Getic

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Clio
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Getic

Post by Clio »

0. Table of contents
1. Introduction and essential sound laws
2. Nominal morphology
2.1. Thematic nouns
2.2. Athematic nouns
3. Pronominal morphology
4. Adjectival morphology
5. Verbal morphology
5.1. The present active
5.2. The past active
5.3. The perfect active

1. Introduction and essential sound laws

Getic was the Indo-European language spoken by the tribes known as the Getae (Ancient Greek: Γέται), who lived in modern-day Romania and Bulgaria near the Black Sea, north and south of the Danube River. Most ancient sources identify the Getae with the Dacians and as members of the Thracians. For my purposes I’ve assumed that although these groups may have been related, they did not necessarily speak the same language.

During Augustus’ reign, the Roman Empire conquered the Getae living south of the Danube River and eventually incorporated their land into the province of Moesia. According to a poem framed as a letter to a friend, the Roman poet Ovid learned Getic and composed a “little book” of nationalistic poetry in the language while sentenced to relegatio in Tomis (modern-day Constanța) during the early first century CE. This thread will describe the sub-Danubian Getic language spoken that would have been familiar to Ovid.

As I've imagined it here, the Getic language resembles some of its neighbors around the Black Sea: it is a satem language, it merged voiced aspirated and plain voiced stops, and it resolved dental-dental clusters to *-st-. I also applied some sound changes reported to have operated in Dacian, such as the diphthongization of *é. Getic has a complicated accentual system, partially because it preserves aspects of the PIE system and partially because of the effects of laryngeals.

What follows is an account of the major sound laws which operate to produce Getic from Proto-Indo-European.

Decoupling of syllabic resonants: Before the syllabic resonants *m̥ n̥ r̥ l̥ an epenthetic vowel was inserted. After labialized consonants, the vowel was *u; otherwise, it was *i. Original sequences of syllabic resonant plus laryngeal resulted in *(i/u)HR through metathesis.

Sievers’s Law: After a consonant cluster, *y w became *iy uw.

Boukólos Rule: Labialized velar stops lost their labialization before rounded vowels and *w.

Assibilation in coronal-plosive clusters: Before another stop, coronal stops became *s or *z depending on the voicing of the following stop.

Ruki Rule: *s was backed to the fricative *š after *r w ḱ ǵ ǵʰ k g gʰ kʷ gʷ gʷʰ y, except word-finally. Clusters of *rs and *sr merged into *š.

Laryngeal coloring and merger: The laryngeals caused the typical coloring. All three laryngeals then collapsed into a single phoneme *h, which was lost word-initially. When syllabic between two consonants, this phoneme *h became *a.

Hirt’s Law and corollary: The accent was retracted to the leftmost syllable containing *h. If *h preceded the vowel, the newly-accented syllable received either high pitch (on a short vowel) or falling pitch (on a long vowel); if *h followed the vowel, the vowel was lengthened and received rising pitch. In syllables in which Hirt's Law did not operate, original accented long vowels and diphthongs became characterized by falling pitch.

Loss of laryngeals: *h was lost, lengthening all preceding vowels.

Wódr Rule: *w was lost before rounded vowels except intervocalically.

Vowel merger: Before *w and sporadically before *m, *o oː became *u uː. The diphthongs *oy oːy became *e eː. All other instances of *o oː merged with *a aː.

Merger of voiced stop series: The breathy voiced stops merged with the plain voiced stops.

Satemization and Matasović's Law: The palatal stops affricated to *ts dz, except sporadically before *m n r l, where merger with the plain velar stops was possible; *ǵ was more likely to become *g than * to become *k. Before *m n l, *ts dz became *s z; before *r, *ts dz became *str dr. All labialized velar stops lost their labialization. Before front vowels, the plain velar stops affricated to *tʃ dʒ.

Winter’s Law: Before a voiced stop or affricate, short vowels became long. In addition, when followed by a voiced stop or affricate, *z ž disappeared and lengthened a preceding vowel.

Osthoff’s Law: Before any two consonants, long vowels became short. Affricates counted as single consonants for this rule. Osthoff’s Law remained productive in Getic until after the loss of its geminate consonants (see below).

Affricate simplification: The clusters *sts stʃ šts štʃ became *sː ʃː sʲː sʲː. This rule remained in effect to operate on secondary palatal affricates from clusters of velar stops plus *y (see below). Finally, *ts dz became *s z.

Vowel-breaking and compensatory lengthening: Accented short *é became *í after *m n r l y w when word-initial or after a consonant, * in a closed syllable, and * elsewhere.

Nasalization: Before a nasal, *i iː e eː lowered to *e eː a aː, except sporadically after *y. Nasals in word-final position or before another consonant were lost, nasalizing and lengthening the previous vowel; if the vowel was stressed, it either received falling pitch (if originally short) or retained its original pitch (if originally long).

e-raising: Before a syllable containing *i iː, *e eː became *i iː unless immediately followed by *r.

Palatalization: Before *y, all consonants were geminated, coronals were palatalized, and velars affricated to *tʃ dʒ. Before *i iː e eː y, *š became *ʃ; elsewhere, it was further backed to *x. *y was then lost after consonants.

Glide developments: The sequences *yy ww became *dʒː bː. The treatment of sequences containing glides and vowels varied slightly between the dialects spoken north and south of the Danube. (More information and examples to come.)

Lenition: Between two vowels, the second being unstressed, plosives and *s became voiced. All geminate consonants became short.

Dactyl Rule: If a syllable before the antepenult was accented, the accent moved to the antepenult; newly accented short vowels received high pitch, and long vowels received falling pitch.

Spondee Rule: Before a long vowel, falling pitch became rising pitch.

These changes result in the following phonemic inventory:
/m n nʲ/ m n ň
/p b t d tʲ dʲ tʃ dʒ k g/ p b t d ť ď č ǧ k g
/v s z sʲ zʲ ʃ x/ v s z š ž ś h
/l r j/ l r y
/i iː e eː ẽː a aː ãː u uː ũː/ i ī e ē ę a ā ą u ū ų
/ej eːj ew eːw aj aːj aw aːw/ ei ēi eu ēu ai āi au āu

In most words, one syllable received the accent, which involved an increase in the pitch of that syllable’s vowel. Short accented vowels are said to have high pitch. Long vowels and diphthongs could have either falling or rising pitch, depending on whether the first or second half of the syllabic nucleus was accented. High pitch is written as á, falling as â ái âi, and rising as ǎ aí ǎi.

Some sample vocabulary highlighting the sound changes given above:

brǎdēr ‘brother’ < *bʰréh₂tēr
ďěgą ‘earth’ < *dʰéǵōm
dūgatêr ‘daughter’ < *dʰugh₂tḗr
gūkálas ‘oxherd’ < *gʷoukʷolos
íhsas ‘bear’ < *h₂ŕ̥tḱos
šárdīas ‘shepherd’ < *ḱérdhyos
ťármę ‘border’ < *térmn̥
vą̂das ‘wind’ < *h₂wéh₁ntos
yūgą̂ ‘yoke’ < *yugóm
śistás ‘broken’ < *skidtós
vēráderas ‘truthful’ < *weh₁róteros
bérid ‘he carries’ < *bʰéreti
ēdá ‘I know’ < *wóydh₂e

If the sort of thing interests you, it might be a fun exercise to work out which sound laws operated on which words, and why for example vą̂das has falling pitch on the root.

Postscriptum: Thanks to anyone who's read this through; I hope you've enjoyed it. Soon I'll post about nominal morphology, and later a bit about allophony and dialects. I'd like to conclude by recognizing Dewrad's conlang Wenetic as a major source of inspiration for this project, not only in content but also in presentation. I expect someone familiar with his work will recognize the debts I owe, but hopefully not find Getic too derivative.
Last edited by Clio on 09 Aug 2019 20:33, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by shimobaatar »

Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Getic was the Indo-European language spoken by the tribes known as the Getae (Ancient Greek: Γέται), who lived in modern-day Romania and Bulgaria near the Black Sea, north and south of the Danube River. Most ancient sources identify the Getae with the Dacians and as members of the Thracians. For my purposes I’ve assumed that although these groups may have been related, they did not necessarily speak the same language.
That name sounds familiar. So this is a conlang for an actual group of people who existed in our world? Cool!
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 What follows is an account of the major sound laws which operate to produce Getic from Proto-Indo-European.
This section was rather hard to read because of the spacing, but I like your changes.
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Hirt’s Law and corollary: The accent was retracted to the leftmost syllable containing *h. If *h preceded the vowel, the syllable received either high pitch (on a short vowel) or falling pitch (on a long vowel); if *h followed the vowel, the vowel was lengthened and received rising pitch. Original accented long vowels and diphthongs became characterized by falling pitch.
To clarify, when you say, for example, "if *h followed the vowel, the vowel was lengthened and received rising pitch", I assume that "the vowel" refers to the vowel that carried the accent before the application of this rule. Is this correct?
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Loss of laryngeals: *h was lost, lengthening all preceding vowels.
Even intervocalically?
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Satemization and Matasović's Law: The palatal stops affricated to *ts dz, except sporadically before *m n r l, where merger with the plain velar stops was possible; *ǵ was more likely to become *g than * to become *k. Before *m n l, *ts dz became *s z; before *r, *ts dz became *str dr. All labialized velar stops lost their labialization. Before front vowels, the plain velar stops affricated to *tʃ dʒ.
Just to clarify, *tsr dzr > *str dr, not *str zdr?
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Palatalization: Before *y, all consonants were geminated, coronals were palatalized, and velars affricated to *tʃ dʒ. Before *i iː e eː y, *š became *ʃ; elsewhere, it was further backed to *x. *y was then lost after consonants.
If *š became either *ʃ or *x, why is /sʲ/ <š> listed in the phonemic inventory?
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Glide developments: The sequences *yy ww became *dʒː bː. The treatment of sequences containing glides and vowels varied slightly between the dialects spoken north and south of the Danube. (More information and examples to come.)
Looking forward to it!
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Lenition: Between two vowels, the second being unstressed, plosives and *s became voiced; all geminate consonants became short.
To make sure I'm understanding this correctly, you mean that all geminates become short unconditionally, right? I'm pretty sure, because of the semicolon, but I wanted to make sure.
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Dactyl Rule: If a syllable before the antepenult was accented, the accent moved to the antepenult; short vowels received high pitch, and long vowels received falling pitch.
Again, just to clarify, when you say, for example, "short vowels received high pitch", is that referring to the short vowels that were accented before the application of this rule?
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 /m n nʲ/ m n ň
/p b t d tʲ dʲ tʃ dʒ k g/ p b t d ť ď č ǧ k
/v s z sʲ zʲ ʃ x/ v s z š ž ś h
/l r j/ l r y
/i iː e eː ẽː a aː ãː u uː ũː/ i ī e ē ę a ā ą u ū ų
/ey eːy ew eːw ay aːy aw aːw/ ei ēi eu ēu ai āi au āu
A few nitpicks: I think you're missing a <g>, and I assume you meant /ej eːj aj aːj/ ei ēi ai āi.

