A.M.D.G The Movements of Proto-Martial

Sound Laws

Zerger's Sibilant Rules

Zerger's Sibilant Rules (Z.S.R.) are a set of sound laws, all of which take place in or around sibilants, and are common to all the Martial languages. They essentially set up the basis for Martial syllable structure, vowel length and nasal consonants. They are divided into five phases:

• Zergerian Muogenesis(Z.Mu.):

  p > m / _ [+sibilant]

  Prior to the Z.M. phase (q.v.), /p/ acquires a distinctly nasal character in this particular environment.

• Zergerian Metathesis (Z.M.):

  [+sibilant -long] + [+vowel] > [+vowel]+[+sibilant] / _

  This breaks up the most common clusters in Shapshiruckish, p + sibilant. Z.M. along with Z.L. (v.i.) only act on s and ś, sugesting that there is something unusual about ß. Since in Religio-Marine, ß becomes a 'long s', this feature is described as 'length'.

  This is the beginning of a more general suite of rules which break Proto-Martial into a language with strict (C)V syllable structure. For now, it makes more clusters!

• Zergerian Lengthening (Z.L.):

  [+vowel -length] > [+vowel +length] / [+sibilant -long]_

  The limited scope of this rule allows for the reconstruction of ß, bearing in mind Z.Sh. (q.v.)

• Zergerian Nuogenesis (Z.Nu.):

  ś > sn / _

  This is a temporary step backwards in the conspiracy towards (C)V syllable structure

• Zergerian Shortening (Z.Sh.):

  ß > s / _

  Where Z.L. acts on vowels, Z.Sh. is really just a merger of 'long' ß and s.

Numerical Resolution

The numerical phonemes (Ⅰ, Ⅱ and Ⅲ) can be reconstructed more clearly in Proto-Martial:

• Ⅰ causes following vowels to lengthen, or at the end of words, the vowel preceding it. It is lost, unless it is syllabic, when it goes to ā, where it undergoes later harmonisation:

  [+vowel] > [+vowel +length] / Ⅰ_ or _Ⅰ#

  Ⅰ > ā / [+consonant]_[+consonant] or [+consonant]_#

  Ⅰ > 0 / otherwise

• Ⅱ goes regularly to f or v:

  Ⅱ > f / _

  f > v / [+vowel]_[+vowel]

• Ⅲ goes to z:

  Ⅲ > z / _

Early Martial Forms

These changes are all early, and act to set up the later, more extensive reorganisations that are grouped under 'Martial Harmonisation' (q.v.). Some very early Martial forms can be given as examples of the effect of these changes below:

We also go from:

PśeⅡu pśwraśu bwśer siepśe picai

to

Mēsnfu mw̄snraūsn bwēsnr īsemēsn picai

Blowatz' Law (B.L)

d,t > l / _[+ vowel +rounded +back]

Martial Harmonisation

A complex reorganisation of the vowel system and the addition of a lot of epentheses result in Martial openness/rounding vowel harmony. An interesting result of this is that the many Shapshiruckish paradigms with -u- and -a- suffixes alternate forms depending on the root.

The Martial vowel system settles into an eight-vowel system, with a five-way distinction in long vowels and a three-way distinction in long vowels:

• Martial Purification (M.P.): the dipthongs purify, where they have not already been broken up through Z.S.R. and become long vowels:

  ie > ī / _

  ai > ē / _

  ui > ū / _

• Martial Short Resolution (M.S.R.) Short a i and u continue through much as they are. The resolution of e, w and o depends on their environment:

• In the first syllable of a word, short e, w and o lengthen:

  e,w,o > [+length] / #([+consonant])_

• Elsewhere, If the first vowel in the word is rounded, i.e. {o,ō,u,ū}:

  e,o > a and w > u

• otherwise, i.e. if it is {a,ā,ē,i,ī,ŵ}:

  e,w > i, o > a

• In Martial Epenthesis (M.E.) vowels are added along a similar model to break up consonant clusters and final consonants:

  If the first vowel is...	...the epenthesis is
  a	a
  ā	a
  ē	a
  i	i
  ī	i
  ō	a
  u	u
  ū	u
  ŵ	i

• Mitwitz' Law (M.L.):

  ŵ > ī / _

• Non-Zergerian Deletion (N.Z.D.)

  Between vowels of same quality, but not necessarily same length, s disappears, and the two-vowel cluster goes to a single long vowel.

• Hiatus Resolution (H.R.)

  Where two long vowels are next to each other, the second is lost.

After harmonisation, the forms given before become:

and, continuing to pretend there is no change apart from phonological change, from:

PśeⅡu pśwraśu bwśer siepśe picai.

via

Mēsnfu mw̄snraūsn bwēsnr īsemēsn picai.

to

Mēsanafu mīniraūsani bīsanari īmēsani picē.

