Glacial Grammar
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This public article was written by [Deactivated User], and last updated on 23 Jul 2021, 04:18.
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1. Glacial Grammar
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This article has been marked as out of date. There's a possibility that some information is incorrect.
This article has been marked as out of date. There's a possibility that some information is incorrect.
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This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
This article is a work in progress! Check back later in case any changes have occurred.
OOD: Forms, alignment
Needs: more tables, more forms, helluvalotta examples, probably several entire sections
Glacial Maakpauean, also known as Proto-Glacial-Maakpauean or simply "Glacial", is the ancestor of most extant Maakpauean languages, including 
Achiyitqan nad 
Siyatsiluq. It was spoken around 700 BCE in northeastern Miraria, in mostly cold regions as the name implies, although its range may have been broader. As writing did not develop in the region until many centuries later, Glacial Maakpauean is a purely reconstructed proto-language, and many of its features remain totally unknown.
[Some information, especially that regarding "what daughter languages did", subject to change.]
Glacial had a moderately sized phonological inventory. Most consonants could occur as geminates, and most vowels could carry high tone.
| Consonants | Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Labiovelar | Velar | Uvular | Glottal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m m: | n n: | ŋ ŋ: | ||||
| Stop | p p: b | t t: d | tʃ | kʷ | k k: g | q q: ɢ | ʔ |
| Fricative | s s: | ʃ | x | h | |||
| Liquid | l l: r r: | j | w |
Some linguists posit /ɸ/ or /ʍ/ in place of /kʷ/.
The voiced stops are sometimes considered allophones of their voiceless, short counterparts.
| Vowels | Front | Centre | Back |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i í | u ú | |
| Mid | e | ɘ ɘ́ | o |
| Open | a á |
The tone system seems to have been a simple pitch-accent system, like some of its daughters, employing only mid and high tones. However, it does appear that high pitch could occur on multiple syllables of a word.
The practical orthography is mostly as per IPA, with a few exceptions:
- /kʷ~ʍ~ɸ/ is typically « kw »
- /ɘ ɘ́/ « ə ó »
- /ʃ tʃ/ is « ɥ c »
- /ɢ/ « ġ »
- /ʔ/ has a lowercase form, « ɂ »
- /j/ is usually « j » but accidents happen so there might be some « y »
The exact phonotactics of Glacial are not precisely known, but it is thought to have been slightly more restrictive than some of its daughters, allowing slightly less egregious consonant clusters. Following this hypothesis, some languages aggressively deleted unstressed central vowels in most contexts, while other languages retained vowels in those positions. An alternate hypothesis is that Glacial had these clusters, and other languages broke them up through epenthesis.
As the simpler of the two main parts of speech, we will look at nouns first.
Noun classes
Glacial distinguishes three semantic noun categories: animate, moderate, and inanimate. Nouns are always directly marked with an animacy suffix (see below for forms), and their animacy is also an inherent feature (it is never changed, unless a new word is being derived). Besides the noun marking, animacy is also reflected in pronoun choice and verbal agreement.
Animacy is generally predictable based on semantic criteria. The animate class contains all people and most animals, as well as a few extremely 'agentive' items or concepts (based on cultural understanding). The inanimate class, at the opposite end of the spectrum, contains all totally inanimate, solid, unmoving things. The 'moderate' class straddles the middle between these two extremes, including fluids, most abstract concepts, and many objects or materials that are pliable, semisolid, etc, including body parts.
Alongside the semantic classes there were also two purely phonological paradigms: the N-class (for roots ending in a nasal), and the O-class (for everything else). The O-class is by far more common. The two phonological classes have slightly different declension paradigms (see below).
Noun marking
Nouns are marked for definiteness (definite and indefinite), case (nominative, accusative, oblique, and genitive), number (singular and plural), and animacy (animate, moderate, and inanimate—see above).
