Pulqer

Pulqer is a Romance language spoken on the island of Jaques (Pul. Caq). Along with Sardinian it is one of the earliest languages to diverge from Latin and is thought to have been isolated since the 3rd century AD. Pulqer has been heavily influenced by the now vanished language of Kelt, previously spoken on the island, both in its phonology and vocabulary. This marks Pulqer out as distinct amongst the Romance languages.

History

Pulqer takes its name from the Latin (sermo) vulgaris "common speech". It is thought that Latin was brought to the islands by sailors between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD and may have originally formed part of a pidgin before being adopted by a tribe believed to have been called Khrapnat as a language of power and religion. These people became known in Old Pulqer as faularci pulkaeri and later simply as Pulkaeri.

The language spoken by the Pulkaeri was a bastardised form of Vular Latin referred to today as Old Pulqer. Upon its adoption, Vulgar Latin was assimilated to the existing phonology of Kelt which immediately resulted in a slew of changes to the language. Plosives in Kelt appear to have been distinguished by aspiration rather than by voicing so that, in general, Latin voiced plosives became voiceless (/d, b, g/ > /t, p, k/) and voiceless plosives became aspirated (/t, p, k/ > /tʰ, pʰ, kʰ/). Vowels also assimilated, resulting in Latin /o/ becoming Pulqer /u/ in most cases, and Vulgar Latin /ẹ/ (< ē, œ) merging with /i/. These sound changes, alongside forces of analogy resulted in drastic reduction of noun and adjective declensions and verbal conjugations. However, because Old Pulqer remained primarily the language of a learned elite, it could be said to be closer to Latin than its descendants.

From about the 7th century AD the Pulkaeri began to dominate their neighbours and all tribes were eventually brought under their leadership. Old Pulqer became the language of the elite across the island, but gradually filtered down through society until it eventually ousted the native Kelt entirely. This new vernacular was marked by a large number of borrowings from Kelt and by further phonological changes, most notably the weakening of unstressed vowels which resulted in the total loss of the declension system and a greater reliance on syntax, adverbs and prepositions to indicate relationships between words. This period of the language is known as Middle Pulqer.

Since the loss of final vowels perhaps 1,000 years ago, there have been relatively few changes to Pulqer and the medieval language is largely intelligible to speakers today. The most drastic changes to have taken place are the loss of the aspirate distinction, leading to the merger of aspirated and unaspirated consonants, and the loss of all diphthongs except au and ai. Modern Pulqer is distinguished from its predecessor largely by a renewed connection to the outside world, which began in the 18th century.

Phonology and Orthography

Vowels

Pulqer has a very simple vowel inventory, consisting of only five primary vowels and two diphthongs, with no distinctions of length.

	Front	Mid	Back
Close	i /i/		u /u/
Open-mid	e /ɛ/	y /ə/
Open	a /a/

The vowel y only occurs in the final syllable of a word.

The diphthongs are ai /ai/ and au /au/.

Consonants

The consonant inventory is similarly straightforward. All plosives, fricatives and affricates are voiceless whilst all liquids are voiced.

	Bilabial	Alveolar	Post-alveolar	Velar	Glottal
Plain	Labial
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/
Plosive	p /p/	t /t/		k /k/	q /kʷ/
Fricative	f /ɸ/	s /s/	ś /ʃ/			h /h, Ø/
Affricate		z /t͡s/	c /t͡ʃ/
Approximant		r /r/
Lateral app.		l /l/

Note: h is only pronounced /h/ at the beginning of a word. Medially, it serves only to mark hiatus before a stressed vowel, often between two identical vowels (e.g. pihi /pi.i/ "drank", lahel /la.el/ "to wash").

Stress

Primary stress is routinely placed on the final syllable of a word, e.g. atnel "animal" /at'nɛl/. The following cases are exceptions:

• where the final syllable contains y /ə/ the penult is stressed, e.g. atyn "man" /'atən/
• in plural verbs ending -an, -en the penult is stressed, e.g. eman "they love" /'ɛman/, katien /kat'i.ɛn/

Morphology and Grammar

Pulqer morphology is largely analytical. Nouns and adjectives show no inflection and verbs relatively little.

Nouns

All Pulqer nouns are either masculine or feminine in gender and singular or plural in number but neither of these is marked on the noun itself, which is immutable. For example, atyn is a masculine noun and can mean "man" or "men" whilst hityn is feminine and may mean "woman" or "women".

The gender and number of a noun is either unspecified or is indicated by an attached determiner (usually an article).

Determiners

Articles

Articles are the only true determiners in Pulqer. They always precede the noun they modify directly, or with intervening adjectives, and must agree with the noun in gender and number.