I like this a lot!
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 brǎdēr ‘brother’ < *bʰréh₂tēr
ďěgą ‘earth’ < *dʰéǵōm
dūgatêr ‘daughter’ < *dʰugh₂tḗr
gūkálas ‘oxherd’ < *gʷoukʷolos
íhsas ‘bear’ < *h₂ŕ̥tḱos
šárdīas ‘shepherd’ < *ḱerdhyos
ťármę ‘border’ < *térmn̥
vą̂das ‘wind’ < *h₂wéh₁ntos
yūgą̂ ‘yoke’ < *yugóm
śistás ‘broken’ < *skidtós
veráderas ‘truthful’ < *weh₁róteros
bérid ‘he carries’ < *bʰéreti
eďé ‘I know’ < *wóydh₂e
Very nice!
Clio wrote: 21 Jun 2018 20:42 Postscriptum: Thanks to anyone who's read this through; I hope you've enjoyed it. Soon I'll post about nominal morphology, and later a bit about allophony and dialects. I'd like to conclude by recognizing Dewrad's conlang Wenetic as a major source of inspiration for this project, not only in content but also in presentation. I expect someone familiar with his work will recognize the debts I owe, but hopefully not find Getic too derivative.
Looking forward to more! I'll have to check out the thread you linked to as well sometime.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

@shimobaatar: Thank you for the comments and for spotting some typoes. The Getae did exist, and Ovid did write about learning their language while in Tomis. This conlang is what I imagine Getic may have looked like, based very broadly on some of the information available about the Getae.

To clarify your questions about the accent laws: when the pitch of a vowel is discussed, only the accented vowel's quantity is relevant (until the Spondee Rule comes into effect). For instance, *weh₁róteros became *věrateras by Hirt's Law and then vēráderas by the Dactyl Rule: the *e of the first syllable is lengthened and develops rising pitch because it is followed by a laryngeal, and the *a of the antepenult develops high pitch because it is a short vowel. When *h appeared intervocalically, its effects were a bit more difficult to work out. First, by the corollary to Hirt's Law, it caused the accent to shift to the vowel immediately following *h; *h then disappeared, causing the vowels previously separated by it to contract when possible, leaving a long vowel with rising pitch. For instance, the sequence *oHo became *āá and then *ǎ, while the sequence *uHa became and remained *ūá.

I've edited my first post to be a bit clearer on the accent laws. Additionally, here's a chart of outcomes, where H represents any laryngeal, V any vowel, v any short vowel, w any long vowel, and V1...V2 the fact that the two vowels are not identical:

Code: Select all

PIE   Getic
Hv    v+high pitch
Hw    w+falling pitch
vH    w+rising pitch
wH    w+rising pitch
V1HV1 w+rising pitch
V1Hv2 w+rising pitch or V1v2+high pitch
V1Hw2 w+rising pitch or V1w2+falling pitch
The grapheme š has two meanings in Getic linguistics. First, as in most Indo-European linguistics, *š refers to the reconstructed phoneme (probably /ʂ/) resulting from retraction of *s due to the application of the Ruki Rule. As you noted, this phoneme becomes /ʃ/ or /x/. In Getic proper, š refers to the phoneme /sʲ/ resulting from palatalization of /s/ and from the clusters *šts štʃ. I tried to use different consonants for these two phonemes, but I didn't want to stray from the established Indo-European usage and potentially confuse people, and š made the best sense given how I represented the other palatalized coronal consonants.

Finally, you are correct, *tsr dzr became *str dr, and geminate consonants shortened unconditionally. Thanks again for reading and sharing your thoughts!
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Re: Getic

Post by WeepingElf »

Looks nice and interesting so far. Keep on!
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

@WeepingElf: Thank you!

I also just got a message from Janko asking for the numerals 1-10, so I'll post those here: yénas dǎ trîs četáres pą̂če svíks séptę astû ňévų ďézę. Note that séptę was originally accented on the ultima, but came to rhyme with ďézę, hence the unpalatalized s. Only yénas, , and trîs decline.
Last edited by Clio on 26 Jun 2018 19:29, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

2. Nominal morphology

Getic nouns have one of three genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter). Nouns inflect for two numbers (singular and plural) and six cases (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, and locative). The syntactic functions of the cases will be explained in more detail later; their names are identical to the names of the Proto-Indo-European cases from which they are descended.

Getic also preserves eight of Indo-European’s declensional paradigms, with the added complication that certain paradigms contain up to four subclasses differentiated by patterns of accent placement. Sometimes, these accent subclasses derive from Indo-European mobile accent, but others are innovations.

2.1 Thematic nouns

Thematic o-stems:
The thematic o-stems comprise nouns of the masculine and neuter genders, with the endings of neuter nouns differing from those of masculine nouns only in the nominative and accusative. Within the declension, there are three accent subclasses: barytonic (in which the accent is on the root except in the genitive plural), oxytonic (in which the accent is always on the final syllable of the stem except in the genitive plural), and mobile (in which the accent falls on the ending in the nom./acc./voc. and genitive plural). Only masculine nouns belong to the barytonic accent class, and only neuter nouns to the mobile accent class.

To see the paradigm in action, let’s examine the barytonic masculine noun úlkas ‘wolf,’ the oxytonic masculine noun sapás ‘hoof,’ the oxytonic neuter noun yūgą̂ ‘yoke,’ and the mobile neuter noun vírgą ‘work.’

Code: Select all

	barytonic			oxytonic
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	úlkas		úlkās		sapás		sapâs
voc.	úlke		úlkās		sapé		sapâs
acc.	úlką		úlkąs		sapą̂		sapą̂s
gen.	úlkaša		ulką̌		sapáša		sapą̌
dat.	úlkē		úlkābas		sapê		sapâbas
loc.	úlke		úlkehu		sapé		sapéhu	

	oxytonic			mobile
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	yūgą̂		yūgǎ		vírgą		vergǎ
voc.	yūgą̂		yūgǎ		vírgą		vergǎ
acc.	yūgą̂		yūgǎ		vírgą		vergǎ
gen.	yūgáša		yūgą̌		vírgaša		vergą̌
dat.	yūgê		yūgâbas		vírgē		vírgābas
loc.	yūgé		yūgéhu		vírge		vírgehu
There are a few things worth noting with regards to the o-stem declension. First, the genitive plural is always -ą̌; this ending with rising pitch has been generalized from nouns on which Hirt’s Law and its corollary did not operate (so *déh₃nom > dǎną ‘gift’ has gen. pl. dāną̌ for expected *dǎną). In fact, the rising pitch ending has been extended to all nouns of all declensions regardless of expected accentuation. Second, noun stems show no root alternations due to palatalization of velars by front vowels in case endings. However, some nouns such as vírgą with mobile accent do display palatalization alternation or ablaut (í~e or á~e) due to earlier vowel-breaking. Finally, due to regular sound change, oxytonic masculine nouns have falling pitch in the nom./voc./acc. plural ending, while neuters have rising pitch.

eh₂-stems:
Almost all eh₂-stems are feminine, except for a few masculine loanwords (declined identically to the feminine nouns) such as kalêgā ‘partner in office’ < Lat. collēga. Nouns of this declension may be barytonic or oxytonic. For example, consider the barytonic feminine noun dǎnā ‘grain’ and the oxytonic feminine čenǎ ‘payment.’

Code: Select all

	barytonic			oxytonic
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	dǎnā		dǎnēs		čenǎ		čeněs
voc.	dǎna		dǎnēs		čená		čeněs
acc.	dǎną		dǎnąs		čeną̌		čenę̌s
gen.	dǎnās		dāną̌		čenǎs		čeną̌
dat.	dǎnāi		dǎnābas		čenǎi		čenǎbas
loc.	dǎnā		dǎnāzu		čenǎ		čenǎzu
A quick note: The Proto-Indo-European ih₂-stems (also known as devī nouns) were not productive in Getic; they were absorbed into the eh₂-stem and i-stem declensions.
Last edited by Clio on 06 Jul 2018 02:36, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

2.2. Athematic nouns

Root nouns:
Root nouns add their endings directly to a root. These endings were taken as the athematic endings par excellence, and they (along with the oblique accent pattern) were imported to some other declensions. All root nouns are masculine or feminine and belong to the barytonic and oblique (in which the final syllable is accented in all cases except the nominative and vocative plural) accent classes. Here are barytonic feminine náks ‘night’ and oblique masculine pâs ‘foot.’

