The Devrian Language

Last update: 30 November 2007

Introduction

External (real) history

Internal (pretend) history

Phonology

Stress

Consonants

• Six stops: voiceless /p t k/ and voiced /b d g/. The voiceless stops were not found word-finally.
• Six fricatives: voiceless /f T s x/ and voiced /v D/. The voiced fricatives were weakly pronounced at the ends of words and sometimes disappeared altogether in casual speech. Along with /T/ and /x/, they were not found word-initially except as the results of mutations.
• Six nasals, corresponding to the stops: voiceless /m_0 n_0 N_0/ and voiced /m n N/. Voiceless nasals were not found at the ends of words; compare ffwynhis "horses" with the singular ffoin.
• Four liquids: unlenited /K r/ and lenited /l 4/. As might be expected, the lenited liquids occurred initially only as the results of lenition.
• Two glides: /w/ and /j/. These were not found before consonants.
• The aspirate /h/. In non-compound words, this was only found initially as the result of a mutation.

Older forms of Devrian had two extra voiced fricatives /z/ and /G/, both of which were still indicated in the native orthography. At this stage of the language, /G/ had vocalised or disappeared altogether, while /z/ merged with /s/ with which it was in complementary distribution. The result of the merger was [s] when unlenited word-intially and before voiceless stops, and [z] otherwise including the lenition of /n/.

The transcription used here, for obvious reasons, follows the conventions of Welsh; thus /T D v k x N/ are written TH DD F C CH NG, the voiceless nasals are represented by MH NH NGH, and /K r l 4 j w/ are transcribed LL RR L R I W. /f/ is represented by FF, except when it resulted from spirant mutation of /p/, when it is written PH.

Mutations

• Lenition, by far the commonest, which affected all permissible initial consonants. It changed the stops /p t k b d/ to /b d g v D/, while lenited /g/, formerly /G/, was silent. The other consonants /f s m n K r/ lenited to /h h v s l 4/.
• Nasalisation changed the stops /p t k b d g/ to the corresponding nasals /m_0 n_0 N_0 m n N/, voiced /f/ to /v/, and prefixed /n/ to vowels.
• Spirantisation, which was restricted in occurrence, changed /p t k/ to /f T x/ and prefixed /h/ to vowels.
• Mixed, which operated like spirantisation on voiceless stops and lenition otherwise.

For example, call "dog" became gall, nghall, and chall after the first three mutations. The triggers of the mutations are indicated by -L -N -S -M respectively.

There was also an internal mutation, called provection, by which final voiced stops were devoiced when certain suffixes were added; for example, mud "green" had the equative degree mutedd.

Vowels

Vowel length was a strictly allophonic, i.e. non-distinctive, feature of simple vowels, and was related to stress, to the number of consonants following the vowel, and to the number of syllables in the word:

• Unstressed vowels were always short.
• Stressed vowels were always short if followed by a consonant cluster.
• Stressed vowels in monosyllables were thus long if not followed by a consonant cluster.
• Stressed vowels in polysyllables which were not followed by a consonant cluster were long in formal speech, and short in more casual usage.

The capitalised vowels in Est "wind", AscEr "I bite" were thus short, those in cEn "water" and cAll "dog" were long, and those in cwEsar "I sang" and bOddus "goats" were variable. The length distinction was maintained in formal speech; elsewhere the short vowels had laxer values [I E @ O U I\ U\] and the long vowels were shortened to [i e a o u 1 }]. In broad transcription, cen cwesar est were thus formally [ke:n] [kwe:.sar] [est] and informally [ken] [kwE.s@r] [Est].

The diphthongs all had a high vowel as their second element, and may be grouped as shown below with their transcriptions. As with the simple vowels, /1/ and /}/ sometimes merged in the diphthongs.

• /ai ei oi/ AI EI OI
• /au eu iu ou }u 1u/ AW EW IW OW UW YW
• /a1 o1/ AE OE
• /a} e}/ AU EU

plus a diphthong transcribed WY, which was the result of a merger of several diphthongs; it was variously realised as [ui u1 }i }1], and in unstressed syllables was more usually /w1/ or /wi/.

Vocalic alternations

The positionally conditioned alternations, of which there were six, are best exemplified with singulars and plurals. Generally speaking, a diphthong in a final syllable alternated with another diphthong or a simple vowel elsewhere; note that /a} eu ou/ thus formed three allophonic pairs with /e} 1u }u/.

