An Old Sumrë Reference Grammar

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An Old Sumrë reference grammar

Marcas Brian MacStiofáin Ó Mhaitiú Ó Domhnaill

3 June 2016


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Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Phonology & Orthography 32.1 Phonemic inventory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.1.1 Vowels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.1.2 Consonants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32.1.3 Orthography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2.2 Pitch accent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

3 Nouns 73.1 Sux hierarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.2 Noun gender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73.3 Noun case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

3.3.1 Common nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83.3.2 -Geo nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.3.3 -B nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.3.4 -O nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

3.4 Deniteness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.5 Noun formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133.6 Noun enforcement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.7 Similies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143.8 e conjunction ‘and’ with nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.9 Comparative and Superlative constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.9.1 Comparative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153.9.2 Superlative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.10 Locative nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

4 Pronouns & determiners 174.1 Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174.2 Determiners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

4.2.1 Interrogative pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194.2.3 Existential pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

5 Adjectives & Adverbs 215.1 Adjective agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

5.1.1 Agreeing with buzzard nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215.1.2 Agreeing with deer nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225.1.3 Agreeing with animate nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225.1.4 Agreeing with inanimate nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235.1.5 Adjective formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

5.2 Adverb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

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1 Introduction

In the modern year of this world 1300AM, on the snowy mountainous continent called Malomanan(meaning land of deer)„ there are 11 languages spoken amongst the people with a diversity of soundand form. ese languages can be sorted into the following branches:

In the Moichic branch is Moicha and Foriab In the Lelic branch is Lelic In the Lemric branch is Lemre In the A-Sumric branch is Shúfre and Somi In the West M-Sumric branch is Pwr and Terch In the East M-Sumric branch is Eamyr In the Nümmezsic branch is Émade and Iriaid .

All of these languages descend from a common ancestor, Old Sumrë. Back in the good old dayswhen that was spoken in Malomanan the Sumric peoples were one people who named themselvesthe Sumnë with one tongue. ey lived by hunting wild deer and followed the herds along theirmigrations giving them a nomadic lifestyle. As such Old Sumrë is abound with words deriving fromthe roots sum ‘travel’ and loman ‘deer’. e constant moving around meant no regional varietiescould develop. But that changed when a giant wolf spirit called Ólñam Yáron ‘evil wol’ came andgorged on the deer population, it ate so much that there was hardly any le for the Sumnë to hunt,

causing a famine. But all was saved when another spirit called Mâwátar Ra ‘buzzard of language’came and fought Ólñam Yáron. Aer 12 epic bales the evil wolf was defeated. But the deerpopulation took a long time to recover, in fact it never did recover to its previous numbers. iscaused many Sumnë to leave the nomadic life and sele in small villages. e rst to do this seledon a nearby island called Mûlelwe lamnan and lived by shing, they were known as the Lamnë(seled people). Over time the speech grew apart from those on the mainland becoming Lemre(seled language) but the Antagan Empire invaded that island and imposed their own languagein the natives causing the extinction of Lemre, the Island was renamed by the empire to Lem Pars(Lem Island in the Tynes tongue.) Lemre has since been ”revived” due to nationalist sentimentagainst the Antagan Empire which outlawed the language. it was recorded by Antagan scholarsbefore its death, the record they created founded the base of Lemre’s revival many generations

later During this time the mainland language also changed into Middle Sumri.A century or so later more Sumnë le the nomad life and seled on the Southeastern coast.

ey developed a very basic form of agriculture (as much as the harsh land would allow) but alsoshed the seas and hunted in the nearby forests, over time these selements grew into small townsand began trading when the Antagan Empire discovered them, causing the selements to growfurther, aracting even more trading from other nations. e language of these people becameMoicha. However the most southern of these selements found themselves in a vast temperategrassland with fertile soil and large stone deposits which the people, who now call themselvesthe Foranía (people of the plain) used to build stone houses with, the more powerful leaders builtlarge stone towers for defensive purposes and as status symbols. Although horses were introduced

to Malomanan from the Henda continent, the Foranía imported them and became ne horsemen

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1 Introduction

themselves and lead raids against the Moicha on horseback. ere is great tension and bloodshedbetween the Moicha and Foranía due to the Moicha’s growing greed of land and insistence thatthe Foranía are no more than ’rebellious Moicha on horseback’. is tension caused the Foranía toraid the Moicha border, these raids would then escalate into Malomanan’s rst full scale war. elanguage of the Foranía is related to Moicha and is called Foriab.

Sometime aer that more of the Sumnë abandoned the nomad life and seled on a small groupof islands to the south west, over time the speech grew apart from Middle Sumri and becameMalelweri (island language) but as the population on the islands grew they people expanded theirselements around the South West coast. By this time the languages changed once more to becomeMaifri. Some of these people continued further up the western coast into a more mountainous andforested area called Pwrlw, their language became Pwr. ose who remained on the South Westcoast and islands now speak Terch in the Terchlú territory, a sister language to Pwr. Some of the people that never moved to the islands moved northwards into the Múna mountains wherethey encountered a species of giant eagle that had want of human esh. Instead of eeing the nwinhabitants of the Múna mountains fought re with re and raided the nests of the giant eaglesand raised the hatchlings in human captivity. By doing this they bred tame giant eagles that wouldprotect humans from their wild cousins but they could also be rode on like a horse of the sky. Aersome time the population grew higher than the mountains could support so a large number of people saddles their eagles and embarked on a great migration eastward in the skies. ey ed sofar east until they met the wide ocean beyond them and an empty land beneath them. ey seledon the far eastern island Vémá which had never known human or eagle before. eir languagechanged by leaps and bounds over time to become Eamyr.

During the seventh bale between Ólñam Yáron and Mâwátar Ra, which took place in the centreof the continent by the eastern mountain range, Mâwátar Ra being the language spirit screeched abooming call in the divine tongue to the skies to herald an epic rain storm. e heavy rain causedthe surrounding land to become a quagmire of wet and quick mud which trapped Ólñam Yáron

and allowed Mâwátar Ra to aack from the air (for it had the form of a buzzard, hence its namemâwátar ra which means ‘buzzard’) though through trickery the wolf spirit escaped, leaving agreat depression in the ground where it had been stuck which quickly lled with water to becomea great lake. e bale itself and the now marshy land had trapped a band of Sumnë and separatedthem from the rest of nomads. ese people learned to take advantage of the marshy habitat byliving o the new life the marshy wetlands would bring. ey became the Lericnaté , a quaint andisolated people and in time their speech became Lelic.

