The Kīn Cɛbaun, literally "Soul People", were a society of hunter-gatherers who lived around the Northeast Bay of [[Tuysafa]] sometime before the Mediundic migration. They were a [[Primundic]] people, and lived far from the future sphere of the [[Ndak Ta]] and similar peoples.

Similar to the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, the Kīn Cɛbaun were blessed with a natural environment that blunted the hardships of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They faced long, snowy winters, but food supplies were sufficiently abundant and easy to gather that there was plenty of leisure for culture to flourish in--and so it did. Though they were preliterate, the tradition of ''ɤ̄blka sŋɛptaun'', "word-hoarders", ensured that a varied and reasonably stable canon of teaching stories, songs and folktales knit the culture together.

Kīn Cɛbaun

2011-04-04T15:16:03Z

NeonFox: Started page

The Kīn Cɛbaun, literally "Soul People", were a society of hunter-gatherers who lived around the Northeast Bay of [[Tuysafa]] sometime before the Mediundic migration. They were a [[Primundic]] people, and lived far from the future sphere of the [[Ndak Ta]] and similar peoples.

Similar to the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest, the Kīn Cɛbaun were blessed with a natural environment that blunted the hardships of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. They faced long, snowy winters, but food supplies were sufficiently abundant and easy to gather that there was plenty of leisure for culture to flourish in--and so it did.

2009-12-29T17:31:29Z

NeonFox: /* Verbs */

{{TBC|NeonFox}}

{{Language
| language = Proto-Northeastern
| phonetic =
| date = c. -6000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]
| place =
| speakers =
| script = none
| family = Northeastern
| word-or = VSO
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:NeonFox|Neon Fox]]
}}

Of uncertain date, Proto-Northeastern had already split into an entire language family by the time the first [[Mediundic]] peoples arrived around the Northeast Bay of [[Tuysafa]]. It was probably not a direct daughter of the first [[Primundic]] language of the area, given the time lapse of some eleven thousand years between the Primundic and Mediundic migrations--enough time to produce Earth's Indo-European family, from Hindi to Russian to Italian to Gaelic, ''twice''.

NB: All PNe material on this page is reconstructed, but it will not be marked with asterisks. Simply assume that all forms, phonemes, etc are unattested.

=== Phonetics ===

The stops of PNe have a three-way contrast: voiceless, voiceless aspirated, and voiced. Aspirated '''consonants''' are indicated with dotted letters: ṗ ṫ k̇
{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Consonants'''
|-
!!!Bilabial!!Labiodental!!Alveolar!!Palatal!!Velar!!Glottal
|-
!Nasals
| m || || n ||| ŋ ||||
|-
!Stops
| p ṗ b || || t ṫ d ||||| k k̇ g* ||
|-
!Fricatives
|||| f || s || c [ç] ||||| h
|-
!Trill
|||||r||||||
|-
!Approx.
|w||||l||y [j]||||
|}
*It is by no means certain that g was a velar consonant; it may have been glottal. It's placed with the velars to mirror the other two sets of stops.

PNe has rather a lot of '''vowels'''--nine of them, each with phonemically distinct long and short forms. Long vowels have a macron: ɛ̄ All vowels use their IPA symbols.

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Vowels'''
|-
!Front Round!!Back Unround!!Back Round
|-
|i||ɯ||u
|-
|e||ɤ||o
|-
|ɛ||a||ɔ
|}

Possible '''dipthongs''' are ai, au, īa, ūa, ūi, ēu, ɛu, ɯ̄a, ɤ̄i, ɔi, and oi.

In theory, the '''syllable structure''' of PNe is simple, (C)V(C). However, matters are complicated by the language's extreme permissiveness in consonant clusters, which may take the place of any simple consonant. Aspirated stops, h, w, and y may not appear word-finally, and no cluster may contain both a voiced and an unvoiced stop. Other than that, pretty much anything goes. Two-consonant clusters are the most common, as in ''twālti'', "rabbit", but three-consonant clusters are not uncommon and there are even four-consonant clusters in a fair number of words: ''swenṫsk'', "knife blade", is an easy example.

'''Stress''' falls on the first syllable with a long vowel, if any, and on the last syllable of the root otherwise.