Code: Select all

	barytonic			oblique
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	náks		náktes		pâs		pâdes
voc.	náks		náktes		pâs		pâdes
acc.	náktę		náktęs		pādę̂		pādę̂s
gen.	náktas		naktą̌		pādás		pādą̌
dat.	nákti		nágbas		pādí		padbás
loc.	nákti		nágzu		pādí		padzú
Evidence of ablaut in root stem nouns has disappeared entirely, typically with the nominative stem predominating. The above declension of náks is a clear example of this phenomenon, having oblique stem nákt- (< *nókwt-) for expected ňákt- (< *nékwt-).

r-stems:
The r-stems include kinship terms in -têr/-dēr and nomina agentis in -dār; kinship terms in -têr are oblique, kinship terms in -dēr are barytonic, and nomina agentis can have either accent pattern. The neuters of this declension have been reorganized under the n-stems, probably on the basis of r/n-stem neuters, or remade as thematic nouns. Given below are the five main kinship terms belonging to this declension and two agent nouns: barytonic masculine dǎdār ‘donor’ and oblique masculine žánadār ‘parent.’

Code: Select all

	oblique				barytonic			oblique
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	patêr		paťéres		mǎdēr		mǎderes		dūgatêr		dūgaťéres
voc.	paťér		paťéres		mǎder		mǎderes		dūgaťér		dūgaťéres
acc.	patrę̂		patrę̂s		mǎderę		mǎderęs		dūgatrę̂	dūgatrę̂s
gen.	patrás		patrą̌		mǎderas		māderą̌		dūgatrás	dūgatrą̌
dat.	patrí		patribás	mǎderi		mǎderbas	dūgatrí		dūgatribás
loc.	patrí		patrizú		mǎderi		mǎderzu		dūgatrí		dūgatrizú

	barytonic			oblique	
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	brǎdēr		brǎderes	svestêr		svešťéres
voc.	brǎder		brǎderes	svešťér		svešťéres
acc.	brǎderę		brǎderę̂s	svestrę̂	svestrę̂s
gen.	brǎderas	brāderą̌	svestrás	svestrą̌
dat.	brǎderi		brǎderbas	svestrí		svestribás
loc.	brǎderi		brǎderzu	svestrí		svestrizú

	barytonic			oblique	
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	dǎdār		dǎdares		žánadār		žanádares
voc.	dǎdar		dǎdares		žánadar		žanádares
acc.	dǎtrę		dǎdaręs		žanatrę̂	žanatrę̂s
gen.	dǎtras		dātrą̌		žanatrás	žanatrą̌
dat.	dǎtri		dǎtrības	žanatrí		žanatrībás
loc.	dǎtri		dǎtrizu		žanatrí		žanatrizú
As in Germanic, the Proto-Indo-European word *swésōr was remodeled as *swestḗr on analogy with *ph₂tḗr and *dʰugh₂tḗr, before vowel-breaking but after the loss of laryngeals. Note that the kinship terms in -têr show irregularly short -i- in the dative plural. Originally, these nouns contained the stem-ending sequence -tirbás; the -ir- sequence metathesized in other r-stem nouns earlier than it did in the kinship terms, so Winter’s Law did not operate on them.

n-stems:
The n-stems comprise nouns of all three genders. The masculine and feminine n-stems include barytonic nouns in -ą/-ą̂, -ānas/-ânas; barytonic and oblique nouns in -, -manas/-manás; and barytonic and oblique nouns in -ą/-ą̂, -nas/-nás. The neuter nouns of this declension have barytonic or mobile accent. As examples, here are barytonic masculine agą̂ ‘athletic competition’ (from Greek ἀγών), oblique masculine suą̂ ‘dog,’ and mobile neuter ňámę ‘name.’

Code: Select all

	barytonic			oblique				mobile
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	agą̂		agânes		suą̂		suánes		ňámę		ňamǎ
voc.	agą̂		agânes		suą̂		suánes		ňámę		ňamǎ
acc.	agânę		agânęs		sunę̂		sunę̂s		ňámę		ňamǎ
gen.	agânas		agāną̌		sunás		suną̌		ňámenas		ňameną̌
dat.	agâni		agą̂bas		suní		sųbás		ňámeni		ňámębas
loc.	agâni		agą̂zu		suní		sųzú		ňámeni		ňámęzu
s-stems:
The s-stem nouns are all neuter with barytonic or mobile accent, except for the irregular feminine áuhās ‘dawn.’ In addition to the mobile neuter nêbas ‘cloudy sky,’ this noun is declined below.

Code: Select all

	mobile				irregular			
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	nêbas		nēbǎ		áuhās		áuhazes
voc.	nêbas		nēbǎ		áuhas		áuhazes
acc.	nêbas		nēbǎ		áuhazę		áuhazęs
gen.	nêbezas		nēbezą̌		uhás		uhą̌
dat.	nêbezi		nêbēbas		uśí		ūbás
loc.	nêbezi		nêbezu		uśí		uhú
Due to the identity of the nom./acc./voc. neuter ending -ǎ between the o-, n-, and s-stems, interchange of nouns between these three declensions was not uncommon. Most nouns were remodeled in the thematic declension, which was by far the most productive of the three. A few nouns developed doublets in different declensions, such as s-stem ďégas ‘honor’ alongside o-stem ďégą ‘offering.’

i- and u-stems:
The i-stem nouns are all masculine and feminine, and the u-stems encompass all genders. The i-stem nouns have barytonic, oblique, and oxytonic accent subclasses, whereas the u-stems have barytonic, oxytonic, and mobile accent subclasses (where only neuter nouns belong to the mobile subclass). As examples of this declension, take barytonic feminine pális ‘city-state’ (from Greek πόλις), oxytonic feminine mą̂dis ‘mind,’ oblique feminine ávis 'bird,' barytonic masculine sǔnus ‘son,’ oxytonic feminine svekrús ‘mother-in-law,’ and mobile neuter dáru ‘tree.’

Code: Select all

	barytonic			oxytonic			oblique
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	pális		pálīs		mą̂dis		mą̌dīs		ávis		avîs
voc.	páli		pálīs		mą̂di		mą̌dīs		ávi		avîs
acc.	pálę		pálęs		mętę̂		mętę̂s		avę̂		avę̂
gen.	pálīs		palią̌		mętǐs		mądią̌		avǐs		avią̌
dat.	pálī		pálības		mętî		mętîbas		avî		avībás
loc.	pálī		pálihu		mętî		mętíhu		avî		avihú

	barytonic			oxytonic			mobile
	sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
nom.	sǔnus		sǔnūs		svekrús		svekrǔs		dáru		darǔ
voc.	sǔnu		sǔnūs		svekrú		svekrǔs		dáru		darǔ
acc.	sǔnų		sǔnųs		svekrų̌		svekrų̌s		dáru		darǔ
gen.	sǔnūs		sūnuą̌		svekrǔs		svekruą̌	dárūs		daruą̌
dat.	sǔnī		sǔnūbas		svekrǐ		svekrǔbas	dárī		dárūbas
loc.	sǔnī		sǔnuhu		svekrǐ		svekrúhu	dárī		dáruhu
The u-stem declension also includes many earlier consonant stem nouns with accusatives in -ų(s) due to a preceding labialized consonant, as well as earlier uH-stems. Earlier uH- and ih₂-stem nouns provide many nouns in the oxytonic subclass, with certain analogical adjustments (such as shortening of the ultima and addition of the ending -s in the nominative singular) bringing them into line with the other i- and u-stem nouns.

Relics:
Certain nouns, including pâs, have a secondary locative form pâd, used mostly in fixed expressions such as tâmi pâd légid lit. ‘it lies at his/her feet’ (i.e., ‘it is easy for him/her’). Additionally, there are a small set of adverbs ending in -bi, derived from the otherwise extinct instrumental case, such as naúbi ‘with ships’ and ǧǐvābi ‘energetically.’
Last edited by Clio on 09 Aug 2019 20:32, edited 16 times in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by WeepingElf »

Good stuff! But by 'oblique' in your last post, do you mean 'oxytonic'?
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

WeepingElf wrote: 23 Jun 2018 19:22 Good stuff! But by 'oblique' in your last post, do you mean 'oxytonic'?
Thanks again! There was one place in which I meant "oxytonic" but had "oblique," but in general the two accent patterns are different. However, my original definition of the oxytonic pattern was erroneously thematic-noun-centric. I think I've cleaned up the incorrect statements now, hopefully not introducing other errors.

For clarity's sake, here's a restatement of the difference between Getic's accent patterns: in the oxytonic pattern, the last syllable of the stem is accented where possible (so e.g., dat. pl. mętîbas 'with their minds,' with the accent on the stem -ī-); in the oblique pattern, the ending itself is accented under the same conditions (so e.g., dat. pl. padbás 'with their feet,' with the accent on the ending -bas). The barytonic accent pattern could also be called the acrostatic (i.e., the root is always accented outside of the genitive plural); and the mobile accent pattern, restricted to neuter nouns, is like the barytonic except in that the accent is final in the nom./acc./voc. plural.

