Hajec

FUCKTONNE OF AKCHOTIBIAN LOANS MAYBE SOME SPRACHBUND EFFECTS TOO

=Name and History=

Around the year 1500AN a large earthquake thousand of miles to the south sent a large tsunami north which attacked the south coasts of the Malomanan continent. This, coupled with the rising sea levels at time caused a sizeable chunk of land in the east to be seperated from the mainland to form a new island. The land which was previously a large platue surrounded by low lying land was now the island Gwozhaltasyr. The Proto-Sumric speakers who happened to be on the island at the time found themselves trapped on the island with no hope of returning to the mainland. On the island the people managed to tame a few species of native deer and over time they even had a domestic breed, abandoning the older hunter-gatherer lifestyle for that of the semi-nomadic shepherd. The language of the islanders changed over time to become Hajec, although they referred to their language as Jǫraas ("still language") and they called themselves Jǫteihbes ("still by force"). The contemporary language has little attestation beyond what remains of standing stones erected by the Jǫteihbes (the inscriptions on which served both a practical and religious use) and by what Upwolast had recorded of the language during his lifetime. However for much of history scholars had no access to Upwolast's notes and the script of the standing stones had not yet been deciphered so very little was known about the language.

At the end of the Sumric Golden Age there was a large wave of Old Sumrë speaking settlers coming from the mainland. Over time the language of the incomers became Lammi. The two populations lived side by side for some time but eventually the Jǫteihbes assimilated and Hajec fell out of use in favour of Lemre, rendering it extinct.

=Phonology=

Vowels
Phonemic length minimal pairs:


 * aht (“hand”) vs aaht (“to fall of a mount”)
 * af (“to look”) vs aaf (“to welcome”)

Nasal minimal pairs:


 * af (“other”) vs ąf (“against”)

Orthography
=Consonants=

Consonant Alternations
The only productive alternation in Hajec is that which comes from Proto-Sumric glottal stop clusters. In Hajec glottal stops changed in clusters depending on which consonant it clustered with. When by plosives the glottal stop became /h/ and later on it assimilated to become any voiceless fricative with the same place of articulation as the plosive. When clustered with a fricated the glottal stop became a voiceless plosive with the same place of articulation as the fricative. plosives or fricatives which come from Proto-Sumric glottal stops are referred to as H-Segments and are notated in Hajec linguistics with the symbol H. The table below lists the possible realisations of the H-Segment.

A great example of this is with the H-prefix which denotes politeness, properness, goodness and benelovence. When the noun begins in a consonant the first vowel of the stem is reduplicated between the prefix and noun to prevent awkward clusters.


 * nis ("man") > tinis ("friend, fellow")
 * gąs ("mineral, gem") > higąs ("jewel, necklace")
 * ḥa ("leg") > haḥa ("right leg")
 * lih ("splendour") > silih ("divinity")

V{l r} + H = VVH

Phonological History

 * T = voiceless plosive
 * D = voiced plosive
 * S = unvoiced
 * Z= voiced


 * n̩ m̩ l̩ r̩ v̩ s̩ → ən əm ol ər əv əs
 * ɛ ɔ → e o
 * χ → x
 * g → x/V_
 * j → ∅/_E
 * y ø → i e!P_
 * y ø → u o/else
 * β ɸ → v f
 * {əʊ oʊ} → oː
 * ə → ∅/_{t d}
 * ə → i/_N, N_, _{f v}, {f v}_, _C[+palatal], C[+palatal]_, _C[+alveolar], C[+alveolar], _P
 * ə → o/_K, K_, ʔ_, _ʔ
 * ʂ ʐ → s z
 * w → v
 * {T D}ʔ → {T D}h → {T D}F (where F has the same PoA as T/D)
 * {F R}ʔ → {F R}T (where T has the same PoA as F/R)
 * V{j i} → Vː
 * V{R N}C → VːC
 * V → ∅/_#! V={Vː Ṽ}
 * Z →S/_#
 * VN$ → Ṽ$
 * j → i/_#
 * ʝ → g
 * Fx → FF
 * ʉ → u
 * ə → a/else
 * ʊ ɪ ɘ → a͡u e͡i a͡i
 * ʊː ɪː ɘː → uː iː eː
 * VVː → VV
 * eː → eo/_x
 * eo → jo/!C_

=Nouns=

Case Marking
Hajec has two grammatical numbers which are singular and plural, two genders which are animate and inanimate, and four cases which are nominative, accusative, genitive and dative. The Proto-Sumric plural was dropped entirely and the paucal number was reanalysed as the plural in Hajec. The V in the anmiate accusative singular is a stand in for the vowel o if the preceeding consonant is k, g, x or ḥ, or i otherwise.

