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 → p\ /_ <f>
- t_h → T /_ <th>
- k_h → x /_ <kh>
- b_h → B /_ <v>
- d_h → D /_ <dh>
- g_h → G /_ <gh>
- Cj → C_j /_
- Pw → P_w /_
- NP → P /#_
- 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
- Diphthongs → i: /_
- Stress moves to the penultimate vowel.
- V → Ø /_CV[+stress], _CCV[+stress]
- CCC → CCeC /_
- onon → ōn
- p_w →
- b_w →
- t_w →
- d_w →
- k_w → p /_
- g_w → b /_
- Stress retracts to the first vowel, or to the antepenultimate vowel in words four syllables or longer.
- Prosthetic /@/ is added before initial clusters, written
Morphology Changes
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 | qCCíCī |
| Gen | qCC(é/ó)Cov | éCC(e/o)Cov | qCCíCīv |
The nominative, dative and instrumental/comitative are formed analytically with case-marking prepositions. 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 used with an absolutive noun, and the original meaning of the locative is also now formed with a preposition.
| Case | Marker |
| Nom | elq |
| Dat | erq |
| Instr | tye |
| Loc | na |
Verbs
The verbal system went through a major change. The regular modifier forms, with tense and modal suffixes added after, became used to mark full verbs soon after the i- and u-mutations and the splitting up of final . Not too long after, a prosthetic a- came into use to mark active forms, contrasting with the mī- used for eventive forms. Due to sound changes, the imperfective and habitual merged.
| Active | Eventive | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indicative | Subjunctive | Hortative | Optative | Indicative | Subjunctive | Hortative | Optative | ||
| Imperfective | áCCiCi | áCCiCon | áCCiCu | áCCiCel | mîCCiCi | mîCCiCon | mîCCiCu | mîCCiCel | |
| Perfect | áCCuCi | áCCuCon | áCCuCu | áCCuCel | mîCCuCi | mîCCuCon | mîCCuCu | mîCCuCel | |
| Aorist | aC(é/ó)CCešī | aC(é/ó)CCešōn | aC(é/ó)CCešū | mīC(é/ó)CCešī | mīC(é/ó)CCešōn | mīC(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.
