Epic Northian grammar

Epic Northian grammar describes the usage of Northian language in the Northian Epic tradition, which lasted around 400 years between 650 and 250 BCE. The Northian Epics were a oral tradition of poetic storytelling that was practiced professionally and passed through cults and apprenticeships.

Linguistically, the Epics are the third and final corpus of texts of what scholars classify as Ancient Northian, which was spoken largely outside of the modern territories of the modern Northern States but in Acrea, Silua, and Shalum, where the Northian culture developed. This category stands in contrast to Recent Northian, which is related to Ancient Northian but is principally attested in Tazmuštərā, the modern Northian homeland. The two languages are indisputably related, though divergences are significant, and there is a gap of about 500 years between their attestations. Ancient Northian encompassed various stages of the language's evolution, from Early Galic of c. 1750 BCE to the last of the Epics, composed around 250 BCE.

Evolution

Epic Northian, as it emerges from the early Epics like Aēϑariyō (circa 650 BCE), is not a direct evolution of Galic or Didaskalic languages. This much is made clear by both modern study as well as places where Galic or Didaskalic materials were quoted, where their styles were felt by contemporaries to be different from the surrounding material in Epic language.

Cessation of Cloverdale alternation

Cloverdale's law governed the quantity of vocalized resonants in interconsonantal positions, generating a long vowel when the preceding syllable was light and a short vowel when heavy. The direct cause for such a law is still the subject of disputation, but it is clear the law generated an unmanagable proliferation of alloforms within paradigms, including multiple endings for the accusative singular and plural. Cloverdale was an active sound law in the Pre-Galic period (usually said to be c. 2000 BCE) but has definitely ceased to operate regularly in the Epic language, and likely some time before the earliest Epics.

Some instances of Cloverdale, which should be reflected through Galic quotations, were systematically regularized in Epic poetry. This has been held to suggest that an "updated" tradition of the Gales was in circulation during Epic times, perhaps used for intellectual discussion rather than recitation, which retained the older forms based on oral tradition.

Casper's law

Casper's law transformed the /ā̊/ vowel into /ō/; as such, the athematic acc.pl ending was -ō, since the long-vowel alloform was selected in this position, e.g. dərō-xšənyōn "men-slaying" vs. Galic ndrā-xərąs "men-fashioning".

Formation of feminines in -ā

It has been noted that there is a paucity of feminine nouns ending in -ā < *-eh₂, which is the dominant method of forming feminine nouns in most Erani-Eracuran languages. Instead, most cognates with *-eh₂ show up in Galic Northian as *-ih₂ or *-uh₂ stems, with 30 or so known near-equations, compared to merely 9 confirmed and agreeing cases of *-eh₂. Yet this proclivity for *-ih₂ or *-uh₂ stems is considerably weakened as a feminizing device whenever the masculine (or masculinized) referent was thematic. Nevertheless, it seems the vowels *e, *i, and *u were all viable strategies associated with feminine grammatical gender in the parent language.

Nominals

Noun stems

Despite the astounding strength of the athematic nouns in Galic, their number were whittled down to about a dozen or so types in the Epic corpus. The non-productive suffixes and non-productive variations of productive suffixes tended to be eliminated in the Epics, in many cases being limited to a few examples of very common words.

n-stems

The n-stems

r-stems

Of the r-stems, the productive suffix was the agentive in -tər, added to the zero grade root. The accusative singular of this suffix was accented.

i- and u-stems

In the Epic language the proterokinetic type, ending in -iš and -uš continue to be productive. The type with full-grade endings -ō < *-ōi and -ō < *-ōw presents only relics in Epic, namely hakōi "companion" (with restored -i) = Tennite sakhā.

Numerals

The Epic numerals are basically unchanged from Galic forms. The nom pl of ϑráiiā = Elder Nordic þrīz remains unchanged, but the simplex ending -ā, becomes restricted to this lexical item; Galic kozvərā "four" becomes Epic kozvəraŋhā ≈ Elder Nordic fedwōr, now using the standardized nom pl ending.

See also

• Northian language