Old Vrnallian

General information
Old Vrnallian is the parent language of modern Vrnallian, spoken on the four islands constituting the Socialist Union of Vrnallia around 400-900al at the earliest. The language is commonly believed to be an isolate although relation to the Krassian language family has been proposed.

Consonants
The glottal stop occured as an allophone of word-final /p t k/. The palatal nasal varied with a cluster [nj] and a palatalised alveolar nasal.

Vowels
The schwa occured as the reduced (unstressed) form of the lax vowels: /e ɤ ɨ ä/. The language, as with its descendant, contained vowel harmony - front and back were groups one and two, respectively, while central vowels were neutral. Vowels of different groups could not share space in a word.

Harmony in Compounds
In compounds, vowels adjusted to harmonise with the most 'popular' part of the compound. This was determined by 'order of popularity:' nouns, adjectives, verbal parts, anything else. When the order was, say, a noun-noun compound in which each noun was of a different vowel group, assimilation occurred towards the first part.

Alphabet
Old Vrnallian was, like modern Vrnallian, written in the Vrnallian script, an abugida. There are some differences in letter values between the two.

Transliteration
When the circumflex is unavailable, a  may be substituted in (e.g. wynazcad for wynaẑad).

Phonotactics
(P(F,A),N(A))V(N)(F)(P) where P is a plosive, F a fricative, A an approximant, N a nasal and V a vowel. When a vowel was followed by a nasal and a fricative, the vowel was nasalised.

Stress
Stress laid on the second syllable of all words except in the following conditions: In a two-syllable word, the first syllable was stressed if the second was lax; in a four-syllable word the third syllable was stressed if it was tense.

Cases
Old Vrnallian had eleven cases. The basic uses of these cases are listed: The four declensions in Old Vrnallian were: 1) Consonant final, vowel group I; 2) Consonant final, vowel group II; 3) Vowel final, group I and 4) Vowel final, group II. The following table shows morphology in each declension: An asterix shows that a case is denoted by infixing before the coda of the second to last syllable of a word, except the interrogative which is infixed before the nucleus of the last syllable. Words with completely neutral vowels were treated as first or third declension.

Examples

 * Locative: ek wynad̂eẑa. I am in Vrnallia. 1s-nom vrnallia
 * Ablative: wynaẑafü nikivekü. I came here from Vrnallia. vrnallia-abl here-come-past-1-pos
 * Allative: mydraziĝamvü ivekü. I came to Midrasia. midrasia-alla come-past-1s-pos
 * Comparative: ũlũ moĝo kripsesa. As big as my hat. as big-nom hat
 * Interrogative: gve luvõns? And what of honour? and.q honour

Definiteness
Number is not indicated on a noun, although it might be indicated if a verb is present. Definiteness is generally not indicated either, although 'kru' (one) and 'psun̂' (a certain) may rarely be used as indefinite articles. The plural form of psun̂ could also be used very occasionally to show a plural noun.

Verbs
The verb template is as follows: The core, or root, is the part of the verb which holds meaning, e.g. 'iv-' (come) or 'n̂ ü s' (fight). The tenses consisted of a simple system marking past, present and future: Subject agreement divided first, second and third person. Number was shown in the third person, with one exception: Positive verbs, interestingly, were secondary to negative verbs, indicated using - ü or -u. Although it is unexpected, it is believed to be a development from an earlier telic particle or enclitic, * üp, later lost.

Alternative Forms
An example of the passive form is: wuloku n̂ ü sinast. I was fought. (be past-1-pos fight-pass)

To Be: wul-
The verb wul- 'be' is irregular, in the following ways:
 * The vowels denoting the past tense rounded to ö/o, likely under the influence of rounded /u/ in the core.
 * /ul/ in the core elided in the present tense, perhaps to avoid confusion with the irregular past tense.
 * The plural of any person can be shown by the addition of -a ŝ, as with the third person of any other verb.
 * Alternative verb forms drop the initial syllable (perhaps to aid pronunciation): -ad, - a d̂ õ, -ra, -ast.

​Examples
We are being good. toĝo wukaŝu wulra. (good-nom be-pres-1-p-pos be-part)

You (plural) were being good. toĝo wuloŝaŝu wulra. (good-nom be-past-3-p-pos be-part)