Now back to the remaining nomads, now speaking Late Middle Sumri. e deer populationsstill not back to their past numbers was puing more pressure on the remaining nomads. So yetagain a great number of them le the nomad life, they le Malomanan altogether. ey set out onboats and headed south, praying that the winds would blow them somewhere plentiful. And those

prayers were answered. ey came upon a tropical archipelago bustling with natural resources.e islands were already inhabited by natives who spoke an isolating tongue called Gāl Nâg, theycalled the islands Trez Gal meaning ’three warriors’ referring to the 3 main islands. But no conicthappened. None. Everyone was welcomed with open arms and it wasn’t long before the two peopleinterbred in race and language, the Sumric tongue was the dominant language but it took on thevoiced sounds of Gāl Nâg and became Zūvri, aer more time and more mingling with nativesthe language simplied greatly, dropping all cases and much of the tenses and became Shúfre.In the Shúfre language ’Trez Gāl’ became Trégal. ere the people became great seafarers andsailors known around the world for their nautical prowess. Back home to Malomanan, the veryfew nomads le now speak Somi, which in itself changes greatly in terms of sounds but simplied

by dropping all cases, though this process started way back in Late Middle Sumri.

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2 Phonology & Orthography

2.1 Phonemic inventory

2.1.1 Vowels

ʌ•ɔ•

o•

u•

a, aː•

ɛ•

e•

i•

ɔʊ

2.1.2 Consonants

Labial Labiodental Alveolar Palatal Velar Gloal

Plosive p b t d k g

Nasal m n ɲ

Fricative f v s h

Approximant j w

L.approximant l

Trill r

Homosyllabic consonant clusters are relatively rare in Old Sumrë, having only three which are rn,rm and lm, but even these have a short schwa inserted between the two consonants:

ern [ɛrən ̆]/‘big’

-ërm [erə m̆] ‘hearsay sux’ralm [ralə ̆m]/‘long’

hetero-syllabic consonants on the other hand are perfectly legal and do oen occur.

2.1.3 Orthography

e Latin orthography of Old Sumrë is the one used in modern transcriptions on the language andwas devised by modern scholars. e orthography is very shallow with a 1:1 phonemic represen-tation. Diacritics that mark phonemic vowels are the circumex and diaeresis to dierentiate /aː, ʌ, e, o/ from /a, u, ɛ, ɔ/. e acute accent is used to mark high pitch on a

syllable with the underdot being high pitch allographs of .

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2 Phonology & Orthography

e writing system of contemporary Old Sumrë was an abiguda named Rësóra or ‘cloth lan-guage’. It was wrien with the ngers on cloth with ink made of crushed berries, the blood of hunted game or any liquid that would last. e cloths served as messages as the Sumnë, werenomadic and whenever they le a campsite they tied a cloth to a tree for the next nomads to arrivein that area to read which would say if the water was safe to drink, what animals there was to

hunt and any possible dangers nearby. As such most of the contemporary writing in Old Sumrëis just short messages. When the Sumnë were divided into many separate tribes aer the wolf spirit Olñam Yaron aacked the land the lifestyle changed (except for the Somoñi who keep theold lifestyle). Many of the Sumnë seled into villages and had no need for the Rësora script asthey didn’t need to leave messages anymore and so the script fell out of use. Centuries later his-torians and enthusiasts, such as the Pwrina shepherd Wgofswo and the Foranía linguist Ğüglëfer,would study what evidence remains of it. But by this time another writing system had come intouse due to contact with the rest of the world so Rësora’s use in modern times is restricted mostlyto native art. Although some of the Lemne tried to bring back the script for the revived Lemrelanguage as part of a cultural revival, but its success was quite limited. e following table showsthe graphemes and their IPA:

Leer IPA

a aạ â aːb bc kd de ɛ

ẹ ë e

f f g gh hi il l

m mn nñ ɲo ɔ

ọ ô oow oʊ

p pr rs st tu u

ụ û ʌv vw wy j

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2.2 Pitch accent

2.2 Pitch accent

Old Sumrë has a phonemic pitch accent, (known as swẹrë or ‘crooked speech,’ where a word has ahigh pitch on the penultimate syllable with a low pitch on the preceding syllable. e pitch paernis a shiing is a shiing one as certain conditions can cause the pitch to fall on dierent syllables

than the root word. An example of this in nouns is deniteness which causes the high pitch tofall on the nal syllable and the low pitch on the penultimate syllable. Another condition is com-pounding as this increases the number of syllables for the pitch to fall on:

lústas [lústas] ‘fruit’ → lastás [làstás] ”the fruit”lústas + -var ‘sux denoting a typical location o’ → lustásvar [lùstásvar] ‘fruit tree’

lustásvar [lùstásvar] ‘fruit tree’ → lastasvár [lastàsvár] ‘the fruit tree’e high pitch is marked with an acute accent with the preceding low pitch being unmarked as

the next syllable having an acute accent is enough to indicate that the previous syllable has a lowpitch. One exception to this is when the syllable with high pitch contains / aː, ʌ, e, o/ due to theromanisations being . Stacking the acute accent on the pre-existing diacritics wouldbe unsightly so instead these leers have allographs specically for when these vowels have highpitch which are respectively for example; disrụten [dìsrʌ ́tɛn] ‘to claim’ → disrûtáras [disrʌ ̀ táras] ‘you claimed’Monosyllabic do not use the acute accent as it is obvious that the highpitch will fall on the only syllable.

e pitch accent originated in Proto-Sumric’s stress. Proto-Sumric placed stress on the initialsyllable of a word except in denite nouns where the stress shied to the nal syllable of thestem. In Old Sumrë’s derivation the stress shied to the penultimate syllable while the denitestress shiing extended from being restricted to the stem to falling on axes. Stressed syllablesthen became high pitch with the preceding unstressed syllable taking a low pitch. Function words

however lost their stress and so never gained pitch.