Example

Ablaut Nouns
Ablaut nouns in Hajec are analogous to zero-grade nouns in Proto-Sumric and Old Sumrë. In Proto-Sumric zero-grade nouns consisted of a syllabic consonant and throughout a paradigm an epenthetic vowel would be inserted before the syllabic consonant rendering it non-syllabic. The epenthetic vowel would be of the same quality as the vowel in the suffix. In Hajec those syllabic consonants had vowels inserted before them: ń ḿ ɫ ŕ v́ ś > in im ol ir iv is. Despite this the vowel of any suffixes is still placed before the consonant resulted in an ablaut. Since the ablaut alone was enough to mark cases without ambiguity, the loss of word final vowels deleted the case endings leaving only the ablaut to mark case. In ablaut nouns the definite is indistinguishable from the indefinite except in the nominative singular where the suffix -a is placed onto the noun with no epenthetic vowels.

Animate

 * skir ("man")

Inanimate

 * fiit ("kick, punch")

Collective Nouns
Nouns in Hajec can take on collective forms with the meaning of "all of X" or "X in general" to speak about a category as a whole. This is done by reduplicating the final syllable.


 * airokot ("octopus") > airokotkot
 * asoot ("footprint") > asootsoot
 * piitn ("hedgehog") > piitnpiitn

If the noun ends in VC where the C is r, l then when reduplicated the original syllable will lose said consonant and the vowel will lengthen.


 * atiiharil ("ball of the foot") > atiihariiril
 * skir ("man") > skiiskir

If the noun ends in a long vowel then when reduplicated the final vowel of the reduplicated syllable will be shortened and nasalised.


 * usaa ("ithsmus") > usaasą
 * tuu ("falcon") > tuutų

If the noun ends in a nasal vowel then only the final CV is reduplicated.


 * aalį ("mouth") > aalįlį
 * astezą ("trinket") > astezązą

Note that collective nouns are undeclinable, meaning that they can not take on any case marking.

Definiteness
Just like Old Sumrë, Hajec marks definiteness by both ablaut and by shifting the stress to the final syllable of the stem (marked with an acute accent). This ablaut can be traced backed to Late Proto-Sumro-Naukl which innovated a way to mark definiteness by shifting stress from the first syllable to the final syllable of a stem. This same system was used in Proto-Sumric, however the shifting stress affected sound changes between Proto-Sumro-Naukl and Proto-Sumric as certain vowel changes only happened when stressed or unstressed. Since the definite and indefinite form had different stress the sound changes gave them different vowels. For example /a, ɑ/ became /o/ when stressed (giving the indefinite forms /o/) but when unstressed they became /ə/, also when unstressed /u/ became /ɔ/(giving the definite forms /ə/ and /ɔ/). In Proto-Sumric only polysyllabic words were affected by the vowel mutation as in monosyllabic words the stress remained on the first syllable and therefore evaded the sound changes above. This alternation became grammatical and spread to any polysyllabic nouns by analogy even when their vowels weren't initially affected by the stress related changes. The vowel mutation in Early Proto-Sumric had the following pattern:


 * *o > *ə
 * *u > *ǫ

If the noun was a zero-grade noun, then an epenthetic schwa was insert at the end for the stress to fall on: *vŕʔt- ("melody") → *vŕʔtə́ ("the melody").

This quite restricted vowel shift was then reanalysed as lowering vowels and this reanalysed rule was applied to any vowel in the first syllable of a polysyllabic word by lowering it one height or by lowering it to the height of the closest pre-existing low vowel. Giving the newer pattern of:


 * *o ų> *ə
 * *u > *ǫ
 * *ǫ *ə > *a
 * *i > *e
 * *y > *ø
 * *e *ø *į > *ę
 * *ę > *a
 * *ɘ > *y
 * *ʉ > *ø

As the vowel /a/ couldn't be lowered further it experienced no shifting.

