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.
Nominals
Declensional endings
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
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.
s-stems
r/n-stems
o-stems
ā-stems
Adjective stems
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.[1]
Pronouns
Demonstratives
Verbs
See also
Notes
- ↑ The exact cognate here is the neuter collective form of the numeral, in Galic kozvō, "the four, quartet"; the normal neuter plural being kotur = Tennite catur. The numeral "four" in Epic had a specific usage for "four women" as well and could be declined as feminine rather than neuter collective. It is suspected this is related to the generalization of that form in Nordic, or else with the phonetically challenging, inherited feminine form of kozvrzrā < *kʷetwr̥sres.