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3 Nouns

3.1 Suix hierarchy

Being a highly inecting language, nouns very oen do take on several suxes so there is a spe-cic order in which these suxes aach to the noun which is as follows. e brackets denote asux may or may not be included, depending on context:

noun + (case) + (number) + (possessive) + (conjunction)

• yáron → yáron ‘wol’

• yáron + a → yaróna ‘wol’s’

• yáron + a + ca → yaronáca ‘and wol’s ’

3.2 Noun gender

ere are four genders which are buzzard, deer, animate and inanimate. e buzzard and deer noungenders have nothing to do with their namesakes as evidenced by the fact the noun loman ‘deer’ isa buzzard noun. e way to tell which gender a noun belongs to is very simple. If the nouns ends ina vowel then it is in the deer gender, if it ends in a consonant then it is on the buzzard gender. One

exception to this rule are the animate and inanimate nouns. ere are a small number of nounsthat belong to the animate/inanimate genders and they always end in derivational suxes whichtended to preserve the animate/inanimate case endings of Proto-Sumric albeit each sux does itin its own irregular way. Even when these suxes are applied to new words they will go in theanimate/inanimate gender, with the exact gender being assigned semantically based on whetherthe noun is alive or not. e sux -géo ‘cover of, surrounding’ is a prime example of this:

• súlar ‘eye’. deer noun → sulargéo ‘eyelid’. inanimate noun.

• bạwa ‘hillfoot’. deer noun → bâwagéo ‘ower that grows by hillfoots’. animate noun.

is means that Old Sumrë has both purely grammatical genders (buzzard and deer) plus purelysemantic genders (animate and inanimate).

3.3 Noun case

Old Sumrë has 16 noun cases which inect for gender and number. the 16 cases are:

• Nominative: marks the subject

• Accusative: marks the direct object

• Genitive: marks possession

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3 Nouns

• Dative: marks the indirect object

• Superessive: on the surface of something

• Subessive: under something

• Illative: movement into something

• Perlative: movement through or along

• Allative: movement to something

• Comitative: in company of something, with

• Apudessive: beside something

• Delative: movement down from the surface, from

• Supressive: above something

• Paressive: beside something

• Prolative: through something, by way of

• Inessive: inside something

ere are a group of irregular nouns called S-plurals that descend from Proto-Sumric inanimatenouns. So named due to their tendency for the nominative plural to end in -s. Due to irregularityof the S-plurals in the nominative, accusative, genitive and dative plurals each form is listed in thedictionary.

3.3.1 Common nouns

e vast majority of nouns fall into this grouping. Common nouns in Old Sumrë refer to nounsthat belong to the buzzard and deer genders.

. . . .

-∅̈ -ë -∅ -ë -û -ûm -û -ûma

-a -an -a -ana -ô -ôm -ô -ôma

-rol -rolë -rola -rolë

-un -unë -na në yôb -yôbë -yôbä -yôbë

-sel -selë -sela -selë -at -atë -ta -të

-es -esë -sa -së eran -eranë -rana -ranë

-yûm -yûmë -yûma -yûmë -ûc -ûcë -ca -cë -esôn -esônë -sôn -sônë -bin -binë -bina -binë

-ûb -ûbë -ba -bë

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3.4 Deniteness

When a deer noun inects and the sux begins in a vowel then the nall vowel of the stem indeleted: núca + -û = ñúcû .

3.3.2 -Geo nouns

-Geo nouns are nouns that have been derived from verbs with the sux -Geo. Nouns formed thisway have their own case paradigm. Since -Geo noun endings only dier from buzzard/deer endingsin the nominative, accusative, genitive and dative cases this table will exclude the locative cases.-geo nouns can be either animate or inanimate.

. . . .

-geo -geë -geo -geor -geû -geë -geohû -geohûr

-geo -geaë -geô -geoher -geô -geë -geod -geods

3.3.3 -B nouns

-B nouns are animate nouns that have been derived from adjectives with sux -ab.V= ends in a vowel

C= ends in a consonant

Case Sg.C Sg.V Pl.C Pl.V

-ab -b -bë -wë -bû -wû -bë -bë

-ba -wa -bahë -wahë -bô -wô -behë -wehë

e alternation of /b/ to /w/ in some of the endings is due to this ax coming from the Proto-Sumric ending -ḅ /β/. Old Sumrë sound changes turned /β/ into /b/ when aer a consonant butinto /w/ when between to vowels.

3.3.4 -O nouns

-O nouns are inanimate nouns derived from adjectives with the sux -o.

Case Sg Pl -o -on -hû -oûhë

-ha -oahë -hô -ôhë

3.4 Definiteness

Each of the modern Sumric languages has its own way of marking deniteness (except Lemre) yeteach language derived its own way of marking deniteness independently, such that Lelic e and

Foriab c’ are completely unrelated. Even more peculiar is that no modern Sumric language derives

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3 Nouns

its deniteness from Old Sumrë, in fact Old Sumrë’s way of marking deniteness is incrediblydierent from any of its daughters.

Old Sumrë marked deniteness by shiing the high pitch to the nal syllable of the stem and byusing a seemingly irregular vowel mutation system in which the vowel in the rst syllable mutates.ere isn’t an easy paern to which the vowels change but the denite form has to be memorised

along with its indenite form, although a paern can be found if you have knowledge of Proto-Sumric and the sound changes that occurred between Proto-Sumric and Old Sumrë. An exampleof the irregularity is that the vowel ô can mutate into either û or e, the vowel u can mutate intoo, ô, a or â. is vowel mutation can be traced backed to Late-Proto-Sumro-Naukl which inno-vated a way to mark deniteness by shiing stress from the rst syllable to the nal syllable of a stem. is same system was used in Proto-Sumric, however the shiing stress aected soundchanges between Proto-Sumro-Naukl and Proto-Sumric as certain vowel changes only happenedwhen stressed or unstressed. Since the denite and indenite form had dierent stress the soundchanges gave them dierent vowels. For example /a, ɑ/ became /o/ when stressed (giving the indef-inite forms /o/) but when unstressed they became /ə/, also when unstressed /ɯ/became /ɔ/(givingthe denite forms /ə/ and /ɔ/). In Proto-Sumric only polysyllabic words were aected by the vowelmutation as in monosyllabic words the stress remained on the rst syllable and therefore evadedthe sound changes above. is alternation became grammatical and spread to any polysyllabicnouns by analogy even when their vowels weren’t initially aected by the stress related changes.e vowel mutation in Early Proto-Sumric had the following paern (each mutation is designatedas a class which is numbered):

indenite→denite

• o→ ə

• u→ɔ

A very simple and regular system. Until the speakers (unaware of the stress related conditioningwhich created this mutation) reanalysed this mutation as lowering vowels and they applied thisreanalysed rule to any vowel in the rst syllable of a polysyllabic word by lowering it one heightor by lowering it to the height of the closest pre-existing low vowel. Giving the newer paern of:

indenite→denite

• o→ ə

• u→ɔ

• ɔ, ə→a (as /a/ was the only pre-existing vowel lower than ɔ + ə)

