murtabak wrote:
- New place of articulation for consonants
- Tone
- Vowel shift
I think such changes in pronunciation could occur quite easily.
- At least two genders
I'm not aware of any documanted case where a language has gained cases. If we were only talking about noun classes, it would perhaps be a little easier. Grammatical gender must trigger some kind of agreement. I'm not really sure about how this might arise. I can just speculate: Perhaps it could start pronouns, which might be regularly attached to the nouns, so that people woudl say "the man him". Which might be grammaticalized as "the manim" or something like that. Perhaps agreement/grammatical gender could arise of people attached the pronoun both to the noun, and to adjectives. So that "the green man" would become "the green him man him", which in turn would become "the greenim manim". (Note: this is pure speculation!)
- At least two cases (e.g. nominative and oblique/accusative)
I the i"original language" has a particle thar marks either the nominative or the accusative/objective case, it can easily be grammaticalized, and thus give rise to cases. The same would be true for adpositions, which easily could give rise to various oblique cases.
murtabak wrote:
- New place of articulation for consonants
- Tone
- Vowel shift
I think such changes in pronunciation could occur quite easily.
- At least two genders
I'm not aware of any documanted case where a language has gained cases. If we were only talking about noun classes, it would perhaps be a little easier. Grammatical gender must trigger some kind of agreement. I'm not really sure about how this might arise. I can just speculate: Perhaps it could start pronouns, which might be regularly attached to the nouns, so that people woudl say "the man him". Which might be grammaticalized as "the manim" or something like that. Perhaps agreement/grammatical gender could arise of people attached the pronoun both to the noun, and to adjectives. So that "the green man" would become "the green him man him", which in turn would become "the greenim manim". (Note: this is pure speculation!)
- At least two cases (e.g. nominative and oblique/accusative)
If the "parent language" has a particle that marks either the objective/accusative or the nominative case, it could easily be grammaticalized.
-Perfective/imperfective distinction
It's a bit tricky. It depends on how this distinction is expressed in the original or parent language. Many languages have no grammatical marking of aspect. It has to be indicated by context. The first step in the development of aspect marking would be to deveop some regular, syntactic means of expressing aspect. For example, certain auxiliary verbs might be used. These verbs might then evolve into particles, whose only function is to mark aspect. The final step is for these particles to be grammaticalized.
- Change in typology (e.g. from predominantly analytic to agglutinating or vice versa)
Languages typically develop from analytic to agglutinating to inflecting/fusional, and then to analytic again. A language that is left for itself for 1000 years or so might change somewhat in this respect. It might become somewhat more isolating, or somewhat more syntetic. It might not be very likely that a language ge from one extrem to another, for example, from a polysynthetic to a radically isolating language, "by itself" in 1000 year. Perhaps in 4000 yera or so, but 1000 years seems to little time. Most languages of the world has both analytic and synthetic features, few are "extreme" in one or the other direction.