Studies in Yeyzalha diachronics

[Porphyrogenitos]

I'm going to be sharing some content on a till-now-unnamed conlang that I originally posted elsewhere. It's not exactly a general outline of the language, but perhaps I will be able to piece one together from it. The language's original name is/was Yeyzalha, but it is perhaps more often known by the appellations Hurya Aztral or Hurya Sisaztral - whose meanings will become clear later.

We'll start with some basic nominal morphology.

The Noun and Definiteness

The word for "father" in Yeyzalha is zutər. This is the base form of the noun, and takes initial stress, as is the case for the base form of all nouns.

The definite form of zutər is zotra. It would appear upon initial inspection that zutər is marked for definiteness through the lowering of its first vowel and word-final metathesis, but the diachronic explanation actually involves neither of these.

The earlier form of zutər was actually zutr, wherein /r/ could be analyzed as either syllabic or part of a cluster. Later on, however, the cluster /tr/ was epenthesized, and the vowel /a/ was inserted to break it up.

However, when zutr was affixed with the definite suffix -a, this epenthesis was not triggered, as the cluster /tr/ was no longer word-final.

This resulted in two forms: zutar and zutra. A subsequent sound change occurred in which vowels in closed syllables were spontaneously shortened. The two forms were thus zutăr and zŭtra.

Next, the short vowels were lowered - in the cases of ŭ and ĭ, merging into /o/ and /e/, respectively. (Note that ă was not actually lowered, but instead reduced to /ə/.)

We are then left with the final forms of unmarked zutər and definite zotra. We can observe equivalent differences between the unmarked and definite forms of "mother": zohər and zɔrha. Note, however, that zɔrha exhibits an actual, irregular case of metathesis - in which original /hr/ was flipped to /rh/.

[Porphyrogenitos]

The Noun and Number

Next, we will look at the different ways nouns can be inflected for number in Yeyzalha. This is a fairly messy topic. Nouns in Yeyzalha distinguish between the singular and the plural. The singular is simply unmarked, while there are two principal ways of forming the plural.

The first is through reduplication of the initial syllable (minus the coda). This is the more ancient method of marking plurality, and it is still the only method used with pronouns.

The second method is through the addition of the plural prefix a-. This originated from a distal demonstrative, ha, which, oddly enough, later become the source of the definite suffix -a. While most nouns can take both forms of the plural, with most nouns one form is far more commons. One form of the plural tends to predominate in a particular semantic grouping. For example, kinship terms tend to take the prefixed plural, while the names of trees tend to take the reduplicative plural. In some cases, the two methods have become conflated, often through dropping of the initial consonant in the reduplicated form.

The plural form of zutər is aztər, with the definite plural being aztra. This is because intertonic (i.e. unstressed and word-internal) vowels were lost at an earlier stage of the language - note that both the plural prefix and the reduplicated plural take primary stress. Because this happened after the gain of phonetic vowel length and its subsequent transphonologization to phonemic height, the plural prefix a- has not been reduced to /ə/.

We see a progression like this: azutr azutra → azutar azutra → azutăr azŭtra → azutər azotra → aztər aztra

Another word to use as an example is mər, “son”, with the definite form mara, and plurals amər and ambra. Note the excrescent /b/ inserted between /m/ and /r/ in the definite plural form. The plural forms mamər and mambra, with reduplication, are also found on occasion.

[Porphyrogenitos]

I'm going to discuss possession next, but first I briefly want to cover personal pronouns.

Personal Pronouns

Yeyzalha has no grammatical gender and does not mark for case. Its pronouns are no exception.

The pronominal paradigm is quite simple. Pluralization is marked through simple reduplication, so the various forms are as follows:

1s: si
1p: sisi

2s: ya
2p: yaya

3s: gir
3p: gigir

For the plural forms, stress is on the initial, reduplicated syllable. There is one other personal pronoun, a second-person formal, that does not fit into this paradigm: stotya

[Porphyrogenitos]

Possession

As with, for example, the Algonquian languages, the principal method of marking possession in Yeyzalha is simply by prefixing the bare pronoun (the possessor) to the possessed noun. Such constructions are known as the possessed form of the noun. As with the plural prefix, the prefixed pronouns also take the primary stress.

The alternative to this - used when the possessor is a noun, or when otherwise called for by context - is to place the possessive form of a pronoun or noun after the possessed noun. This could perhaps be analyzed as a case, but since it originates relatively recently from the contraction of the old possessive postposition la to a suffix -l, and forms a part of no greater case system, it is not generally considered to be one.

When both methods are used, it is for emphasis or to indicate affection, somewhat like a diminutive: e.g. simər sil, "my [dear] son of mine".

Definiteness is still distinguished on possessed nouns. For example, the two words siztər and siztra - "my father [unmarked/indef]" and "my father [def]", respectively - could perhaps be translated as "a father of mine" and "my father", or more periphrastically as "a man who is my father" and "the man who is my father".