• i→e

• y→ø

• e, ø→ɛ

• ɛ→a

• a→a (No change: as /a/ can’t be lowered further)

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3.4 Deniteness

is new paern was larger but still regular and very predictable. It was when Proto-Sumricdiverged into Old Sumrë that the irregularity happened. Each of these vowels went through OldSumrë’s sound changes separately which destroyed the simple lowering paern and due to some of the changes being conditioned by environment the same unmutated vowel in Old Sumrë can haveseveral mutated forms as the same unmutated vowel was originally several dierent vowels in Old

Sumrë. Old Sumrë also changed the rule to include monosyllabic nouns as well as polysyllabicnouns. Old Sumrë innovated a large amount of new compound nouns formed from verbs andadjectives which were not present in Proto-Sumric and so never went through the same changesin regards to deifniteness. ese new compound nouns take the denite form by mapping thecompound onto a class depending on its rst vowel regardless of its etymology. For example theOld Sumrë compound doclaferóca ‘milk’ is a Class 3 noun as its rst vowel is /ɔ/ which is the sameas other Class 3 nouns despite doclaferóca stemming from the Proto-Sumric *dǫk ‘to drink’ whichhas /ø/ as its rst vowel, typically stemming from /ø/ would place nouns with /ɔ/ in Class 6 but asthe word doclaferóca didn’t exist when the Class system was created it was placed by analogy inClass 3. anks to these sound changes a noun’s denite class can no longer be predicted by itssounds but rather each noun’s denite class has to be memorised. I will write below each possiblemutation and the changes that caused it:

: :

1 ô u1 e û2 u o2 u a when aer or 3 o a3 o, û â

3A ∅ prexes a- or â-

4 u ô5 ë, ô i6 e a

7 i, a, â no change

*if the Proto-Sumric word has an elided ‘s’ before the vowel.Examples:

• 1.ôyístas →ûyistás ‘red evening sky’

• 1. lélos → lûlós ‘estuary’

• 2.ñúcur →ñocúr ‘maternal grandfather’

• 2.lústas → lastás ‘fruit’

• 3. foría → fariá ‘grassland’

• 3. mụrol, ócar → mâról, âcár ‘fox, knife’

• 3A. mâwátar, pet → amâwatár, apét ‘buzzard, sheath’

• 4. ñúca → ñôcá ‘forest’

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3 Nouns

• 5. dẹna, dọnab → diná, dináb ‘time, tent’

• 6. éstal → astál ‘hand’

Reasons for the class groupings:

Class-1: e new unmutated form of /ɛ/ emerged due to a sound change which turned /o/ into/ɛ/ when between consonants. e schwa was completely lost in Old Sumrë and where is wasn’tdropped it became /ʌ/.

Class-2: e new mutated form of /a/ emerged due to a sound change which turned /ɔ/ into /a/when aer /j/ (which would later sporadically change into/l/ in some words).

Class-3: e new mutated form of /a:/ was due to a sound change which elided /s/ when betweena vowel and a consonant and if that vowel was /a/ it got lengthened into /a:/. Due to the originalenvironment being lost it can’t be told if a Class-3 noun takes mutates into /a/ or /a:/, rather each

instance must be memorised.

Class-3A: e reason that Class-3A uses prexes instead of vowel muation stems from the factthat the prexes a-/â- were once mutated vowels of Class-3 in Proto-Sumric. Proto-Sumric Class 3nouns that had /ə/ as their rst vowel took the mutated form of /a/. However Old Sumrë’s soundchanges got rid of /ə/ entirely and turned it into /ʌ/ but mostly deleted it entirely, especially whenword initial. So word initial /ə/ was lost yet its mutated form /a/ was unaected by such soundchanges and survived. But since the mutated /a/ in this condition now had no unmutated form itwas reanalysed as a prex. e â- /a:/ prex was due to a sound change which elided /s/ whenbetween a vowel and a consonant and if that vowel was /a/ it got lengthened into /a:/. During LateOld Sumrë when the denite marking system began to collapse, speakers would use the prex a-on any noun when they were unsure how a noun changed form (Which is the source of the EarlyLemre dente prex a- which was used on all nouns).

Class-4: No exceptions to explain here are as both the unmutated and mutated vowels changedinto another vowel each.

Class-5: Nouns which have /i/ in their rst syllable only belong to Class 5 if the /i/ descendsfrom Proto-Sumric /e/. Nouns which have /o/ in their rst syllable only belong to Class 5 if the /o/descends from Proto-Sumric /ø/.

Class-6: Nouns whose rst vowel is /ɛ/ only belong to Class-6 when the vowel in Proto-Sumricwas /ɛ/.

Class-7: Class-7 nouns do not change at all. Nouns with /a/ as their rst vowel and some nounswith /i/ as their vowel belong to this class. is is due to the Proto-Sumric paern of loweringvowels to mutate them, and as /a/ is the lowest vowel it couldn’t be lowered any further. Anotherchange which turned Class-4 mutated /e/ into /i/ made nouns which had /i/ in their rst syllableindistinguishable in their denite and indenite forms so these nouns were reanalysed as belong-ing to Class 7.

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3.5 Noun formation

3.5 Noun formation

Nouns can be formed with the following suxes

• Verb to Noun -ic gerund: mụlmen ‘to hunt’ → mụlmic ‘huting’

• Verb to Noun -na human agentive: mụlmna ‘hunter’

• Verb to Noun -al nonhuman agentive: mụlmal ‘hunter’

• Verb/Noun to Noun -ñur male diminutive: mụlmñur ‘male hunter’

• Verb/Adjective/Noun to Noun -râcna human diminutive: mûlmnrạcna ‘lile human hunter’

• Verb/Noun to Noun -ñe female diminutive: mụlmñe ‘female hunter’

• Verb/Noun to Noun -ca child diminutive: mụlmca ‘child hunter’

• Verb/Noun to Noun -i tool, creature, inanimate diminutive: mụlmi ‘hunting tool/huntingcreature’

• Noun to Noun -bo dead, lifeless: érnûr ‘father’ → ernụrbo ‘dead father’

• Noun to Noun -dwir organic, natural, caused by nature: rạwa ‘understanding’ → râwádwir ‘enlightenment reached by meditating in nature’

• Any word to Abstract Noun -dwo wave of, mist of, bout of: mûndẹna ‘deer’s mating season’→ mûndënádwo ‘lust’

• Noun to Noun -ga collection of: sow ‘wind’ → sówga ‘hurricane’.

