Old Juakrish

Old Juakrish vocabulary

=Phonology=

Vowels

Consonants

Phonotactics

 * Before long vowels, /l/ becomes [ɾ]:
 * ìirkʷl [ìːɾkʷl] ("to teach") > ìirkʷraa [mìːɾkʷɾaː] ("I teach")
 * The combinations of nt+g and t+g result in /s/ and /z/ respectively.
 * esnt ("to carry") + -g(e) "imperative suffix" > ess ("carry-")
 * tnot "to think ahead" + -g(e) "imperative suffix" > tnoz ("think ahead-")
 * /t/ is [d] word initially and intervocalically

Umlaut
Old Juakrish's is inherited from Proto-Sumric's ʉ-umlaut. Thanks to sound changes it is no longer as straightforward as it once was plus some patterns are no longer productive, having become fossilised in some stems. The umlaut is triggered when a syllable containing /ɪ/ follows.

Prosody
Old Juakrish has a fixed pitch accent which it inherited from Old Sumrë's mix of mobile and fixed pitch. Middle Sumri experienced a change where all pitches became fixed to their syllable, albeit from a diachronic perspective as the difference pitch patterns of differently inflected stems was inherited (albeit fossilised) into Middle Sumri. This means that the pitch of an older stem appears mobile but fixed in newer stems (which arose due to derivation or loaning). The high pitch is always marked with an acute accent. The high pitch is not marked if it falls on the penultimate syllable or if the stem is a verb, on the final syllable, or if a stem is monosyllabic. Some words have lost their high pitched syllable leaving only the low pitch. In this case the low pitch is marked with a grave accent.

Phonological History
kʷ>g

g k → ʝ ç

j w → g k

Eː → o!E:=nasal

{r̩ n̩} l̩ → i o

s→∅#_C

t→d/#_, V_V

l→j/_#

i→ja/C_!C[+alveolar, +velar]

m→v/_j

V V:>Ø V!CVC_ (starting from left to right)!in first syllable

=Nouns= Old Juakrish is unusual among the Sumric languages in that it has very little noun stems. In the shift from Late Middle Sumri to Old Juakrish a lot of relexification occurred where the vast majority of noun stems were lost and rather inflected verbs acted as noun in their place, such that in Old Juakrish verbs take a much more prominent role. These "pseudo-nouns" are created with a set of suffixes that attach onto inflected verbs to derive nouns. Most nouns derived this way come from verbs in the 3rd person.


 * sarizo ("to rot, to decompose") > sarizor ("it rots") > sarizorna ("human corpse")

Nouns can also be derived from verbs conjugated for the 1st and 2nd person albeit with a more restricted meaning. Typically these serve to emphasize the action being done by the referent and can be translated as "as an X":

Personal Pronouns
Singular

Old Juakrish has various versions of the second person pronoun which vary depending on the social situation. When speaking informally to another of a similar age the pronoun tar is used. Speaking to a loved one or someone held dear requires the pronoun trer. When speaking to someone significantly older then trutr is used. When speaking in a derogatory or condescending manner targtr is used.

Plural

=Verb Phrase=

Person Conjugation
Old Juakrish retains much of the verbal morphology of Late Middle Sumri although it reanalyzed To-verbs, S-verbs, S2-verbs, R-verbs, R2-verbs and H-verbs as common verbs.

Common Verbs
Old Juakrish verbs fall into two main categories named "full verbs" and "folded verbs". Full verbs are those with stems that end in CVC and folded verbs are those which do not.

Folded Verbs
Vowel final folded verbs

Zero-Grade Verbs
Zero-grade verbs are those which experience a vowel shift in the verb stem when inflected. This is due to these verbs previously containing syllabic consonants which had vowels of affixed reduplicated before them when inflected. Old Juakrish sound changes turned these syllabic consonants into vowels and vowel+consonant sequences ({r̩ n̩ m̩} l̩ s̩ v̩> i o is iv - funny enough some later sound changes would render some /is iv/ sequences as syllabic consonants again due to dropping the vowel) so rather than reduplication the process has been reanalyzed as a form of ablaut. All zero-grade verbs contain /e/ in the infinitive, a relic of the /e/ in the infinitive suffix -en lost during the Late Middle Sumri period.

