Old Tuura

Old Tuura vocabulary

Old Tuura placenames

Old Tuura is a Synraspian language which was spoken in the Tuujjonsson territory of Malomanan during the 20th to 33rd centuries AN or 3213 to 1813 | years before present and so it was contemporaneous to the other synraspian languages Old Sumrë and Hajec, all being direct daughters of Proto-Sumric. Old Tuura was spoken by the Tuurluosm people who are hybrids of Homo spargere and Giants due to an event where a group of Homo spargere Proto-Sumric speaking males were put under a spell to mate with female Giants. The resulting hybrids were the Tuurluosm. An effect of their mixed heritage is that their anatomy allows them to live in much colder and harsher conditions which explains the extreme northern range of Old Tuura. Old Tuura is the ancestor or the Tuuric languages. Old Tuura had three dialects spoken respectively by the three main populations at the time, with Steppe Tuura being spoken by the Steppe Tuurluosm, Tundra Tuura being spoken by the Tundra Tuurluosm and Taiga Tuura being spoken by the Taiga Tuurluosm. The differences between these dialects were minimal with only several features distinguishing them. Steppe Tuura is distinguished by its merger of the central vowels /ɚ ɵ ʉ/ into /ɵ/. Taiga Tuura is distinguished by its innovative partitive case. Tundra Tuura geminates the liquids /r l/ as /rd ld/ rather than /rː lː/. Beyond these differences the dialects are mostly similar with minimal variation.

=Phonology=

Vowels
Old Tuura has two sets of diphthongs called Core Diphthongs and Peripheral Diphthongs. Core Diphthongs are those which come from Proto-Sumric long vowels while Peripheral Diphthongs come from hiatuses in Old Tuura across stems, as such no root has a peripheral diphthong.

Consonant Gradiation
Old Tuura had a productive aternation where consonants would geminate if they were in the onset of a closed syllable. In Tundra Tuura the liquids /r l/ become /rd ld/ rather than /rː lː/ as in the Steppe and Taiga dialects. This alternations occurs within stems but also throughout a paradigm thanks to suffixes closing open syllables of stems, or causing the coda of a final syllable to become the onset:
 * abbiegti ("to cross a river") > abbiegs ("I cross a river"), abieggyś ("you cross a river")

Another consonant alternation is when plosive become aspirated word finally or before long vowels. So when a stem ending in an aspirated consonant has a suffix attached the consonant is rendered non-final and loses its aspiration.
 * ajuruogguot ("octopus") > ajuruoguodo ("octopus-")

Phonological History
Vː > V/Vː..._

ə>ɑ

x ʝ > k j/_V

x ʝ > ∅

a ɛ e > i/_#

β ɸ > m m̥

S > Sʰ/_#, _V:

Z>S

v>f

∅→a/#_Er

i e ɛ a > iu eo ɛɔ ɑ/_{r l}

t/{t:}>θ/{F l r}_

n>r/l_, _l

əʊ, ɔʊ > ʉː u:

n̩ m̩ > õ

l̩ > o

v̩ > ɵ

s̩ z̩ > ɑs ɑz

r̩ > ɚ

s ʂ>h/V_C[+plosive]

œ>eː

e > ie

ɛ > e

aː o(V) > uo

ɔ>o

ʊ ɘ ø ɪ >ɵ

ʔ>∅

y: ɔː oː eː {iː ɪː} > iu ɛɔ eo jɑ ju

ɜ > a

ʂ>s/_{j E}

ɑ > o

=The Noun Phrase=

Case & Number
Old Tuura nouns are fairly agglutinative and are marked for four cases (Nominative, Accusative, Genitive and Dative) and three numbers (Singular, Paucal and Plural). The gender of a noun is strictly semantic with only living creatures and spirits being seen as animate, with the exceptions of bats (words for "bat" being inanimate is the norm among Sumro-Naukl languages).