===Nouns===

Nouns in PNe belong to one of four '''genders''', commonly referred to as human, animate, created, and other. The human gender includes any being capable of thinking, including humans, spirits, and ghosts. Some domestic animals are also included in this gender. The animate gender includes other animals, plants, and some natural forces such as fire and storms. The created gender is composed of items made or significantly altered by humans: tools, substances such as string and cloth, buildings, etc. The other gender, as its name implies, is a catchall for everything else, including natural features and abstract concepts.

Rather as in English, there are only two '''cases''', nominative and accusative. However, whereas English's cases are vestiges marked only on pronouns, the PNe cases still apply to all nouns. (An interesting quirk of this system caused some confusion in early reconstructions: in the human and animate genders, the least-marked form of the word is the nominative singular, but the accusative singular is the least-marked in the created and other genders. This may point to a split-ergative system at some earlier point in the language's development, but if so there are no other traces of it remaining.)

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Declension'''
|-
!!!Nom Sing!!Nom Pl!!Acc Sing!!Acc Pl
|-
|"ancestor"||''ŋowl''||ŋowl-un||ŋowl-ɛ||ŋowl-ad
|-
|"natural spirit"||''yāma''||yāma-un||yāma-(r)ɛ||yāmā-d
|-
|"stag"||''rɤ̄in''||rɤ̄in-is||rɤ̄in-a||rɤ̄in-ɯn
|-
|"rabbit"||''twālti''||twālt-īs||twāltī-a||twālti-(r)ɯn
|-
|"knife blade"||swenṫsk-u||swenṫsk-(a)p||''swenṫsk''||swenṫsk-ot
|-
|"spindle"||kmastē-u||kmastē-p||''kmastē''||kmastē-(r)ot
|-
|"forest"||alɔis-o||alɔis-t||''alɔis''||alɔis-ɔt
|-
|"cave"||casfe-(r)o||casfe-t||''casfe''||casfe-(r)ɔt
|}

There are a number of '''phonological adaptations''' visible on this table. When the final vowel of a noun matches the initial vowel of an ending, the vowel is lengthened. Vowels that can combine to form a legal dipthong do so, and if they'd form a legal dipthong with the first vowel lengthen it does. When there's no way to produce a legal dipthong, insert an epenthetic R before the case ending. Finally, as 4-consonant clusters appear to be as far as PNe is willing to go, endings that would produce 5-consonant clusters are instead preceded by A.

=== Pronouns ===

=== Verbs ===

The primary verbal distinction in PNe is '''stative vs dynamic'''. Any given verb is inherently stative or dynamic--in general, concepts that English speakers think of as adjectives are instead stative verbs in PNe. Verbs agree with their subjects in '''person''' but not number. '''Tense''' and '''aspect''' are indicated by a series of auxillary verbs. The dictionary form of a PNe verb is the simple past.

Many verbs seem to have been either stative or dynamic, with subtly different meanings, depending on how they were conjugated. For example, the dynamic verb ''fɤst'' "saw" can be conjugated as stative, in which case it acquires the meaning "watched"; the stative verb ''gend'' " was red", when conjugated as dynamic, means "became red, reddened".

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Stative Declension'''
|-
!!!stative!!dynamic
|-
|1st person||''kma-s''||kma-st
|-
|2nd person||kma-re||kma-rte
|-
|3rd person||kma-n||kma-nt
|}

The verb "kmas" means, in its stative form, "was spinning", in the sense of rotating around an axis; when conjugated as a dynamic verb, it instead means "was making thread".

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Dynamic Declension'''
|-
!!!stative!!dynamic
|-
|1st person||ārl-mu||''arl-m''
|-
|2nd person||ārl-ṫu||arl-ṫɛ
|-
|3rd person||ārl-ŋu||arl-ŋ
|}

The dynamic declension, here illustrated with the dynamic/static pair "pray/worship" differs slightly. Instead of simply adding a phoneme (t in the stative, ɛ in the dynamic), the last vowel of the root is lengthened. If that vowel is already long, then the suffix's final u is lengthened to ū̄. The same phonological adaptations that apply to noun case endings are also used in verbs, when necessary.