• Noun/Verb/Adjective to Noun -lorna someone that likes X: mûlmlórna ‘someone the likeshunting’

• Noun/Verb/Adjective to Noun -mulorna someone that dislikes X: mûlmumlórna ‘someonethat doesn’t like hunting’

• Noun/Adjective/Verb -var : mụlmvar ‘hunting ground’

• Adjective/Verb to Inanimate noun -o : estụben ‘to enclose’ → estụbo ‘cobweb’

• Vern to Inanimate noun -ûra makes an inanimate patient of a verb: ayụra ‘correct idea,

correct answer, fact’• Verb to Animate noun -ûr makes an animate patient of a verb: áyë ‘to agree’ → áyûr ‘some-

one that is correct’

• Adjective/Verb to Animate noun -ab : lam ‘still’ → lámab ‘trapper’

• Noun to Locative noun -vo(m) way, direction of: ásil ‘sun’ → asílvom ‘upwards’

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3 Nouns

3.6 Noun enforcement

Old Sumrë has a way of enforcing the quality or meaning of a noun. Much like how an intensierworks on adjective, but for nouns. is is done by placing dosa before the noun (from do ‘one’ +-sa ‘comitative case ending’. i.e with one). In English this can roughly translate as ’very much a

X’:

pẹyol ‘hero’Altási émnûr pẹyol ‘Altasi is a hero’Altási émnûr dosa pẹyol ‘Altasi is undoubtedly/very much a hero’

On the other hand it is possible to make an opposite construction to denote something brokenor destroyed. is is done by placing a past tense ending, typically applied to verbs only, on thenoun. e eect can be made more severe by using the far past ending. In this construction theverb is dropped and the accusative case isn’t applied to the direct object. e past tense endingagrees n gender to the noun it is applied to:

• lamán niláfûrs ‘the deer ruined the grass’ (the deer the grass-near past)

• lamán niláfûrc ‘the deer uerly ruined the grass’ (the deer the grass-far past)

3.7 Similies

Where in English a simile is formed by using ‘like’ or ‘as’ e.g you are noble like a hero or you areas noble as a hero. Old Sumrë handles this by puing the descriptor (in this case it is ‘hero’) in thecomitative case:

émnar pëyóles mor this literally translates as ‘you are noble with hero’

dâvaró nansása émnûr dûv ‘e crow is as black as the night sky’

gírar yacása ‘you ght like an antlerless male deer (antlerless male deers are held to be ’weak’ or ’less worthy’

in Sumric culture)’

yamsá brigársôn asilésa yámsûs ‘the re burned as bright as the sun, (e re brightly burned with sun)’

mûlmaral dûvarosa emnûr erad ômab ‘the spear is as high as a crow’

ese comitative-similies are treated like adverbs in Old Sumrë so they always follow the subject

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3 Nouns

3.9.2 Superlative

A superlative sentence is formed in much the same way as the comparative except that insteadof placing the object being compared to in the paressive case (as there are none in superativeconstructions) you take the word nûn ‘all’ and place it in the paressive case.

Dóna ron émnûr ern nûnésôndon-GEN dog be-3rd-BUZZ big all-PAR

‘Don’s dog is big all-beside/Don’s dog is biggest’

In a subordinate claus the superlative works the same as the comparative also:

dañícâ rónû emnụrsëd ern nûnésonwant-1st-SG dog-ACC be-3rd-BUZZ=DEM big all-PAR

‘I want a dog is-that big all-beside/I want a dog that is biggest’

3.10 Locative nouns

Old Sumrë has no adpositions but rather has locative case (which has been mentioned earlier)and locative nouns. Locative nouns are an open class set of words and are very exible in theirformation. Most locative nouns have no set form and are usually formed on the y according tocurrent context. is is done by the use of the sux -vo(m) on any noun. So one speaker may sayọmvom ‘sky-way’ for above while another may say mirmávo ‘head-way’ or asílvom ‘sun-way’ withall being interchangeable, a speaker may invent new ones of his own if he struggles to rememberany existing ones, so long as context shows which locative is being referred to, For example if thereis a tree to the speaker’s le then he may say racụtvom for le but if he turns around then racụtvomwould mean right. In daughter languages these terms became more xed.

some more examples of locative nouns:

• mâ ‘I’ → mạvo ‘in my direction, towards me’

• mayënónsû ‘horizon’ → mayënonsụvo ‘straight, forward’

• rọsal ‘bird in ight’ → rôsálvom ‘above, upwards’

rusál ômñocụrsil mírmavobína raná ‘the bird ew above the dog’(the bird ew by way of the dog’s head-way)

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4 Pronouns & determiners

4.1 Pronouns

Personal pronouns in Old Sumrë decline by case like any noun would, due to the large amount of cases and 8 persons there are 128 pronouns.

Singular personal pronouns:

1st.sg 2nd.sg 3rd.buzz 3rd.deer

nom mâ tar lémûr lémû

acc mû tárû lemụru lémûgen ma/mam tára/táram lemụra/lemụra léma/lémadat mô tárô lemụrô lemô

super maróla tárol lemụrol lemûrólasub mána tarun lemụrun lemụnaill mayọba táryôb lemụryôb lemûryọba

per maséla társel lemụrsel lemûrsélaall máta tárat lemụrat lemụta

comi mása táres lemụres lemụsaapud marána taréran lemûréran lemûránadel mayụma táryûm lemụryûm lemûyụma

supr máca tárûc lemụrûc lemụcapar masọna tarésôn lemụrsôn lemûrsọnapro mabína tárbin lemụbin lemûbína

iness maba tárûb lemụrûb lemụba

Plural personal pronouns:

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1st.pl.inc 1st.pl.exc 2nd.pl 3rd.pl

nom mâtárë mâlémë tárë lémëacc mâtárûman mâlémûm tárûm lémûmgen mâtáran/mâtarána mâléman/mâlemána táran/tarána léman/lemánadat mâtárôm mâlémôm tárôm lémôm

super mâtarólë mâlemrólë tarólë lemrólësub mâtarúnë mâlemúnë tarúne lemúnëill mâtarọbë mâlemyọbë taryọbë lemyọbë

per mâtarsélë mâlemsélë tarsélë lemsélëall mâtarátë mâlemátë tarátë lemátë

comi mâtarésë mâlemésë tarésë lemésëapud mâtarerénë mâlemeránë tareránë lemeránëdel mâtaryụmë mâlemyụmë taryụmë lemyụmë

supr mâtarụcë mâlemụcë taryụcë lemụcëpar mâtaresọnë mâlemesọnë taresọnë lemesọnë

pro mâtarbínë mâlembínë tarbínë lembínëiness mâtarụbë mâlemụbë tarụbë lemụbë

e possessive pronouns have two forms which agree to the gender of the possessed object. epossessive pronoun on the le is Buzzard gender and the one on the right is Deer gender. When thepossessed noun is animate or inanimate which possessive pronoun gets used depends on whetherthe case ending of the noun end in a vowel or not:

ma estalgéo ‘my glove’ compared to mam estalgéor ‘my gloves’.

