Maerik grammar

Mærik grammar outline

BPJ 05:31, 8 May 2005 (PDT)

Mærik was a language isolate spoken in medieval Sweden. It is preseved in a wordlist with Latin glosses and some short fairy tales preserved in a single manuscript. The spelling relies quite heavily on that of Old Swedish and the sound structure of Mærik also seems to strongly resemble that of Old Swedish, yet Mærik is not genetically related to Old Swedish or other Germanic languages. Mærik words and sentences didn't make sense to somebody who only knew Old Swedish, and conversely Old Swedish would not have made sense to someone who only knew Mærik, although it is probable that all speakers of Mærik had also been speakers of North Scandinavian for very many generations. Although the phonetic and phonemic similarities indicate some kind of Sprachbund relationship between Mærik and Old Swedish, there are on the other hand few similarities in grammatic structure. Notably Mærik lacks any marking of definiteness and indefiniteness on nouns.

The name of the language

Mærik or mæriik is actually the genitive of the first person plural exlusive pronoun. Speakers of North Germanic mistook the phrase mærik skaw as parallelling their own dönsk tunga. Probably they didn't grasp that there were two first person plural pronouns in Mærik Skaw.

Phonology

Mærik phonology is very much similar to Old Swedish phonology, due to the Sprachbund relationship between the languages.

Vowels

Front unrounded	Front rounded	Back unrounded		Back rounded
i	y		u/v	w
e	ø			o
æ		a

The status of u and w relative each other is not clarified. Possibly there is a single /u/ which is spelled w when long. Against this speaks the nonce occurrence of a ww spelling in nwwtlo 'ludere'.

Umlaut

There is i-umlaut caused by a following theme vowel -i- which may be lost or preserved as -e-, sometimes also spelled -i-.

Quantity

Tthe status of geminate vowel spellings is doubtful.

Consonants

	Labial	Dental	(Palatal)	Velar	(Labiovelar)	Glottal
Voiceless stops	p	t	(ki [kʲ])	k	(qw [kʷ/kw])
Voiced stops	b	d	(gi [gʲ])	g	(gw [gʷ/gw])
Nasals	m	n	(ni [nʲ])	(ng [ŋ])	(ngw [ŋʷ/ŋw])
Voiceless fricatives	f	(th [θ])	(hi [ç])	(ch [x])	(hw [ʍ])	h
Voiced fricatives	v/u/ffu [v]	dh [ð]	i [j]	gh [ɣ]	w
Sibilant		s	(si/ski [sʲ/ʃ])
Lateral		l
Trill		r

The letter z spells /ts/.

It is not clear whether all these spellings represent distinct phonemes or whether they do so in all positions.

Unresolved issues in the phonology

The status of palatal(ized) and labiovelar sounds as phonemes or clusters also remains to be determined. Contemporary Old Swedish was in the process of developing palatal phonemes through palatalization of clusters ending in /j/ and of velars before front vowels. In contemporary Old Swedish /sj/ and /sk/ before /j/ and front vowels were probably in the process of developing into /ʃ/. If the same was true of Mærik cannot be determined. The nonce appearance of sch in schee 'adferre' is hardly decisive.

The status of /w/ vs /v/ is also to be determined. The many cases of w between vowels as opposed to ffu between vowels (e.g. priffua 'consolare') suggest that /w/ was indeed a separate phoneme and more widespread than the [w] of Old Swedish.

At the same time inherited /kw/ and /gw/ were probably not monophonemic any more in Old Swedish, while [w] had become an allophone of /v/. As /w/ was probably still a phoneme in Mærik it may be that qw and gw in spite of their low frequency should be analyzed similarly.

Sandhi allophones

The phonemic status of th and ch is not fully determined. It seems as if th between voiced sounds, or word finally after a voiced sound, always represents underlying phonemic /tð/ and phonetically is [tθ], and likewise ch between voiced sounds, or word finally after a voiced sound, represents phonemic /kɣ/ and phonetic [kx]. Thus in Mærik [x] and [θ] only occur as assimilation of /ɣ/ or /ð/ to a neighboring voiceless obstruent. On the other hand underlying //ðð// and //ɣɣ// surface as /dd/ and /gg/, while ffu probably spells ungeminated voiced /v/ in complementary distribution with geminated voiceless /ff/ as in Old Swedish.

Morphology

Nouns and Adjectives

Case endings are as follows:

	Modern name	Marker	English translation	Name in the manuscript
1	Nominative/Vocative:	-0 (zero)	(subject)	nominativus vel vocativus
2	Accusative:	-dh	(direct object)	accusativus
3	Dative:	-s	'for'	dativus
4	Genitive:	-k	'of'	genitivus
5	Ablative:	-r	'from'/'out of'	ablativus
6	Instrumental:	-gh	'with'	ablativus instrumenti vel comitativus
7	Locative:	-m	'at'/'in'	ablativus loci
8	Allative:	-i	'to'/'into'	accusativus adeundi

The nominative marks the subject of the sentence.

The accusative marks the direct object.

Between these endings and the stem a theme vowel -e- or -o-, sometimes appears. Variant spellings are -i- and -u/w- respectively. With the allative the front alternant is -ei/-ij/-i and the back alternant -oi/-ui/-wj.

Suffixaufnahme

Mærik has Suffixaufnahme or "case stacking", i.e. a noun carrying a genitive ending may take a further grammatical or local case ending, e.g. dølk 'the farmer's', dølks or dølx 'for the farmer's' (dative of genitive). The usual sandhi phenomena apply, such as ablative dølkær 'from the farmer's', accusative dølkth. Special note should be taken of the frequent instrumental genitives in -ch, which suggest [kx] as a sandhi allophonefor /kɣ/: dølch 'by the farmer's', hathfach [haθfakx] /haðfakɣ/ 'by the horse's'.

