PIs.)}} || [[Proto-Isles]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PIsl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PIsl|text}}
|-
| PL || [[Proto-Lukpanic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PL|text}}
|-
| PLe. {{gray|(PL)}} || [[Proto-Leic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PLe|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PLe|text}}
|-
| Pl.H. || [[Habeo languages#Plains Habeo|Plains Habeo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PlH|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PlH|text}}
|-
| PMA {{gray|(PMAnat.)}} || [[Proto-Macro-Anatolionesian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PMA|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PMA|text}}
|-
| PMb. || [[Proto-Mbingmik]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PMb|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PMb|text}}
|-
| PNE || [[Proto-Northeastern]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PNE|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PNE|text}}
|-
| P-N-T {{gray|(PNT)}} || [[Proto-Núalís-Takuña]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PNT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PNT|text}}
|-
| Pot. {{gray|(P.)}} || [[Potɑnsʉti]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Pot|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Pot|text}}
|-
| Ppã. || [[Ppãrwak]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ppa|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ppa|text}}
|-
| PPI || [[Proto-Peninsular]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PPI|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PPI|text}}
|-
| PR || [[Proto-Ronquian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PR|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PR|text}}
|-
| PTE || [[Proto-Talo-Edastean]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PTE|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PTE|text}}
|-
| PTul. || [[Proto-Tulameya]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PTul|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PTul|text}}
|-
| Pu. || [[Puoni]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Pu|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Pu|text}}
|-
| PW || [[Proto-Western]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PW|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PW|text}}
|-
| PX || [[Proto-Xoronic]] || <tt><nowiki>{{PX|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{PX|text}}
|-
| R.H. || [[Habeo languages#River Habeo|River Habeo]] ||
|-
| RRK || [[Ree Rɛɛ Kıbyaa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{RRK|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{RRK|text}}
|-
| RT || [[Ronc Tyu]] || <tt><nowiki>{{RT|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{RT|text}}
|-
| RTJ || [[Rrób Tè Jĕhnò]] || <tt><nowiki>{{RTJ|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{RTJ|text}}
|-
| Saw. || [[Aθáta/Sawîyaran|Arâta Sawîyaran]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Saw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Saw|text}}
|-
| Sat. || [[Satnímʔa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Sat|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Sat|text}}
|-
| Šet. || [[Šetâmol]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Šet|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Šet|text}}
|-
| Sht. || [[Shtåså]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Sht|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Sht|text}}
|-
| S.L. || [[Lukpanic languages/Siŋmeasita dialect|Siŋmeasita Lukpanic (Hu Shĩmyashta)]] || <tt><nowiki>{{SL|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{SL|text}}
|-
| SÞ|| [[Sanap Þoi]] || <tt><nowiki>{{SÞ|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{SÞ|text}}
|-
| Sw. {{gray|(Kam., Kz.)}} || [[Swopsoch]] {{gray|(a.k.a. ''Kamaistzoch'')}} || <tt><nowiki>{{Sw|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Sw|text}}
|-
| T1 || [[User:Thedukeofnuke/Proto-T1|''Proto-T1'']] || <tt><nowiki>{{T1|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{T1|text}}
|-
| Tak. || [[Takuña]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tak|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tak|text}}
|-
| Tari || [[Tari]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tari|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tari|text}}
|-
| Tey. || [[Teyetáti]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tey|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tey|text}}
|-
| Thok. || [[Thokyunèhòta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Thok|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Thok|text}}
|-
| Tk. || [[Tkeḏ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tk|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tk|text}}
|-
| Tl. || [[Tlaliolz]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tl|text}}
|-
| Tm. || [[Tmaśareʔ]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tm|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tm|text}}
|-
| Trin. {{gray|(Tr.)}} || [[Trinesian]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Trin|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Trin|text}}
|-
| Tsem. || [[Tsemehkiooni]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tsem|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tsem|text}}
|-
| Ttl. {{gray|(Tl.)}} || [[Tetlo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Ttl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Ttl|text}}
|-
| Tty. {{gray|(Ty.)}} || [[Tetey]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tty|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tty|text}}
|-
| Tum. || [[Tumetıęk]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Tum|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Tum|text}}
|-
| UB || [[U Bol]] || <tt><nowiki>{{UB|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{UB|text}}
|-
| V.Ad. || [[Vulgar Adāta]] || <tt><nowiki>{{VAd|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{VAd|text}}
|-
| Vij. || [[Vijiš]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Vij|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Vij|text}}
|-
| Vyl. || [[User:Zhen Lin/Vylessa|Vylessa]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Vyl|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Vyl|text}}
|-
| Wen. || [[Wendoth]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wen|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wen|text}}
|-
| WF || [[Woltu Falla]] || <tt><nowiki>{{WF|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{WF|text}}
|-
| Wih. || [[Wihəs]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wih|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wih|text}}
|-
| Wipp. || [[Wippwo|Neire Wippwo]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wipp|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wipp|text}}
|-
| WIsth. {{gray|(PWI, WI)}} || [[Proto-Isthmus#Western_Isthmus|Western Isthmus]] ||
|-
| Wok. {{gray|(W.)}} || [[Wokatasuto]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Wok|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Wok|text}}
|-
| WY || [[West Yalan]] || <tt><nowiki>{{WY|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{WY|text}}
|-
| Xš. || [[Xšali]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Xsh|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Xsh|text}}
|-
| Yād || [[Yād]] || <tt><nowiki>{{Yad|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{Yad|text}}
|-
| Y.H. || [[Habeo languages#Yellow Habeo|Yellow Habeo]] ||
|-
| YP || [[Year of the Prophet]] <br>(the external standard calendar for Akana) || --
|-
| ʔuul. || [[ʔuuleomoh]] || <tt><nowiki>{{7uul|text}}</nowiki></tt> → {{7uul|text}}
|-
|}

[[Category:Meta]]
[[Category:Language abbreviations|*]]

Template talk:PIsth.

2017-09-20T04:36:41Z

Corumayas: Corumayas moved page Template talk:PIsth. to Template talk:PIsth

#REDIRECT [[Template talk:PIsth]]

Template talk:PIsth

2017-09-20T04:36:41Z

Corumayas: Corumayas moved page Template talk:PIsth. to Template talk:PIsth

I'd like to deprecate the abbreviation '''PI''' in favor of '''PIsth.''' (which seems less ambiguous). Are there any problems with just editing this template? - [[User:Corumayas|Corumayas]] ([[User talk:Corumayas|talk]]) 22:46, 13 September 2017 (PDT)
: Good idea, go ahead! The template hasn't been used much though, so most instances of <PI> must be changed manually. [[User:Cedh|Cedh]] ([[User talk:Cedh|talk]]) 23:58, 18 September 2017 (PDT)

Template:PIsth.

2017-09-20T04:36:41Z

Corumayas: Corumayas moved page Template:PIsth. to Template:PIsth

#REDIRECT [[Template:PIsth]]

Template:PIsth

2017-09-20T04:36:41Z

Corumayas: Corumayas moved page Template:PIsth. to Template:PIsth

[[Proto-Isthmus|PIsth.]] ''{{{1}}}''<noinclude>[[Category:Language abbreviations]]</noinclude>