Subumpamese languages

The Subumpamese languages are the languages spoken in the eleven states of Subumpam. They split off from the parent language, called Tapilula, around 600 AD and continued to be spoken until the defeat of Subumpam in the Vegetable War of 2668 AD.

NEW IDEA. THERE WAS NO WESTERN SUBUMPAMESE AT ALL; THIS WAS ACTUALLY PART OF ANDANESE TERRITORY. THIS MEANS, HOWVVEER, THAT THERE IS NO SPREACHBUMND THERE. BUT THAT IS IN KEEPING WITH THE IDEA THAT THE "KALPTA" TERRITORY WAS IN FACT ANDANESE.

Tapilula (0) to Proto-Subumpamese (???)

The consonant inventory of Tapilula was

Rounded bilabials:                     hʷ  w
Spread bilabials:      p       m   b   f  (Ø)
Alveolars:             t       n   d       l
Rounded alveolars:     tʷ      nʷ  dʷ         
Velars:                k   ḳ   ŋ   ġ   h   g

1. The aspirated velar stop k became č before the vowel /i/. If another vowel followed, the /i/ disappeared. This happened even if the /i/ was accented.
2. When a "velaroid" consonant (/k ḳ ŋ h g l/) followed an accented high tone vowel, the vowel metathesized, leaving a closed syllable. Thus, for example, /àli/ > /ail/. These closed syllables were all high-toned, and are thus written without tone marks. Thus, for example, aa implies àa. Later, daughter languages introduced tone contrasts and independent sequences.
3. A schwa before another vowel in any syllable disappeared. Thus əa əe əi əo əu əə shifted to a e i o u ə. This happened in both open and closed syllables.
4. The sequences iu and ui shifted to ə̄.
5. The double-vowel sequences aa ee ii oo uu əə shifted to the single vowels a e i o u ə in closed syllables only.
6. The sequences ii uu əə (which now occurred only in open syllables) shifted to əi əu ə.
7. The sequences ie uo shifted to i u in open syllables only.
8. The remaining double-vowel sequences aa ee oo, which occurred only in open syllables, shifted to the long vowels ā ē ō.
9. The sequences ai ei oi merged as ei; the sequences au eu ou merged as ou.
10. The vowels /u i e/ caused adjacent consonants, in both directions, to become labialized, palatalized, and prepalatalized. The last shift applied only to velars. Labialization and palatalization could stack.
11. The sequences ìa ìo ìə shifted to ī.
12. The sequences ùa ùo ùə shifted to ū. ə̄ also shifted to ū.
13. The sequences ei ou, in both open and closed syllables, shifted to ē ō.
14. Syllable-final h shifted to x.
15. The three syllabic nasals ṁ ṅ ŋ̇ all merged to ən.
16. The velar ejective ḳ became q. Then kq qk shifted to qq.
17. The cluster xhʷ became xʷ.
18. All tones on unstressed syllables are released by spreading the tone of the accented syllable across the word.

    In a two-syllable root, the unstressed syllable acquires the opposite tone from the accented syllable.

    Classifier prefixes and auxiliary verbs all become low tone.

    In compounds, there is no sandhi.

19. The fricative śʷ s̀ʷ shifted to s. Then ś s̀ became š.
20. The nasals ń ǹ shifted to ň. Then mʷ nʷ ňʷ ŋʷ all merged as m.
21. Voiced palatal stops and fricatives all merged as y.
22. The sequences iy ey, on any tone, shifted to ī ē. <---QUESTIONABLE. most of this would have been from ĭg.
23. Labialized palataloids shifted to velar. lʷ łʷ > w.
24. The labialized alveolar stops tʷ dʷ shifted to pʷ bʷ.
25. Unaccented final short schwas were deleted. (In nouns, they were retained because they were not always final. Therefore, this shift applies mostly to inflections.)

Thus the proto-Subumpamese language had the consonants

Rounded bilabials:    pʷ  bʷ          w 
Bilabials:            p   b   m   f               
Alveolars:            t   d   n   s   l             
Postalveolars:        č   ǯ   ň   š   ł           
Palatals:             ć               y
Prevelars:            c̀        
Velars:               k   ġ   ŋ   x   g
Labiovelars:          kʷ  ġʷ      xʷ  gʷ
Uvulars:              q           h              
Rounded uvulars:      qʷ          hʷ 

Proto-Subumpamese (~1700) to Kava (3138)

1. The schwas ə ə̄ shifted to u ū.
2. The mid vowels e o rotated to i ə.
3. The high vowel i shifted to ə if touching a /q/ in either direction.
4. Primordial f shifted to p .
5. Primordial hʷ w shifted to f v.
6. All labialized consonants shift to bilabials.
7. The postalveolar affricates č ǯ ň š ł became c ʒ n s l unconditionally.
8. The palatals ć c̀ became č .
9. The voiceless uvular stop q changed to k when syllable-final.
10. Word-final č became s. čk čq etc > čč. Any other syllable-final č assimilates to the following consonant.
11. Any heterorganic stop/aff after a stop turned into a fricative.
12. The affricates c ʒ changed to s z when not after a high tone.
13. Voiced stops became voiceless when occurring before a high tone.