• /au ~ o/: bawdd "goat" -> boddus
• /ai ~ e/: gaidd "lie, falsehood" -> geddus
• /ai ~ ei/: llaith "problem" -> lleithwys
• /a} ~ e}/: llauth "roof" -> lleuthwys
• /eu ~ 1u/: sewch "point" -> sywchwys
• /ou ~ }o/: dowth "location" -> duwthus

Phonologically conditioned alternations, of which there were many, were caused by assimilations due to following /a i j/. The basic changes caused by /a/ were the lowering of preceding /1 } u/ to /e o }/ and /i/ to /ai ~ e/; those by /i j/ were the reverse, plus /a/ raising to /e/, /au ~ o/ fronting to /ai ~ e/, and /oi ou/ raising to /}i }u/. These are referred to as lowering and raising.

Ablaut was visible in derivation and particularly in the past tenses of verbs. The fundamental alternation was between /a/ and /e/; various other alternations occurred as a result of later changes, among them /o1 ~ e/, /e ~ }/, /e ~ 1/, and /}1 ~ i/.

Grammar

Nouns

The inflectional endings had undergone much restructuring, with the result the nominative plural ending /s/ (older /z/, from the /n/ still observable in Liotan) was generalised to the genitive and partitive plurals. Some representative nouns are declined below.

Masculine nouns

• -us, the majority of nouns. This ending derived from older -oes, which was still found in more formal registers.
• -ws; nominative singular had /-u/, and the other cases had /w/ before the vowel.
• -is; similarly with /-i/ and /j/.
• -es, found with some very common nouns.

Vocalic alternations were found in nouns of the first and fourth subtypes. The patterns of phonologically conditioned alternation may be seen in the declensions of dorth and dul, and those of positionally conditioned alternation (actually due to lowering) in that of bawdd.

Feminine and neuter nouns

Adjectives

Phonologically conditioned alternations occurred either in the feminine (raising), as here, or in the masculine (lowering), but not both.

Comparisons

The comparitive of superiority, which corresponded to the comparitive ("more") and superlative ("most") of English, added -of: pallof "smaller, smallest", swydiof "brightest", polof "thinner, thinnest" (from pawl "thin").

The comparitive of inferiority corresponded to English "less", "least", "not as adjective as", and was formed with -err: pallerr "not as small as", swydiorr "not as bright as", polerr "not as thin as".

The comparitive of equality expressed "as adjective as". It suffixed -edd, which caused provection of a preceding voiced stop: palledd "as small as", swydiedd "as bright as", poledd "as thin as".

A few very common adjectives had irregular comparitive stems:

• oll "good" -> alof "better"
• ffag "bad" -> irof "worse"
• sar "high" -> fforof "higher"
• nedw "low" -> siarof "lowest"

Articles and demonstratives

The three demonstratives "this", "that", and "yonder" were compounds of the ancestors of the Liotan demonstrative particles and the definite article. The stems were respectively enh- aeth- orth-; the masculine singular nominatives were thus enha-S aetha-S ortha-S, and the neuter genitive plural enhe-L aethe-L orthe-L.

Pronouns

Each pronoun inflected for nominative, genitive, and partitive cases, and had reduced forms which were used as object pronouns and after prepositions. Most reduced forms came in two forms, one for use after vowels and one for after consonants.

The third person pronouns referred to a noun of the same gender; a dog was thus referred to as y "she". The neuter plural wy was used to refer to more than one noun of mixed genders.

The demonstrative pronouns were compounds of the stems enh- aeth- orth and the third person pronouns: enha "this one" (masculine singular), orthwy "those ones" (neuter plural).

The relative pronoun, which declined for case, gender, and number, was a compound of ia- and the definite article. In the nominative singular it was thus masculine and neuter iada and feminine iadi or iedi. The initial syllable was often dropped in speech.

Prepositions

Rest was indicated with the genitive case, the preposition nasalising the noun: ffu nghaddono "in a house", twd neny "beside the girl", ned lleuthu "under the roof".

Motion towards used the dative case; the preposition sometimes had a different form, often with suffixed -e, and lenited the noun. Thus ffwy gaddone "into a house", twde ddeni "to beside a girl", nede leuthwy "to under a roof".

Motion away from used the partitive case, sometimes with a different change in form, and also lenited the noun: ffwy gaddona "out of a house", twdd ddone "from next to a girl", ned leutho "from under a roof".

Among the commoner prepositions were the following:

Compounds with prepositions

The article combined with a preceding preposition, mutating appropriately: deda "out of the", denha "outside the", dyda "from outside the" (all masculine singular). The mutation after the article was nasalisation in the singular and lenition in the plural; thus ffwyda nghaddone "into the house". The final vowel of the compound was usually dropped in speech.

