Friday, December 12, 2008

Hidden consonant stems

I was just realizing while lying in bed this morning that, since /t/ disappeared word-finally, there's bound to be a whole class of nouns that appear vowel-final (and might even end with /-e/ or /-o/ which otherwise don't exist in the absolutive because of the final raising rule) but decline differently in some cases than the genuine vowel stems. For example:

Stems in -t, Singular

A perhet-Ø > perhe
E perhet-nës > perhennes > perhes* (?)
G perhet-v > (perhetu)
I perhet-hën > perheten > perhen* (?)
S perhet-še > perheitsi > perheis
P perhet-da > perhetta
V perhet-t > perhe

* We really need to decide about that paradigmatic leveling issue ASAP.

Stems in -t, Plural

There's a big question here as to what happens to the /-t-/. Followed as it is by /i/, it ought to become an /s/ in every case; but it's also not inconceivable that it could have dropped out, leaving a bunch of vowels to resolve themselves into something pronounceable. Part of this is going to involve figuring out the chronology of the changes.

A perhet-i-Ø > perhesi > perhie (?)
E perhet-i-nis > perhesis > perhies (?)
G perhet-i-u > (perhesiu > perheju (?))
I perhet-i-hin > perhesin > perhien (?)
S perhet-i-še > perhesis > perhies/perheis (?)
P perhet-i-da > perhesia > perheja (?)
V perhet-i-t > perhesi > perhie (?)

I'm interested to see what happens when other vowels precede the /-t/. For example, from original rahat, velit, huonot, olut we'd have:

raha, rahas, rahan, rahais, rahatta, raha; rahai, rahais, rahain, rahaja, rahai
veli, velis, velin, velis, velitta, veli; velī, velīs, velīn, velija, velī
huono, huonos, huonon, huonois, huonotta, huono; huonoi, huonois, huonoin, huonoja, huonoi
olu, olus, olun, oluis, olutta, olu; olui, oluis, oluin, oluja, olui.

So, then, the cases in which we see a departure from vowel-final stems with the same ultimate vowel would be absolutive singular (-et and -ot stems), similative, partitive singular, ergative and instrumental plural (all except -ut stems), partitive plural (-et stems) and vocative plural (all except -it stems).

I have this feeling that maybe the -s- only rather recently dropped out, recently enough for those forms to be used in the modern language to evoke an old-fashioned or very formal feel.

Next question: What about verbs? Should they also exist with all possible vocalic stems? And what happens with /-t/ stems?

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Declension of -i and -u stems

I've been realizing for some time that Seadi as originally designed has an artificially small number of declension classes. Back in 2005 I figured out consonant-stem nominals, and I knew that I was going to have to open up -i and -u eventually; apparently "eventually" meant about three years later, and here's my first draft as of this morning's BART ride.

Stems in -i, Singular

A turr-i-Ø > turri
E turr-i-nis > turris
G turr-i-v > (turriu)
I turr-i-hin > turrin
S turr-i-še > turrie
P turr-i-da > turria
V turr-i-t > turri

Stems in -i, Plural

A turr-i-i-Ø > turrī
E turr-i-i-nis > turrīs/turries?
G turr-i-i-v > (turriju)
I turr-i-i-hin > turrīn/turrien?
S turr-i-i-še > turrīs
P turr-i-i-da > turrija
V turr-i-i-t > turrī

Stems in -u, Singular

A karh-u-Ø > karhu
E karh-u-nus > karhus
G karh-u-v > (karhū)
I karh-u-hun > karhun
S karh-u-še > karhui
P karh-u-da > karhua
V karh-u-t > karhu

Stems in -u, Plural

A karh-u-i-Ø > karhui
E karh-u-i-nis > karhūs/karhīs
G karh-u-i-v > (karhuju)
I karh-u-i-hin > karhūn/karhīn
S karh-u-i-še > karhuis
P karh-u-i-da > karhuja
V karh-u-i-t > karhū

Now for the interesting part: I need to decide how paradigmatic leveling is going to affect not only these paradigms, but nominal inflection in general. Given that Seadi is inflectional and not agglutinative, there really ought to be a lot less consistency in the declensional endings.