When this rule was subject to Hajec's sound changes the pattern was changed. Thanks to some vowel mergers it is no longer as shallow as it was in Proto-Sumric. The resulting ablaut in Hajec is as follows.


 * 1) o au > V : ǫ ("sky") > ą ("the sky"), ozap ("swamp") > izáp ("the swamp")
 * 2) u > o : uusip ("serpent") > oosíp ("the serpent")
 * 3) o V > a : oupi ("hawk") > aupí ("the hawk"), hok ("boar") > hak ("the boar")
 * 4) i u > e : vit ("icicle") > vet ("the icicle"), pueḥn ("tundra") > peeḥn ("the tundra")
 * 5) e o ei > e : geltjaa ("shape") > geltjáa ("the shape"), poḥi ("victory") > peḥí ("the victory"), veist ("pat") > vest ("the pat")
 * 6) e > a : eekugl ("mountain stream") > aakúgl ("the mountain stream")
 * 7) ai ee jo > i : mailoḥi ("otter") > miloḥí ("the otter"), geet ("hazel tree") > git ("the hazel tree"), johį (“robin”) > ihį́ (“the robin”)
 * 8) u > e : utodn ("carrion") > etódn ("the carrion")

The symbol V can represent the vowel o if around the consonants k g x and ḥ, a if around no consonants and i otherwise. Thanks to the irregularity of the definite ablaut, the definite form for each noun must be memorised along with the indefinite. Note that nasal vowels alternate in the exact same way as oral vowels and the same goes for long vs short vowels.

Possessive Suffixes
Possession is marked via two sets of possessive suffixes, one set attaches to animate nouns while the other attches to inanimate nouns. Nouns are always definite when possessed. The two sets are only distinguished in the plural as the animate singular and inanimate singular suffixes merged together.

Note that if the noun ends in l or r then the l/r will be dropped before the possessive suffix and the preceeding vowel will lengthen.

Examples:


 * gozok ("bush") > gazókp ("my bush") > gazókbos ("our bush")
 * isoof ("dog") > asóoft ("your dog") > asóoftah ("your.pl dog")
 * oupi ("hawk") > aupímir ("his hawk") > aupímira ("their hawk")

Deriving Nouns

 * -atol ("derives meat names"): misok ("fish") > misokatol ("fish meat")
 * -e ("non-divine suffix, derives animate nouns associated with a diety"): Briminos ("god of cold and frost") > briminose ("mountain goat")
 * -į ("augmentative"): tordok ("cat") > tordokį ("lynx")
 * -k ("collection suffix"): lop ("mound") > lopk ("mountain range")
 * -kp ("child diminutive"): sukr ("rabbit") > sukrkp ("rabbit kitten")
 * -l ("denotes evil"): tef ("tongue") > tefl ("lier")
 * -ni ("female diminutive"): hok ("boar") > hokni ("she-boar")
 * -th ("derives plant names"):

Active/Passive Nominalisers
Much like other Sumro-Naukl languages, Hajec possesses a set of suffixes which can attach to verbs, nouns and adjectives to derive a new noun meaning "that which is X, that which was X", and to verbs to derive a new noun meaning "that which X-s, that which has X-ed". These suffixes are heavily productive in creating personal names. For a list of Hajec personal names see Hajec Names.


 * į ("clumsy") > įisto ("that which is clumsy, fool, clumsy person")
 * ivak ("heavy") > Ivakst ("I who is heavy")
 * aupímir ("his hawk") > Aupímiist ("I who is his hawk")

Nouns derived this way from verbs can then be compounded with nouns to give a meaning of "that which X-s Y, that which X-ed by Y, that which X-ed":


 * los ("to prefer") > losisto ("he who prefers") > Losistoisoof ("he who prefers dogs") - The name of a famous shepherd who lived only with his herd and a pack of dogs.
 * njak ("to eat") > njakiit ("we who eat") > Njakiitmitų ("we who eat sharks") - The name of a clan.

Negative forms are simply made by adding the negative suffix -vi.


 * įs ("to survive") > įsisaa ("that which survived") > įsisaavi ("that which did not survive, victim, corpse")
 * vets ("to falter, to collapse") > vetsiit ("we who falter") > Vetsiitvi ("we who do not falter") - The name of a clan.

