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/ or /u/ 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.
• Epenthetic /@/ is added before initial clusters, written <`>

Morphology Changes

Nouns

The nominal system was drastically altered. 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. The nominative, dative, instrumental/comitative and locative are formed analytically with words coming before the noun.