Naeng/Classical

Phonology

Vowels

Old Windermere had breathy voiced vowels ah eh ih oh uh üh /aʱ eʱ iʱ oʱ uʱ yʱ/ which became ä ea ie oa ua üe in Classical Winderemre.

Old Windermere had more vowel contrasts in preinitial syllables: most notably, it had ă /ə/ and i /ɪ~ɨ/ as reduced vowels which merged to ă in Classical Windermere. This contrast is retained in Pradiul as palatalization.

Morphology

Sandhi

Old Windermere had a complex sandhi system (somewhere between Biblical Hebrew and Sanskrit) which was no longer productive in Classical Windermere; most often it affected plurals and verb forms.

• th + fric -> fric + t
  • ths -> st, as in sehf (go) -> *thsehf -> stehf (to drive) (Modern binsteaf (energy), sămteaf (to energize))
  • thf -> ft, e.g. tăfi (laugh) -> *tithfi -> tifti (mock) (Classical and Modern Wdm. tăfi, tifti)
• rC, lC > Cr, Cl
• ps pt pn png > sp pr fn fng
• tp tsp kp > tw tsw cw; Proto-Windermere breathy vowel + tp tsp kp > thw tsw chw
• tsc cts tsp pts sts ts > sc sc sp sp st st

Grassmann's law was productive in Old Windermere. When there were two spirant consonants before a stressed vowel in a word, the first was despirantized. e.g. *chăfol > căfol

Nouns

Old Windermere had many irregular plurals due to sandhi.

Verbs

Voice infixes, which became derivational in Classical Windermere, had a grammatical function.

Pronouns

Pronouns were similar to later Windermere, but with feminine plural pronouns.

• 1sg: rih
• 2sg: łen (m), łes (f)
• 3sg: in (m), is (f)
• 1pl exclusive: tsa
• 1pl inclusive: ăbang
• 2pl: łinam (m), łisam (f)
• 3pl: inam (m), isam (f)

Derivation

Old Windermere had the following prefixes:

• *th- (causative; denominal verbs)
• pi- (agentive; triggers voicing of following voiceless stops p t c to b d g)
  • da (know) -> pida 'sage' (Classical păda, Modern pda)
  • tüth (to grasp) -> pidüth 'meaning, intention'
• ha- (passive)

Old Windermere also used breathy voice ablaut to denote tools: snar (capture) -> snahr (trap, snare) which survives in Modern Windermere as snär.