Note that in Old Sumrë there is no inanimate or genderless pronoun, only the Buzzard or Deer

pronouns can be used for the 3rd person. If the gender of an object if unknown then the Buzzardpronouns are used as a substitute. Also while noun gender doesn’t align with biological gender,males are referred to by Buzzard pronouns and females by the Deer pronouns. is is becauseBuzzards are hunters and Deers are the hunted, which is a reference to courtship between menand women.

4.2 Determiners

Demonstrative, interrogative and existential pronouns in Old Sumrë don’t agree with noun case ornumber and are distinguished by animacy rather than gender. For example the animate singular

pronoun is sën ‘that’ which refers to things that are alive but sëd ‘that’ refers to objects that aren’talive.

• sën mâwátar ñácûr sëd ótyû ‘that buzzard is eating that bread’

• sëd ótya ñácû sën mâwatárû ‘that bread is eating that buzzard’

notice how when the nouns inect for case, the demonstrative pronouns don’t

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4.2 Determiners

4.2.1 Interrogative pronouns

Interrogative

Adjective can (which)

Animate cë (who)

Inanimate cad (what)

Location cor (where)

Time cin (when)

Reason cûl (why, how)

Examples:

• cë ñácûrs ma ótyû? ‘who ate my bread?’ (as the subject and time is unknown, the 3rd personBuzzard gender near past ending is used to conjugate the verb by default)

• cad ñácûrs ma ótyû? ‘what ate my bread?’

• amâwátar ñácûrs ma ótyû cor? ‘where did the buzzard eat my bread?’ (literally: the buzzardate my bread where?). Here ‘where’ goes at the end due to a rule in Foriab that says LocativePhrases (or words denoting where an action happened) go at the end of the sentence.

• amâwátar ñácûrs ma ótyû cin? ‘where did the buzzard eat my bread?’ (literally: the buzzardate my bread when?). Here ‘when’ goes at the end due to a rule in Foriab that says TimePhrases, or words denoting when an action happened, go at the end of the sentence.)

• cûl mâwátar ñácûrs ma ótyû? ‘how/why did the buzzard eat my bread?’ Old Sumrë doesn’tdistinguish between ‘how’ or ‘why’)

4.2.2 Demonstrative pronouns

Proximal Distal

Adjective së (this) son (that)Animate së (this) sën (that)

Inanimate së (this) sëd (that)

Location sûr (here) sûn (there)Time dëa (now) dut (then)

Reason sëcûl ̈(because socûl (that way, therefore)

• se ̈ mâwátar ñácûrs së ótyû? ‘this buzzard ate this bread’

• sën mâwátar ñácûrs sëd ótyû racụtun sûn . ‘that buzzard ate that bread under the tree there’(literally: that buzzard ate that bread the tree under there). When a sentence has both alocative phrase and a time phrase, the time phrase goes to the very end of the sentencefollowing the locative phrase)

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• sën mâwátar ñácûrs sëd ótyû cu óntë carif ‘that buzzard ate that bread 4 days ago’ cu óntë carif is a time phrase and so is placed at the end of the sentence.

• sën mâwatárë ñacẹens sëd ótyû sepẹens sëcûl ‘those buzzards ate that bread because they werehungry’ (literally: that buzzards ate that bread they hungered because). again the pronoun

sëcûl goes at the end of the sentence. Also notice how even though the subject mâwatárë isplural the demonstrative pronoun doesn’t change.

e demonstrative pronouns can be used at relative pronouns when encliticised onto the verbphrase to form a subordinate clause. Although none of the interrogative pronouns can be used asrelative pronouns e.g ‘e man who walks, the mountain where he lived, when he walked’.

• nâr ñocụrssëd ‘the man who walks’ (the man walks-that)

• lámûrs amubénsûn ‘the mountain where it lived’ (it lived the mountain-there)

• ñocụrsdut ‘when it walked’ (it walked-then)

4.2.3 Existential pronouns

Assertive Negative Universal Elective

Adjective lôd (some) mu (no) wañe (every) gol (any)

Animate lôna (someone) muna (no one) wañena (everyone) golna (anyone)

nanimate lôal (something) mual (nothing) wañeal (everything) golal (anything)

Location lômû (somewhere) mucor (nowhere) wañecor (everywhere) golcor (anywhere)

Time lôdëna (sometime) mucin (never) wañedë (always) goldëna (anytime)

Reason lôcûl (somehow) mucûl (noway) wañecûl (everyway) golcûl (anyway)

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5 Adjectives & Adverbs

5.1 Adjective agreement

Old Sumrë adjectives must agree to the noun they modify in gender, case and number. ey do thisby taking on the exact same case endings as the nouns aer they have been made to agree withgender. ere are a set of irregular adjectives called S-plurals that have irregular endings whenagreeing to nominative, accusative, genitive and dative plural deer nouns. Each S-plural has itsirregular endings listed in the dictionary.

