Niemish: Difference between revisions

|name = Niemish

|nativename = Nimsk

|created = 2015

|setting =  

|familycolor = Indo-European

|fam2 = [[w:Germanic_languages|Germanic]]

|fam3 = [[w:East_Germanic_languages|East Germanic]]

! {{small|voiceless}}

| colspan="2" rowspan="2" |

| colspan="3" rowspan="2" |

|-

! {{small|voiced}}

|-

| [[w:Voiceless_dental_sibilant|s̪]] ⟨s⟩ || [[w:Voiceless dental sibilant|sʲ]] ⟨sj⟩

|-

! {{small|voiced}}

| [[w:Voiced dental sibilant|z̪]] ⟨z⟩ || [[w:Voiced dental sibilant|zʲ]] ⟨zj⟩

| [[w:Voiced_postalveolar_fricative|ʒ]] ⟨zsz⟩

This does not usually present problems, as:

* most (but not quite all) words in Niemish are stressed on the first syllable of the root

So stressed vowels and their length can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. See [[Niemish#Orthography|here]] for notable exceptions.

Other than /ɛː/ open vowels are short while close vowels are long or occur in diphthongs. In most dialects /ɛː/ has merged with /eː/, making the distinction between ⟨é⟩ and ⟨ä́⟩ purely a matter of whether or not the preceding consonant is palatalised.

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! rowspan=2 | Initial<br/>segment !! colspan=3 | Final segment  

|-

|-  

| /a/ || ⟨aj⟩ || ⟨aw⟩ || ⟨ar⟩  

| /e/ || ⟨ej⟩ || ⟨ew⟩ || ⟨er⟩  

|-  

|-

| /ɨ/  

| /ɛ, eː/  

!  

|-

| /ə, ɨː/ || ⟨by⟩  

|}

# <small>Unstressed ⟨e⟩ when not absolutely final, e.g. ⟨gomen⟩ /ˈgoːmʲɪn/</small>

A sequence of a hard consonant followed by a front vowel is realised with a velar offglide inserted (or a labiovelar offglide after labial consonants):

*dächs /dɛːxs/ [dɰɛːxs], dialectally [dɰeːxs]

This also holds in dialects where /ə, ɨː/ have merged with /ɪ, i/ or [ɘ, eː]ː

|(Q)||(q)||/k, kʲ/

|-

|-

|S||s||/s, sʲ/

| [[w:Yat|Ѣ ѣ]] || || ä || /ɛ/ || ||

|-

|-

| [[w:Yu (Cyrillic)|Ю ю]] || || Jo jo, io || /jo, ʲo/ || ||

| [[w:Iotated_E|Ѥ ѥ]] || || Je je, ie || /je, ʲe/ || ||

|-

|-

| [[w:Yus|Ꙝ ꙝ]] || || Ją ją, ią || /jã, ʲã/ || ||  

|-

| [[w:Yus|Ѧ ѧ]] || || Ę ę || /ẽ, ʲẽ/ || ||  

|-

|-

| [[w:Ꙟ|Ꙟ ꙟ]] || || Į į || /ĩ, ʲĩ/ || ||

Niemish nouns are inflected for three cases (nominative-accusative, genitive and dative) and two numbers (singular and plural). In addition, definite nouns are marked with a suffix that evolved out of postposed Gothic definite articles, functionally giving every noun two declensions for singular and plural.

There are four classes of feminine noun:

In addition, nouns with polysyllabic stems may be subject to syncopation, although this does not affect the class into which they are sorted.

<small>'''Hard stem nouns'''</small>

|  

|  

|-

! '''genitive'''

|  

|  

|-

! '''dative'''

|  

|  

|}

|-

! '''nominative'''

| aszlan

| äszuls

|-

! '''dative'''

| aszlum

| äszlią

==Verbs==

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

! 1 sg.

|-

! 2 sg.

|-

! 3 sg.

|-

! 1 pl.

|-

! 2 pl.

|-

! 3 pl.

|-

|-

! 1 sg.

|-

! 2 sg.

|-

! 3 sg.

|-

! 1 pl.

|-

! 2 pl.

|-

! 3 pl.

|-

|-

|-

|-

|-

! 1 pl.

|-

! 2 pl.

|-

! 3 pl.

|-

|-

! 1 sg.

|-

! 2 sg.

|-

! 3 sg.

|-

! 1 pl.

|-

! 2 pl.

|-

! 3 pl.

|-

!  

! Past<br/>perfective dependent

! rowspan="7" |

|-

! 1 sg.

|-

! 2 sg.

|-

! 3 sg.

|-

! 1 pl.

|-

! 2 pl.

|-

! 3 pl.

|}

{| class="wikitable"

! rowspan="2" |  

|-

! colspan="2" | Present

|-

! Imperfective

==Historical changes==

===Wulfilan Gothic to Post-Gothic===

====Vowels====

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐌼𐌴𐍃#Gothic|mēs]]'' /eː/ → Post-Got. ''meis'' /iː/

Syllable-final ''h'' /h/ was lost with compensatory lengthening of the previous vowel:

The proposed [[w:Thurneysen's law|Thurneysen's law]] became fully operational in Post-Gothic, although it was modified:

#Spirants gained or lost voice in dissimilation with the consonant beginning the previous syllable. This occurred after ''all'' syllables, not only unstressed ones.