The verb sul ("to see, to be able to, can") can be derived in the same way and compounded with an As-infinitive to give the meaning of "that which can/can't X, that which couold/couldn't X, that which can/can't be X-ed by Y". This can be further enhanced by compounding a noun onto it.


 * sul imįas ("to be able to hunt") > suustimįas ("I who can hunt") > Suustimįassoḥvąp ("I who can hunt serpents")
 * sul ǫjasas ("to be able to kill") > Suliiviǫjasas ("we who cannot be killed")- The name of a clan

Deriving Adjectives

 * -as ("derives an adjective from a verb to describe the typical agent of the verb"): lugop ("to snatch, to pluck") > lugopas ("greedy, selfish")

Deriving Verbs

 * -at ("extensive suffix, derives verbs performed for an extended amount of time"): most ("to twist") > mostat ("to twist for a while/long time")

Topicalisation
Hajec topicalises nouns to give them more emphasis within a sentence. It does this by using both prefixes and changing the word order. To topicalise the subject the prefix ut- is used:


 * akį divolisok johįa ("a finch harassed a robin") vs utakį divolisok johįa ("a finch harassed a robin")

To topicalise the direct object the prefix il is used. If the noun begins in a consonant then the prefix will be ii-/il-. A topicalised direct object takes on the nominative case:


 * akį divolisok iijohį ("a finch harassed a robin)

To topicalise the indirect object, the indirect object gets fronted to before the subject while taking on the nominative case:


 * skir nisk jorisok plostoo ("a son gave a man a twig" - man son give- twig-)

=Adjectives= Adjectives in Hajec must always agree in case and number with the noun that they modify. Adjectives inflect differently in the plural from nouns due to the fact that Hajec's plural adjectives descend from Proto-Sumric's plural adjectives while Hajec's plural nouns descend from Proto-Sumric's paucal nouns.

The V in this paradigm represents o when after the sounds k h ḥ and i otherwise.

Examples


 * aviver ("disgusted")
 * dirooh ("good")

Attributive vs Predicate Adjectives
Attributive adjectives in Hajec are placed afer the noun which they modify and they also cause an H-segment to appear at the end of the modified noun. If the adjective begins with a glottal stop then the glottal stop will be elided also when the adjective is attributive. Also if the adjective begins with any other H-segment then this too will elide. When the Proto-Sumric ancestor of the noun ended in a vowel which was dropped in Hajec, the vowel resurfaces when before the H-segment. Predicate adjectives simply follow the noun without a copula (except when in the negative), as such the only thing distinguing attributive and predicate adjectives is whether or not the H-segment appears on the noun.


 * baat ḥoks ("the frost is cold") vs baats oks ("the cold frost")
 * apį́ khis ("the orca is quick") vs apį́ḥ his ("the quick orca")
 * edráts saak ("the ash is holy") vs edráts emosesv saak ("the ash isn't holy") vs edrátst saak ("the holy ash")
 * aahopf akap ("tree covered hills are green") vs aahopfp akapis ("green tree covered hills")

Comparative and Superlative
Hajec doesn't inflect its adjectives to create comparative and superlative constructions. Instead it uses postpositions after a precidate noun. The postposition ro ("on") denotes the comparative and so ("through, past") denotes the superlative:


 * johįhį naloḥf oupipį ro ("robins are smaller than hawks" - robin- small hawk- on)
 * johįhį emosesvvi naloḥf so ("robins aren't the smallest" - robin be.- small past)

=Verbs=

TELIC SUFFIX -likį (<aalikį "fully, completely, willingly, on purpose")

Hajec verbs conjugate in a fairly agglutinative manner with hints of fusionality occuring. The third person singular is the same for both genders thanks to sound changes having made the older third person singular animate become indistinguishable from the second person singular, causing it to be dropped entirely. Negation is achieved with the suffix -vi which is placed after person endings.

Example:


 * af ("to look, to watch")

If the verb ends in l or r then when inflected for the first person singular then the l/r is elided and the previous vowel lengthens (if the vowel was nasal then it also denasalises): sul ("to see") > suus ("I see").

