TriCons4 –  A Constructed Language

TriCons4 Historical Stuff

Phonological History

Protolanguage Phonemes and Syllables

The protolanguage has 21 consonants and 4 vowels and the syllables are CV(C); it probably has a simple pitch-accent.

A light syllable is CV and a heavy syllable here is CVC.

Onset Consonant Phonemes
  Labial Coronal Dorsal Guttural
Stops V'less *p p   *t t     *k k   *' ?
Voiced *b b *d d *g g  
Fricatives V'less   *f f *ç s[] *s s`     *x X *h h
Affricates V'less       *c t$)    
Voiced *j d*)
Nasals Voiced *m m   *n n   *ñ J    
Trills Voiced     *r r      
Approximants   *l l   *y j *w w    

Vowel Sounds and Orthography
  Unrounded Rounded
Front Central Back
High   *i i\    
High-Mid   *o o
Low-Mid *e E      
Low   *a A

Sound Changes

The sound changes involve the development of diphthongs, long vowels, tones, stress shifts, vowel deletion, and consonant allophony.

The higher long vowels are ī, ū, ei, and ou. The lower long vowels are ȳ, ō, ē, and ā.

There are certain "rules" for vowel deletion:

When one of *i, *o, or *a is deleted, the preceding vowel is umlauted, as shown in the following table:

Umlaut
Umlauted V Deleted V
*i *o *e *a
y y e e *i
y o o o *o
y o e a *e
e a a a *a

Diphthongs and the subsequent higher long vowels, come from coda *y and *w (both original and resulting from vowel deletion) becoming part of the nucleus. The lower long vowels come from original coda *h becoming part of the nucleus (contrastingly, h which precedes a deleted vowels "floats" into a preferred position, as does ñ). The lower long vowels can also be the result of lengthening an accented short vowel.

There are also a few tonogenetic related things I need to figure out.

At some point a partial merger of nasals occurs:

The consonant allophony is mainly phonetic, with the development of the ejectives, the voiced fricatives, and [$].

Morphosyntactical History

Morphological History

The morphological changes mostly involve affixing and analogy. The earliest stage creates the triconsonantal stems from biconsonantal roots and the next stage adds short vowel suffixes and probably some prefixes; the umlaut/vowel-deletion follows this stage. Finally, additional suffixes (and possibly, prefixes) are added, some of which may come from grammaticized auxiliaries.

Syntactical History

The stems are constructed from root + classifier; for nouns, this is modifier + head, so a VS order must've existed at that point, and for verbs it's content + auxiliary, so an OV order must've existed as well. Hence: OVS!

At a later stage, construct-form (head + modifier) syntax develops, which implies SV, so the overall order must be either SVO or SOV. The latter, being more conservative, is more likely to've occurred earlier, but since incorporated nouns follow their verbs, SVO had to occur at some point.

OVS Stage

The in most cases mandatory suffixing of the classifiers to the roots probably occurred due to numerous homonyms, since there are only 1196 possible CVC combinations and few longer roots.

The possessor prefixes for the mandatorily possessed nouns may have been added around this time also. Other nouns may have had a definite article suffixed.

Likewise, the "object" prefixes may have been added to the [Secondary | Restrictive] verb forms.

The following gives an overview of the OVS stage syntax. Things like negative particles etc. have been omitted.

OVS Stage Syntax
1 { (Object_Phrase)  Verb=SS }*   (Object_Phrase)  Verb=DS  Subject_Phrase — Clause Chain
2 { (Object_Phrase)  Verb=RS }*   Head_Noun (=AP) — Noun Phrases
3 Object_Phrase  Possessed_Head_Noun=AP
4 Pronoun
SS = Same Subject AP = Anaphoric Pronoun
DS = Different Subject
RS = Relativized Subject

Latest Version of Morphological History

Format Symbols
p = prefix consonant, c = stem consonant, s = suffix consonant.
a = stressed vowel, u = unstressed vowel, e = umlauted a, y = umlauted u.
º = prefix vowel, ¹ = 1st stem vowel, ² = 2nd stem vowel, ³ = 3rd stem vowel.
| = long high tone, / = long rising tone, \ = long falling tone.
The notation "umlaut (u¹, u²)" means that the 1st vowel is modified according to the 2nd and the 2nd is deleted.

Code Format From Derivation Type Proposed Use
64S   ca¹cu²c * root + class * (all forms at this stage)

In the earliest stage, the 1st syllable is always stressed. At this point, the stems are formed from roots and classifiers, the primary stem markers (a vowel and possibly a consonant in addition) are appended to the verbs, and the possessor prefixes are prepended to possessed nouns.

Code Format From Derivation Type Proposed Use
54S   ce¹ccu³(s) 64S + -V, umlaut (v¹, v²), (+ -C) ζ univalent primary verbs
28 peºccu²c 64S + CV-, umlaut (vº, v¹) δ (possessed nouns)

Subsequently, the penult is stressed, unless it's light, the ultima is heavy, and the antepenult exists, in which case the antepenult is stressed instead. However, if the stressed syllable ends up being the ultima through deletion, it stays stressed. In the case that the stressed penult is light and the ultima is long, but there's no antepenult, the penult vowel is lengthened.

Code Format From Derivation Type Proposed Use
22S pyºcce²c 28 + -V, stress-shift, umlaut (v², v³) δ bivalent secondary
62S   cu¹ce²c 64S + -V, stress-shift, umlaut (v², v³) β univalent secondary
64L   ca¹/cu²c 64S stress » heavy; heavy and open » long α indefinite nouns

In this stage, more suffixes are appended; first vowels, then consonants, or both as part of the same suffix. The stress shifts as before only when needed and no deletion occurs.

Code Format From Derivation Type Proposed Use
32S pyºcce²cu³ 22S + -V δ bivalent adverb
38 pyºcce²cu³s 32S + -C bivalent tertiary
72S   cu¹ce²cu³ 62S + -V β univalent adverb
74S   cu¹ce²cu³s 72S + -C univalent tertiary

A consonant might be appended to the stems of definite and possessed nouns; it would subsequently be deleted, with the preceding vowel lengthened as compensation.

Code Format From Derivation Type Proposed Use
22L pyºcce²\c 22S + -C, - C with compensation ε possessed nouns
62L   cu¹ce²\c 62S + -C, - C with compensation γ definite nouns

Finally, personal prefixes are prepended to the bivalent and trivalent primary verb forms.

Code Format From Derivation Type Proposed Use
54/8 puºce¹ccu³(s) 54S + CV- η bivalent primary verbs

page started: 2010.Jun.07 Mon
current date: 2010.Jul.05 Mon
 content and form originated by qiihoskeh

Table of Contents