===Derivational Morphology ===

[[Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon]]

Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon

2009-12-29T16:43:57Z

NeonFox:

Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon

2009-12-29T16:42:58Z

NeonFox:

Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon

2009-12-29T16:40:53Z

NeonFox:

Proto-Northeastern

2009-12-29T15:42:06Z

NeonFox: /* Verbs */ Typo

{{TBC|NeonFox}}

{{Language
| language = Proto-Northeastern
| phonetic =
| date = c. -6000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]
| place =
| speakers =
| script = none
| family = Northeastern
| word-or = VSO
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:NeonFox|Neon Fox]]
}}

Of uncertain date, Proto-Northeastern had already split into an entire language family by the time the first [[Mediundic]] peoples arrived around the Northeast Bay of [[Tuysafa]]. It was probably not a direct daughter of the first [[Primundic]] language of the area, given the time lapse of some eleven thousand years between the Primundic and Mediundic migrations--enough time to produce Earth's Indo-European family, from Hindi to Russian to Italian to Gaelic, ''twice''.

NB: All PNe material on this page is reconstructed, but it will not be marked with asterisks. Simply assume that all forms, phonemes, etc are unattested.

=== Phonetics ===

The stops of PNe have a three-way contrast: voiceless, voiceless aspirated, and voiced. Aspirated '''consonants''' are indicated with dotted letters: ṗ ṫ k̇
{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Consonants'''
|-
!!!Bilabial!!Labiodental!!Alveolar!!Palatal!!Velar!!Glottal
|-
!Nasals
| m || || n ||| ŋ ||||
|-
!Stops
| p ṗ b || || t ṫ d ||||| k k̇ g* ||
|-
!Fricatives
|||| f || s || c [ç] ||||| h
|-
!Trill
|||||r||||||
|-
!Approx.
|w||||l||y [j]||||
|}
*It is by no means certain that g was a velar consonant; it may have been glottal. It's placed with the velars to mirror the other two sets of stops.

PNe has rather a lot of '''vowels'''--nine of them, each with phonemically distinct long and short forms. Long vowels have a macron: ɛ̄ All vowels use their IPA symbols.

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Vowels'''
|-
!Front Round!!Back Unround!!Back Round
|-
|i||ɯ||u
|-
|e||ɤ||o
|-
|ɛ||a||ɔ
|}

Possible '''dipthongs''' are ai, au, īa, ūa, ūi, ēu, ɛu, ɯ̄a, ɤ̄i, ɔi, and oi.

In theory, the '''syllable structure''' of PNe is simple, (C)V(C). However, matters are complicated by the language's extreme permissiveness in consonant clusters, which may take the place of any simple consonant. Aspirated stops, h, w, and y may not appear word-finally, and no cluster may contain both a voiced and an unvoiced stop. Other than that, pretty much anything goes. Two-consonant clusters are the most common, as in ''twālti'', "rabbit", but three-consonant clusters are not uncommon and there are even four-consonant clusters in a fair number of words: ''swenṫsk'', "knife blade", is an easy example.

'''Stress''' falls on the first syllable with a long vowel, if any, and on the last syllable of the root otherwise.

===Nouns===

Nouns in PNe belong to one of four '''genders''', commonly referred to as human, animate, created, and other. The human gender includes any being capable of thinking, including humans, spirits, and ghosts. Some domestic animals are also included in this gender. The animate gender includes other animals, plants, and some natural forces such as fire and storms. The created gender is composed of items made or significantly altered by humans: tools, substances such as string and cloth, buildings, etc. The other gender, as its name implies, is a catchall for everything else, including natural features and abstract concepts.

Rather as in English, there are only two '''cases''', nominative and accusative. However, whereas English's cases are vestiges marked only on pronouns, the PNe cases still apply to all nouns. (An interesting quirk of this system caused some confusion in early reconstructions: in the human and animate genders, the least-marked form of the word is the nominative singular, but the accusative singular is the least-marked in the created and other genders. This may point to a split-ergative system at some earlier point in the language's development, but if so there are no other traces of it remaining.)