Verbs

Auxiliaries

Inflectional endings

The third person singular was used with a plural noun subject: casa te ddenis "the girls are singing", but casas "they are singing".

In more formal registers, fourth conjugation verbs raised the preceding vowel before the /i/ of the relative and lowered it before the 2 singular, 1 exc plural, and indefinite endings. The alternations were levelled out in more casual speech.

Indicative mood

Another simple form was the future, which added the second conjugation endings to the future stem. This stem was usually characterised by /T/, sometimes /t/ or /d/: thus boilther "I will hide", yscarthe "it will burn", taethes "they will carve" (with loss of older /G/), toirthai "we will see". The future of "to be" had the stem eith-, thus eithe "it will be".

The historic past was formed by adding the personal endings to the past stem, which in simple verbs was most commonly derived from the present stem by ablaut: belar "I hid", yscere "it burned", tebws "they carved", terae "we saw". Some verbs had more divergent past stems; among the commonest were mefror "I give" -> maror "I gave", engor "I go" -> padar "I went", and palor "I do" -> telor "I did".

The past of the auxiliary was based on the stem pl- and was a second regular conjugation verb which caused the same mutations as in the present. The past stem of "to be" was einh-, which also took the second conjugation endings.

The conditional was a combination of the future endings and the past stem: belther "I would hide", yscerthe "it would burn", teithes "they would carve", terthai "we would see". The conditional of "to be" had the stem ythe-.

The other tense-aspect combinations were expressed with compounds. One of each is shown below; note the mutations of the initial consonant of the participle caused by auxiliary verb.

Subjunctive mood

The simple present of all conjugations was by adding /j/ to the present stem, raising the preceding vowel where appropriate, and the first conjugation endings. The past subjunctive was formed similarly from the past stem. For example:

• boilar -> bwyliar; beliar -> byliar
• yscare -> ysceria; yscere -> yscyria
• tabws -> tebiws; tebws -> tybiws
• toirae -> twyriae; terae -> tiriae

The present subjunctive of the auxiliary was formed by replacing the /}/ with /j/, for example 2 singular dif and 2 plural dien; the first singular was dir and the relative dy, and the mutations were the same as in the indicative. The present subjunctive of "to be" was a regular formation on the stem tia-.

Imperative

The second person singular imperative was the same as the presont subjunctive without the /j/ or the personal endings. The first and second person plural imperatives were formed by adding -idd and -in to this, with the appropriate vowel changes; thus the imperatives of the sample verbs were bwyl bwylidd bwylin, yscar ysceridd yscerin, taig teigidd teigin, twyr twyridd twyrin.

"To be"

The conjugation of the substantive verb form was more regular than that of the coupla:

Unlike in Liotan, the substantive verb could be substituted for the copula with no change in syntax. The difference in meaning was one of permanence; thus daw ddawn y implied that she was or would be something else, emphasising the temporary nature of this fact. Similarly, daw rast y "she is tall" implied that she was also capable of being short.

The future and subjunctive stems of the substantive verb were dod- and deia-.

Negative, and interrogative

The negative of the copula simply prefixed ll-, thus lledr, llaif, llain in the present singular and past stem lleinh-. The negative of the substantive verb replaced the initial /d/ or /g/ with /L/, thus first person singular llawr and llir.

The interrogative prefixed ffi-N: ffi-moilar "am I hiding?", ffinwr foilad "do I hide?". There was no negative interrogative.

Adverbs

The adverbs of place were compounds of the demonstrative stems enh- aeth- orth and the neuter singular nominal case endings: enhu "here", aetho "from there", orthwy "to yonder".

Numbers

The absence of the article indicated "one" adequately, and mel by itself thus meant "only one": mel chawr "only one boy", but cawr "boy, a boy".

The cardinal numbers up to 19 were followed by the partitive plural of the noun: sel galles "three dogs", por dones "eight girls". Note also sel tai galles "three of the dogs", with the article, implying that there were more.

"11" to "19" were compounds of cyn, de "and", and the lenited unit. The medial /e/ was often dropped in casual speech, thus cynhel "13", cyndder "15", and so on.

cer "20" and its compounds were nouns which required the partitive singular: cer girwa "20 sticks", selcher gwyse "60 knives". Intermediate quantities placed the excess over the multiple of 20 after the noun, as with llwngher lleutho cynedder "155 roofs" (literally "seven score roofs and fifteen").

The ordinals had the same form as the cardinals, except ffur "first" and som(h) "second". All of them preceded the nominative singular of the noun, which did not take the article, and triggered spirant mutation: ffur chall "the first dog", por dawn "the eighth girl".

Conjunctions