White Sucumian

White Sucumian vocabulary

=Phonology=

X-Grade and G-Grade Vowels
The X-grade and G-grade vowels result from the vocalization of Proto-Sucumian *x *ġ (X-grade) and *ġʷ (G-grade) when following vowels. When a G-grade vowel proceeds a consonant it causes it to take it's weak form.

Forms listed with n are variants that occur before nasals. Forms listed with str are variants that occur only in stressed syllables.
 * 1) When from Proto-Sucumian /o/
 * 2) When from Proto-Sucumian /ɜ/

Consonants

 * /t/ can't occur in onset, nor in a cluster with /j/ or /d͡ʒ/. When /t/ is placed into an onset via suffixation it becomes /s/:
 * alkt ("useful-") > alkse ("useful-")
 * When in a coda /r/ becomes [l].

Consonant Forms
White Sucumian plosives take on a variety of "forms", meaning they can alternate based on their environment. The default form is the "strong" form where the plosives are unvoiced. The laterals have a weak form but they lack affricate and approximant forms. The weak forms descend from voiceless labialised plosives. The affricate forms come from plosives that occured before nasals and the approximant forms come from labialised affricates.

Phonological History
{e ø øː} {ə ɵ o o:} >æ ɐ/_N

ɵː øː ɨː>yː

ɨ>y

ʉː>uː

ə ɵ>ø/stressed

ə ɵ>∅/unstressed

i y e a u o>iː yː ie ua uː uo/the same vowel is in the preceeding syllable

N>ɲ/_ie

N>m/_uo, _ua

N{iː yː} > ɲ{i y}

Nuː>mu

mn nː>ɲ

C{β,w}>Cʷ

p pʷ t tʷ c cʷ k kʷ q qʷ>p͡f p͡fʷ t͡s t͡sʷ c͡ç c͡çʷ k͡x k͡xʷ q͡χ q͡χʷ/_N

lʷ ʎʷ>lg ʎɟ

pʷ tʷ cʷ kʷ qʷ nʷ> b d ɟ g ɢ m

VFʷ>Vːw

ʋ>w

k g w > c ɟ j/_E

β>∅

x>g/#_

NE lE>ɲ ʎ/_#

w>∅/_C

N>Ø/{F,Affricate}_

p͡fʷ t͡sʷ c͡çʷ k͡xʷ q͡χʷ>w ʋ j w ʁ

=Noun Phrase=

Agreement
Adjectives follow the noun and must agree to the gender of the noun before taking on further case/number suffixes. Agreement to animate nouns is unmarked while agreement to inanimate nouns is marked. Monosyllabic stems do not need to have any suffixes in order to agree but Monosyllabic V stems mark agreement via metathesis of C{F,i,u}# > {F,X}C# (Due to sounds changes a stem may end in ñ ʎ which come form the older ni li e.g sáʎ "true" > sáol "true-). Polysyllabic stems must take on the suffix -o (or -e if the syllable before contains /á ∅/, or no suffix if the preceding consonant is /k/). Other adjectives ending in a vowel agree by taking on the X grade form.


 * sáʎ ("true") > seo sáol ("true sense")
 * sál ("hard") > seo sál ("hard sense")
 * gasra ("heavy") > alt gasrauu ("heavy weapon")
 * alkt ("useful") > alt alkse ("useful weapon")
 * pak ("green") > alt pak ("green weapon")

Case
White Sucumian nouns and adjectives are fusional and inflect for two genders (animate vs inanimate), two numbers (singular and plural) and five cases (nominative, allative I, allative II, elative and ablative). The older core cases accusative, genitive and dative had fallen and their uses were taken on by the remaining cases), the genitive ending that the locative cases were built upon have been reanalyzed as being part of the locative case endings. As well as losing cases White Sucumian also lost many declensions (due to their differences being contained mostly in the lost core cases) and even the distinction between monosyllabic and polysllabic stems was lost, greatly simplifying nominal morphology relative to other Sucumian languages.

Nominative
Denotes the subject of the verb.

Allative I
Marks indirect motion to an object or to nearby an object. Also marks the object of verbs of indirect motion (usually implying a lack of valency by the subject, or implying that the intended action failed) as well as indirect objects:

gæñins suuk-šš há-n

hunter shoot-3S.ANIM.PST wolf-ALLI

"the hunter shot at the wolf (and didn't hit/kill it)"

Allative II
Marks direct motion to an object. Also marks the direct object, or indirect object of verbs of motion ("to shoot, to walk to, to thrust, give"):

gæñins suuk-šš maw-∅ há-nl

hunter shoot-3S.ANIM.PST arrow.ACC wolf-ALLII

"The hunter shot an arrow at the wolf"

Elative
Marks movement out of, off of or down from. Is built from the genitive singular case. Specifically used to refer to movement out/off of structures (or features of the landscape that surround you like a forest or cave) or raised landscape (such as hills, ridges, slopes):

wauu-sut muoš-anul

run-1S.FUT mountain-ELA

"I will run down from the mountain"

Ablative
Marks movement away from. Is built from the genitive singular case. Specifically used to refer to movement away from locations such as villages or sites but also movement away from an area nearby the object. When attached to a supine it refers movement away from where an action takes place:

wau-ss há-∅ k-raḱc-m háoḱc-l

run-1S.PST wolf SUP-kill-ABL goat-ALLII

"I ran away from where the wolf killed the goat"

If the noun ends in a plosive then the plosive takes its affricate form and the first nasal consonant of a suffix is removed.

Metathetic Stems
Stems in this declension stem from metethetic stems in Proto-Sucumian and a trace of this can still be seen by how the final C{F,i,u} sequence becomes {F,X,G}C, where X and G mark the X-grade and G-grade forms of the preceeding vowel in the stem when.

S-Stem
These stems end in the consonant /t/ which shifts to /s/ in the nominative plural.

X-Grade Stems
These stems are descended from Proto-Sucumian Polysyllabic I Stems that ended in vowels. The final vowel of each stem becomes the X-Grade vowel when inflected.

Comparative
Adjectives are made comparative by placing hahua before the adjective (from Proto-Sucumian *δaβδaβ "more true", the comparative of *δaβ- "true").
 * geešsawuaḱ ("unreasonable") > hahua geešsawuaḱ ("more unreasonable")
 * guaw ("at risk") > hahua guaw ("more at risk")

Some irregular comparatives are:
 * wöw ("big") > hahua wöhu ("bigger")
 * pak ("green") > hahua kapuap ("greener")
 * lulšʷám ("different) > hahua lulooma ("more different")

A noun is compared to by using a construction translating to ("X is as Y but Z-er"):

waskhea miiš walst soo maw hahua wöhu

bison be.3S squirrel as but COMP big-COMP

"the bison is bigger than the squirrel"

=Pronouns=