Clofabosin/Middle

Middle Clofabosin is the best attested early form of Clofabosin and is the ancestor of the Clofabic dialect continuum. It allowed more "weird" consonant clusters and vowel hiatuses than Modern Clofabosin; hiatusing vowels became long vowels in conservative Modern Clofabosin.

Important works in Middle Clofabosin include the Paliperidin (inspired by Pali and paliperidone), a text made up of philosophical poetry (palin = line, peridin = collection).

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/ š /ʃ/	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 nibbuir (modern nịbuvir).

Vowels

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

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

Morphology

Nouns

• -in = that which is...?, later nominative
• -ol = nominative, later genitive; -o = combining form
• -as(t) = with
• -one = towards
• -ib = locative
• -e = accusative, directive

-n was originally a Caland affix -in, the source of -an (< -ain), -en (< -ein; -oin) and -i.n (< -iin, -uin) nouns in Modern Clofabosin. The majority of the largest group of nouns, the -.in nouns, acquired -in by analogy.

Verbs

• -n-: to be (~-navir)
• si: old causative
• -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
• -ca, -ce = dynamic: tpoca = 'comes to eat';
• -ciš- is an irrealis: -ciš-ium-ub > -ximab
• -il = attributive
  • tpoil = who eats (modern dialectal spovil)
  • tpozoil
  • tpotinil, tpotnil
  • tpocil
• -ium = neutral conjunctive for both nouns and 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 a habitual) -vetmab comes from vet- 'to continue'

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

All verbs had the same paradigm.

Syntax

• šopin tpo = the fish eats (unmarked for tense)
• šopin tpoir = the fish is eating
• šopin tpotinib = the fish be eating

Nonconfigurational?