The definite was marked with the preclitic k(ə)=, which could affix directly to the noun or instead to free-floating prepositions, and the indefinite was unmarked. The indefinite was unmarked. The definite marker did not co-occur with possessive pronouns or other determiners/demonstratives (see Noun Phrase section).
Case, number, and animacy endings
The case endings showed some degree of fusion at this point, as well as some suppletive forms.
| Animate nouns | Nominative | Accusative | Oblique | Genitive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| O-class | SG | -we | (-ə) | -(i)s | -kó |
| PL | -(ə)kʷa | -kʷes | -(i)la | -kója | |
| N-class | SG | -Nə | -N | -wis | -ŋó |
| PL | -əNa | -uN | -Na | -ŋója | |
Vowels in brackets did not appear if the stem ended in two vowels.
The Ns in the above typically represented the noun's own final nasal consonant; as such, the accusative singular is actually considered unmarked. The plural Nominative and Accusative forms additionally reduplicated the stem-final nasal a second time.
Some examples:
- likga, n.o.an. sibling
- SG: likgawe, likgaə, likgais, likgakó
- PL: likgakʷa, likgakʷes, likgaila, likgakója
- SG: likgawe, likgaə, likgais, likgakó
- úcia, n.o.an. waxwing
- SG: úciawe, úcia, úcias, úciakó
- PL: úciakʷa, úciakʷes, úciala, úciakóka
- SG: úciawe, úcia, úcias, úciakó
- anədun, n.n.an. narwhal
- SG: anədunnə, anədun, anədunwis, anəduŋó
- PL: anədunəna, anədunun, anədunna, anəduŋója
- SG: anədunnə, anədun, anədunwis, anəduŋó
- puwam, n.n.an. lemming
- SG: puwammə, puwam, puwamwis, puwaŋó
- PL: puwaməma, puwamum, puwamma, puwaŋója
- SG: puwammə, puwam, puwamwis, puwaŋó
- náġiŋ, n.n.an. snow goose
- SG: náġiŋə, náġiŋ, náġiŋwis, náġiŋó
- PL: náġiŋəŋa, náġiŋuŋ, náġiŋŋa, náġiŋója
- SG: náġiŋə, náġiŋ, náġiŋwis, náġiŋó
Moderates table here... for now: [n-class] • [o-class]
Inanimates table here... for now: [n-class] • [o-class]
Two very common derivational endings are -jo and -qə, the base moderate and inanimate nominalizers respectively.
Noun phrases
Nouns can take a number of adpositions, which occur before definite nouns and attracted the definite preclitic k(ə)-, and could appear before or after indefinite nouns.
The noun phrase contains the attributive adjective, which tend to appear after the noun, unless it has a preclitic indefinite adposition, in which case it often moved to the position directly following that. The most common noun phrase orders were therefore the following:
Ø=ADP ADJ N
N ADJ Ø=ADP
- kəre góuróis əsraal | DEFDefinite
"the"-from dog-OBOblique (case)
marked case, vs. direct.SGSingular (number)
one countable entity-nice | from the nice dog
- re əsraal góuróis | INDEFIndefinite
a nonspecific referent.from nice dog-OBOblique (case)
marked case, vs. direct.SGSingular (number)
one countable entity | from a nice dog
- əsraal góuróis re | nice dog-OBOblique (case)
marked case, vs. direct.SGSingular (number)
one countable entity INDEFIndefinite
a nonspecific referent.from | from a nice dog
Nouns in a list occur with the clitic conjunction mer after each noun — including after the last one listed. This developed into the 'conjunctive case' in Achiyitqan.