Imperative
The imperative can be formed in two ways. If the verb stem ends in a consonant then the suffix -i is attached to the bare stem. If the verb stem ends in a vowel then the vowel is simply lengthened (and also denasalised if said vowel is nasal). If the final vowel is already long then no change is made.


 * af ("to meet") > afi ("meet!)
 * far ("to squint") > fari ("squint!")
 * atovoko ("to learn") > atovokoo ("learn!)
 * fęboo ("to capture") > fęboo ("capture!")
 * gatǫ ("to bless") > gatoo ("bless!)

Infinitive
Hajec for the most part employs bare verb stems where Old Sumrë and Old Tuura would use an infinitive verb e.g skohts kil mik ("I know how to dig" - know- how dig). A clause can be formed simply by placing a bare verb stem after a subject which itself can act as a NP e.g mas skoht jos ("it is good that I know" - know good). However when an infinitive verb is used after a verb of intent or desire then it takes on the suffix -as (from Proto-Sumric gerund *aż used on verbs done during the daytime, itself grammaticalised from aż "awake")


 * dąjeks mikas ("I want to dig")
 * moss kanas naną ("I want to help people")

The -as infinitive is also used with the verb sul ("to see, to be able to, can"):


 * suusvi sulas ("I can't see" - see-- see-")
 * sųlis mikas? ("can you dig?" - -see- dig-)

Interrogative
A verb is made interrogative by nasalising the first vowel of the verb. If the vowel is already nasal then context and a rising intonation are all that is used. If the vowel is long then it must shorten first to become nasal.


 * mikis ("you dig") > mįkis? ("do you dig?")
 * losiso vuuhas ("he prefers to ambush") > lǫsiso vuuhas? ("does he prefer to ambush"?)
 * gaahifss skir ("I invited the man") > hąhifss skir? ("did I invite the man?")

=Conjunctions=

Causality
Early on in Hajec there were many ways to mark causality, often with expressive phrases to mark very specific instances of “because”. At this point they could be analysed as discourse particles rather than conjunctions. they are listed here:
 * easnuzǫz “that which emerges from jealousy” - when an action was done because of the subject’s jealousy. From easu- “that which emerges from” + zǫz “jealousy”.
 * tsioest ilasf napfo easnuzǫz (refuse- submit king- that emerger_jealousy) “he refused to submit to the king because he was jealous (of him)”


 * kitis “with intimidation” - when an action was done because the subject was forced to or had no choice in the matter. From k- “supine prefix” + it “to intimidate” + -is “with”.
 * ilasfest napfo kitis (submit- king- -intimidate-) “he submited to the king because he was forced to to


 * kativokoois jiit “with imitation upon” - when an action was done because someone or something else had already done it. From kativokoois “imitation” (from k- “supine prefix” + ativokoo “to intimidate” + -is “with”) + jiit “upon”.
 * ilasfest napfo kativokoois jiit klesmir (submit- king- -imitate- upon friend-) “he submitted to the king because his friend did so (also)”


 * ḥveeris “with the opinion” - when the subject did the action because he thought that he should. From ḥveer “opinion” + -is “with”.
 * ilasfest napfo ḥveeris (submit- king- opinion-with) “he submitted to the king because he thought that he should have”


 * vexil ezvetér “out of the mist” - used as a general “because”. From vexil “out of” + ezvetér “the mist”.
 * ilasfest napfo vexil ezvetér vraaoovestsaat ilasf (submit- king- out of /mist want- sumbit) “he submitted to the king because he wanted to”


 * exskį́ji “from the seed” - Also used as a general “because”. From exskį “seed” + -ji “from”.
 * ilafest napfo exskį́ji vraaoovest ilasf (submit- king- /seed-from want- submit) “he submitted to the king because he wanted to”

Later on in Hajec each of the above become causal conjunctions which always followed the verb. However the conjunction exskį́ji fell out of everyday use and survived only in flowery speech. vexil ezvetér became lez which was the default causal conjunction. Kativokoois jiit became kooisjiit, a causal conjunction for an action that someone else did or an action done in revenge or retaliation. Kitis became a conjunction for a verb where the subject was forced to do it, but also as a discourse particle insinuiting disapproval. Easnuzǫz became restricted to stories of romance where a subject done something out of love or infatuation.