Archaic Imperial (Empire-in-the-West)
Archaic Imperial (AI) is the name given to the earliest attested ancestor of Modern Standard Imperial. The corpus of AI texts is fairly small: some runic carvings, and the Imperial Law Code of the Temple; the language has been reconstructed based on its daughter and sister languages with a fair degree of confidence.
Phonology
Consonants
| POA | Labials | Dentals | Emphatics | Velars | Uvulars | Glottals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Voiceless stops | p /p/ | t /t/ | ṭ /tˤ/ | k /k/ | q /q/ | ? /ʔ/ |
| Voiced stops | b /b/ | d /d/ | ḍ /dˤ/ | g /g/ | ḡ /ɢ/ | |
| Fricatives | f /f/ | s /s/ | ş /sˤ/ | x /x/ | ẋ /χ/ | h /h/ |
| Nasals | m /m/ | n /n/ | ||||
| Liquids | l /l/, r /r/ | |||||
| Glides | y /j/ | w /w/ |
Vowels
- Short: /i a u/ i a u
- Long: /iː aː uː/ ī ā ū
- Diphthong: /ai au/ ai au
Suprasegmentals
Allophony
There is strong vowel allophony in AI, with backed or lowered allophones of most vowels occurring near the emphatic consonants (ṭ /tˤ/ q /q/ ḍ /dˤ/ ḡ /ɢ/ ş /sˤ/ ẋ /χ/). /i/ > [e] /u/ > [o] /a/ > [A] /i:/ > [i@] or [@i] (The former if the emphatic consonants follows the vowel, the latter if it precedes it.) /u:/ > [u@] or [@u] (As with /i:/) /a:/ > [A:]
The diphthongs show allophony based on the following consonant, with raised allophones before voiceless ones. /aj/ > [Ei] /aw/ > [Ou]
The short vowel also have tense/lax allophony, with lax allophones occurring in closed syllables. This applies after the emphatic allophony, so /i/ has the realizations [i], [I], [e], [E]. The vowel /a/ has no tense/lax allophony.
Morphosyntax
Archaic Imperial was a VSO language, though it already showed signs of the shift to SOV that occurred in its descendants. Word order is consistently head-modifier, and therefore noun-adjective, noun-genitive, preposition-noun, noun-relative clause, etc. are all neutral word-orders. Clause-chaining was a common device.
Verbal Morphosyntax
The AI verb was fairly simple. There are only two aspects: Perfective and Imperfective, as well as a Subjunctive and two Participles (Active and Passive). These are all created from the same triconsonantal root, the base form of which was the Imperfective (CiC(i)C). All but the participles take the same agreement endings (participles taking the endings of nouns) which are given below:
| Person | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | -ul | -utul | -rul |
| 2nd | -uk | -utuk | -ruk |
| 3rd an. | -ān | -utān | -rān |
| 3rd in. | -aw | -utaw | -raw |
With the verb xirit "to argue":
| Xirit | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | xirtul | xiruttul | xiritrul |
| 2nd | xirtuk | xiruttuk | xiritruk |
| 3rd an. | xirtān | xirtutān | xiritrān |
| 3rd in. | xirtaw | xirtutaw | xiritraw |
Note: The bolded forms are irregular. The regular forms would be *xirtutul and *xirtutuk, which seem to have undergone metathesis to avoid successive identical syllables.
The alternation between CiCC and CiCiC is used to avoid three-consonant clusters, which did not occur in AI.
The same endings are used in the perfective (CiCaaCi) and subjunctive (iCCiC:usi).
