Proto-Alpianic

Proto-Alpianic
Spoken in:	Switzerland, ca. 1000 BC
Conworld:	League of Lost Languages
Total speakers:	extinct (reconstructed)
Genealogical classification:	Hesperic Alpianic Proto-Alpianic
Basic word order:	V2; SOV in subclauses
Morphological type:	fusional
Morphosyntactic alignment:	accusative
Created by:
Jörg Rhiemeier	2013

Proto-Alpianic is the common ancestor of the Alpianic branch of the Hesperic language family in the League of Lost Languages. It is currently being created by Jörg Rhiemeier.

Proto-Alpianic probably was spoken in central Switzerland around 1000 BC. The language is about as closely related to Old Albic as Greek is to Latin.

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Coronal	Dorsal	Laryngeal
Neutral stops	*p	*t	*k
Aspirated stops	*ph	*th	*kh
Affricates	*pf	*ts	*kx
Fricatives	*f	*s	*x	*h
Nasals	*m	*n	*ń
Laterals		*l	*ĺ
Rhotics		*r	*ŕ
Semivowel			*j

The dorsal nasal *ń almost certainly was a velar nasal [ŋ]. The phoneme *ĺ probably was a velarized alveolar lateral [ɫ], the phoneme *ŕ a uvular trill [ʀ].

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
High	*i î		*u û
Mid	*e ê ẽ		*o ô õ
Low		*a â ã

The circumflex accent marks a long vowel; nasal vowels (with tilde) are always short.

Syllable structure

The maximum syllable structure is (s)C(R)V(L) with the following values:

• C is any consonant.
• R is any nasal, liquid or *j; if present, C must be an obstruent.
• V is any vowel.
• L is any nasal or liquid, or gemination of the following consonant. May not be present in a syllable with a long or nasal vowel, and not in final syllables.

Accent

The accent, which probably was stress, falls on the first syllable of the word.

Morphology

Proto-Alpianic is a fusional-synthetic language. The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative-accusative, though predicate nouns are, unlike most European languages, in the accusative rather than the nominative case.

Nouns

Nouns are divided into three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter; to a large part arbitrary but the neuter gender contains only inanimate nouns) and are inflected for two numbers (singular, plural) and four cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative). There are several declension classes that inflect differently; these cut across the genders, but neuters always decline differently from non-neuters of the same declension class: the accusative is always the same as the nominative and the dative the same as the genitive, and the plural is formed differently.

A-stems, masculine

With rare exceptions, masculine nouns are a-stems.

Example: *phassa 'person'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*phassa	*phassi
Genitive	*phasse	*phassie
Dative	*phasso	*phassio
Accusative	*phassã	*phassẽ

A-stems, neuter

Neuter a-stems are not as predominant as masculine a-stems, but still frequent as many basic vocabulary items fall into this class.

Example: *kxara 'stone'

	Singular	Plural
Nom.-acc.	*kxara	*kxaro
Gen.-dat.	*kxaro	*kxaralo

I-stems, feminine

With rare exceptions, feminine nouns are i-stems.

Example: *saria 'woman'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*saria	*sari
Genitive	*sarie	*sari
Dative	*sario	*sario
Accusative	*sariã	*sariẽ

I-stems, neuter

Example: *pãti 'ribbon'

	Singular	Plural
Nom.-acc.	*pãti	*pãtio
Gen.-dat.	*pãtio	*pãtialo

U-stems, non-neuter

Non-neuter u-stems are rare.

Example: *kańua 'mountain imp'

	Singular	Plural
Nominative	*kańua	*kańui
Genitive	*kańue	*kańui
Dative	*kańuo	*kańuo
Accusative	*kańuã	*kańuẽ

U-stems, neuter

This is also a small class.

Example: *khanu 'joint'

	Singular	Plural
Nom.-acc.	*khanu	*khanuo
Gen.-dat.	*khanuo	*khanualo

Consonant stems, neuter

This is a fairly large class; there are no non-neuter consonant stems. It is in this class hard to predict the other forms from knowing the nominative-accusative singular, hence the genitive-dative singular is also given in the dictionary.

Example: *saĺio 'wing'

	Singular	Plural
Nom.-acc.	*saĺio	*saĺialo
Gen.-dat.	*saĺialo	*saĺialalo

Example: *thupe 'gift'

	Singular	Plural
Nom.-acc.	*thupe	*thupaso
Gen.-dat.	*thupaso	*thupasalo