EDIT: It's just occurred to me that there are some problems with referring to "roots" and "stems" with respect to Getic. Diachronically, a noun like sapás consists of a root sap-, which when combined with a thematic vowel -á- forms the stem sapá-, and an ending -s. Synchronically, though, sapás contains a root sap- and an ending -ás. Similarly, a noun like patêr technically contains the suffix -ter. In terms of its declension and accentuation, it really resembles a root noun: pâdes and paťéres are both clearly not accented on the ending -es, but padbás and patribás are accented on the ending -bas. Technically, of course, the one is descended from a hysterokinetic noun and the other from a holokinetic noun in Proto-Indo-European, but in Getic they behave the same. And this phenomenon is in turn distinct from the accentuation of a noun like mą̂dis, whose accent moves between the historical root and historical stem and is not accented on the ending in, e.g., mętîbas. We need to distinguish these former proterokinetic nouns, however, from a historically holokinetic one like ávis, which does have an accented ending in avībás. Thus, mą̂dis is oxytonic and ávis is oblique.
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Re: Getic

Post by Shemtov »

I love the concept, mainly because I would do something similar, speculating what an IRL lostlang, specifically Khazar,if I had access to Grammars of Old and Proto-Turkic and Chuvash (Because that's what it's speculated was Khazar's closest living relative). I even coined a term: An Extrapolang.
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Re: Getic

Post by Santophrin »

Clio, what you are doing here is the coolest thing ever. I have nothing intelligent to comment, but I just wanted to express appreciation with your historical linguistics-driven conlanging.
Shemtov wrote: 25 Jun 2018 05:35 I love the concept, mainly because I would do something similar, speculating what an IRL lostlang, specifically Khazar,if I had access to Grammars of Old and Proto-Turkic and Chuvash (Because that's what it's speculated was Khazar's closest living relative). I even coined a term: An Extrapolang.
I searched online a little bit and found something here for Old Turkic, but that seems to be about it unless you read Russian.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

@Shemtov and Santophrin: Thank you both so much! I like the term "extrapolang" a lot, and I've got to say, this sort of project has been fun. The inspiration for Getic comes rather randomly from Anne Carson's prose poem "On Ovid" (in her book Short Talks), which got me reading more about Tomis and Getic. This is probably the quickest and most urgently I've ever worked on a conlang, which definitely owes to the poems.

My next post here will be about pronouns. I'm currently wrestling with adjectives and want to think everything through a bit more, since my decisions about adjectives will definitely be impacted by whatever happens with the pronouns.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

3. Pronominal morphology

Personal pronouns:

Code: Select all

	1sg.		1pl.		2sg.		2pl.		refl.
nom.	ezą̂		ví		tǔ		yǔ		—
acc.	mę̂		ēmí		tví		ūmí		sví
gen.	méne		ēmą̌		ťéve		ūmą̌		šéve
dat.	mízi		ēmîbas		ťébi		ūmîbas		šébi
loc.	mí		ēmíhu		ťé		ūmíhu		šé
poss.	manás		ēmás		tevás		ūmás		sevás
The first person accusative singular mę̂ is an irregular outcome of * due to sporadic nasalization of the vowel following a nasal consonant, and the first person plural oblique stem ēm- comes from earlier *ęm- by denasalization. The reflexive pronoun is used for all persons and both numbers. The possessive pronouns are adjectives which decline with the possessum.

Demonstrative pronouns:

Getic had three demonstrative pronouns which also served as third-person pronouns: distal ánas ‘that,’ medial ‘this,’ and proximal sáze ‘this here.’

Code: Select all

	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg. 		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	ánas		ánā		ánād		áne		ánēs		ánā
acc.	áną		áną		ánād		ánąs		ánęs		ánā
gen.	ánaša		ánašās		ánaša		ánašą̌		ánašą̌		ánašą̌
dat.	ánāmei		ánašāi		ánāmei		ánēbas		ánābas		ánēbas
loc.	ánāmi		ánašā		ánāmi		ánehu		ánāzu		ánehu

	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg. 		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	sá		sǎ		tâd		ťé		těs		tǎ
acc.	tą̂		tą̌		tâd		tą̂s		tę̌s		tǎ
gen.	táša		tašǎs		táša		tašą̌		tāšą̌		tašą̌
dat.	tâmei		tašǎi		tâmei		ťêbas		tǎbas		ťêbas
loc.	tâmi		tašǎ		tâmi		ťéhu		tǎzu		ťéhu

	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg. 		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	sáze		sǎze		tâdze		ťéze		těze		tǎze
acc.	tą̂ze		tą̌ze		tâdze		tą̂ze		tę̌ze		tǎze
gen.	tášaze		tašǎze		tášaze		tašą̌ze		tāšą̌ze		tašą̌ze
dat.	tâmeize		tašǎize		tâmeize		ťêbaze		tǎbaze		ťêbaze
loc.	tâmize		tašǎze		tâmize		ťéhuze		tǎzuze		ťéhuze
In addition to these basic pronouns, two others were created by adding suffixes to : contrastive sáde ‘this very’ and limiting sáǧe ‘this (but not others).’

Relative pronoun:

Code: Select all

	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg. 		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	yás		yǎ		yâd		yé		yěs		yǎ
acc.	yą̂		yą̌		yâd		yą̂s		yę̌s		yǎ
gen.	yáša		yašǎs		yáša		yašą̌		yāšą̌		yašą̌
dat.	yâmei		yašǎi		yâmei		yêbas		yǎbas		yêbas
loc.	yâmi		yašǎ		yâmi		yéhu		yǎzu		yéhu
The relative pronoun is almost always used with a demonstrative pronoun; often, the pronoun sáde or sáǧe is used with the relative pronoun when its antecedent is, respectively, new or old to the discourse.

Interrogative pronoun:

The declension of the interrogative pronoun has some forms in common with the i-stem nouns, although other forms clearly resemble the demonstrative pronouns.

Code: Select all

	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg. 		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	čís		čís		čîd		čîs		čîs		čǐ
acc.	čę̂		čę̂		čîd		čę̂s		čę̂s		čǐ
gen.	čáša		čáša		čáša		čią̌		čią̌		čią̌
dat.	čâmei		čâmei		čâmei		čîbas		čîbas		čîbas
loc.	čâmi		čâmi		čâmi		číhu		číhu		číhu
Last edited by Clio on 26 Oct 2018 18:44, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

4. Adjectival morphology

Getic adjectives preserve seven distinct declensions, as well as one made up of other declensions in which each gender declines differently. In two declensions, the feminine has i-stem endings that are derived from earlier ih₂-stem endings.

Thematic adjectives:

The thematic adjectives decline like o-stem nouns in the masculine and neuter, and as eh₂-stems in the feminine. Adjectives of this declension belong to three accent classes: the barytonic, the oxytonic, or the pronominal accent class (in which the accent is barytonic in the masculine, oxytonic in the feminine, and mobile in the neuter). As examples, take barytonic ǧǐvas ‘alive,’ oxytonic rudrás ‘red,’ and pronominal šánas ‘old.’

Code: Select all

	barytonic
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	ǧǐvas		ǧǐvā		ǧǐvą		ǧǐvās		ǧǐvēs		ǧǐvā
voc.	ǧǐve		ǧǐvā		ǧǐvą		ǧǐvās		ǧǐvēs		ǧǐvā
acc.	ǧǐvą		ǧǐvą		ǧǐvą		ǧǐvąs		ǧǐvęs		ǧǐvā
gen.	ǧǐvaša		ǧǐvās		ǧǐvaša		ǧīvą̌		ǧīvą̌		ǧīvą̌
dat.	ǧǐvē		ǧǐvāi		ǧǐvē		ǧǐvābas		ǧǐvābas		ǧǐvābas
loc.	ǧǐve		ǧǐvā		ǧǐve		ǧǐvehu		ǧǐvāzu		ǧǐvehu

	oxytonic
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	rudrás		rudrǎ		rudrą̂		rudrâs		rudrěs		rudrǎ
voc.	rudré		rudrǎ		rudrą̂		rudrâs		rudrěs		rudrǎ
acc.	rudrą̂		rudrą̌		rudrą̂		rudrą̂s		rudrę̌s		rudrǎ
gen.	rudráša		rudrǎs		rudráša		rudrą̌		rudrą̌		rudrą̌
dat.	rudrê		rudrǎi		rudrê		rudrâbas	rudrǎbas	rudrâbas
loc.	rudré		rudrǎ		rudré		rudréhu		rudrǎzu		rudréhu

	pronominal
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	šánas		šanǎ		šáną		šánās		šaněs		šánā
voc.	šáne		šanǎ		šáną		šánās		šaněs		šánā
acc.	šáną		šaną̌		šáną		šánąs		šanę̌s		šánā
gen.	šánaša		šanǎs		šánaša		šaną̌		šaną̌		šaną̌
dat.	šánē		šanǎi		šánē		šánābas		šanǎbas		šánābas
loc.	šáne		šanǎ		šáne		šánehu		šanǎzu		šánehu
n-stems:

Adjectives of the athematic declensions can be either barytonic in all genders, or oblique in the masculine and feminine and mobile in the neuter. Probably the most straightforward athematic adjectives, the n-stems decline identically to their nominal counterparts, with ablaut between a-vocalism in the masculine and feminine and e-vocalism in the neuter. As an example, we will examine oblique/mobile vézą ‘favorable.’

Code: Select all

	oblique/mobile
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	vézą		vézą		vézę		vézanes		vézanes		vezǎ
voc.	vézą		vézą		vézę		vézanes		vézanes		vezǎ
acc.	vezanę̂		vezanę̂		vézę		vézanęs		vézanęs		vezǎ
gen.	vezanás		vezanás		vézenas		vezaną̌		vezaną̌		vezeną̌	
dat.	vezaní		vezaní		vézeni		veząbás		veząbás		vézębas
loc.	vezaní		vezaní		vézeni		vezązú		vezązú		vézęzu
i- and u-stems:

The i- and u-stem adjectives are also very similar to their nominal counterparts, with the addition of neuter forms in the i-stem declension. Adjectives fully declining as u-stems are more common than i-stems, but other declensions have adopted the i-stem forms for all their feminine adjectives. By far the most common member of the i-stem declension is trîs ‘three,’ although a few other adjectives exist. Below are given oblique/mobile pádis ‘powerful’ and barytonic svǎdus ‘sweet.’