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Declension'''
|-
!!!Nom Sing!!Nom Pl!!Acc Sing!!Acc Pl
|-
|"ancestor"||''ŋowl''||ŋowl-un||ŋowl-ɛ||ŋowl-ad
|-
|"natural spirit"||''yāma''||yāma-un||yāma-(r)ɛ||yāmā-d
|-
|"stag"||''rɤ̄in''||rɤ̄in-is||rɤ̄in-a||rɤ̄in-ɯn
|-
|"rabbit"||''twālti''||twālt-īs||twāltī-a||twālti-(r)ɯn
|-
|"knife blade"||swenṫsk-u||swenṫsk-(a)p||''swenṫsk''||swenṫsk-ot
|-
|"spindle"||kmastē-u||kmastē-p||''kmastē''||kmastē-(r)ot
|-
|"forest"||alɔis-o||alɔis-t||''alɔis''||alɔis-ɔt
|-
|"cave"||casfe-(r)o||casfe-t||''casfe''||casfe-(r)ɔt
|}

There are a number of '''phonological adaptations''' visible on this table. When the final vowel of a noun matches the initial vowel of an ending, the vowel is lengthened. Vowels that can combine to form a legal dipthong do so, and if they'd form a legal dipthong with the first vowel lengthen it does. When there's no way to produce a legal dipthong, insert an epenthetic R before the case ending. Finally, as 4-consonant clusters appear to be as far as PNe is willing to go, endings that would produce 5-consonant clusters are instead preceded by A.

=== Pronouns ===

=== Verbs ===

The primary verbal distinction in PNe is '''stative vs dynamic'''. Any given verb is inherently stative or dynamic--in general, concepts that English speakers think of as adjectives are instead stative verbs in PNe. Verbs agree with their subjects in '''person''' but not number. '''Tense''' and '''aspect''' are indicated by a series of auxillary verbs. The dictionary form of a PNe verb is the simple past.

Many verbs seem to have been either stative or dynamic, with subtly different meanings, depending on how they were conjugated. For example, the dynamic verb ''fɤst'' "saw" can be conjugated as stative, in which case it acquires the meaning "watched"; the stative verb ''gend'' " was red", when conjugated as dynamic, means "became red, reddened".

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Stative Declension'''
|-
!!!stative!!dynamic
|-
|1st person||''kma-s''||kma-st
|-
|2nd person||kma-re||kma-rte
|-
|3rd person||kma-n||kma-nt
|}

The verb "kmas" means, in its stative form, "was spinning", in the sense of rotating around an axis; when conjugated as a dynamic verb, it instead means "was making thread".

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Dynamic Declension'''
|-
!!!stative!!dynamic
|-
|1st person||ārl-mɛ||''arl-m''
|-
|2nd person||ārl-ṫɛ||arl-ṫɛ
|-
|3rd person||ārl-ŋɛ||arl-ŋ
|}

The dynamic declension, here illustrated with the dynamic/static pair "pray/worship" differs slightly. Instead of simply adding a phoneme (t in the stative, ɛ in the dynamic), the last vowel of the root is lengthened. If that vowel is already long, then the ɛ is lengthened to ɛ̄. The same phonological adaptations that apply to noun case endings are also used in verbs, when necessary.

===Derivational Morphology ===

[[Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon]]

Proto-Northeastern

2009-12-29T15:40:22Z

NeonFox: First pass verb tables

{{TBC|NeonFox}}

{{Language
| language = Proto-Northeastern
| phonetic =
| date = c. -6000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]
| place =
| speakers =
| script = none
| family = Northeastern
| word-or = VSO
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:NeonFox|Neon Fox]]
}}

Of uncertain date, Proto-Northeastern had already split into an entire language family by the time the first [[Mediundic]] peoples arrived around the Northeast Bay of [[Tuysafa]]. It was probably not a direct daughter of the first [[Primundic]] language of the area, given the time lapse of some eleven thousand years between the Primundic and Mediundic migrations--enough time to produce Earth's Indo-European family, from Hindi to Russian to Italian to Gaelic, ''twice''.

NB: All PNe material on this page is reconstructed, but it will not be marked with asterisks. Simply assume that all forms, phonemes, etc are unattested.

=== Phonetics ===

The stops of PNe have a three-way contrast: voiceless, voiceless aspirated, and voiced. Aspirated '''consonants''' are indicated with dotted letters: ṗ ṫ k̇
{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Consonants'''
|-
!!!Bilabial!!Labiodental!!Alveolar!!Palatal!!Velar!!Glottal
|-
!Nasals
| m || || n ||| ŋ ||||
|-
!Stops
| p ṗ b || || t ṫ d ||||| k k̇ g* ||
|-
!Fricatives
|||| f || s || c [ç] ||||| h
|-
!Trill
|||||r||||||
|-
!Approx.
|w||||l||y [j]||||
|}
*It is by no means certain that g was a velar consonant; it may have been glottal. It's placed with the velars to mirror the other two sets of stops.

