Proto-Himalo-Auspik

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Proto-Himalo-Auspik is the supposed beginning of a vast array of languages that covers most of the population of Himalia, about half of its area, along with a great number of languages to the south in Snavwxniik-Nakwn, Wyverncliff, and Auspikitan.


Phonology

The reconstructed consonant inventory of Proto-Himalo-Auspik contains seventeen distinct consonants. Phoneticians also often note a separate series of geminated fricatives which occurs on all of the fricatives except for /ɕ/, as the geminate versions of the fricatives are rarer than their short counterparts with the exception of /vv/. They are unusual compared to most language's geminated consonants in that they act almost identical to the short version in the phonotactics of the language.

Consonants
Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Stops Plosives
p b
t d
k g
q
ʔ
Affricates
tɕ dʑ
Fricatives
f v
s z
ɕ
x
Nasals
m
n
Sonorants
l
j

The reconstructed Proto-Himalo-Auspik vowel system has eight vowels. Unclear realizations of the two sounds notated here as u¹ and u² exist, especially of u² which has been proposed as being /y/, /ʉ/, a lax /u/, or even /u/ with u¹ being /uː/. The current most accepted theory is the /ʉ/ realization.

Vowels
Front Central Back
High
i
ɨ u²
Mid
ɛ
ə
o
Low
a

Orthography

The orthography of Proto-Himalo-Auspik is entirely phonemic and follows closely the IPA, but has a few minor differences outlined in the table below.

Orthographic Representations
IPA Spelling IPA Spelling
a a m m
ɛ e n n
i ii l l
w j y
u f f
o o v v
ə ë/é s s
p p z z
b b ɕ ć
t t x h/x
d d c
k k j
g g ɨ i
q q ʔ ʔ/'

The alternate variations of ë/é as well as h/x are in free variation, the former being more common than the latter. However, the system for representing the glottal stop uses ʔ as its majuscule version and ' as the minuscule version in most texts. Some will use ɂ for the minuscule version instead.

Nominal and modifier morphology

bleak except when modifiers become stative verbs

Possession

Basically head marked possession is more common, but juxtaposition, that is, simply placing them beside each other, is common in more complicated sentences, especially when the possessor is not a pronoun. this is gonna turn into a big long thing later

Verbal morphology

extremely heavy and where everything goes on

Himalian contains agreement for the main two participants in the sentence, which act in a tripartite system, containing separate affixes for subject, agent, and patient, as well as a separate location in the verbal complex for the intransitive agreement prefixes, located closer to the verb stem than the agent and patient prefixes.

Verb template

A variety of verbal categories exist. For the most part, they are prefixed before the stem. They are split into three major categories, the functional group, the effective group, and the suffixes. One other minor category also exists, incorporated words. Both nouns and a small set of adverbs can be incorporated into the verb root, and under some circumstances this incorporation becomes mandatory. The suffix group appears on every verb, although the realization of either one or both of its suffixes may be null.

Verb Template
Functional group Effective group Semantic root Functional suffixes
1a 1b 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
root
1s 2s 3s
Agent Patient Tense Mood Subject Voice Locatives Applicatives Adverbs Nouns Verb root Aspect Negation Evidentiality

Syntax

SOV

Noun Incorporation

Himalian is relatively free with noun incorporation, incorporating the object or other part of the sentence into the verbal complex. The main uses of incorporation in Himalian are to express an object or what in less synthetic languages would be expressed with a prepositional phrase.

Modifiers

Daughter language groupings