Eastern Kelanian

Eastern Kelanian
Timeline/Universe:	(not yet named)
Total speakers:	none
Genealogical Classification:	Kelanian  Eastern Kelanian
Basic word order:	VSO
Morphological type:	root-and-pattern
Morphosyntactic alignment:	fluid-S
Created by:
Andrew	2007

When men started expanding, their language started to change. In the east, the latest common language was what is now called Eastern Kelanian. Though Eastern and Western Kelanian are the two offspring of Kelanian, Eastern Kelanian was spoken later than it's sibling because the men of the east were fewer in number and didn't expand as quickly as the men of the west. Accordingly, the changes that occurred in the east are much more extreme, and took much more time.

Overview

The first profound change from Kelanian to Eastern Kelanian was in the formation of words. The men of the west departed from the Kelanui so early that the concept of the Kelanian primitive roots had not been too deeply ingrained in them. Instead of verbs or adjectives being formed from their proper primitive roots, the speakers formed them from the most basic noun assocciated with them. For example the words for "to rule, lead" and "royal" derive from the word for "leader, king". Essentially, nominal stems replaced the roots.

As a result of all the sound changes that took place, another profound change occurred in the very structure of the language. Vowels affected each other so much that the only thing that remained constant in related words were the three consonants originating from the noun they came from; it changed from a fusional language to one based on triliteral roots.

Sound Changes

P = plosive, N = nasal, F = fricative, L = liquid, W = semi-vowel C = a consonant, V = a vowel

• /u: o:/ → /o/ /_#
• /a: e:/ → /e/ /_#
• /p_h t_h k_h/ → /p\ T x/
• /b_h d_h g_h/ → /B D G/
• NP → P /#_
• /ps bs ts ds ks gs/ → /s z S Z s z/ (/S Z/ = <š ž>)
• Accented vowels caused the following vowel to become the same as they are.
• V[-length] → Ø /_#
• W → V /_#
• i-mutation and u-mutation; /i/ and i-diphthongs or /u/ and u-diphthongs in the final syllable caused the preceding vowel to become /i/ or /u/ respectively, and then dropped if final.
• L → eL / C_#
• Diphthongs → /i:/
• Stress moves the the penultimate vowel.
• V → Ø /_CV[+stress]
• P_h → F /_#
• Stress retracts to the first vowel.
• Prosthetic /@/ is added before initial clusters, written <`>(?)

Morphology Changes

Nouns

The nominal system was drastically altered. The paucal took on the function of the plural, and the plural took on the function of the collective. Whereas in Kelanian, cases were indicated by suffixes, in Eastern Kelanian only the genitive is formed by altering the word from its natural absolutive form.

	Singular	Plural	Collective
Abs	CeCeC or CoCoC	eCCeC or eCCoC	`CCiCī
Gen	`CCeCov or `CCoCov	eCCeCov or eCCoCov	`CCiCīv

The nominative, dative and instrumental/comitative are formed analytically with case-marking prepositions. The locative was also replaced and changed. In Kelanian, prepositions were used with a noun in the locative to show position, but in Eastern Kelanian they are used with an absolutive noun, and the original meaning of the locative is also now formed with a preposition.

Case	Marker
Nom	el`
Dat	er`
Instr	tye
Loc	na

Verbs

The verbal system went through a major change. The regular modifier forms, with tense and modal suffixes added after, became used to mark full verbs. Not too long after, an epenthetic a- came into use to mark active forms, contrasting with the mī- used for eventive forms. Due to sound changes, the imperfective and habitual merged.

	Active				Eventive
	Indicative	Subjunctive	Hortative	Optative		Indicative	Subjunctive	Hortative	Optative
Imperfective	aCCiCi	aCCiCon	aCCiCu	aCCiCel		mīCCiCi	mīCCiCon	mīCCiCu	mīCCiCel
Perfect	aCCuCi	aCCuCon	aCCuCu	aCCuCel		mīCCuCi	mīCCuCon	mīCCuCu	mīCCuCel
Aorist	aCiCCi	aCiCCon	aCiCCu			mīCiCCi	mīCiCCon	mīCiCCu

Modifiers

Since all the forms that used to be modifiers changed into verbs, new ways of forming modifiers came into use. The basic adjective came from the essive form of the original noun used as the new root.

Participles have a slightly more interesting origin. Since the aorist wasn't originally formed from modifiers, its verbal and participial forms remained distinct-its participial form didn't change into a full verb, so, by analogy, the method to form the aorist participle from the aorist verb was used on imperfective and perfect verbs to form their respective participles.