PNe has rather a lot of '''vowels'''--nine of them, each with phonemically distinct long and short forms. Long vowels have a macron: ɛ̄ All vowels use their IPA symbols.

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Vowels'''
|-
!Front Round!!Back Unround!!Back Round
|-
|i||ɯ||u
|-
|e||ɤ||o
|-
|ɛ||a||ɔ
|}

Possible '''dipthongs''' are ai, au, īa, ūa, ūi, ēu, ɛu, ɯ̄a, ɤ̄i, ɔi, and oi.

In theory, the '''syllable structure''' of PNe is simple, (C)V(C). However, matters are complicated by the language's extreme permissiveness in consonant clusters, which may take the place of any simple consonant. Aspirated stops, h, w, and y may not appear word-finally, and no cluster may contain both a voiced and an unvoiced stop. Other than that, pretty much anything goes. Two-consonant clusters are the most common, as in ''twālti'', "rabbit", but three-consonant clusters are not uncommon and there are even four-consonant clusters in a fair number of words: ''swenṫsk'', "knife blade", is an easy example.

'''Stress''' falls on the first syllable with a long vowel, if any, and on the last syllable of the root otherwise.

===Nouns===

Nouns in PNe belong to one of four '''genders''', commonly referred to as human, animate, created, and other. The human gender includes any being capable of thinking, including humans, spirits, and ghosts. Some domestic animals are also included in this gender. The animate gender includes other animals, plants, and some natural forces such as fire and storms. The created gender is composed of items made or significantly altered by humans: tools, substances such as string and cloth, buildings, etc. The other gender, as its name implies, is a catchall for everything else, including natural features and abstract concepts.

Rather as in English, there are only two '''cases''', nominative and accusative. However, whereas English's cases are vestiges marked only on pronouns, the PNe cases still apply to all nouns. (An interesting quirk of this system caused some confusion in early reconstructions: in the human and animate genders, the least-marked form of the word is the nominative singular, but the accusative singular is the least-marked in the created and other genders. This may point to a split-ergative system at some earlier point in the language's development, but if so there are no other traces of it remaining.)

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Declension'''
|-
!!!Nom Sing!!Nom Pl!!Acc Sing!!Acc Pl
|-
|"ancestor"||''ŋowl''||ŋowl-un||ŋowl-ɛ||ŋowl-ad
|-
|"natural spirit"||''yāma''||yāma-un||yāma-(r)ɛ||yāmā-d
|-
|"stag"||''rɤ̄in''||rɤ̄in-is||rɤ̄in-a||rɤ̄in-ɯn
|-
|"rabbit"||''twālti''||twālt-īs||twāltī-a||twālti-(r)ɯn
|-
|"knife blade"||swenṫsk-u||swenṫsk-(a)p||''swenṫsk''||swenṫsk-ot
|-
|"spindle"||kmastē-u||kmastē-p||''kmastē''||kmastē-(r)ot
|-
|"forest"||alɔis-o||alɔis-t||''alɔis''||alɔis-ɔt
|-
|"cave"||casfe-(r)o||casfe-t||''casfe''||casfe-(r)ɔt
|}

There are a number of '''phonological adaptations''' visible on this table. When the final vowel of a noun matches the initial vowel of an ending, the vowel is lengthened. Vowels that can combine to form a legal dipthong do so, and if they'd form a legal dipthong with the first vowel lengthen it does. When there's no way to produce a legal dipthong, insert an epenthetic R before the case ending. Finally, as 4-consonant clusters appear to be as far as PNe is willing to go, endings that would produce 5-consonant clusters are instead preceded by A.

=== Pronouns ===

=== Verbs ===

The primary verbal distinction in PNe is '''stative vs dynamic'''. Any given verb is inherently stative or dynamic--in general, concepts that English speakers think of as adjectives are instead stative verbs in PNe. Verbs agree with their subjects in '''person''' but not number. '''Tense''' and '''aspect''' are indicated by a series of auxillary verbs. The dictionary form of a PNe verb is the simple past.