Martial Phonology

Consonants

The Martial consonant system is a fairly typical small inventory, with only fourteen items:

Vowels

Martial Numerals

The general form found is:

The system reconstructed is a biquinary system, with the five radical forms: ū—ru bī—na dē—na ta—ri zi—bi, with an infixed sa or cā denoting which group of five is being counted.

These forms differ significantly from the expected forms, which see above, having been modified. In an early stage, all base numerical forms were reduced to trisyllables, where appropriate. Later, at least going by the standard method, the form gōbici transferred from meaning 10, to meaning 20. with the form for 10 being some derivative of zigabi 5. Levelling of middle syllables then occured, to create a cleaner biquinary system.

Martial Nominal Morphology

Of course, there were significant grammatical changes between Shapshrruckish and Proto-Martial. Nouns already tended to be unwieldy, especially with postnouns, and so a radical simplification is found.

-t/l stem: tētilu tetetu monkey would go:

with a postnoun ēzē, bīzē or īzē to boot.

The accusative, in particular, would be an abomination, so it is no wonder that it fell out of use entirely in Martial. A form of the Genitive III took its place, perhaps a generalisation of its use in the Shapshirruckish passive-aggressive. The actual form found, however, is one remodelled after the fashion of the Genitive II, and also the Dative, except that the thematic vowel is a lengthened ā < af.

Similarly, the Genitive I is simplified: the unmarked form remains -aca, but the marked forms reduce to ones similar to the Accusative, but with a short a, losing the distinctive -ac-.

By now, the old Totative is a proper plural, and so frequently used that the tri- and quadrosylllabic endings were also simplified. The -u- in the Nominative was dropped. The -ac- in the plural Genitive I is not lost, but lengthens the following a, creating a long -āī- hiatus.

In the case of tētilu, the form with l in the root was also generalised:

n.b.The unmarked Genitive II is tētilitē, not tētilē. Why is this? This is the regular form, see examples below, which is found where the Shap. root does not end in -t and so does not assimilate to the Genitive II ending.

Except these are not the forms used either:

The postnoun ceased to exist; its number marking function was overly redundant, with the rise of quantity marking on nouns themselves, and its noun-class marking became another suffix that nouns had to carry. In this case: tētilu-na tētilucu-ni.... Generally:

Where there are two forms separated by a stroke, the second form is used for plurals -- this is the form deriving from the Shap. plural sie- postnoun, rather than the e- form.

Two of the forms are simplifications: -na/-ni and -nā where -mēsana/i and -mēsanā are expected.

The cu- (< Shap. cui-) and ca- demonstrative forms survived, replacing their equivalent pronouns, as did the clitic form attached to little adjectives and question adjectives. These latter forms now have more of the character of agreement prefixes, since the number-marking part of the postnoun was dropped, and so they use the same endings as nouns, except as prefixes.

From this beginning, the Shapshirruckish class-marking system undergoes a throughgoing transformation in the Martial languages. Over time, the ten primitive classes, through some unfortunate sound changes, start to collide, causing the descendant forms of the little adjectives to take their place and reform the class system, not without changes due to the special phonetic and semantic qualities of the little adjectives

More examples:

ōsadēru (< Shap. Ⅰosdairu) bone

Expected:

Actual:

It can be seen that ōsadēru differs from tētilu in the following regards:

• Its epenthetic vowel is a, not i.
• Consequently, the non-plural marked forms are not so different from the unmarked forms, especially the Genitive I.
• There is no assimilation of the Shap. -tai Genitive II ending in the original form, resulting in the formation of a new syllable -- the typical case, in fact -- evertheless, no -Vt- is found in most marked words. It remains in unmarked words, and is indeed generalised to cases where there was no epenthetic vowel in the first place -- vid sup..
• The new accusative forms as above, though. Here we also see why the endings are in -ā more clearly. If the epenthetic vowel is a, then -afa- goes easily to ā. This example is easily generalised to cases where one finds -afi- or -afu-.

Again, presented without class marking, which in this case would be -na/-ni for human bones, and -zē for animal ones.

vowel stem: rōbavu (< Shap. robou) pebble

Expected:

Actual:

Note:

• This is a vowel-root noun. Consequently, the Genitive III has v and not f -- a fact of some consequence: this v is added to the Nominative and Dative forms, to break up the vowel clusters!
• -c- and -t- are retained in the genitives, although the Genitive I plural has a lengthened ā too.

The class suffix is -dē.

-f stem: bīnifu (< Shap. (bi)pśiⅡu) earth

Expected:

Actual:

Pronouns

Expected Forms