The vowel of the stem is usually the same as that in the affix although affixes containing in /i/ trigger the ablaut vowel to become /ja/ is the preceding consonant is not alveolar or velar.


 * tisp- ("to weave")
 * teps ("to weave")
 * taaspaa aa ("I weave")
 * tispi tri ("you weave")
 * hshpis ("weaving")
 * pot- ("to stray")
 * petr ("to stray")
 * pertus ormr ("it strayed")
 * pjarti orm ("they stray")
 * hpt ("straying")

Umlaut Verbs
Umlaut verbs are verbs whose stems contain labialisation in the final syllable. These stems experience vowel shifts in the person endings due to umlaut caused by a now lost vowel. Umlaut verbs are further divided into full and folded verbs.

Eas-Verbs
Eas-verbs are verbs which have been derived from nouns and adjectives with the suffix -(V){s,z}.

Y-Verbs
Y-verbs end in a vowel and experience an epenthetic /g/ outside of the first person. This comes from a /g/ > /j/ alternation in Old Sumrë and that intervocalic /g/ was lost in Middle Sumri and Old Juakrish turned the /j/ into /g/.

Imperative Mood
The imperative is marked with the suffix -g for folded verbs and -ge for full verbs. If the verb stem ends in /t/ or /nt/ then those endings plus the imperative will merge into /z/ and /s/.
 * men ("to cry, to weep") > menge ("weep!")
 * uz ("to toss, to fling, to throw, to chuck") > uzg ("throw!")
 * sarizo ("to rot, to decompose, to wait, to linger") > sarizog ("wait!")
 * sares ("to wither") > saresge ("wither!")

The verb emn ("to be") has the irregular imperative form emg.

Interrogative Mood
The interrogative mood is marked with nasalising the vowel in the first syllable. If the following consonant is /g/ then instead of a nasal vowel the /g/ lengthens into /gː/. If the following consonant is a nasal consonant then it is gemminated instead.
 * ag ("to agree") > agr tar ("you agree") > aggr tar ("do you agree?")
 * hukes ("to slice")> hukezʷr tar ("you slice") > hũkezʷr tar ("do you slice?")

There are some verbs which take an irregular interrogative form when the verb in Old Sumrë ended in /Vb/ or /Vd/ (which were lost by Middle Sumri losing intervocalic /b d/) they resurface after the nasal infix as /Ṽp/ and /Ṽt/. It is not predictable as to which verb experiences this other than etymology.
 * ko ("to trade") > kor tar ("you trade") > kõpr tar? ("do you trade?")
 * o ("to entertain") > or tar ("you entertain") > ĩtr tar? ("do you entertain?")

Subjunctive Mood
The subjunctive mood is marked with a suffix after the person suffixes. If the suffix before ends in a vowel then the subjunctive is -mpos for full verbs and -mps for folded verbs, elsewise it is -pos for full verbs and -ps for folded verbs.
 * ag ("to agree") > agr tar ("you agree") > on agrps tar ("if you agree")
 * hukes ("to slice") > hukezertunt orm ("it will slice") > on hukezertuntpos orm ("if it will slice")

Jussive Mood
The jussive mood ("should, must") is marked with the suffix -veres on full verbs and -vrs on folded verbs. In formal speech it acts as an imperative.
 * hukes ("to slice") > hukezʷr tar ("you slice") > hukezʷrveres tar ("you should slice")

Evidentiality
Old Juakrish marks it verbs for evidentiality to convey if an action is known for sure by the speaker, or heard from heresay or merely deduced. The following suffixes are applied after person endings.

The suffix -ntuu/-ntu is applied if it occurs after a vowel.


 * sʷeterastuu tar ("you bit - witnessed event")
 * hukezpezihi orm ("they sliced - deduced from evidence")

Passive Voice
The passive is formed with the suffix -ti (with the postvocalic allomorph -nti) on full verbs or -t/-nt on folded verbs which attaches after any person endings and the subjunctive.
 * erz ("to trust") > erzas aa ("I trusted") > erzast aa ("I was trusted")

Habitual Aspect
The habitual is marked with the suffix -úra on full verbs and -r on folded verbs.
 * erzar aa ("I always trust")

Existentiality
Old Juakrish deals with existentiality by using an existential particle which descends from the various inflected forms of Old Sumrë tomen ("to intend, to mean, to herald").