Many verbs seem to have been either stative or dynamic, with subtly different meanings, depending on how they were conjugated. For example, the dynamic verb ''fɤst'' "saw" can be conjugated as stative, in which case it acquires the meaning "watched"; the stative verb ''gend'' " was red", when conjugated as dynamic, means "became red, reddened".

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Stative Declension'''
|-
!!!stative!!dynamic
|-
|1st person||''kma-s''||kma-st
|-
|2nd person||kma-re||kma-rte
|-
|3rd person||kma-n||kma-nt
|}

The verb "kmas" means, in its stative form, "was spinning", in the sense of rotating around an axis; when conjugated as a dynamic verb, it instead means "was making thread".

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Dynamic Declension'''
|-
!!!stative!!dynamic
|-
|1st person||ārl-mɛ||''arl-m''
|-
|2nd person||ārl-ṫɛ||arl-ṫɛ
|-
|3rd person||ārl-ŋɛ||arl-ŋ
|}

The dynamic declension, here illustrated with the dynamic/static pair "pray/worship" differs slightly. Instead of simply adding a phoneme (t in the stative, ɛ in the dynamic), the last vowel of the root is lengthened. If that vowel is already long, then the ɛ is lengthened to ɛ.

===Derivational Morphology ===

[[Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon]]

2009-11-16T19:30:03Z

NeonFox:

{{TBC|NeonFox}}

{{Language
| language = Proto-Northeastern
| phonetic =
| date = c. -6000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]
| place =
| speakers =
| script = none
| family = Northeastern
| word-or = VSO
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:NeonFox|Neon Fox]]
}}

Of uncertain date, Proto-Northeastern had already split into an entire language family by the time the first [[Mediundic]] peoples arrived around the Northeast Bay of [[Tuysafa]]. It was probably not a direct daughter of the first [[Primundic]] language of the area, given the time lapse of some eleven thousand years between the Primundic and Mediundic migrations--enough time to produce Earth's Indo-European family, from Hindi to Russian to Italian to Gaelic, ''twice''.

NB: All PNe material on this page is reconstructed, but it will not be marked with asterisks. Simply assume that all forms, phonemes, etc are unattested.

=== Phonetics ===

The stops of PNe have a three-way contrast: voiceless, voiceless aspirated, and voiced. Aspirated '''consonants''' are indicated with dotted letters: ṗ ṫ k̇
{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Consonants'''
|-
!!!Bilabial!!Labiodental!!Alveolar!!Palatal!!Velar!!Glottal
|-
!Nasals
| m || || n ||| ŋ ||||
|-
!Stops
| p ṗ b || || t ṫ d ||||| k k̇ g* ||
|-
!Fricatives
|||| f || s || c [ç] ||||| h
|-
!Trill
|||||r||||||
|-
!Approx.
|w||||l||y [j]||||
|}
*It is by no means certain that g was a velar consonant; it may have been glottal. It's placed with the velars to mirror the other two sets of stops.

PNe has rather a lot of '''vowels'''--nine of them, each with phonemically distinct long and short forms. Long vowels have a macron: ɛ̄ All vowels use their IPA symbols.

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Vowels'''
|-
!Front Round!!Back Unround!!Back Round
|-
|i||ɯ||u
|-
|e||ɤ||o
|-
|ɛ||a||ɔ
|}

Possible '''dipthongs''' are ai, au, īa, ūa, ūi, ēu, ɛu, ɯ̄a, ɤ̄i, ɔi, and oi.

In theory, the '''syllable structure''' of PNe is simple, (C)V(C). However, matters are complicated by the language's extreme permissiveness in consonant clusters, which may take the place of any simple consonant. Aspirated stops, h, w, and y may not appear word-finally, and no cluster may contain both a voiced and an unvoiced stop. Other than that, pretty much anything goes. Two-consonant clusters are the most common, as in ''twālti'', "rabbit", but three-consonant clusters are not uncommon and there are even four-consonant clusters in a fair number of words: ''swenṫsk'', "knife blade", is an easy example.

