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 east 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 /_#
• Prosthetic /h/ is added before initial vowels. <h>
• p_h t_h k_h → p\ T x/_ <f th kh>
• b_h d_h g_h → B D G /_ <v dh gh>
• Cj → C_j /_
• Cw → C_w /_
• NC → C /#_
• ps, ks → s /_
• bs, gs → z /_
• ts → S /_ <š>
• ds → Z /_ <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.
• i[-length], u[-length] → Ø /_#
• i[+length] → i[-length] /_#
• C → eC /C_#
• VV → V[+length] /_, V=V
• Modifiers become verbs; Prosthetic /a/ and verb endings added to all verbs
• i-diphthongs → i: /_
• u-diphthongs → u: /_
• Stress moves to the penultimate vowel.
• V → Ø /_CV[+stress], _CCV[+stress]
• CCC → CCeC /_
• onon → ōn
• p_w t_w k_w → p\ t p /_
• b_w d_w g_w → B d b /_
• F_w N_w L_w → F N L /_
• p_j t_j k_j → p t_S k /_ /t_S/=<c>
• b_j d_j g_j → b d_Z g /_ /d_Z/=<j>
• F_j N_j L_j → F N L /_
• Stress retracts to the first vowel, or to the antepenultimate vowel in words four syllables or longer.
• Prosthetic /@/ is added before initial clusters, written <ə>

Phonology

Consonants

Eastern Kelanian has 25 consonant phonemes. It retains Kelanian's unaspriated plosive sequence, its 3 nasals and 2 liquids, but unlike Kelanian, it has an abundance of fricatives and 2 affricates:

• 2 bilabial: f /p\/ and v /B/
• 6 coronal: th /T/, dh /D/, s /s/, z /z/, š /S/, ž /Z/
• 2 velar: kh /x/,gh /G/
• 1 glottal: h /h/

• 2 post-alveolar affricates: c /t_S/ and j /d_Z/

	Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Post-Alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Stops	p b		t d		k g	q
Fricatives	f v	th dh	s z	š ž	kh gh	h
Affricates				c j
Nasals	m		n		ñ
Liquids			l r

Vowels

There are 6 short vowels, a, e, i, o, u, ə, /a e I o U @/, and two long vowels, ī and ū /i: u:/, which may also be written ii and uu. There are no diphthongs.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	ī		ū
Near-close	i		u
Mid	e	ə	o
Open		a

Syllable Structure

Syllables are of the form (C)V(C). Since Eastern Kelanian is based on triconsonantal roots, there are no restrictions on what clusters may form at syllable boundaries. There are, however, no clusters comprised of more than two consonants.

Morphology

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	C(é/ó)C(e/o)C	éCC(e/o)C	əCCíCī
Gen	əCC(é/ó)Cov	éCC(e/o)Cov	əCCíCīv

The nominative, dative and instrumental/comitative are formed analytically with case-marking postpositions. 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 now postpositions used with an absolutive noun, and the original meaning of the locative is also now formed with a postposition.

Case	Marker
Nom	elə
Dat	erə
Instr	ce
Loc	na

Verbs

The verbal system went through a major change. An early change was that only the weak aorist was used to form the aorist stem, which regularized it completely. The regular modifier forms, with tense and mood suffixes added after, became used to mark full verbs soon after the i- and u-mutations and the splitting up of final clusters. At about the same time, a prosthetic a- came into use to mark all verbs, causing verbs with both active and eventive forms to mark the eventive with amī- and the active with a-. Verbs with no transitive form became morphologically indistinguishable from transitives as a result. Contrast intransitive ámširi, "to leave" with transitive átširi, "to take." (It so happens that most if not all triconsonantal roots that form intransitive verbs start with an 'm'.) Due to sound changes, the imperfective and habitual merged.

	Active					Eventive
	Indicative	Subjunctive	Hortative	Optative		Indicative	Subjunctive	Hortative	Optative
Imperfective	áCCiCi	áCCiCon	áCCiCu	áCCiCel		amîCCiCi	amîCCiCon	amîCCiCu	amîCCiCel
Perfect	áCCuCi	áCCuCon	áCCuCu	áCCuCel		amîCCuCi	amîCCuCon	amîCCuCu	amîCCuCel
Aorist	aC(é/ó)CCešī	aC(é/ó)CCešōn	aC(é/ó)CCešū			amīC(é/ó)CCešī	amīC(é/ó)CCešōn	amīC(é/ó)CCešū

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.

	Active	Eventive
Basic adjective	əCCíCīs
Aorist	áCC(e/o)Ceš	amîCC(e/o)Ceš
Imperfective	áCCiCeš	amîCCiCeš
Perfect	áCCuCeš	amîCCuCeš

Syntax Changes

Word order changed from OSV to VSO.