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐌷𐌻𐌹𐍆𐌰𐌽#Gothic|hlifan]]'' → Post-Got. ''hliban''

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐌵𐌹𐌸𐌿𐍃#Gothic|qiþus]]'' → Post-Got. ''qidus''

''g'' devoiced to a velar fricative [x], transcribed here as ''χ''.

Between a nasal and a following liquid consonant, a voiced plosive was inserted:

*P-Gmc. ''[[wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/þunraz#Proto-Germanic|*þunraz]]'' → Got. ''*þunr'' → Post-Got. ''þundr''

Prefixes such as ''in-'' and ''un-'' were unaffected however.

====Prepalatal gemination====

Coronal consonants were palatalised during this gemination, and the voiced affricate /dz/ converted to /z/. It is thought that voiced sibilants degeminated before compensatory shortening occurred, but it is also possible that - as with ''h'', ''w'' - geminated voiced fricatives were simply disallowed at all stages (this also accounts for why ''b'', ''d'', ''g'' ceased to be fricatives with gemination).

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐍀𐌻𐌰𐍀𐌾𐌰#Gothic|*platja]]'' → ''*plattsa'' → ''[[Contionary:platz#Niemish|plàtz]]''

*Post-Got. ''[[wikt:𐌰𐌹𐌺𐌺𐌻𐌴𐍃𐌾𐍉#Gothic|aíkkleizjō]]'' → ''*klīʒʒō'' → ''[[Contionary:klizsza#Niemish|klízsza]]''

The prepalatal gemination was a very early sound change, likely beginning in late Post-Gothic itself. The coronal palatalisation is also found in early Romance and what little is attested of the closely related [[w:Vandalic_language|Vandalic language]].

Voiceless plosives also geminated before the syllabic liquid consonants ''l'', ''m'', ''n'', ''r'':

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐍃𐌹𐍄𐌻𐍃#Gothic|sitls]]'' → ''[[Contionary:sittil#Niemish|sìttil]]''

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐌰𐌺𐍂𐍃#Gothic|akrs]]'' → ''[[Contionary:akkur#Niemish|àkkur]]''

Other consonants did not:

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐍆𐍉𐌳𐍂#Gothic|fōdr]]'' → ''[[Contionary:fudor#Niemish|fúdor]]''

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐌱𐌰𐌲𐌼𐍃#Gothic|bagms]]'' → ''[[Contionary:bachum#Niemish|báchum]]''

*Got. ''[[wikt:𐍄𐌰𐌲𐍂#Gothic|tagr]]'' → ''[[Contionary:tagur#Niemish|tágur]]''

====Epenthesis====

Otherwise:

* ''u'' before syllabic ''l'', ''m'', or ''r'' in masculine words:

** Got. ''[[wikt:𐌱𐌰𐌲𐌼𐍃#Gothic|bagms]]'' → ''[[Contionary:bachum#Niemish|báchum]]''

**Got. ''[[wikt:𐍄𐌰𐌲𐍂#Gothic|tagr]]'' → ''[[Contionary:tagur#Niemish|tágur]]''

The second umlaut affected Post-Gothic long ''ái'' and ''ei'' slightly differently. When followed by a plain consonant (or when not followed by a front vowel in the following syllable in the ''second umlaut first hypothesis'') , ''ái'' [ɛː] was broken to first [jɛ] then lowered to [ja], and ''ei'' [[Niemish#Emergence_of_/ɨː/|was lowered to /ɨː/]]:

Feminine nouns either underwent the second umlaut in all inflected forms (jō-, jōn- and ein-stems) or not at all (all others). Thus as with first umlaut, vowel alternations due to second umlaut do not occur in feminine nouns. Note that ''ái'' [ɛː] is not considered a front vowel for the purposes of second umlaut; the umlaut was also predicated on vowel height and ''ái'' as a low vowel could trigger second umlaut:

The coronal palatalisation was still active when the second umlaut happened, as:

The fricatives that arose from coronal palatalisation were analogically extended to all forms of word where it arose, even those forms where no second umlaut had taken place.

====Development of nasal vowels====

Wherever a nasal consonant occurred word-finally or before a spirant in Post-Gothic, it disappeared in favour of nasalisation of the previous vowel. The length of the vowel was not affected, or else any change in vowel length happened too late to affect the first umlaut and was ultimately rendered irrelevant by syllable weight neutralisation:

After syncope, /ml, nl, mr, nr/ were reintroduced into the language outside of prefixes.

Subsequently, simple /n/ was lost before liquid consonants /l, m, r/ with compensatory gemination of the liquid consonant:

This did not happen to geminated /n/:

Early medieval Niemish had forms such as ''somar'' and ''somor'', which developed into ''sǫwr'' in the Westlandic dialect. Presumably the /b/ was inserted into the definite form ''somran'', the /o/ lowered by the /mb/ to give ''sumbran'', and the /b/ later spread to all forms of the word by analogy. Likewise, the Westlandic form developed from ''somran'' → ''sǫwran'' in a sound change more akin to that described above for /n/ with similar analogical spreading.

==Notes==