The definite article is su and is declined as follows:

	Singular	Plural
Masculine	su	si
Feminine	sa	se

Note: Where the article ends and the following word begins with the same vowel, the article is reduced to s.

Examples:

si atyn "the men"

s'aśtet "the star" (< **sa astet)

sa kat "the cat"

The definite article is the default determiner for any definite noun, i.e. a noun with no other form of determiner must take the definite article. As such, it is used in many cases where English does not use an article, e.g.:

• with abstract or general categories, e.g. su amur seśt na piltut "love is a virtue"
• where definiteness is implied, e.g. mi pa a su let (or mau let) "I'm going to bed"

The indefinite article is nu and is declined in the same way:

	Singular	Plural
Masculine	nu	ni
Feminine	na	ne

Examples:

nu atyn "a man"

ne kes "some houses"

n'iśtyl "the islands" (< **ni iśtyl)

mi su nu piśtur "I am a fisherman"

Other determiners are formed in conjunction with the definite article.

Possessive Adjectives

Possessive adjectives follow a definite noun and are immutable:

1sg	me
2sg	te
3sg	se
1pl	naśtyl / ne
2pl	paśtyl / pe
3pl	luar

Note:

• the 1pl and 2pl have two forms, which are identical in meaning and represent optional variants; ne, pe being more informal and common in vernacular speech
• the 3sg and 3pl have no separate masculine and feminine forms, so se means "his, her" and luar means "their"

Examples:

sa kes me "my house"

su ken se "his/her dog"

se hilc naśtyl / se hilc ne "our daughters"

Demonstrative Adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives show a three way distinction:

• śtu "this" refers to objects close to the speaker
• kisu "that" refers to objects close to the listener
• kitlu "that" refers to objects at a distance

All three may function as adjectives preceding the noun or as pronouns; in both cases they must agree with the referent in gender and number.

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
This	kiśtu	kiśti	kiśta	kiśte
This, That	kisu	kisi	kisa	kise
That	kitlu	kitli	kitla	kitle

Interrogative Adjectives

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Which	kelu	keli	kela	kele
How Much	kantu	kanti	kanta	kante

Indefinite Adjectives

• alkunu "some, any" is declined like su etc.
• altru "another, other"
• tantu "such (an amount), so many"

• su metis "the same" can occur before nouns as a determiner, e.g. su metis atyn "the same man"

Pronouns

Personal

Personal pronouns exist for each person in the singular and plural, plus a single reflexive pronoun si, used for all persons and numbers. Only the 1sg and 2sg make any distinction between subject and object pronouns.

	Singular	Plural
Subject	Object
1	cu	mi	nu
2	tu	ti (obj.)	pu
3m	lu	li
3f	la	le
Refl.		si

The subject pronouns are used as the subject of a verb (cu and tu), e.g. la am sa musk "she loves music", cu talmip "I slept".

The object pronouns are used in the following ways:

• as the direct object of a verb (mi, ti), e.g. lu am ti "he loves you", su trakun mankep le "the dragon ate them (f.)".
• following prepositions (mi, ti), e.g. ku mi "with me", pel pu "for you".
• as possessive adjectives following the noun, with or without te "of", e.g. kes mi or kes te mi "my house".

The reflexive pronoun can only be used as an object or following prepositions, e.g. si milt tutepan si "the soldiers killed themselves", nu kantan ku si "we sing to ourselves".

Relative

The relative pronouns are:

• ki used as a subject
• ke used as a direct object

su atyn ku am sua hityn "the man who loves his wife" sa kat ka cu pitip "the cat that I saw"

Verbs

Verb Stems and Classes

Regular verbs are mostly agglutinative, formed from a stem with the addition of affixes to indicate person, number, tense and mood. Many verbs have only one stem, used in all forms, e.g. timil "to fear", tim "fears", timi "feared", timent "fearing" etc.

Some verbs, however, show vowel alternation between two different stems known as the past stem and the present stem. In such cases, a verb with a in the past stem with have e in the present while a verb with e in the past will have i in the present. Other verbs alternate between past u or i and present ua or ia before l or r. For example, ame "loved" but em "loves", peti "asked" but pit "asks", kure "cared" but kuar "cares", pile "plucked" but pial "plucks".

Note: this vowel alternation is strictly adhered to in the literary language and in higher registers but is becoming more uncommon in the spoken language, where the past tense form is used throughout, e.g. am "love", pet "ask".

It should also be noted that stems ending in -h drop this when it is word-final, e.g. lahe "washed" but le "wash".

Pulqer stems are conjugated according to three classes, categorised by their thematic vowel, found in the infinitive:

• E verbs have an infinitive in -el, formed on the past stem e.g. amel "to love, stel "to be", kantel "to sing"
• I verbs have an infinitive in-il, formed on the past stem e.g. lukil "to grieve", katil "fall", itnil "to light"
• Y verbs have an infinitive in -yl, formed on the present stem e.g. nazyl "to injure", arityl "to laugh", eśtyl "to be".