The plural is marked with a suffix after the case endings. For animate nouns the suffix is -uo and for inanimate nouns it is -ś:
 * asrommos ("rhino") > asromosuo ("rhinos"), asromo ("rhino-") > asromosowo ("rhino-")
 * addol ("fist") > addolś ("fist-"), adoli ("fist-) > adoliś ("fist-")

The ethnic endonym tuurluo has the irregular plural of tuurlluośm, despite being an animate noun it bears a cognate to the inanimate plural suffix with -śm coming from Proto-Sumric *-ṡḅ which is also the source of -ś.

If an animate noun has a long vowel in it's final stem or /uo̯ iu eo jo ju/ then the plural suffix in the nominative is -i. The plural suffix is also -i when following the dative suffix:
 * ajuruogguot ("octopus") > ajuruogguodi ("octopuses")
 * asromosuo ("rhino-") > asromosuwi ("rhino-")

Old Tuura also has a paucal number to denote "some of" or an impartial part of a greater whole. The paucal comes in two forms which are called Paucal 1 and Paucal 2 respectively. paucal 1 is for nouns which typically occur in groups while paucal 2 is for nouns which often occur alone. The paucal is marked with suffixes which attach after the stem and before case marker. The suffixes are -ś- ("paucal 1") and -i- ("paucal 2"). The nominative is explicitly marked in the paucal 1 with -i attaching after -ś-.
 * asrommosśi ("rhino-"), asrommosśo ("rhino-").
 * uollin ("entrance") > uolini ("entrance-"), uolinijü ("entrance-")

In agreeing with nouns, adjectives simply inflect in the very same way although an adjective must first suffix -o when agreeing with an inanimate nouns before applying case endings. Adjectives always follow the noun.
 * asrommos aggap ("green rhino") > asromosuo agabuo ("green rhinos")
 * orbi agabo ("green plant") > orbbiś agabboś ("green plants")

S-PLURALS

Definiteness
Nouns are made definite via ablaut, with the vowel in the first syllable changing accordingly: The vowels a, aa, ü, üü, uu, ee, ö, öö, do not shift so nouns beginning with these do not change at all.


 * uobju ("hawk") → obju ("the hawk")


 * uggon ("bush") → oggon ("the bush")


 * mośśiekni ("virgin"), rohhkis ("sheath") → maśśiekni ("the virgin"), rahhkis ("the sheath")


 * nikbbos ("newt") → niekbbos ("the newt")


 * kii ("oak") → kiji ("the oak")


 * dyagssuś ("willow") → deeagssuś ("the willow")


 * bieddor ("cloud"), dönnasm ("house") → beddor ("the cloud"), dennasm ("the house")


 * eśśoδlo ("hand") → aśśoδlo ("the hand")


 * agyno ("finch") → agyno ("the finch")

When the noun derives form a Proto-Sumric zero-grade noun the formation of the definite is quite different. Such nouns form the definite by suffixing -o to the noun:
 * däjjos ("goose") > däjoso ("the goose")
 * vät ("melody") > väto ("the melody")
 * fõt ("tremble") > fõto ("the tremble")
 * jobo ("eyelash") > joboo ("the eyelash")

The definites of plural animate zero-grade nouns are formed by placing secondary stress on the plural suffix and the primary stress on the second syllable:
 * däjosúo /tɚˌjo.ˈsuo̯./ ("the geese")

Usage of definiteness for the partitive in Taiga Tuura
In Taiga Tuura, definite mass nouns took on an extra meaning of being partitive. These "partitive definites" are different from regular definite NPs as they can occur in existential statements with the dummy subject juom:

juom samassu ob emuosso jolmo

3S.ANIM DEF/cup in be.3S.INAN DEF/water

"There is water in the cup"

Compare that with:

jolmo emuosso samassu ob

DEF\water be.3S.INAN DEF\cup in

"the water is in the cup"

Mass nouns also came to be marked as definite when used with the particle löt ("some") even when the referent itself was not definite, so löt jolmo is both "some water" and "some of the water". It was after this stage that Taiga Tundra took the partitive meaning even further. In this dialect the vowel ablaut ceased to be used to mark definiteness and instead become solely used to mark the partitive on both mass and count nouns, effectively creating a new case. While in the other dialects it remained as a side-feature of definiteness on mass nouns.