Plural

The plural morpheme is -n. It appears written most often as -in and -un respectively, more rarely -en or -on/-wn. To these plural terminations the same case endings are added as follows:

1. Nominative: -n
2. Accusative: -nd
3. Dative: -ns/-nz
4. Genitive: -nk
5. Ablative: -nnær
6. Instrumental: -ng
7. Locative: -num
8. Allative: -ni

Note that in combining with the plural marker -n- the endings undergo some sandhi changes: the accusative -dh and the instrumental -gh become voiced stops. The dative has an optional epenthetic [t] (/nts/ written *-nz) and the ablative and locative receive svarabhakti vowels.

In Suffixaufnahme where the second ending takes the plural an epenthetic a vowel, e.g. vantkanz skonz 'for the men of the village'.

Adjectives

Adjectives mostly have a stem ending in the morpheme -t. This was probably originally a denominal and deverbal adjective formant which relatively lately spread to other adjectives. Adjectives derived from nouns most often do not show the theme-vowel before -t, while adjectives in -at/- it/-ot/-ut derived from verbs function as past/passive participles. There are also present/active participles in - rt.

Case and number endings are added to the adjectival stem either directly or with the connecting vowel -a-.

Adjectives inflect for case and number in congruence with their nouns, e.g. verghtar trækker "From a big house", hughtand skond "poor men (acc.)".

Are there any deadjectival nouns? The normal occurrence seems to be a qualitative noun with a corresponding derived adjective.

NB! Should constituent order be ergative. Is this an areal feature of Old European?

Adverbs

Most derived adverbs and some primary end in -m (with theme vowel). This formant is observed to coincide with the locative ending - probably not a coincidence!

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

There are distinct inclusive and exclusive forms in first person plural.

wæll: me - I wællk: my/ mine

ton: you sg. (thou) tonk: your(s) (thy/thine)

ro: he rook: his

ni: she niik: her(s)

foott: we incl. foottuk: our(s) incl.

mær: we excl. mærik: our(s) excl.

han: you pl. hank: your(s) pl.

se: they seek: their(s)

Demonstrative pronouns

ordh: this ann: that (nearby) edd: that (far)

Interrogative pronouns

fiørn: who? fann: what? fwnn: how much/many? følk: which? faat: when? fedd: where? fwdh: why?

Relative pronouns

iørn: who øll: which aat: when wdh: therefore

Other pronouns

vex: self (reflexive)

hyy: each other

dødhzsk: respectively

sakt: thing

gøm: indefinite

siæn: any

Verbs

The present ends in -e/-o/-a derived from earlier long theme vowels *-ē, *-ō, *-ā.

In not a few verbs the present marker contains a t (*-te/-to/-ta), most notably *olto 'be' and ganta 'not be'. Sometimes an intrusive -p- comes between the -t- present formant and a root ending in -m e.g. rampta 'know a person', with the past tense ramma.

The infinitive or gerund, the imperative and the supine all consist in the bare stem, and can be distinguished only by their function, except that the infinitive/gerund can be inflectedlike a noun and the imperative often but not always is followed by a pronoun in the nominative/vocative.

The past tense formant is -ma/-mo.

Where there is a -t- in the present tense formant this -t- disappears in the past tense: thus from the present olto there is the past olmo, and from the present kræfte 'departs' there is the past kraffma (Note also the lack of i-umlaut in the past tense!). N.B. gamma, the past of ganta (usually spelled gam¯a), and swmmo (also sunmo) 'covered' from swnto. However sometimes the -t- is part of the root, e.g. lita 'hear', p.t. lijtma.

The subjunctive formant is -sa/-so.

These two are fused as -sma/-smo in past subjunctive.

Note kræftza 'would depart' with the present marker -t- against kræfsma 'would have departed' without it.

Person inflection on verbs

Singular

1. -w (-ew/-w/-aw)

2. -ck

3. -0 (zero)

Plural

1. excl. -ff

1. incl. -rr

2. -n

3. -ss

Participles

There are active participles in -rt and passive participles in -t from both the present and past stems:

Present active: lekart "speaking"

Present passive: lekat "being spoken"

Past active: lekmart "been spoken"

Past passive: lekmat "spoken"

Compound tenses

There are some compound tenses and moods using participles. The most important is the passive formed with olta 'be' and the present passive participle:

Oltaw lekat 'I am spoken'.

There is also a perfect and a pluperfect using olta and the past active participle:

Oltaw lekmart 'I have spoken',

Olmaw lekmart 'I had spoken'.

Lastly there is a future using boko 'become' and the present active participle:

Bokow lekart 'I will/shall/am going to speak'.

These compound tenses are not used nearly as often as the corresponding forms in English and other modern Germanic languages. Thus the simple present is usually found for future reference and the simple past forperfect and pluperfect reference.

Negation

Negation is made with the verb ganta 'there is not' + stem form of the verb + instrumental of agent:

ganta lek mærikth skawdh niigh 'she doesn't speak our language' (lit. 'there is not speak our language by her').

gan	-ta	-0	lek	-0	mæri	-k	-th	skaw	-dh	nii	-gh
not.be	-PRES	-3.sg.	speak	-SUP	we.exclusive	-GEN	-ACC	tongue	-ACC	she	-INSTR

Since the object stands in accusative this is not a true ergative, but may be indicative of transition between types.

Syntax

The main constituent order is VSO.

Verbs of perception and experiencing take the experiencer in the dative.