- Liəsəkwa gijasəs[?] caphawaga mer xanusa mer hlásita mer.
bird-ANAnimate (gender/class)
alive, moving.NOMNominative (case)
TRANS subject, INTR argument.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few PRESPresent tense (tense)
current-have-ANAnimate (gender/class)
alive, moving.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few beak-INANInanimate (gender/class)
inanimate, sessile.ACCAccusative (case)
TRANS direct object; patient.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few CONJConjunction
links two arguments or clauses together feather-INANInanimate (gender/class)
inanimate, sessile.ACCAccusative (case)
TRANS direct object; patient.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few CONJConjunction
links two arguments or clauses together wing-MODModerate (animacy)
not-quite-animate.ACCAccusative (case)
TRANS direct object; patient.PLPlural (number)
more than one/few CONJConjunction
links two arguments or clauses together
'Birds have beaks, feathers and wings.'
Pronouns function very similarly to nouns, showing the same inflections (number and case). Unlike nouns however, they show a four-way animacy distinction in the third person, separating 'sentient' from 'animate.' (There is evidence that nouns may once have made this distinction as well, but that due to similarity in the phonological forms, the paradigms merged.) Many pronouns have suppletive forms, and their case markings generally do not resemble the ones found on nouns.
There are four persons, with the fourth being an obviative (secondary third person — not distinguished by animacy). There were no distinct demonstrative pronouns, and the third and fourth person pronouns were often split to refer to proximal/distal entities.
| Number | Singular | Plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Person | NOM | ACC | OBL | GEN | NOM | ACC | OBL | GEN |
| 1 | xip | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 2 | tahn | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 3.SEN | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 3.AN | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 3.MOD | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 3.IN | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| 4 | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
[a wip for me backderivin]
Glacial had a large verbal prefix paradigm, with twenty tense/aspect particles and incorporated object nouns or pronouns. None of the tense/aspect forms were unmarked, and verbs also took little v suffixes including subject agreement, which may have been obligatory, making for quite a bulky verb. The order of morphemes was therefore:
There are eight tenses: remote past, past, recent past, present, future, remote future, gnomic, and infinitive. The three aspects are the simple, perfective, and progressive. Tense-aspect occur in an agglutinative-nearing-fused string.
TA prefixes table
The little v devices include two passives (one intransitive, one 'transitive'), a reciprocal, and a reflexive. Verbs also showed number agreement, with the singular generally unmarked, and the plural agreement also indicating the subject's animacy.
A postclitic subject pronoun could also occur.
Modals and a limited set of evidentials occured as part of a verbal clitic complex.
There were two negatives, both of which seemed to have been auxiliaries, discussed below.
Predicative adjectives were simply copular verbs, sometimes distinguished from their attributive form with a verbalizer.
There were a number of verbal auxiliaries, notably including two distinct negative auxiliaries. Most auxiliaries occurred before the verb, but some occupied a post-verbal slot, and a smaller number yet could appear in either.
The negative auxiliaries were rə and hínə. It is unclear whether these originally had different functions, or if the latter was simply emerging to replace the former, which has eroded in some/most daughter languages. The only notable distinction to their distribution was that rə was pre-verbal, and hínə post-.
Other notable auxiliaries included a debitive and capacitive.
The verbal modal clitic typically appeared as a postclitic, appearing on either the verb proper or an auxiliary.
Verbal adverbs tended to occur immediately after the verb.
The order of the verb phrase could therefore be either:
V ADV AUX=MOD
The basic word order was either SVO or SOV. There is evidence that SVO was preferred, possibly to help differentiate between separated and incorporated objects (which occur pre-verbally), but it is unclear if both were used.
Sentence-level adverbs could occur initially, finally, or immediately after the verb; adverbs modifying adjectives appeared immediately after the adjective in question.
Possessors, whether nouns or pronouns, always followed their possessee (after any applicable postpositions or adjectives).
Subordinate clauses were generally simply marked, with a subordinating conjunction or determiner.
Relative clauses could be formed in one of two ways: using a relative pronoun, or nominalizing a verb using one of three special relativizing suffixes (one for each animacy class). The latter method was preferred for intransitive verbs (including those with reduced valence due to object incorporation), and the former for more complex phrases.
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