I will be sharing the complete paradigm of the word zutər in the next post, along with a discussion of some analogical levelling, but for the moment I'll leave you with this example, the emphatic gigrmamər gigrla - "some sons of theirs", using the reduplicative plural of mər. Note that the loss of intertonic vowels resulted in the innovation of a new syllabic /r/ in gigrmamər, and also note that the /a/ is retained on the suffix -l when it would otherwise produce an impermissible word-final cluster (in this case, /rl/).

[Porphyrogenitos]

The Nominal Paradigm

Or, well, the paradigm of one particular word.

Here we see the inflection of zutər in the "oldest" stage of Yeyzalha:



Note that in this stage of Yeyzalha, no form of vowel length existed at all - adjacent vowels of the same quality simply merged together into one vowel of regular length. Thus, the singular and plural forms of second-person-possessed zutər are identical.

And here we see its inflection after two major sound changes have taken place - the creation of short vowels plus their subsequent merger, and the deletion of intertonic vowels. Or, rather, how it would have been inflected had it not been for some assimilation and some analogical changes. (Note: Intertonic /i/ /e/ and /u/ /o/ immediately preceding another vowel were not deleted, but rather reduced to /j/ and /w/, respectively - thus sisyaztər and sisyaztra.)



What happened next was that /s/ in the cluster /sz/ assimilated to /z/, producing a geminate /z/. (I guess that maybe /sz/ wasn't actually a "thing" at any point in time - it would have been immediately assimilated due to a surface filter forbidding clusters like /sz/ and /fv/.)

Anyways, we're then left with second-person plural possessed forms that don't line up with the others - they're identical with the second-person singular possessed forms. The other forms - "our/their father" and "our/their fathers" - all take the rough format of CVC(C)atzər and CVC(C)aztra, respectively, while "your (pl.) father" and "your (pl.) fathers" are sticking out with CVCzutər and CVCzotra. And this is all because of that merged /a/ that happened back at the earlier stage of the language.

Long story short, the second-person plural possessed forms get shunted into the CVC(C)atzər and CVC(C)aztra formats, as well.



It's far too early to assert that Yeyzalha is a "triconsonantal language", but there's plenty more analogical leveling and template-building going on in other areas of its vocabulary, and Yeyzalha's descendants simply advance this trend further, becoming something that might be compared to a triconsonantal language. The funny thing is, I didn't actually plan this, but as I worked out what the nominal morphology of Yeyzalha, I realized that that's probably what would eventually happen.

Next up is a bit about the indefinite prefix - or, rather, proclitic.

[Sevly]

Loving the attention to small details in these posts, keep 'em coming :=)

[gestaltist]

A wonderful thread. Subscribing.

[Porphyrogenitos]

A wonderful thread. Subscribing.

Loving the attention to small details in these posts, keep 'em coming :=)

Well thank you both so much! I'm finally getting around to posting the next part. I'm actually holding off on the indefinite prefix for the next time.

The History of Ha

Earlier I mentioned that the plural prefix a- and the definite suffix -a actually originate from the same source - the archaic distal demonstrative ha.

In earlier stages of Yeyzalha, demonstrative determiners were placed before the noun. Over time, the distal demonstrative came to be used in a manner that suggested plurality, as well as distance. A sort of semantic shift of distance → unfamiliarity → indistinguishability → numerousness. As if you were actually saying "those ones over there" every time you said "that" or "those" (the demonstratives did not mark for number).

Eventually, as ha became almost completely washed of its original, purely demonstrative meaning, speakers who wanted to use ha as a demonstrative started placing it both before and after the noun for emphasis. Out of analogy, the proximal demonstrative also came to be placed after the noun, and the pre-nominal ha was then fully grammaticalized as a plural prefix and reduced to /a/. It then came to supplant the original pluralization method of reduplication, in many cases.

Later on, the post-nominal demonstrative ha underwent a run-of-the-mill change where it became a marker of definiteness. It was again reduced to /a/ - though the historical /h/ resurfaces after word-final fricatives, to which it assimilates. Thus, mər becomes mara, but zɔs becomes zɔssa (not *zɔsa). (Also notice that /ɔ/ remains lowered in the definite form of zɔs since the geminated /s/ creates a closed syllable.)

After the shift of ha to a definite suffix, a new distal demonstrative was innovated, consisting of ha plus…something I haven’t decided on yet. Maybe a phrase meaning “over there”, or a verb form meaning “[the] seen” or “[the] mentioned”.

[Porphyrogenitos]

The Indefinite Morpheme

The unmarked form of the noun in Yeyzalha is not truly indefinite - as in English, all nouns must have a determiner. But unlike in English, the plural affix does not count as a determiner - though an affixed possessor does.

In any case, indefiniteness is marked by the morpheme ur-, a proclitic. It does not take primary stress and does not affect the stress pattern or form of the noun, unlike the plural and definite affixes. Ur- is a reduced form of the numeral "one", ure.

Ur- assimilates to the following consonant if it is coronal (much like the Arabic sun letters).

Some examples:

uzzutər "a father"

urkamil zutər "a wise father"

urmər zotral "a son of the father" but not *urgirztər "a son of his" - that would just be girztər "a son of his"