Code: Select all

	oblique/mobile
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	pádis		pádis		pádi		pádīs		pádīs		patǐ
voc.	pádi		pádi		pádi		pádīs		pádīs		patǐ
acc.	patę̂		patę̂		pádi		patę̂s		patę̂s		patǐ
gen.	patǐs		patǐs		pádīs		padią̌		padią̌		padią̌
dat.	patî		patî		pádī		padībás		padībás		padībás
loc.	patî		patî		pádī		padīhú		padīhú		padīhú

	barytonic
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	svǎdus		svǎdus		svǎdu		svǎdūs		svǎdūs		svǎdū
voc.	svǎdu		svǎdu		svǎdu		svǎdūs		svǎdūs		svǎdū
acc.	svǎdų		svǎdų		svǎdu		svǎdųs		svǎdųs		svǎdū
gen.	svǎdūs		svǎdūs		svǎdūs		svāduą̌		svāduą̌		svāduą̌
dat.	svǎdī		svǎdī		svǎdī		svǎdūbas	svǎdūbas	svǎdūbas
loc.	svǎdī		svǎdī		svǎdī		svǎduhu		svǎduhu		svǎduhu
Root adjectives:

There are very few root adjectives in Getic; most are compound adjectives derived from root nouns. Even mízas ‘large’ has been remodeled as thematic. Compound adjectives tend to have the same accentuation as the nouns from which they are derived. For instance, consider the oblique/mobile adjective ępâs ‘footless.’

Code: Select all

	oblique/mobile
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	ępâs		ępâs		ępâd		ępâdes		ępād		ępādǎ
voc.	ępâs		ępâs		ępâd		ępâdes		ępād		ępādǎ
acc.	ępādę̂		ępādę̂		ępâd		ępādę̂s		ępādę̂s		ępādǎ
gen.	ępādás		ępādás		ępâdas		ępādą̌		ępādą̌		ępādą̌
dat.	ępādí		ępādí		ępâdi		ępadbás		ępadbás		ępádbas
loc.	ępādí		ępādí		ępâdi		ępadzú		ępadzú		ępádzu
Certain adjectives have neuter singular nom./acc./voc. forms with final -s to avoid an illegal final consonant cluster.

s-stems:

The s-stem adjectives take their feminine endings from the i-stems but otherwise have a unique declension, showing the same ablaut as the s-stem nouns. To demonstrate, consider the barytonic ęžanâs ‘stillborn.’

Code: Select all

	barytonic
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	ęžanâs		ęžanézis	ęžanás		ęžanézes	ęžanézes	ęžanǎ
voc.	ęžanás		ęžanézi		ęžanás		ęžanézes	ęžanézes	ęžanǎ	
acc.	ęžanézę		ęžanézę		ęžanás		ęžanézęs	ęžanézęs	ęžanǎ
gen.	ęžanézas	ęžanézīs	ęžanézas	ęžanezą̌	ęžanezą̌	ęžanezą̌	
dat.	ęžanézi		ęžanézī		ęžanézi		ęžanêbas	ęžanêbas	ęžanêbas
loc.	ęžanézi		ęžanézī		ęžanézi		ęžanézu		ęžanézu		ęžanézu
nt-stems:

Also known as “adjectives of three declensions,” these adjectives decline as root adjectives in -t- in the masculine, as i-stems in the feminine, and as n-stems in the neuter. The most prominent members of this declension are of course the active participles, such as oblique/mobile bérąs ‘carrying.’

Code: Select all

	oblique/mobile
	m.sg.		f.sg.		n.sg.		m.pl.		f.pl.		n.pl.
nom.	bérąs		bérądis		bérę		bérądes		bérądīs		berǎ
voc.	bérąs		bérądi		bérę		bérądes		bérądīs		berǎ
acc.	berątę̂		berątę̂		bérę		berątę̂s	berątę̂s	berǎ
gen.	berątás		berątǐs		bérenas		berątą̌		berądią̌	bereną̌
dat.	berątí		berątî		béreni		berądbás	berądībás	bérębas
loc.	berątí		berątî		béreni		berądzú		berądihú	béręzu
Note that relatively little of this declension descends directly from Proto-Indo-European, except the masculine paradigm.

Comparative and superlative adjectives:

The foregoing description treats only adjectives of the positive degree. As in most other Indo-European languages, two other degrees of adjectives existed: the comparative and superlative. Comparative adjectives bear the suffix -íhteras, and superlatives end in -temás, which belong respectively to the pronominal and oxytonic thematic declensions. A few irregular adjectives have pronominally-accented comparatives in -eras. The -íhteras suffix is attached to the root of the adjective modified, and the others are attached to the stem. The Proto-Indo-European intensifying suffix *-yōs survives unsupported by *-teros only in a few adjectives for whom the form with *-yōs became the positive degree by hyperbole.

The comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are used almost exclusively for indicating distinctions in degree, much like the comparatives and superlatives of modern European languages.
Last edited by Clio on 26 Sep 2018 23:55, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by shimobaatar »

Clio wrote: 22 Jun 2018 17:12 @shimobaatar: Thank you for the comments and for spotting some typoes. The Getae did exist, and Ovid did write about learning their language while in Tomis. This conlang is what I imagine Getic may have looked like, based very broadly on some of the information available about the Getae.
Lovely! Thanks for all your clarifications!

Getic continues to be a very impressive project.
Clio wrote: 23 Jun 2018 17:11 To see the paradigm in action, let’s examine the barytonic masculine noun úlkas ‘wolf,’ the oxytonic masculine noun sapás ‘hoof,’ the oxytonic neuter noun yūgą̂ ‘yoke,’ and the mobile neuter noun vírgą ‘work.’
To start, I'd like to say that I love how you've formatted all this. I know this is nit-picky, but in case it matters to you, the tables for r-stem nouns, i- and u-stem nouns, demonstrative pronouns, s-stem adjectives, and nt-stem adjectives all have some elements that are misaligned, at least on my browser.

Regarding the genitive plural of úlkas, the table has úlką̌, but, although I could be wrong, I have a feeling it might actually be ulką̌, with only one accented vowel. Is this the case?

I had some questions about oxytonic nouns, but I believe your clarification of the difference between "roots" and "stems" in regards to Getic below answered them. It's quite a complicated system, especially if you look at the historical development, at least in my opinion.
Clio wrote: 23 Jun 2018 17:11 Second, noun stems show no root alternations due to palatalization of velars by front vowels in case endings.
Why not? Analogy?
Clio wrote: 23 Jun 2018 17:57 Evidence of ablaut in root stem nouns has disappeared entirely, typically with the nominative stem predominating. The above declension of náks is a clear example of this phenomenon, having oblique stem nákt- (< *nókwt-) for expected ňákt- (< *nékwt-).
So, to clarify, the nominative stem usually predominates, but in the case of náks, the oblique stem has "taken over"?
Clio wrote: 23 Jun 2018 17:57 r-stems:
The r-stems include kinship terms in -têr/-dēr and nomina agentis in -dār; kinship terms in -têr are oblique, kinship terms in -dēr are barytonic, and nomina agentis can have either accent pattern. The neuters of this declension have been reorganized under the n-stems, probably on the basis of r/n-stem neuters, or remade as thematic nouns. Given below are the five main kinship terms belonging to this declension and two agent nouns: barytonic masculine dǎdār ‘donor’ and oblique masculine žánadār ‘parent.’
Can agent nouns in this declension be either masculine or feminine?
Clio wrote: 23 Jun 2018 17:57 n-stems:
The n-stems comprise nouns of all three genders. The masculine and feminine n-stems include barytonic nouns in -ą/-ą̂, -ānas/-ânas; barytonic and oblique nouns in -, -manas/-manás; and barytonic and oblique nouns in -ą/-ą̂, -nas/-nás. The neuter nouns of this declension have barytonic or mobile accent. As examples, here are barytonic masculine agą̂ ‘athletic competition’ (from Greek ἀγών), oblique masculine suą̂ ‘dog,’ and mobile neuter ňámę ‘name.’
When you say, for example, "barytonic nouns in -ą/-ą̂, -ānas/-ânas", which endings are those?
Clio wrote: 23 Jun 2018 17:57 s-stems:
The s-stem nouns are all neuter with barytonic or mobile accent, except for the irregular feminine áuhās ‘dawn.’ In addition to the mobile neuter nêbas ‘cloudy sky,’ this noun is declined below.
Is there any particular reason behind the irregularity of áuhās?
Clio wrote: 23 Jun 2018 17:57 Relics:
Certain nouns, including pâs, have a secondary locative form pâd, used mostly in fixed expressions such as tâmi pâd léged lit. ‘it lies at his/her feet’ (i.e., ‘it is easy for him/her’). Additionally, there are a small set of adverbs ending in -bi, derived from the otherwise extinct instrumental case, such as naúbi ‘with ships’ and ǧǐvābi ‘energetically.’
Cool!
Clio wrote: 26 Jun 2018 19:27 Demonstrative pronouns:

Getic had three demonstrative pronouns which also served as third-person pronouns: distal ánas ‘that,’ medial ‘this,’ and proximal sáze ‘this here.’
Not exactly relevant, but I just thought it was interesting how you translated the three demonstratives. In, for example, Spanish and Japanese, I tend to think of them in almost the opposite way, as proximal "this", medial "that", and distal "that over there".
Clio wrote: 01 Jul 2018 17:35 i- and u-stems:

The i- and u-stem adjectives are also very similar to their nominal counterparts, with the addition of neuter forms in the i-stem declension. Adjectives fully declining as u-stems are more common than i-stems, but other declensions have adopted the i-stem forms for all their feminine adjectives. By far the most common member of the i-stem declension is trîs ‘three,’ although a few other adjectives exist. Below are given oblique/mobile pádis ‘powerful’ and barytonic svǎdus ‘sweet.’
So, like n-stem adjectives, i- and u-stem adjectives can either be barytonic regardless of gender, or oblique when masculine or feminine, but mobile when neuter?
Clio wrote: 01 Jul 2018 17:35 Root adjectives:

There are very few root adjectives in Getic; most are compound adjectives derived from root nouns. Even mízas ‘large’ has been remodeled as thematic. Compound adjectives tend to have the same accentuation as the nouns from which they are derived. For instance, consider the oblique/mobile adjective ępâs ‘footless.’
So, because pâs is an oblique masculine noun, ępâs has oblique accent when masculine or feminine, but mobile when neuter?
Clio wrote: 01 Jul 2018 17:35 Certain adjectives have neuter singular nom./acc./voc. forms with final -s to prevent an illegal consonant cluster.
Sorry if the answer should be obvious, but why would this prevent an illegal consonant cluster?
Clio wrote: 01 Jul 2018 17:35 s-stems:

The s-stem nouns take their feminine endings from the i-stems but otherwise have a unique declension, showing the same ablaut as the s-stem nouns. To demonstrate, consider the barytonic ęžanâs ‘stillborn.’
I assume you meant "The s-stem adjectives take their feminine endings…"? Are all s-stem adjectives barytonic?
Clio wrote: 01 Jul 2018 17:35 nt-stems:

Also known as “adjectives of three declensions,” these adjectives decline as root adjectives in -t- in the masculine, as i-stems in the feminine, and as n-stems in the neuter. The most prominent members of this declension are of course the active participles, such as oblique/mobile bérąs ‘carrying.’
Do all nt-stem adjectives have oblique/mobile accent?
Clio wrote: 01 Jul 2018 17:35 Note that relatively little of this declension descends directly from Proto-Indo-European, except the masculine paradigm.
How were the feminine and neuter paradigms formed, then?
Clio wrote: 01 Jul 2018 17:35 Comparative and superlative adjectives:

The foregoing description treats only adjectives of the positive degree. As in most other Indo-European languages, two other degrees of adjectives existed: the comparative and superlative. Comparative adjectives bear the suffix -îteras, and superlatives end in -temás, which belong respectively to the pronominal and oxytonic thematic declensions. A few irregular verbs have pronominally-accented comparatives in -eras. The -îteras suffix is attached to the root of the adjective modified, and the others are attached to the stem. The Proto-Indo-European intensifying suffix *-yōs survives unsupported by *-teros only in a few adjectives for whom the form with *-yōs became the positive degree by hyperbole.

The comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are used almost exclusively for indicating distinctions in degree, much like the comparatives and superlatives of modern European languages.
I assume you meant "A few irregular adjectives have…"?

Could you perhaps clarify what you mean about *-yōs?
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

@shimobaatar: Thanks for another thorough reply. Either I have pretty fat fingers or you have very keen eyes (or both)--anyway, I've fixed the typoes and stuff that you caught. Spacing issues seem to depend on browser: on my laptop (on which I write these posts), everything's spaced correctly; on my phone, I see the same as you. I think the reason is just that my laptop browser displays characters with an ogonek and caron or circumflex as two characters (so ą^ etc.), which must mess up all the spacing.

Now for your specific questions:

-Yes, noun stems don't alternate because Getic (or more accurately Getic speakers) tended to prefer to extend a single noun stem to most or all case forms, especially in the thematic declensions. The same phenomenon is present in Attic Greek, for instance: the regular third person singular of λείπω would be *λείτει, but only λείπει is seen.

-No, nákt- is derived from the Proto-Indo-European "strong" stem; in PIE, the "weak" stem was *nekʷt, which is the one that would have given *ňákt-. In Getic, nákt- is the synchronic oblique stem (i.e., the stem on which the non-nominative case forms are built), derived from the PIE "strong" stem. (One issue with Indo-European conlanging is that I occasionally learn some terms have slightly different meanings in Indo-European linguistics than in Greek and Latin grammar--or just as troubling, they might have the same meaning, making it unclear whether I am referring to Getic or PIE. In general, I have written pretty much everything from a synchronic perspective, so a reference to an "oblique stem" nearly always means the Getic oblique stem rather than the PIE weak stem.)

-I don't know whether there are feminine r-stem agent nouns. I think žánadār is common, but maybe other nouns have a corresponding i-stem feminine, like dǎdāris. I'll go with that for now.

-The nominative is -ą/-ą̂, and the genitive is -ānas/-ânas. What really matters in the paragraph introducing the n-stem nouns is that they can either have a stem containing -m- and a short -an- in the oblique cases, or not and not.

-Well, the Watsonian reason for the irregularity of áuhās is that I really liked a few of the forms that my sound changes on h₂éwsōs had produced. Due to the RUKI rule, palatalizations, and compensatory lengthening, I wound up with five stems: áuh-, -, uh-, ū-, and u-. I really enjoyed the irregularity, so I kept it around in a slightly modified way.

-Yeah, that's true; I also typically think of the distal as "that over there." My translation really just owes to the fact sáze is clearly derived from , so I wanted to list them such that sáze would come last.

-Exactly. In fact, any athematic adjective (regardless of stem) can have either barytonic accent (when the Proto-Indo-European root contained a laryngeal) or oblique/mobile accent.

-I kind of danced around plain phrasing in the original post since I was a bit unsure what consonant clusters might be illegal word-finally. I'm going to assume that something like *-pt was illegal, but -ps was permitted (as in Latin and Greek). So a noun with a root ending in -pt would need a neuter singular in -ps.

-The feminine and neuter paradigms of the nt-stems are taken respectively i-stem and n-stem declensions. The feminine forms were extended with -is, and the neuter forms were remodeled from a nominative that lost the final -t (for whatever reason).

-Yes. *-yōs (full grade *-yos, zero grade *-is) was the Proto-Indo-European intensive suffix, which emphasized the meaning of an adjective. In many Indo-European languages, it wound up forming the comparative (with a change in meaning, e.g., "very sweet" > "sweeter"), often with an additional suffix, such as Greek -ίων from -is-on (and I think English -est from -is-tos). In Getic, it was combined with the PIE contrastive suffix *-teros to produce *-ísteros > *-íšteros > *-íhteras. In a few adjectives, though, intensive degree with *-yōs became the positive degree of the adjective. For instance, *néwyōs 'very new' (from néwos 'new') became s-stem *ňávās, with the simple meaning 'new'.

Thanks again for spotting my errors and for all the questions; really appreciate that you've read everything through.

EDIT: I'm going to tack on to this post a note that I've made a correction concerning the adjectives: the comparative suffix is -íhteras, not -îteras.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

5. Verbal morphology

Getic verbs inflect for two numbers (singular and plural), three persons, two voices (active and passive), and five tense-aspect combinations (present, past, perfect, future I, and future II). In addition, verbs have four associated quasi-nominal forms: an infinitive/supine and three participles.

Every Getic verb is derived from a root, which carries a certain basic semantic meaning. From a root, other verbs with more specific meanings may be derived by means of what were historically derivational affixes and infixes, collectively termed the verbal characterization. Most verb stems are characterized, but a few verb forms consist of the bare root and inflectional suffixes alone.

The inflectional suffixes of the Getic verb fall into two categories: monoexponential prefixes and the highly fusional ending. The two prefixes are the augment e- and partial reduplication Ce-, which respectively indicate past and perfect tense. The ending is a highly fusional suffix that encodes for person, number, voice, and tense-aspect in as little as one phoneme (e.g., the first-person singular future I active ending -ǎ). Certain endings may be decomposed into a thematic vowel and a personal ending (e.g., the first-person plural present active ending -amas with thematic vowel -a- and personal ending -mas). (When a Proto-Indo-European thematic vowel has been contracted with other vowels in a derivational suffix, the resulting affix is not considered to contain a thematic vowel synchronically.)

Altogether, this means that the Getic verbal template is as follows: [augment/reduplication]-[stem = root ± characterization]-[ending = ± thematic vowel + personal ending]. In total, a regular verb may show as many as four stems in its conjugation, distinguished by the presence or absence of suffixes, ablaut, and changes to final consonants. These stems are named after the verb forms which require them: the present stem (also used by the future I), the past stem (also used by the future II), the perfect singular stem, and the perfect plural stem.

5.1. The present active

Present classes:

The present stems may be divided into six major classes depending on their characterization and whether they must be followed by a thematic vowel. The first of these classes contains the very few verbs that add the present endings directly to the root; the next, all the verbs that contain a nasal vowel in the stem and no further characterization; the third, all the verbs with a thematic vowel in the present, the fourth, all the verbs characterized by the affix -ī-; and the final two contain the present stems containing the affixes -ǎ- and --.

The third and fourth classes also contain certain subcategories. Class III present stems may show iotation (final consonants showing traces of having once been followed by *-y); in addition, verbs with class III iotated stems may be either rhizotonic (normally accented on the root, except in the first-person singular) or arrhizotonic (accented consistently on the thematic vowel). All class IV present stems show iotation and may be either rhizotonic (always accented on the root) or circumflex (always having falling accent on the verbal characterization).

Present endings:

A verb in the present tense may take one of two sets of personal endings, depending on the class to which its stem belongs.

Code: Select all

	unaccented	mobile
1sg	-mi		-mi
2sg	-z		-si~-śi
3sg	-d		-ti
1pl	-mas		-más
2pl	-de		-ťé
3pl	-ąd		-ą̂d
Note that the second-person singular mobile ending has two allomorphs, the second occurring in environments where the ruki rule operated. The mobile endings are used by class I and II verbs, while the unaccented endings occur with verbs of all other classes.

With this information in mind, we can proceed to examine the present-tense conjugation of a few verbs: class I yésti ‘be,’ class II lę̌kti ‘abandon,’ class IIIa uniotated bérid ‘carry,’ class IIIb iotated rhizotonic ǧéďid ‘pray’, class IIIc iotated arrhizotonic gųśíd ‘walk,’ class IVa rhizotonic šǎǧīd ‘track,’ class IVb circumflex saďîd ‘seat,’ class V rūdǎd ‘blush,’ and class VI nevaǐd ‘renew.’