5.1.1 Agreeing with buzzard nounsIf an adjective ends in a consonant then no change is needed and can be inected as is:

• ern ‘big’ → érn amâwatár ‘the big buzzard’

• nin ‘green’ → nin amâwatár ‘the green buzzard’

• râc ‘strong’ → râc amâwatár ‘the strong buzzard’

In the Subessive case:

• érnun amâwatárun →‘under the big buzzard’• nínun amâwatárun →‘under the green buzzard’

• racun amâwatárun →‘under the strong buzzard’

If an adjective ends in a vowel however then -m is added onto the adjective to make it agree witha buzzard noun:

• ólña ‘bad’ → ólñam amâwatár ‘the bad buzzard’

• nọca ‘weird’ → nọcam amâwatár ‘the weird buzzard’

• mágya ‘angry’ → mágyam amâwatár ‘the angry buzzard’

In the Subessive case:

• olñámun amâwatárun ‘under the bad buzzard’

• nôcámun amâwatárun ‘under the weird buzzard’

• magyámun mâwatárun ‘under the angry buzzard’

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5.1.2 Agreeing with deer nouns

If an adjective ends in a vowel then no change is needed and can be inected as is:

• salẹa ‘old’ → salẹa amacú ‘the old world’

• sẹa ‘holy’ → sẹa amacú ‘the holy world’

• goñẹsa ‘healthy’ → goñẹsa amacú ‘the healthy world’

• salëába amacúba ‘in the old world’

• sëába amacúba ‘in the holy world’

• goñësába amacúba ‘in the healthy world’

If an adjective ends in a consonant however then -a is added onto the adjective:

• họcar ‘cold’ → hôcára amacú ‘the cold world’

• ern ‘big’ → érna amacú ‘the big world’

• brígar ‘bright’ → brigára amacú ‘the bright world’

In the inessive case:

• hôcarába amacúba ‘in the cold world’

• ernába amacúba ‘in the big world’

• brigarába amacúba ‘in the bright world’

5.1.3 Agreeing with animate nouns

Adjectives agree to animate nouns by adding the sux -os onto the adjective. Adjectives agreeingto animate and inanimate nouns don’t take on regular case ending like the deer and buzzard nounsdo. Rather -os has its own case paradigm shown below, this is true only for the nominative, ac-cusative, genitive and dative cases with the locative cases being the same as as they are on nouns.When the adjective ends in a vowel the nal vowel of the stem is deleted, when the stem ends intwo vowels only the second vowel is deleted.

C S P -os -osë -osû -oshë

-osa -osahë -osô -osehë

• họcar ‘cold’ → hôcáros lámab ‘cold trapper’

• ern ‘big’ → érnos lámab ‘big trapper’

• salẹa ‘old’ → salẹos lámab ‘old trapper’

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5.2 Adverb

5.1.4 Agreeing with inanimate nouns

Adjectives agree with inanimate nouns by adding the sux -bo or its post-vocalic allomorph -wo .Like the sux -os, -bo has its own case paradigm.

V= ends in a vowel

C= ends in a consonant

Case Sg.C Sg.V Pl.C Pl.V

-bo -wo -bohë -wohë -bohû -wohû -bohë -wohë

-boha -woha -boahë -woahë -bohô -wohô -behë -wehë

• ern ‘big’ → érnwo estụbo ‘big cobweb’

• ólña ‘bad’ → olñáwo estụbo ‘bad cobweb’

• ter ‘hard’ → térbo estụbo ‘hard cobweb’

5.1.5 Adjective formation

• Verb to Adjective -lon particple adjective: mụlmen ‘to hunt’ → mụlmlon ‘hunting’

• Verb to Adjective -ic past participle adjective: mụlmic ‘hunted’

• Verb/Noun to Adjective -ësa -ly, like: nu ‘fool’ → nuẹsa ‘foolish’

• Noun to Adjective -na turns a location into an adjective: múben ‘mountain’ → mubéna ‘mountainous’

• Noun/Adjective -su approximate/diminutive quality of: sow ‘wind’ → sówsu ‘breezy’

• Verb to Adjective -ûna able to, has the capacity to: dócen ‘to drink’ → docụna ‘drinkable’

5.2 Adverb

Old Sumrë adverbs are a very open class system where adjective are turned into adverbs by addinga sux. Which sux is used depends on the number ad gender of the subject as the adverb always

agrees with the subject of the verb. Adverbs always follow the subject.

-sôn -sônë -sôna -sônë

-sônos -sônosë -sônbo -sônbohë

Examples:

• amâwátar ñácûrs átyû beródsôn ‘the buzzard quickly ate the bread’

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• lárna gírûrs lâwasọna ‘the soldier fought well’

• lamáb mụlmûrs lamánû lâwasọnos ‘the trapper hunted the deer well’

• astụbo nónûrs pëyasónbo ‘the cobweb split easily’

ere are a few irregular xed adverbs which do not bear the adverbial sux such as râcësa ‘mightily’, tesal ‘immediately’ though these are few and far between.

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6 Verbs

Simple past tenses

Person Last night Yesterday Near past Far past

1. -âb -âm -âs -âc

2. -arab -aram -aras -arc3../ -ûrûb -ûrm -ûrs -ûrc3... -ûb -ûm -ûs -ûc

1.. -alub -ulum -uls -ulc1.. -alab -ulem -alens -alc

2. -ib -im -is -ic3. -ëeneb -ëenem -ëens -ëenc

Simple Future tenses

Person Immediate future Near future Far future1. -ânu -âut -âye2. -arnu -arut -arye

3... -ûrnu -ûrut -ûrye3... -ûru -ûnut -ûye

1.. -ulna -ulut -ulye1.. -alenu -alenut -aleñe

2. -inu -inut -iye3. -ëenu -ëenut -ëeñe

6.2.2 -Eas verbs-Eas verbs are verbs that have been derived from nouns and adjectives with the derivation sux-eas to denote an action that results in the root noun/adjective. In these verbs -eas functions as aninnitive. -Eas verbs have their own set of conjugations which as are follows:

Present tense -eas

Person Sux

1. -eâ2. -easur

3... -easûr3.. -easûro

1.. -easul1./ -easilë

2. -easi3. -easëor

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6.2 Conjunction ‘and’ with verbs

Simple past -eas


1. -eâp -eâpam -eâpes -eâpec

2. -easunb -easum -easurs -easunac3... -easûnb -easûm -easûrs -easûnac3.. -easûrob -easûram -easûros -easûroc

1.. -easub -easum -easus -easuc1./ -easulëb -easulëm -easulës -easulëc

2. -easip -easipam easipes easipec3. -easëomp -easëompan -easëompes -easëompec

Simple Future -eas

Person Immediate future Near future Far future

1. -eâpru -eâpud -eâpyë2. -easuru -easurud -easuryë

3... -easurud -easûrud -easûryë3.. -easûroru -easûrud -asûroyë

1.. -easuru -easud -easuë1./ -easulëru -asulëud -easulë

2. -easipru -easiwud -easipyë3. -easëompru -easëmpud -easëompyë

6.2.3 -Two verbs

-Two verbs are verbs that have been derived from any kind of word with the sux -two. In theseverbs -two functions as an innite. -two verbs have their own set of conjugations as shown below:

Present tense -two

Person Sux

1. -twôb2. -twur

3... -twor3.. -tworo

1.. -twu1./ -twuya

2. -twib3. -twër

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6 Verbs

Simple past -two


1. -twôr -twobam -tworpes -twospec

2. -twurb -twurm -twus -twurc3... -tworb -tworm -twors -tworc3.. -tworob -tworom -tworos -tworoc

1.. -twub -twum -twus -twuc1./ -twuyab -twuyam -twuyas -twuyac

2. -twip -twibam -twirpes -twipec3. -twërp -twërpam -twërpes -twërpec

Future tense -two

Person Immediate future Near future Far future

1. -twobru -tworbut -tworbyë2. -twuru -twurut -twuryë

3... -tworu -tworut -tworyë3.. -twororu -tworhut -tworoyë

1.. -twuru -twuyut -twuyë1./ -twuyaru -twuhut -twuyayë

2. -twipru -twiwut -twiryë3. -twëpru -twërput -twërpyë

6.3 Subjunctive

e subjunctive is formed with the enclitic -pos which aaches itself aer person agreement:

• sumạpos ‘were I be travelling’

• sumạspos ‘were I have travelled’

• sumâútpos ‘I may travel/were I to travel’

6.4 Passivee passive is formed with the enclitic -ti which aaches itself aer person agreement and aerthe subjunctive if it is used:

• lastásë lustûrúi ‘the fruit will be plucked’

• lastásë lustûrutpósti ‘were the fuit be plucked’

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6.5 Evidentiality

6.5 Evidentiality

Old Sumrë marks verbs with evidentially. Which means that it species if the speaker knows forcertain what they are saying is true, or that they heard it from heresy, or that it is possible that itmight be true. And that it could have happened/will happen by looking at evidence. is is done

by aaching a clitic on to the verb.

Evidentiality sux

Knows for certain, usually by witnessing the event -tûcHeard from heresay -ërm

Possible -ilDeduced from evidence -ici

• amâwatár ñacụrmtûc tára átyû ‘the buzzard denitely ate your bread yesterday’

• amâwatár ñacụrmërm tára ótyû ‘I heard the buzzard ate your bread yesterday’

• amâwatár ñacụrmil tara ótyû ‘the buzzard possibly ate your bread yesterday’

• amâwatár ñacûrmíci tára ótyû ‘the buzzard ate your bread yesterday’ (deduced from evi-dence, such as leover crumbs)

6.6 Negation

Negation in Old Sumrë is achieved by placing the sux -mu onto a verb:

• amâwatár ñacụrsmu tára ótyû ‘the buzzard didn’t eat your bread’

• lamán cwonûrsmuíci sûr ‘the deer didn’t graze here ’

6.7 Imperative

e imperative sux -ye turns a verb into a demand. When a verb is imperative it can only take onthe suxes -ye and -mu meaning that it can’t inect for person or tense so in imperative phrasesthe subject is always included (whereas English leaves it out), with locative and time phrases beingoptional and taking their respective second last and last places of the sentence:

• tar ñácye tára ótyû! ‘eat your bread!’

• tar ñacmúye tára ótyû! ‘don’t eat your bread!’

• tar ñácye tára ótyû amâwatár ñacûrútpos lémû dẹnuc! ‘eat your bread before the buzzard eatsit! (you eat your bread buzzard may eat it before)

6.8 Verb formation

• Verb to Frequentive verb -se : mụlmen → mụlmsen ‘to frequently hunt’ Any non-verb wordto Verb -two : pûc ‘breadth’ → pụctwo ‘to cross, to reach over’

• Noun/Adjective to Verb -sea forms action that results in the noun/adjective’: rácûs ‘concept,idea, thought’ → racûséa ‘to conceptulise, to picture’

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8 Origin of Irregular Nouns and Adjectives

Old Sumrë is a fairly regular language, even the verb émnen ‘to be’ conjugates regularly. But thereare a small handful of irregular nouns and adjectives which don’t decline like normal nouns. isirregularity is all due to a phonotactic rule in Proto-Sumric, Old Sumrë’s mother language. e rulewas that voiced fricatives devoice when they are between two consonants and that any other voicedconsonant around either fricative devoices also. e inanimate nominative plural in Proto-Sumricwas -ʂḅ [ʂβ] and this aected inanimate nouns that ended in a voiced fricative causing the fricativeto devoice. Many of the inanimate nouns that ended in fricatives ended in -ʐḅ [ʐβ], such as aʐḅ,emybōʐḅ and jōroʐḅ (skin, mountain and colour) produced the cluster [ʂɸʂɸ] when plural as a resultof the rule, which was then shortened to just [ʂɸ] as a rule in Proto-Sumric merged two consonantclusters when both were the same: aʂṗ, emybōʂṗ and jōroʂṗ (skins, mountains and colours). eseplurals then went through Old Sumrë sound changes which deleted bilabial fricatives when wordnal and aer a consonant but also these irregular endings evaded another sound change whichrhotacized [ʂ] to [r] when aer a vowel. Instead in these endings [ʂ] became [s]. ese changestogether resulted in the s-plurals of Old Sumrë: as, múbes, léros ‘skins, mountains, colours’

One unusual s-plural is cérpes ‘valleys’, plural of cen. is diers from the other S-plurals asits Proto-Sumric ancestor didn’t end in [ʐβ] but rather in [rβ] and as such went through dierentchanges. In Proto-Sumric ”valley” was gōrḅ [gorβ] and being inanimate it took the plural -ʂḅ tobecome gōrṗʂṗ . e nal cluster wasn’t simplied as the preceding cluster was rṗ and thereforedierent. Where [ɸ] wasn’t deleted word nally it became [p] giving us cerps in Old Sumrë. But

Old Sumrë’s phonotactics don’t allow [ps] so an [ɛ] was inserted between the two consonants toform cerpes . e singular cen has [n] because sound changes turned [r] into [n] before a consonantbut like how the other S-plural evaded rhotacisation, cérpes avoided turning [r] into [n]. In theAccusative, genitive and dative cases the [p] turns into a [b]: cérbûs, cérbes and cérbod . is isbecause the S-plurals, not content with evading a few sound changes, also evaded the loss of theinanimate case endings when Old Sumrë lost the animate/inanimate genders. e s-plurals tendto have the case endings -ûs (Acc) -es (Gen), -od (Dat) which are remnants of the Proto-Sumricinanimate plural endings -ewʂḅ, -ōʂḅ, -otʂṗ . As can be seen here the plural -ʂḅ went aer the caseendings and so never came into contact with the nal voiced fricative and thus never devoiced it.

Documents

An Old Sumrë Reference Grammar