===Nouns===

Nouns in PNe belong to one of four '''genders''', commonly referred to as human, animate, created, and other. The human gender includes any being capable of thinking, including humans, spirits, and ghosts. Some domestic animals are also included in this gender. The animate gender includes other animals, plants, and some natural forces such as fire and storms. The created gender is composed of items made or significantly altered by humans: tools, substances such as string and cloth, buildings, etc. The other gender, as its name implies, is a catchall for everything else, including natural features and abstract concepts.

Rather as in English, there are only two '''cases''', nominative and accusative. However, whereas English's cases are vestiges marked only on pronouns, the PNe cases still apply to all nouns. (An interesting quirk of this system caused some confusion in early reconstructions: in the human and animate genders, the least-marked form of the word is the nominative singular, but the accusative singular is the least-marked in the created and other genders. This may point to a split-ergative system at some earlier point in the language's development, but if so there are no other traces of it remaining.)

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Declension'''
|-
!!!Nom Sing!!Nom Pl!!Acc Sing!!Acc Pl
|-
|"ancestor"||''ŋowl''||ŋowl-un||ŋowl-ɛ||ŋowl-ad
|-
|"natural spirit"||''yāma''||yāma-un||yāma-(r)ɛ||yāmā-d
|-
|"stag"||''rɤ̄in''||rɤ̄in-is||rɤ̄in-a||rɤ̄in-ɯn
|-
|"rabbit"||''twālti''||twālt-īs||twāltī-a||twālti-(r)ɯn
|-
|"knife blade"||swenṫsk-u||swenṫsk-(a)p||''swenṫsk''||swenṫsk-ot
|-
|"spindle"||kmastē-u||kmastē-p||kmastē||kmastē-(r)ot
|-
|"forest"||alɔis-o||alɔis-t||''alɔis''||alɔis-ɔt
|-
|"cave"||casfe-(r)o||casfe-t||''casfe''||casfe-(r)ɔt
|}

There are a number of phonological adaptations visible on this table. When the final vowel of a noun matches the inital vowel of an ending, the vowel is lengthened. Vowels that can combine to form a legal dipthong do so, and if they'd form a legal dipthong with one or the other lengthened the appropriate vowel does so. When there's no way to produce a legal dipthong, insert an epenthetic r before the case ending. Finally, as 4-consonant clusters appear to be as far as PNe is willing to go, endings that would produce 5-consonant clusters are instead preceded by a.

[[Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon]]

Proto-Northeastern

2009-11-16T19:00:30Z

NeonFox: /* Nouns */ added table rows

Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon

2009-11-16T18:56:50Z

NeonFox:

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg}}
|- class="bg4 b"
| PNe
| English
| Grammar
| Meaning Notes
|-
| alɔis
| forest
| n., other
|
|-
| ŋowl
| ancestor
| n., human
| Physical only
|-
| swenṫsk
| knife blade
| n., created
| Stone, metal or other; needs a hilt to be a knife
|-
| twālti
| rabbit
| n., animate
|
|}

Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon

2009-11-16T18:55:59Z

NeonFox:

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg}}
|- class="bg4 b"
| PNe
| English
| Grammar
| Meaning Notes
|-
| alois
| forest
| n., other
|
|-
| ngowl
| ancestor
| n., human
| Physical only
|-
| swenṫsk
| knife blade
| n., created
| Stone, metal or other; needs a hilt to be a knife
|-
| twālti
| rabbit
| n., animate
|
|}

Proto-Northeastern

2009-11-16T18:21:31Z

NeonFox: Declension table, phon. issues

{{TBC|NeonFox}}

{{Language
| language = Proto-Northeastern
| phonetic =
| date = c. -6000 [[Year of the Prophet|YP]]
| place =
| speakers =
| script = none
| family = Northeastern
| word-or = VSO
| mor-type = fusional
| morphalign = NOM-ACC
| author = [[User:NeonFox|Neon Fox]]
}}

Of uncertain date, Proto-Northeastern had already split into an entire language family by the time the first [[Mediundic]] peoples arrived around the Northeast Bay of [[Tuysafa]]. It was probably not a direct daughter of the first [[Primundic]] language of the area, given the time lapse of some eleven thousand years between the Primundic and Mediundic migrations--enough time to produce Earth's Indo-European family, from Hindi to Russian to Italian to Gaelic, ''twice''.

NB: All PNe material on this page is reconstructed, but it will not be marked with asterisks. Simply assume that all forms, phonemes, etc are unattested.

