Ordho-Luksunic

Early Ordho-Luksunic vocab

in personal names (only when made of compounds) and place names (compounded or not), nominative case endings are dropped

ADPOSITIONS Take the absolutive

= Phonology =


 * Liquids cannot occur after voiceless plosives or /s/.
 * Two plosives of different voicing may not cluster. Should they come together, then the first plosives takes on the voicing of the second.
 * When the first plosive is *d and is before *k, it rather becomes *s
 * Two of the same consonant may not cluster.
 * If two of the same nasal/fricative/approximant come together then they merge into a short nasal/fricative/approximant.:
 * If two of the same voiceless/voiced plosive come together then the first becomes a nasal of the same PoA:
 * If two of the same labialised plosive come together then the first becomes *m:
 * If two of the same labialised plosive come together then the first becomes *m:
 * If two of the same labialised plosive come together then the first becomes *m:

Stress
Ordho-Luksunic had a stress accent where the accent could fall on any syllable given the correct environment. The stress fell on the initial syllable of a root but it could be shifted by the attaching of affixes. Certain affixes had a fixed accent such as the prefix.. When the suffix begins in a consonant then the initial syllable of the suffix carries the stress.

Ablaut
Ablaut is a series of vocalic gradiations inherited from Proto-Jaronic's ablaut. The rather simple e-o-a-∅ ablaut of Proto-Jaronic had been complicated by environmentally conditioned sound changes and as a result the ablaut went under considerable analogy.

All 1st grade stems containing *ō began gradiating as stems with *ō when a result of *e coming before *l3 (hypothetic unanalogised forms will appear in brackets): *mṓgas ("wolf") - *mágun ("wolve-ABS.PL") - *mksún ("wolves") (< *mṓgas -*mā́gun - *miksún).

All 1st grade stems containing *o began gradiating as stem with *o when a result of *e coming after *l2: *lónas ("bone") - *lanun ("bone-ABS.PL") - *lnsún ("bones") (< *lónas - lā́nun - lonsún).

When the consonants *m *n *l *r are in a syllable which lost its vowel in the 4th grade, they become *um *un *ul* ur: *sírwas ("dog") > *sursún ("dogs"). The pattern ȳ ō ā u had merged with ȳ ȳ ȳ y (which later became ȳ ȳ ȳ ȳ)


 * In brackets are unaccented forms where they vary from the accented forms.

Lenition
Proto-Nulgbokan lenitied plosives and /s/ when they occured in the coda of a stressed syllable. The result is that when the stress shifts away from such syllable, the consonants revert back to their original forms.

Case
Ordho-Luksunic had two noun classes which were active and passive. Active nouns denote something that is typically an agent of a verb and passive nouns typically denote the patient but also many inanimate objects. The division is not an animate-inanimate split for animate beings can be referred to by passive nouns if they are the typical recipients of an action and inanimate things can be referred to by active nouns if they are viewed as being enactors of actions (such as tools but also "dynamic" things such as water, wind, fire etc that move without influence from an animate being).


 * Nominative: Marks the sole argument of an intransitive clause and subject of a transitive clause
 * Abolutive: Marks the patient of a verb and involuntary agent of a verb, the predicate of the copula verb
 * Vocative: Marks a noun when referred directly to
 * Essive: A state of being, "as",
 * *drubmī́s ("as a father")
 * Relative: Regarding/concerning/about X, possessive
 * *drȳ́bōs ("father's, about the father")

Ordho-Luksunic was an active-stative language, meaning that the sole argument of an intransitive clause was marked the same way as an an agent of a transitive clause (in the nominative case) but may be marked the same way as a patient (absolutive case) to mark an unwilling or unintending agent (i.e it implies a lack of volition):


 * drȳ́w-ös tūl-ló

father-NOM.ACT cut-3S.ACT.PST

"father cut"


 * drȳ́w-ös pḗd-∅ tūl-ló

father-NOM.ACT rope-ABS cut-3S.ACT.PST

"father cut rope"


 * drȳbʷ-∅ pḗd-∅ tūl-ló

father-ABS rope-ABS cut-3S.ACT.PST

"father accidentally/was made to cut rope"

Os-Stems
This declension contains active nouns which have the nominative singular suffix -os. In this declension the nom.pl, res.pl and essive cases take the 4th grade and the abs.pl and voc.pl take the 3rd grade.

Es-Stems
This declension contains active nouns which have the nominative singular suffix -es. These stems tend to be the longest.

ȳs-Stems
This declension contains active nouns which take the nominative singular suffix -ȳs which descends from the active form of the Proto-Jaronic suffix *-yó which served to derive nouns from adjectives.

Ös-Stems
This declension contains active nouns which take the nominative singular suffix *-ös which derived from *-es when after labialised plosives. In this declension the nom.pl, res.pl and essive cases take the 4th grade and the abs.pl and voc.pl take the 3rd grade. In these nouns the labialised plosive of Proto-Jaronic takes several forms. In the nom.sg and voc.pl it takes the weak form of the plosive (*bʷ *dʷ *gʷ > *w *dh *w). In the nom.pl, absolutive, essive, respective.pl is remains as a labilaised plosive. In the voc.sg and res.sg it becomes a voiced plosive (*bʷ *dʷ *g > *b *d *g)

On-Stems
This declension contains nouns with the nominative singular suffix *-on. Stems in the declension contain 3rd grade vowels. This declension has two subgroups, subgroup I contains monosyllablic roots while subgroup II contains polysyllabic stems where the stress does not fall on the syllable before the *-on suffix. The 1st grade occurs in the abs.sg and voc.sg while the 4th grade occurs in the nom.pl, essive and res.pl.

ȳ́n-Stems
This declension contains nouns with the nominative singular suffix *-ȳ́n, derived from the Proto-Jaronic suffix *-yó.

Demonstrative Pronouns
Proto-Jaronic makes no proximal distinction in its demonstratives.

Interrogative Pronouns
Active "what" (*yídhos) is equivalent to "who" and passive "what" (*yádhon) is equivalent to "what, which".

Adjectives
Adjectives in Proto-Nulgbokan agree with the head noun in gender and case but not in number. Agreement is made by attaching the same nominal suffixes to the adjective's stem (which will trigger the same grade as on the noun). Adjective in Proto-Jaronic can be placed either before or after the noun but they tend to be placed before:
 * *núlg- ("old") > *núlgos guḗdhos ("old warrior"), *nulkmī́s gydmī́s ("as an old warrior")
 * *brḗn- ("big") > guḗdhos brḗnos ("big warrior"), büígon brǘinon ("old rock")

The equative suffix *-īs attaches to adjectives to denote "as X as". Such adjectives can be used either attributively or predictively. The compared to noun is placed in the essive case. When used attributively the compared to noun is compounded onto the adjective as a prefix and the subject is in the nominative case. No adjective with this suffix takes on any further inflection.

síru buḗdh-ug bryn-īs umk-mī́s

dog-ABS be-3S.ACT big-EQ wolf-ESS

"the dog is as big as the wolf"

śírw-os um-mīs-bryn-īs

dog-NOM wolf-ESS-big-EQ

"the dog which is as big as the/a wolf"