Athematic presents:

Code: Select all

  class I			class II
  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 yézmi		ezmás		lę̌gmi 		lęgmás
2 yési		ešťé		lę̌kśi 		lękťé
3 yésti		esą̂d		lę̌kti 		lęką̂d
Note the allophonic voicing assimilation in forms like yézmi and lę̌gmi, as well as the assimilation of -s- to -š- before -ť-. The alternation between the stems yés- and es-, however, is not allophonic; Getic speakers have tended to level any alternations in the presence of *-y- or of palatalization, except in this irregular verb.

Thematic presents:

Code: Select all

  class IIIa			class IIIb			class IIIc
  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 berǎmi	béramas 	ǧeďǎmi		ǧéďamas		gųśǎmi		gųśámas
2 bériz		bérede		ǧéďiz		ǧéďede		gųśíz		gųśéde
3 bérid		bérąd		ǧéďid		ǧéďąd		gųśíd		gųśą̂d
Note that *-e- raised to -i- before *-i-, and that the ending -ǎmi derives from redundant *-oH-mi.

Contract presents:

Code: Select all

  class IVa			class IVb
  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 sǎǧīmi	sǎǧīmas		saďîmi		saďîmas
2 sǎǧīz		sǎǧīde		saďîz		saďîde
3 sǎǧīd		sǎǧīąd		saďîd		saďîąd

  class V			class VI
  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 rūdǎmi	rūdǎmas		nevaǐmi		nevaǐmas
2 rūdǎz		rūdǎde		nevaǐz		nevaǐde
3 rūdǎd		rūdą̌d		nevaǐd		nevą̌d
Class IVa exists due to Sievers’s law, whereas class IVb verbs deserve the descriptor “contract” more truly, since their characterization -î- derives from the Proto-Indo-European sequence *-éye. Note that the third-person plural personal endings have contracted with the verbal characterization of class V and VI verbs; the accent alone differentiates these verb forms from the third-person plural forms of class IIIc verbs.
Last edited by Clio on 04 Nov 2018 18:10, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

5.2. The past active

The Getic past tense is derived from the conflation of the Proto-Indo-European aorist and imperfect. Its basic meaning is imperfective, although the majority of Getic verbs have past tense forms derived from the Proto-Indo-European aorist.

As with the present tense, there are two sets of endings a past active verb can take, derived from the Proto-Indo-European thematic and athematic secondary endings.

Code: Select all

	unaccented	mobile
1sg	-ą		-ą
2sg	-es		-s
3sg	-ed		-d
1pl	-ame		-mé
2pl	-ede		-ťé
3pl	-ąd		-ą̂d
The past tense is also marked by the presence of the augment, which is underlyingly prefixed before the stem. Before a stem-initial consonant, the augment surfaces as e-; before a vowel, it lengthens the vowel (or the first element in a diphthong). The augment is never stressed; when it surfaces as vowel lengthening, this means that the resulting long vowel always has rising tone.

Past classes:

There are three classes of past stems, one of which has two subclasses. The first class, by far the most regular and productive, contains all the stems formed by affixing -s- to the present stem; the second, all the stems that are identical to the root and are followed by a thematic vowel; the third, all the stems that are identical to the root and are followed by the mobile endings. These classes may be referred to by number or by the following rather self-explanatory names: sigmatic, thematic, and athematic.

Among the class II past stems there are two subclasses: those which are identical to the present stem and those which are an uniotated version of the present stem.

Past ablaut:

In addition to these past classes, there are five major ablaut patterns which can be observed within the class III pasts, and each of these patterns has at least two subpatterns. The existence of these patterns owes to the Proto-Indo-European ablaut between full and zero grades, but the specifics have become somewhat less transparent than they were in the parent language due to phenomena such as vowel-breaking and laryngeal coloring (or both, in the case of pattern Vb).

Many of the ablaut patterns involve one vowel in one tense, and two or three in the other (on the basis of which the subpatterns are distinguished), which is an important reminder that neither the present nor the past tense is more fundamental: both tenses are derived from the root.

Code: Select all

	present		past
Ia	ę		ą̂
Ib	ų		ą̂
IIa	ę̌		í
IIb	ų̌		éu
IIIa	i		á
IIIb	u		á
IVa	a		ě
IVb	a		ǎ
Va	a		é
Vb	a		í
Vc	a		á
Patterns IIa, Va, and Vb historically caused palatalization (or, in rare cases involving disyllabic roots, gemination) of some previous consonants in the past tense. These alternations have generally been analogized away, although it was not predictable whether consonant in the past stem or the one in the present stem was extended to the opposite tense.

Sigmatic pasts:

As noted above, the sigmatic past stem is built directly from the present stem. Verbs with sigmatic pasts may have class III present stems, although not all class III presents have sigmatic pasts. All present stems of the so-called “contract” classes, however, have sigmatic pasts, as do nearly all loanwords. For example, consider the verbs erūdǎst ‘was blushing’ (present rūdǎd) and ebéust ‘kept watch’ (present béudid).

Code: Select all

  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 erūdǎzą	erūdāzmé	ebéuzą		ebeuzmé
2 erūdǎs	erūdāšťé	ebéus		ebeušťé
3 erūdǎst	erūdāsą̂d	ebéust		ebeusą̂d
Note the voicing alternations, and the coalescence of *-ss to -s in the second-person singular. It can also be seen that, unlike many other satem languages, the sigmatic past marker does not have a back allomorph in former ruki environments. This fact owes to analogy with the many sigmatic past stems with the characterizations -îs- and -aǐs-. These verbs contain an -s- because the preceding -i- developed after the ruki rule operated, and their frequency led to the general adoption of the -s- allomorph, first spreading to verbs with class IVa presents.

Thematic pasts:

As mentioned above, the thematic pasts comprise two subclasses, depending on whether their corresponding present stem is iotated. (The complete collapse of these subclasses, entailing the adoption of iotated stems in the past tense, is characteristic of the Getic dialects north of the Danube.) The following chart summarizes the alternations between iotated and uniotated consonants.

Code: Select all

iotated     ň ť ď š ž č ǧ ś
uniotated   n t d s z k g h
It is worth noting that, if sound changes had operated completely regularly, the alternation between iotated and uniotated consonants would also have involved an alternation between short and long vowels before all stem-final consonants. However, short vowels have generally been adopted in the past stems—not, as might be expected, simply lifted from the corresponding present stems, but also due to the occasional collateral sigmatic and athematic past forms (e.g., eǧést alongside eǧéded).

As examples, consider the class IIa verb ebéred (present bérid) and class IIb verb eǧéded ‘was praying’ (present ǧéďid).

Code: Select all

  class IIa			class IIb
  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 ebérą		ebérame		eǧédą		eǧédame
2 ebéres	ebérede		eǧédes		eǧédede
3 ebéred	ebérąd		eǧéded		eǧédąd
Athematic pasts:

The athematic past stems are a moribund class in Getic. This is a result of two factors: frequent homophony between certain forms of the sigmatic and athematic pasts, as well as the complex and occasionally very unpredictable ablaut phenomena. These phenomena have contributed to the ascendency of the sigmatic past stems, frequently to the detriment of the athematic ones. However, a few high-frequency verbs are still conjugated according to this pattern in both dialect groups. We’ll examine the verbs elígd ‘was leaving’ (present lę̌kti) and egą̂d ‘was walking’ (present gųśíd)

Code: Select all

  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 elígą		eligmé		egą̂		egąmé
2 elíks		elikťé		egą̂s		egąťé
3 elígd		eliką̂d		egą̂d		egą̂d
Note that the nasal vowels in the first-person singular and third-person plural endings have contracted with the nasal vowel in the stem of egą̂d. Additionally, notice that the singular and plural stems of athematic pasts are identical except for the accent, although the Proto-Indo-European verb had ablaut between the numbers as well.

Irregular pasts:

Naturally, a few verbs have very unpredictable past tense forms. Often, these irregular forms involve a completely suppletive past root; a few irregular pasts derive from alternative past tense forms of verbs which have since been assigned different meanings (e.g., eǧást ‘was demanding,’ as opposed to the more common past eǧéded ‘was praying’). All verbs with class I present stems are irregular in the past tense. For the sake of example, we will only examine the most common irregular past-tense verb: ebǔd ‘was’ (present yésti).

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  sg.		pl.
1 ebų̌		ebǔme
2 ebǔs		ebǔde
3 ebǔd		ebų̌d
Last edited by Clio on 07 Nov 2018 18:32, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by Clio »

5.3 The perfect active

The primary function of the perfect tense is to indicate a recently-completed action. The perfect usually connotes continuing present significance but may also be used to describe any recent action. (Use of the perfect to describe events in the far past is characteristic of bilingual Latin-speakers.) A few verbs’ perfect forms are used with present meaning; consequently, these verbs have no present or future I forms.

As mentioned above, the perfect conjugation makes use of two stems, distinguished from each other by ablaut: one in the singular and one in the plural. Despite the existence of two stems for the same tense, the perfect conjugation is in fact rather simpler than the present and past conjugations. Both stems may fall into one of only two classes: the reduplicating perfects or the present-perfects, of which only the former is productive. The perfect singular and perfect plural stems always belong to the same class. Additionally, the perfect active has only one set of endings, which are universally stressed:

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1sg	-á
2sg	-tá
3sg	-é
1pl	-mé
2pl	-ťé
3pl	-êd
Perfect ablaut:

Not all verbs show ablaut between the perfect singular and perfect plural stems, although many do; nearly all verbs, however, have a different vowel in the present stem than in the perfect stems. (As will be seen below, the contract verbs maintain the same stem vowel in all tenses.) The following chart displays the patterns of ablaut between the perfect singular and plural and the possible vowels that can occur in the present given the perfect stems:

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	pf. sg.	pf. pl.	present
I	a	a	i, e, a, ē, ā
I’	ā	ā	i, e, a, ī, ē, ā
II	e	i	ei, ę
II’	ē	ī	ei, ę
III	ū	u	eu
III’	ū	ū	eu
IVa	a	i	e
IVa’	ā	ī	ē, e
IVb	a	u	i
IVb’	ā	ū	ī, i
Va	ą	ę	ą, i, ī
Vb	ą	ų	ą, i, ī
VI	ā	a	ē, ā
The ablaut patterns marked by the prime symbol are those whose vowel has been lengthened by a following voiced stop according to Winter’s Law. The vowel in the past stem is always identical to the vowel in either the present or the perfect plural stem: if the past stem is the bare root and does not take a thematic vowel, then its vowel is identical to the perfect plural stem vowel; otherwise, its vowel agrees with the present stem’s.

