Alfermann's Law

Alfermann's Law (named after the fictional linguist Juliane Alfermann) is a complex change in the phonology and morphology of the West Hesperic languages. In these languages, non-paradigmatic final *a is lost; this loss affected inanimate a-stem nouns (e.g. *khara > *khar 'stone') and oblique case endings (e.g. *xnarana > *xnaran 'man' (dative).

In animate nouns and verb endings, number inflection was reorganized such that *-a marked the singular, *-u dual and *-i plural in all cases. This involved suffixation of *-a to i-stem and u-stem animate nouns (e.g. *xasi > *xasia 'star'). The nominal paradigm thus changed from the Proto-Hesperic paradigm

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Agentive	*xnara	*xnarax	*xnaras
Objective	*xnaram	*xnarax	*xnaras
Genitive	*xnarasa	*xnarawsa	*xnarajsa
Partitive	*xnarala	*xnarawla	*xnarajla
Dative	*xnarana	*xnarawna	*xnarajna

to this type:

Case	Singular	Dual	Plural
Agentive	*xnara	*xnaru	*xnari
Objective	*xnaram	*xnarum	*xnarim
Genitive	*xnaras	*xnarus	*xnaris
Partitive	*xnaral	*xnarul	*xnaril
Dative	*xnaran	*xnarun	*xnarin

The East Hesperic languages (Valdiska and Duniscian) did not undergo this change, nor did Viddan.

See also

• Drummond's Law
• Senantho's Law