Basically, this is a transitional variety between Germanic and Balto-Slavic (two of my favourite IE families), with elements of both but a character of its own. At the moment, I'm just brainstorming some ideas, but comment is appreciated.
Location and Name
Well, given the premise, this is pretty much decided for me: somewhere between the Germanic and Balto-Slavic Urheimats. So probably on the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, probably around the lower Vistula basin. Historically, this area was inhabited by a grouping recorded in Latin and Greek sources as the Veneti (no relation to those found at the head of the Adriatic), and there's some dispute whether they were Balts, Slavs, Germans or quite what. So, for the purposes of this exercise, they're now the speakers of my IE descendant. Let's call the family "Wenetic" for now.
Main Features
(Or: What I want to steal.)
Well, things that Balto-Slavic and Germanic have as common innovations will of course also be present in Wenetic. So that includes things plural oblique case endings in *-m- rather than *-bʰ-, a thematic genitive singular deriving from the ablative and merger of *o and *a. Interestingly, both Balto-Slavic and Germanic have innovated two "series" of adjectives, weak and strong (pronominal in B-S, IIRC). On the other hand, the inflections of the strong forms are not cognate between the two families, so while Wenetic will definitely have two series of adjectives, it remains to be seen how they're formed.
From the Balto-Slavic side, I want satemisation and a mobile accentual system. From Germanic, a three-way distinction in the stop reflexes and apophony as a pervasive grammatical marker.
From an inflectional and syntactic point of view, I'm really not sure yet. My normal habit when doing this kind of this is to run the soundchanges on the parent's inflected forms and then see what mergers and analogies suggest themselves.
Preliminary Sound Changes
This is a bit fast and loose at the moment, and the chronology might be off in places. The soundchanges I'm most firm on are those leading to Proto-Wenetic, which dates to let's say somewhere around the first centuries BC/AD. This puts most of the distinctive features of the family in place, and is the most recent common ancestor of the two historical dialect groupings (for the sake of argument, we'll call these "Littoral" and "Ripuarian" when we get to them.)
Cowgill's Law: *h₂ and *h₃ become *g between a sonorant (one of *w y m n r l) and *w. *n̥h₃wé > *įgwí
Siever's Law: *y and *w develop an epenthetic *i or *u when following a consonant cluster. *ḱérdʰyos > *ḱérdʰiyos > *čérdeya
Decoupling of syllabic sonorants: the syllabic sonorants *m̥ *n̥ *l̥ *r̥ acquired epenthetic vowels: after a (labio-)velar consonant this was *u, otherwise *i. **dn̥ǵʰuh₂ > *dinǯʰū́ > *dįǯū́
Matasović's Law: palatalised dorsals lose their palatalisation when followed by a sonorant and a back vowel. *ḱrópos > *krápa.
Laryngeal merger and first round of loss: the three laryngeals collapse into one, denoted *h (probably representing /ʔ/). This phoneme is then lost word-initially, and between two consonants in non-initial syllables. Note that this takes place after the laryngeals have had their colouring effect on adjacent vowels. **dʰuǵh₂tḗr > *tʰuǯhtḕr > *tʰuštḕ; *dʰuh₂mós > *tʰuhmós > *tʰū́ma
RUKI, the first round: *s becomes *š (probably a voiceless retroflex fricative) when following i y u w r k(ʷ) ḱ g(ʷ)(ʰ) ǵ(ʰ). Note that this operates accross laryngeals. **ksihₓróm > *kšī́rą
Satemisation: the velarised dorsal consonants become affricates: *ḱ ǵ ǵʰ > *č ǯ ǯʰ. *h₁éḱwos > *éčwa; *bʰénǵʰu > *bʰénǯʰu > *pʰę́ǯu
Winter's law: voiced unaspirated stops become preglottalised, merging with sequences of *hC. *tégos > *téhgos > *tḗga
Hirt's Law: the accent is retracted vowels preceding *h in a closed syllable. *dʰuh₂mós > *dʰúhmas > *tʰū́ma
Second laryngeal loss: the remaining laryngeal *h is lost, leading to compensatory lengthening on any preceding vowel. These newly lengthened vowels, when stressed, are typified by a rising tone, while original stressed long vowels are typified by a falling tone. *hₓihₓlu- > *íhlu- > *ī́lu-
Osthoff's Law: long vowels become short in closed syllables where the coda consonant is a sonorant. *gʰḗr > *kʰér
First vowel merger: *o ō become *a ā. *e becomes *i in non-initial syllables. *kʷetwóres > *kʷetwáris > *ketwári
Delabialisation: the labiovelar stops merge with the plain velars. *kʷekʷlóm > *keklą́
First Deaspiration: the aspirated stops merge with the plain voiced stops when preceding another consonant or following a nasal. *bʰéndʰeti > *bʰéndeti[/i] > *pʰę́diti; *bʰréh₂tēr > *brā́tē
Not Grimm's Law: the voiced aspirated stops become voiceless aspirates. *bʰeh₂ǵós > *pʰā́ǯa
Nasalisation: nasal consonants are lost in closed syllables, nasalising the any preceding short vowel in the process: *h₁dónt- > *dąt-
RUKI, the second round: short high oral vowels become mid vowels when preceding i y u w r k g(ʰ): *kʷṛ́mis > *kʷúrmis > *kórmi
Loss of Auslaut Consonants: any remaining word-final consonants are lost. *h₂eǵrós > ā́ǯra.
Kluge's Law: nasal consonants assimilate to a preceding consonant (unless word-initial). *kolnós > *kallá
Pretty similar to Verner's Law: voiceless stops (including voiceless aspirates) become voiced unaspirated stops following an unstressed vowel. (Note that unlike in Germanic, *s is not included in this soundchange.) *ph₂tḗr > *patḗr > *padḗ
Now, if I haven't misled myself entirely, this should give a phoneme inventory somewhere along the following lines:
Code: Select all
labial dental "palatal" velar labiovelar front back
nasal stops m n high ī i į ū u ų
stops [-vce] p t č k
/affricates [+asp] pʰ tʰ čʰ kʰ mid ē e ę
[+vce] b d ǯ g
fricatives s š low ā a ą
sonorants r l y w
*h₁óinos dwṓu tréyes kʷetwóres pénkʷe swéḱs septḿ̥ h₁oḱtṓw néwn̥ déḱm̥t > *áina dwā̀u tréyi kedwári pę́ki swéči sebį́ aǯā̀u náwų déčį