Reduplicating perfects:

By far the more numerous and productive perfect stem class is the one characterized by reduplication of the initial consonant of the root. (In vowel-initial roots, the vowel is lengthened.) The perfect stems also tend to lack the characterization added in the present and past stems such as iotation and the sigmatic suffix; the contract verbs are the exception to this rule, which retain their long-vowel characterizations. As examples, we’ll take the verbs leleké ‘have left’ (present lę̌kti, past elígd, root *lik-) ǧeǧādé ‘have prayed’ (present ǧéďid, past eǧéded, root *ǧed-) and rerūdāvé ‘turned red’ (present rūdǎd, past erūdǎst, root *rūdā-)

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  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 leleká	leligmé		ǧeǧādá		ǧeǧāzmé		rerūdāvá	rerūdāmé
2 lelektá	lelikťé		ǧeǧāstá		ǧeǧāšťé		rerūdātá	rerūdāťé
3 leleké	lelikêd		ǧeǧādé		ǧeǧādêd		rerūdāvé	rerūdāvêd
One will notice that the contract verbs insert the consonant -v- between the stem and vowel-initial endings, rather than contraction of the two vowels as would normally be expected. Although this excrescence is found in all Getic dialects, suggesting that it is of some age, its origin is a mystery; connection with the regular Latin perfect is tempting but difficult, and other parallels in Indo-European are lacking.

Present-perfects:

The present-perfects make up a small class totaling six verbs, uniform in both form and meaning: they are all words for mental states; and with one exception, they have the stem vowel -ą- in all forms. Presented below are the conjugations of the regular verb mąné ‘remember’ (past emą̂st) and the ablauting ēdé ‘know’ (past evíst).

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  sg.		pl.		sg.		pl.
1 mąná		mąmé		ēdá		vidmé
2 mątá		mąťé		está		višťé
3 mąné		mąnêd		ēdé		vīdêd
Synchronically, ēdé has two stems, *ēd- and *vīd-. The suppletive perfect singular stem is merely the regular development of Proto-Indo-European *woyd- according to the Wódr Rule. (The forms with short vowels are a product of Osthoff's Law, which remained productive in native Getic words.) The past stem for present-perfect verbs is always sigmatic.

The remaining present-perfect verbs are mąluvé ‘ponder’ (past emílust), mąvé ‘worry’ (past emą̂st), mązé ‘be haughty’ (past emíst), and nąvé ‘rethink’ (past eníst).
Last edited by Clio on 04 Nov 2018 19:55, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Getic

Post by shimobaatar »

Clio wrote: 06 Jul 2018 04:18 Now for your specific questions:
Thanks again for the clarifications!

Clio wrote: 22 Oct 2018 02:28 Getic verbs inflect for two numbers (singular and plural), three persons, two voices (active and passive), and five tense-aspect combinations (present, past, perfect, future I, and future II). In addition, verbs have four associated quasi-nominal forms: an infinitive/supine and three participles.
No morphologically marked moods?
Clio wrote: 22 Oct 2018 02:28 Every Getic verb is derived from a root, which carries a certain basic semantic meaning. From a root, other verbs with more specific meanings may be derived by means of what were historically derivational affixes and infixes, collectively termed the verbal characterization. Most verb stems are characterized, but a few verb forms consist of the bare root and inflectional suffixes alone.
I assume that things work similarly in other IE languages, but I don't think I've ever heard that term before. Is it unique to Getic?
Clio wrote: 22 Oct 2018 02:28 The present stems may be divided into six major classes depending on their characterization and whether they must be followed by a thematic vowel. The first of these classes contains the very few verbs that add the present endings directly to the root; the next, all the verbs that contain a nasal vowel in the stem and no further characterization; the third, all the verbs with a thematic vowel in the present, the fourth, all the verbs characterized by the affix -ī-; and the final two contain the present stems containing the affixes -ǎ- and --.
Considering what you said above about the origins of verbal characterizations, do -ī-, -ǎ-, and -- retain any obvious derivational function, or are they just seen as part of the stem?
Clio wrote: 22 Oct 2018 02:28 Note the allophonic voicing assimilation in forms like yésmi and lę̌gmi
Is this supposed to be yézmi, like in the table?
Clio wrote: 22 Oct 2018 02:28 Thematic presents:
So not all endings have the same thematic vowel, even within the present active conjugation of a single verb? Or did they used to all have the same vowel before sound changes were applied? I know you mentioned *e > i.

Where does the accent fall on the 2p form of bérid? The initial syllable?
Clio wrote: 22 Oct 2018 02:28 Contract presents:
šǎǧīd was listed as rhizotonic above, but here it looks like all forms are accented on the root? Have I misunderstood something?
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 The Getic past tense is derived from the conflation of the Proto-Indo-European aorist and imperfect. Its basic meaning is imperfective, although the majority of Getic verbs have past tense forms derived from the Proto-Indo-European aorist.
Interesting! Was there anything in particular that inspired you to do things this way?
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 These classes may be referred to by number or by the following rather self-explanatory names: sigmatic, thematic, and athematic.
I know it isn't Getic-specific, so this is off-topic, but I just love the term "sigmatic"!
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 Past ablaut:
Is this kind of thing found in other IE languages? I'm only really familiar with the ablaut in Germanic strong verbs.
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 Patterns IIa, Va, and Vb historically caused palatalization (or, in rare cases involving disyllabic roots, gemination) of some previous consonants in the past tense. These alternations have generally been analogized away, although it was not predictable whether consonant in the past stem or the one in the present stem was extended to the opposite tense.
Cool!
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 Verbs with sigmatic pasts may have class III present stems, although not all class III presents have sigmatic pasts. All present stems of the so-called “contract” classes, however, have sigmatic pasts, as do nearly all loanwords.
Oh, interesting! Is there any more you could say about correspondences between present classes and past classes?
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 As mentioned above, the thematic pasts comprise two subclasses, depending on whether their corresponding present stem is iotated. (The complete collapse of these subclasses, entailing the adoption of iotated stems in the past tense, is characteristic of the Getic dialects north of the Danube.) The following chart summarizes the alternations between iotated and uniotated consonants.
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 It is worth noting that, if sound changes had operated completely regularly, the alternation between iotated and uniotated consonants would also have involved an alternation between short and long vowels before all stem-final consonants. However, short vowels have generally been adopted in the past stems—not, as might be expected, simply lifted from the corresponding present stems, but also due to the occasional collateral sigmatic and athematic past forms (e.g., eǧést alongside eǧéded).
Interesting details!
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 We’ll examine the verbs elígd ‘was leaving’ (present lę̌kti) and egą̂d ‘was walking’ (present gųśid)
My apologies, as this is extremely nit-picky, but it's gųśíd, right?
Clio wrote: 26 Oct 2018 18:40 Naturally, a few verbs have very unpredictable past tense forms. Often, these irregular forms involve a completely suppletive past root; a few irregular pasts derive from alternative past tense forms of verbs which have since been assigned different meanings (e.g., eǧést ‘was demanding,’ as opposed to the more common past eǧéded ‘was praying’). All verbs with class I present stems are irregular in the past tense. For the sake of example, we will only examine the most common irregular past-tense verb: ebǔd ‘was’ (present yésti).
Cool!
Clio wrote: 02 Nov 2018 21:52 The primary function of the perfect tense is to indicate a recently-completed action. The perfect usually connotes continuing present significance but may also be used to describe any recent action. (Use of the perfect to describe events in the far past is characteristic of bilingual Latin-speakers.) A few verbs’ perfect forms are used with present meaning; consequently, these verbs have no present or future I forms.
More interesting details!
Clio wrote: 02 Nov 2018 21:52 The ablaut patterns marked by the prime symbol are those whose vowel has been lengthened by a following according to Winter’s Law.
Just to be perfectly clear, the prime symbol is the one that looks like an apostrophe, right?

Also, there seems to be a word/phrase missing here. Given the context, I assume it should be something like "lengthened by a following voiced stop according to Winter’s Law"?
Clio wrote: 02 Nov 2018 21:52 The vowel in the past stem is always identical to the vowel in either the present or the perfect plural stem: if the past stem is the bare root, then its vowel is identical to the perfect plural stem vowel; otherwise, its vowel agrees with the present stem’s.
Could you perhaps elaborate somewhat on this?
Clio wrote: 02 Nov 2018 21:52 By far the more numerous and productive perfect stem class is the one characterized by reduplication of the initial consonant of the root. (In vowel-initial roots, the vowel is lengthened.)
Unless Getic doesn't allow initial clusters, and I've forgotten, what happens if a root begins with a consonant cluster?
Clio wrote: 02 Nov 2018 21:52 One will notice that the contract verbs insert the consonant -v- between the stem and vowel-initial endings. Although this excrescence is found in all Getic dialects, suggesting that it is of some age, its origin is a mystery; connection with the regular Latin perfect is tempting but difficult, and other parallels in Indo-European are lacking.
Very interesting!
Clio wrote: 02 Nov 2018 21:52 Present-perfects:
Is there an explanation for the fact that, for ēdé, the 1s and 3s forms have ē, the 2s form has e, the 1p and 2p forms have i, and the 3p form has ī?

Additionally, what is the perfect of "to be" like?

Looking forward to the future (I and II)! [:D]
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