=== Phonetics ===

The stops of PNe have a three-way contrast: voiceless, voiceless aspirated, and voiced. Aspirated '''consonants''' are indicated with dotted letters: ṗ ṫ k̇
{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Consonants'''
|-
!!!Bilabial!!Labiodental!!Alveolar!!Palatal!!Velar!!Glottal
|-
!Nasals
| m || || n ||| ŋ ||||
|-
!Stops
| p ṗ b || || t ṫ d ||||| k k̇ g* ||
|-
!Fricatives
|||| f || s || c [ç] ||||| h
|-
!Trill
|||||r||||||
|-
!Approx.
|w||||l||y [j]||||
|}
*It is by no means certain that g was a velar consonant; it may have been glottal. It's placed with the velars to mirror the other two sets of stops.

PNe has rather a lot of '''vowels'''--nine of them, each with phonemically distinct long and short forms. Long vowels have a macron: ɛ̄ All vowels use their IPA symbols.

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Vowels'''
|-
!Front Round!!Back Unround!!Back Round
|-
|i||ɯ||u
|-
|e||ɤ||o
|-
|ɛ||a||ɔ
|}

Possible '''dipthongs''' are ai, au, īa, ūa, ūi, ēu, ɛu, ɯ̄a, ɤ̄i, ɔi, and oi.

In theory, the '''syllable structure''' of PNe is simple, (C)V(C). However, matters are complicated by the language's extreme permissiveness in consonant clusters, which may take the place of any simple consonant. Aspirated stops, h, w, and y may not appear word-finally, and no cluster may contain both a voiced and an unvoiced stop. Other than that, pretty much anything goes. Two-consonant clusters are the most common, as in ''twālti'', "rabbit", but three-consonant clusters are not uncommon and there are even four-consonant clusters in a fair number of words: ''swenṫsk'', "knife blade", is an easy example.

===Nouns===

Nouns in PNe belong to one of four '''genders''', commonly referred to as human, animate, created, and other. The human gender includes any being capable of thinking, including humans, spirits, and ghosts. Some domestic animals are also included in this gender. The animate gender includes other animals, plants, and some natural forces such as fire and storms. The created gender is composed of items made or significantly altered by humans: tools, substances such as string and cloth, buildings, etc. The other gender, as its name implies, is a catchall for everything else, including natural features and abstract concepts.

Rather as in English, there are only two '''cases''', nominative and accusative. However, whereas English's cases are vestiges marked only on pronouns, the PNe cases still apply to all nouns. (An interesting quirk of this system caused some confusion in early reconstructions: in the human and animate genders, the least-marked form of the word is the nominative singular, but the accusative singular is the least-marked in the created and other genders. This may point to a split-ergative system at some earlier point in the language's development, but if so there are no other traces of it remaining.)

{| {{bluetable|lightbluebg c}}
|+ '''Declension'''
|-
!!!Nom Sing!!Nom Pl!!Acc Sing!!Acc Pl
|-
|"ancestor"||''ŋowl''||ŋowl-un||ŋowl-ɛ||ŋowl-ad
|-
|"rabbit"||''twālti''||twālt-īs||twāltī-a||twālti-(r)un
|-
|"knife blade"||swenṫsk-u||swenṫsk-(a)p||''swenṫsk''||swenṫsk-ot
|-
|"forest"||alɔis-o||alɔis-t||''alɔis''||alɔis-ɔt
|}

There are a number of phonological adaptations visible on this table. The nominative plural ending for animate nouns is -is, which combines with a final i in the noun to produce ī; the same thing happens whenever the noun has a word-final vowel that matches an initial vowel in the ending. Vowels that can combine to form a legal dipthong do so, and if they'd form a legal dipthong with one or the other lengthened the appropriate vowel does so. When there's no way to produce a legal dipthong, insert an epithentic r before the case ending. Finally, as 4-consonant clusters appear to be as far as PNe is willing to go, endings that would produce 5-consonant clusters are instead preceded by a.
[[Proto-Northeastern/Lexicon]]

Proto-Northeastern

2009-11-12T15:45:42Z

NeonFox: /* Nouns */ Cases

Proto-Northeastern

2009-11-12T15:07:43Z

NeonFox: