Clofabosin/Middle

Old Clofabosin is the oldest attested form of Clofabosin. It allowed more "weird" consonant clusters and vowel hiatuses than Modern Clofabosin; hiatusing vowels became long vowels in conservative Modern Clofabosin.

Phonology

Consonants

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Velar	Labiovelar
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/		[ŋ]
Plosive	voiceless	p /p/	t /t/		c, k /k/	qu /kʷ/
	voiced	b /b/	d /d/		g /g/
Fricative	voiceless	ph, f /f/	th /θ/	s /s/ ŝ /sʰ/	ch /x/
	voiced			z /z/
Trill				r /r/
Approximant			l /l/			v /w/

Old Clofabosin had geminates, unlike modern Clofabosin: for example, 'to learn' was nibbuvir (modern nịbuvir).

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i /i/, y /y/		u /u/
Mid	e /e/		o /o/
Open		a /a/

By the time of Middle Clofabosin, /y/ had merged with /i/.

Morphology

Nouns

• -in = topic marker
• -ol = genitive; -o = combining form
• -ase = with
• -one = towards
• -ib = locative

Verbs

• -n-: that which is...? (~-navir)
• -ir = present progressive: tpoir = 'eats'
• -zo = stative: tpozo = 'has eaten' (the -le in modern -zole comes from eli- "to become")
  • -zo-ium-ub > -zoumab, -ziumab > Modern Clo. -zumab
• -capt, -cept = dynamic: tpocapt = 'comes to eat'
• -xi- is an irrealis: -xi-iu-mub > -ximab
• -il = attributive
  • tpoil = who eats (modern dialectal spovil)
• -ium = neutral conjunctive for verbs: tpoium = ...eats, whereas...
• -ub = narrative past and subjunctive
  • tpoub or tpoiumub = ate, and then...
  • -ium-ub is the source of Modern Clofabosin -(u)mab which arose by dissimilation. Modern Clofabosin thus has spovir, spọmab for single syllable verb stems ending in a vowel.
• -tin-ib is 'in the state of' (which became timeless for some reason?) -vet- comes from vet- 'to continue'

• fo = realis negation, tu = irrealis
• -d- progressive