Ancient Ivetsian
Ancient Ivetsian was a language closely related to Classical Kasshian, indeed, really more of a dialect. This article will focus on the differences between it and the Classical form.
Phonology
Ancient Ivetsian lacked the phoneme /ŋ/ (ng'). Depending on origin, CK ng' generally corresponded to -nk- or -nj- in Ivetsian. /n/ had a palatal allophone used before ç
There was an additional diphthong, oi (/oj/), which contrasted with wi.
Syllables
Stops were able to be geminated before soft consonants, other than that, Ivetsian had the same restrictions as Classical Kasshian.
Stress
Stress followed essentially the same rules as in Classical Kasshian, with the exception that stress-placement was assigned prior to the rule shortening long vowels in closed syllables. Thus, for example, the ergative plural of wasani is wasanél, from its derivation as wasani-i-l.
Phonetic alternations
- A fricative followed by a stop or fricative assimilates in voicing to the following consonant, except that inflectional suffixes always assimilate to the root.
- sh and zh become ch and j after /l/ or /n/
- s and z are pronounced [ts] and [dz] after /l/ and /n/
- -lç- becomes -iç-
- wi becomes vi
- -bb-, -dd-, and -gg- become -mb-, -nd-, and -ng-
Nouns
Gender
Ivetsian had the same genders as Classical Kasshian, but lacked the plural prefixes, and thus had much simpler paradigms, with any given adjective having only one form per gender, and most nouns having no alternations at all in prefix. Some loan-words lacked gender-prefixes. The forms of the prefixes depended on the stem, as given in the following table. "Double consonants" refers to stems that begin with two consonants, excluding clusters wherein the second consonant is a soft consonant (l, r, w, y), while "long vowel" are stems that begin with a regular consonant, but in which genders I-VII have long vowels in their prefixes
| Gender | Hard Consonant |
Soft consonant | Vowel-initial | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single | Double | L[1] | Y | W | I/E | A | U/O | ||||
| I | chi- | chī- | che- | tr- | ch- | p- | ch- | t- | |||
| II | na- | nā- | na- | nr- | ny- | m- | n- | ||||
| III | su- | sū- | so- | sr- | sh- | sw- | sh- | s- | |||
| IV | çi- | çī- | çe- | kl- | ç- | qu- | ç- | k- | |||
| V | la- | lā- | la- | lal- | ly- | lw- | l- | ||||
| VI | wa- | wā- | wa- | wal- | uy- | w- | w- | Ø- | |||
| VII | pi- | pī- | pe- | pl- | py- | p- | p- | ||||
| IX | tū- | tokka- tonga- |
tū- -a-[2] | tukl- | tuç- | tuqu- | tuç- | tuk- | |||
Note:
- tū- followed by n- or m- becomes tonk-, replacing the nasal consoannt
- Some speakers have to- for gender IX in the double-consonant paradigm
Case and number
The suffixes themselves were the same, but there were a few minor differences to the paradigms
- All l-final nouns were treated like consonant-final nouns, with some being geminating and others non-geminating
- Nouns ending in -au become -avi in the plural
- Final -u + plural -i becomes either -oi or -wi
- There are no hidden-consonant nouns; all hidden-consonant nouns in Classical Kasshian are ordinary geminating nouns in Ivetsian
- Class II long-vowel nouns have -zhi for the plural and -nji for the instrumental
- Class IV has -nçi, -nka, and -nkan for the instrumental, benefactive, and commitative
Verbs
Verbs are similar to Classical Kasshian. Tense and voice prefixes are identical. There is an additional slot after the verb stem for irrealis mood, which indicates hypothetical or contrafactual situations. It is marked by the suffix -gu, which inflects as a vowel-final verb. There is also a negative affix -zas (after vowels) or -das (after consonants) which likewise precedes personal affixes. There are two sets of affixes: perfective and imperfective. The habitual and prospective affixes are built on the perfective affixes with the same endings as in Classical Kasshian. The imperative system was also completely different, and there were no separate negative imperatives, those being formed from the negative form of the verb in the imperative, but there were third-person imperatives, which had an optative function.
| Vowel-final | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Person | Perfective | Imperfective | ||||||||
| Singular | Dual | Paucal | Plural | Singular | Dual | Paucal | Plural | |||
| 1st | -u | -lof | -tai | -ni | -ççi | -lufi | -taççi | -nī | ||
| 2nd | -fen | -fni | -fan | -fençi | -fnī | -fançi | ||||
| 3rd sapient | -tas | -chi | -tan | -tashi | -chī | -tançi | ||||
| 3rd nonsapient | -l | -nna | -li | -lī | -nnai | |||||
| Imperative | 1st | -klof | -tai[3] | -nçi | ||||||
| 2nd | -fen[3] | -fini[3] | -fan[3] | |||||||
| 3rd sapient | -tas[3] | -chi[3] | -tan[3] | |||||||
| 3rd nonsapient | -kla | -kli | -klan | |||||||
- The 1st person singular perfective has some complications:
- For verbs ending in -i, either -yu or -i, depending on the verb
- Verbs ending in -ai become -azhu
- Verbs ending in -au become -au
| Consonant-final | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Person | Perfective | Imperfective | ||||||||
| Singular | Dual | Paucal | Plural | Singular | Dual | Paucal | Plural | |||
| 1st | -u | -lof -*of |
-tai | -ni | -wi | -lufi -*ufi |
-taççi | -nī | ||
| 2nd | -fen | -fini | -fan | -fençi | -finī | -fançi | ||||
| 3rd sapient | -tas | -chi | -tan | -tashi | -chī | -tançi | ||||
| 3rd nonsapient | -la -*a |
-lan -*an |
-li -*i |
-lī -*ī |
-lanai -*anai | |||||
| Imperative | 1st | -klof | -katai | -kani | ||||||
| 2nd | -kafen | -kafni | -kafan | |||||||
| 3rd sapient | -katas | -kachi | -katan | |||||||
| 3rd nonsapient | -kla | -kli | -klan | |||||||
- 1st person singular has the following complications
- n-final verbs become -nku/-nqui
- Geminating verbs have -kku/-qqui
- Stop-final verbs have fricative variants (for p, t, b, d)
- K-final and g-final verbs have -kku/-qqui and -ngu/-ngwi
- Geminate variants have same distribution as in Classical Kasshian
Pronouns
- 2nd person clitics starting with j- in Classical Kasshian have zh- in Ivetsian.
- Genders VI and IX clitics are:
| Gender VI | Gender IX | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Dual | Plural | Singular | Dual | Plural | ||
| Intransitive | va | val | van | tū | tukal | tukan | |
| Accusative | toç | tukli | tonçi | ||||
| Ergative | vaka | vakka | vanka | tokka | tukakka | tukanka | |
| Genitive | vava | valwa | vama | tuqua | tūlwa | tonqua | |
| Dative | vatu | vattu | vantu | tūtu | tukattu | tukantu | |
In addition, for all genders, where the Classical form has -nga and -ndu, Ivetsian had -nka and -ntu, and there were genitive dual forms:
- Gender I: chilwa
- Gender II: nalwa
- Gender III: sulwa
- Gender IV: çilwa
- Gender V: lalwa
- Gender VII: pilwa
Syntax
Syntax was similar between Ancient Ivetsian and Classical Kasshian. A large number of transitive verbs used absolutive for the higher-animacy noun and placed low-animacy patients in the dative. The animacy hierarchy was speech participant -> deity -> sapient -> animal -> inanimate