Changes unique to Central Subumpamese

1. gʷ hʷ > w f.
2. The high central vowel ə changed to i unconditionally.
3. Syllable-final nasals ŋ ň changed to match the place of a following consonant, and changed to n if word-final.
4. the palatalized alveolar consonants č ǯ ň ł become plain alveolars c ʒ n l.
5. The palatal ć is shifted forward to č . Allophonically, velars become palatal before [e] or [i]. Prevelar must also.

Proto-Subumpamese (1700) to Eastern Subumpamese (2672)

1. gʷ hʷ > v f.
2. The high central vowel ə changed to i unconditionally.
3. Syllable-final ŋ ň changed to match the place of a following consonant, and changed to n if word-final.
4. pʷ bʷ mʷ w > p b m v. (Possibly /ə/ > /o/ when facing a labialized consonant before this shift.)
5. ai (on any tone) became ē (perhaps not always long).
6. Palatals č ć ǯ ň ł > c c ʒ n l.
7. Velars (but not labiovelars) shifted doubly forward:

   c̀ k ġ ŋ x g > č č ǯ ň š ž. (Possibly velars remain in some positions, as in early Proto-Indo-European. This would best be explained as labialization.)

8. The uvular stop q shifted to k. /h/ became /x/ in most positions, but the spelling remained.
9. In syllable-final position, f c shifted to p t. (Thus /k/>/t č/, /h/>/s š/, even though the shifts were not related.)
10. The labiovelars kʷ ġʷ shifted to p b.
11. The fricative h shifted to q after a high tone.

Thus the Eastern Subumpamese consonant inventory was

Bilabials:       p   b   m   f               
Alveolars:       t   d   n   s       l   c   ʒ             
Palataloids:     č   ǯ   ň   š   ž   y                   
Velars:          k       ŋ    
Postvelars:      q           h

Later developments

All Subumpamese languages were submerged by the immigration of Merar (Tarpabappa) speakers in the year 2674 AD. Descendants of Kava survived only because they had earlier fled Subumpam.

Grammar

Kava was isolated from the Gold language for most of its history, and therefore took most of its influence from the grammatically dissilimar Old Andanese language. This caused Kava to develop a very simple grammar, losing most of the Subumpamese suffixes, while gaining no new prefixes or infixes from Andanese. A new part of speech called an auxiliary verb or weak verb appeared, which carried the meaning of inflections and behaved like verbs except that they did not carry the classifier prefixes that full verbs did.

These auxiliary verbs were suffixes, not separate words. Therefore, they functioned like case markers, and were just like those of Gold except that they were not fusional and never carried the word's stress. They included:

ADVERBIALS

1. si ~ ši (genitive)
2. su ~ hʷù (accusative)
3. hà to be changed by

LOCATIVES

1. -m(ə) (locative of place)
2. n(ə) (locative of motion)
3. ma on top of; used as a suffix after -m
4. mo on top of; used as a suffix after -m
5. pì supported by; used as a suffix after -m
6. ši underneath; used as a suffix after -m
7. ŋò with; next to; near
8. ga in front of
9. c̀e covering; standing over
10. tà to push on; used as a suffix after -n
11. là to pull on; used as a suffix after -n

There was also a new copula verb, tò.

Morphosyntactic sound changes

Nouns ending in -x usually dropped the -x because it disappeared before the three most common case endings. Thus, for example, *pipēx changed to pipē "ocean; salt water".

However, in some nouns, it survived because these nouns were originally strong.

Nouns

Subumpamese nouns have a true noun class system, not a gender system like that of the Gold language, and it is very similar to that of Andanese. Subumpam is a fairly diverse empire. The climate ranges from subtropical and nearly tropical in the south to the cold and rugged mountains of the north, whose people are much poorer than those of the tropics but also much better protected from foreign invasions. In the mountains, most people speak Andanic languages, a family which is related to Subumpamese but much more conservative.

The richer natural environment of the south has led its people to prosper and bring cultural innovations into the north, as well as a more diverse cuisine flavored with tropical fruits such as pineapples and coconuts as well as large, deep-water fish such as tuna.

Noun class prefixes are augmented to CVC before vowel-initial stems. Some of these have bled into the stems and created new roots beginning with the extra consonant, which then appear in other noun classes.

Note that /s/ appears whenever any primordial /h/ is bordered by /i~e/ and /u/ in either direction.

Strong nouns

A small number of nouns retained their case marking; nominal complexity increased west to east. This applied to the whole sprachbund, shading from Kava with no inflections to Paleo-Pabappa where the entire vocabulary was strong. However, the nearby Eastern Subumpamese languages still used weak noun morphology for the majority of their vocabulary.