Verb forms are usually given with the infinitive and Present Indicative sg, e.g. amel, em "love".

Regular Conjugation

Mood	Tense	E-Verbs	I-Verbs	Y-Verbs
Indicative	Present	Sg	-Ø	-Ø	-Ø
Pl	-an	-en	-en
Past	Sg	-e	-i	-i
Pl	-ean	-ien	-ien
Subjunctive	Present	Sg	-er	-ir	-yr
Pl	-eran	-iren	-(y)ren
Past	Sg	-as	-is	-is
Pl	-asan	-isen	-isen
Imperative	Sg	-Ø	-Ø	-Ø
Pl	-et	-it	-it
Infinitive	-el	-il	-yl
Present Participle	-ant	-ent	-ent
Past Participle	-et	-it	-yt

Irregular Verbs

Mood	Tense	el "to have"	hel "to do"	tel "to give"
Indicative	Present	Sg	a	hai	tai
Pl	an	han	tan
Past	Sg	(h)ai	hazi	te
Pl	(h)aien	hazian	tehan
Subjunctive	Present	Sg	(h)aiar	hezyr	ter
Pl	(h)aiaren	hezren	teren
Past	Sg	(h)ais	hiz	tis
Pl	(h)aisen	hizen	tisen
Imperative	Sg	he	het	te
Pl	hait	hezit	tet
Infinitive	el	hel	tel
Present Participle	haint	hazent	tant
Past Participle	(h)et	hant	tet

Non-Finite Forms

As described above, the infinitive is formed in all cases by the stem + the thematic vowel + -l.

The past participle is formed in the same way, replacing l with t, e.g. amet "loved", katit "fallen", nakyt "injured".

Note: some old past participles are retained but have diverged in meaning from their original verbs, e.g. aret "correct, just; straight" < arekyl "rule".

The present participle is formed by -ant in the E verbs and by -ent everywhere else.

Finite Forms

Conjugated verb forms for regular verbs are limited in extent and usage, most verb tenses being created through periphrasis.

Verbs are conjugated by tense, mood and number but not by person, so all conjugated regular verbs require an overt subject unless context implies the subject. The conjugated tenses are formed agglutinatively with the verb stem + tense/mood suffix + number ending.

The number endings are -Ø for singular and -n for plural.

Mood	Tense	E-Verbs	I-Verbs	Y-Verbs
Indicative	Present	-Ø (sg.) -an (pl.)	-Ø (sg.) -en (pl.)	-Ø (sg.) -un (pl.)
Past	-ep (sg.) -epan (pl.)	-ip (sg.) -ipan (pl.)	-ip (sg.) -ipan (pl.)
Subjunctive	Present	-er (sg.) -eren (pl.)	-ir (sg.) -iren (pl.)	-yr (sg.) -(y)ren (pl.)
Past	-as (sg.) -asen (pl.)	-is (sg.) -isen (pl.)	-is (sg.) -isen (pl.)

Irregular

Mood	Tense	apil "have"	patil "go"
Indicative	Present	a (sg.) an (pl.)	pa (sg.) pan (pl.)
Past	apip (sg.) apipan (pl.)	patip (sg.) patipan (pl.)
Subjunctive	Present	apir (sg.) apiren (pl.)	patir (sg.) patiren (pl.)
Past	apis (sg.) apisen (pl.)	patis (sg.) patisen (pl.)
Present Participle	apent	patent
Past Participle	apit	patit

To Be

eśyl "to be"	Indicative	Subjunctive
Present	Past	Present	Past
1s	su	ser	si	ses
2s	se
3s	seśt
1p	sum	seran	sim	sesen
2p	set	sit
3p	sun	sin

Derivation

The following suffixes are used to form abstract nouns:

• -(e)zun < OP. -zune < L. -tiō
  • kanzun "song", razun "reason"
• -ment < OP. -menttu < L. -mentum
• -tet < OP. -thaethe < L. -tātem
• -(i)z < OP. -itsa < L. -itia

The following form agents or instruments:

• -uar < OP. -uere < L. ōrem
• -(e)lc < OP. -ercu < L. -ārius

The suffix -etl is a diminutive < OP. -ellu < L. -ellus

The following form adjectives:

• -el (pertaining to, of, like) < OP. -aele < L. -alis, -alem
• -(e)pl (-able) < OP. -aeple < L. -abilis
• -i < OP. -ifu < L. -īvus
• -us (full of, prone to) < OP. -usu < L. -ōsus
• -is (of, from a place) < OP. -iese < L. -ēnsis