Since monosyllabic words which weren't zero grades had no change at all in the definite, this meant that the ablaut couldn't derive a partitive for them (with the exception of A-stems which in Proto-Sumric had two syllables). To fill in this gap, Taiga Tuura grammaticalised the postposition jon ("from") as a partitive suffix for monosyllabic nouns or nouns which have no vowel ablaut (from Proto-Sumric *jən ("from"), which coincidentally became the delative case suffix in Old Sumrë, a case which has a secondary use as a partitive).

Possessive suffixes
Possession is marked with suffixes on the (being placed after any number and case marking suffixes) which agree to the animacy of the possessed noun and the number of the possessor.


 * addol ("fist") > addolbo ("my fist"), addolśbo ("my fists")

Agentive
The suffix -iennos serves to derives agentive nouns from verbs. When attached to nouns it acts as an associative agentive meaning "one associated with X".


 * uomti ("to invite") > uomiennos ("inviter")
 * ahkkolti ("to travel") > ahkoliennos ("traveler")
 * assuorδ ("footprint") > assuorδiennos ("tracker, hunter")
 * orbi ("plant") > orbijennos ("gatherer, forager")

Nominalisers
As is quite typical for a Sumro-Naukl language in that it has two sets of nominalising suffixes called active nominalisers and passive nominalisers which can derive from nouns, adjective and verbs. When attached to a noun or adjective an active nominaliser will derive with the meaning "that which is X" while a passive nominaliser will derive with the meaning "that which was X". When attached to a verb an active nominaliser will derive with the meaning "that which X-s" while a passive nominaliser will derive with the meaning "that which is/was X-ed". Each person has its own suffix with the 3S ones being mostly used in deriving lexical nouns while the rest are mostly used for deriving proper nouns, typically personal names.

The allomorph -hto is used when the stem ends in a vowel, otherwise the suffix is -sdo.


 * addol ("fist") > Addolsdo ("I who is a fist, I a fist")
 * ahkki ("thistle") > Ahkkihto ("I who is a thistle, I the thistle")
 * ahtieźźan ("spider") > Ahtieźanyhto ("You who are a spider, you a spider")
 * an ("hungry") > Anohto ("he/she who is hungry")
 * eht ("great, powerful, large") > Ehtyji ("we who were great")
 * orrolti ("to leap, to jump") > Orolosodo ("that which jumps")
 * uorllogti ("to speak") > Uorlogosuo ("that which was spoken, word")

=Verbs=

Long vowel stem: A vowel which has a long vowel or the vowels "uo, iu, eå, eo, ja, ju" in the final syllable of the stem. Causes the 3rd.pl to have aajjo in the suffix instead of uowwo

Transgressive
The transgressive is formed by adding the suffix -jõ to the third person singular animate form of the verb. Note that this suffix trigger umlaut on the preceding vowel.


 * goźti (“to wash”) > goźźoś (“it washes”) > goźźöśjõ (“while washing”)
 * gjiurnti ("to petrify") > gjornnoś (“it petrifies”) > gjornnöśjõ (“while petrifying”)

The perfective transgressive is formed by adding the suffix -jõ to the third person singular perfect form of the verb:


 * goźti (“to wash”) > goźoti (“to have washed”) > goźźuoś (“it has washed”) > goźźośjõ  (“having washed”)
 * gjiurnti (“to petrify”) > gjornoti (“to have petrified”) > gjornnuoś (“it has petrified”) > gjornnośjõ (“having petrified”)

Past participle: -ig