Proto-Wargish

=General information= Proto-Wargish is the language of the eastern nomads that had flooded over the Cobalt Pass. It is a templated polysynthetic language - its verbs are structured according to a large, rigid template that allows for very little lateral movement.

=Phonology=

=Morphology=

Noun Morphology
Proto-Wargish has five declensions. The declensions divide nouns either by their stem ending or intransitive form, and thus alternate their endings accordingly. Each declension has its own special rules as four out of five feature stem alternation umlauts.

First Declension
The first declension in Proto-Wargish is a relatively common declension class. First declension nouns are nouns that end in a consonant that is isn't prevoiced, a voiceless nasal, or /ɦ/. They characteristically have an intransitive in <-a>. An example noun of the first declension is <ʋɒrɡran>, which has <ʋɒrɡa> as its intransitive.

First declension nouns undergo umlaut of /ɒ > ɵ/ whenever the suffix attached to them begins in a high vowel and ends in /ɨ/.

Second Declension
The second declension is the most common declension class of Proto-Wargish. Second declension nouns are those whose stems end in the same consonants as the first-declension nouns, but have an intransitive identical to the stem. An example second declension noun is <ɔrɜqɒn>.

Second declension nouns undergo umlaut of /ɒ > ɜ/ whenever their suffix both begins and ends in a high vowel.

Third Declension
The third declension in Proto-Wargish includes all nouns that end in /ɬ m̊ n̊ ɳ̊ ɦ/. An example noun of the third declension is <ɬum̊>.

Third declension nouns undergo umlauts of /ɒ > ɜ/ and /a > ɔ/. The first is applied when the suffix begins and ends in either front or high vowels, while the second is applied when it both begins and ends in either back or low vowels.

Fourth Declension
The fourth declension in Proto-Wargish includes nouns that that end in a consonant other than /ɬ m̊ n̊ ɳ̊/ or any prevoiced consonant and have an intransitive in <-ɔ>. An example noun of the fourth declension is , which has  as its intransitive.

Fourth declension nouns undergo umlauts of /ɒ > ɜ/ and /a > ɔ/ under the same circumstances as the beforementioned declension.

Fifth Declension
The fifth declension in Proto-Wargish is a split one. It includes words ending in either vowels or in prevoiced consonants. The first are called "vocal" nouns and the second "prevoiced" nouns. They usually share suffixes; their primary difference is in the fact that prevoiced nouns all take a thematic vowel while the vocal ones don't.

Number
Number on nouns in proto-Wargish isn't obligatory and is used only for explicit reference and emphasis. It is marked with a postfixed determiner.

Here, the determiner has both the category of "V" and the category of number.
 * "V+" means that the noun ends in either a vowel or a prevoiced consonant.
 * "V-" means that the noun ends in any other consonant.

Collectiveness and Spatial Deixis
Nouns in proto-Wargish can be marked to show collectiveness; a collective noun is taken to represent all the instances of its meaning at once, taken as a single whole. Collectiveness in proto-Wargish is conflated with spatial deixis; both are marked with the same postfixed determiner.

The determiner conflates deixis (indicated by the "R" and "S" tokens) with collectivity. This determiner does not co-occur with the number marker.
 * "+S" marks for proximity to the speaker, while "-S" marks for distance from the same.
 * "+R" marks for proximity to the verb's referent, while "-R" marks for distance from the same.
 * "" means no marking for collectivity occurs, while "" is the opposite.

Referent Pronouns
Proto-Wargish doesn't have personal pronouns and instead relies on a pronoun system referring to the referent. Proto-Wargish pronouns decline as regular nouns (with functioning umlauts).

Singular
The singular pronouns feature the least distinctions found in proto-Wargish referent pronouns.


 * The "P" token refers to the position of the referent relative to the action; "+P" means the referent is in the direct vicinity of the action, while "-P" marks for the opposite.
 * marks for an involuntary or inanimate referent and marks for a voluntary or animate referent.

Dual
The dual pronouns distinguish a handful more features than their singular equivalents.


 * The "C" dimension refers to unity of the referents, also called clusivity. A value of "+C" means both the referents are in the same place and treated together, while "-C" means the referents are disjointed. The first is called the "conjoined state", while the second the "disjointed state".
 * "+R" and "-R" exist only under a disjointed state. While "+R" marks both referents are either present or absent from the action, "-R" marks that one is present and the other absent.
 * "+P" and "-P" exist only under a conjoined state. While "+P" marks both referents are present at the action, "-P" marks that they are both absent.
 * Just as in the singular, marks for involuntary or inanimate referents and  marks for voluntary or animate referents. Additionally,  is used for marking mixed-volition and mixed-animacy referents.

Plural
The plural pronouns distinguish the most features in proto-Wargish pronouns.


 * Clusivity in plural pronouns works much like in the plural, where "+C" means all the referents are closely together, while "-C" means they are spread out and not pertingent to each other. The first is called the "conjoined state", while the second the "disjointed state".
 * "+R" and "-R" exist only under a disjointed state. While "+R" marks both referents are either present or absent from the action, "-R" marks that one is present and the other absent.
 * "+P" and "-P" exist only under a conjoined state. While "+P" marks both referents are present at the action, "-P" marks that they are both absent.
 * Just as in the dual, marks for involuntary or inanimate referents and  marks for voluntary or animate referents. Additionally,  is used for marking mixed-volition and mixed-animacy referents.
 * , and  are three elements of affection;  marks the referents for affecting the action directly,  marks the referents as being affected directly by the action and  marks the referents as both being affected by and themselves affecting the action.
 * The dimension of "DE" is destructivity; a value of "+DE" means that the action cannot be repeated by the referent after it has been carried out partly or fully due to the referents' fault, while "-DE" means that the action is repeatable. "N" marks for a nonspecific neutral state.
 * The dimension of "D" is dynamicity; a value of "+D" means the action causes some change in the referent while "-D" marks explicitly for no change.

Verb Morphology
Proto-Wargish verbs operate on the basis of an immensely complicated verb template with many interdependent affixes. Due to the very templatic nature of the morphology of the verb, we divide it into named and ordered slots into which affixes are fitted. In this chapter there is both a description of the structure of the main verb and of the structure of its dependent co-verbal clitic.

Due to the fact that Proto-Wargish features marking for non-core arguments and has active, productive noun incorporation, it is classifiable as a strictly polysynthetic language. It has elements of both agglutinating and fusional languages.

Main Verb
The main Proto-Wargish verb is built upon the stem by adding prefixes and suffixes. Unlike in nouns, verbs exhibit no regular stem alternations: all changes in the stem are irregularities. The stem is normatively marked with a zero "0", while prefixes receive negative and suffixes positive numbering. Several slots are not actually numbered but instead receive a symbol marking their strong interdependence. The noun template is below:

The slots are fixed and immobile. Every affix can be found in exactly one of the slots. Some slots have affixes that either look alike or are identical to affixes in other slots, so sometimes a small amount of ambiguity may creep in.

Stem (0)
The stem of a Proto-Wargish verb is its core. It is made up of either a bare root or a root with derivational affixes; occasionally, the stem may be made up only of affixes and lack an opaque root - this is called the zero-root stem - but this is quite uncommon. Stems are generally immutable and all stem alternations in Proto-Wargish are counted as irregularities.

The stem encodes the basic semantic information of the verb and usually comes unmarked for grammatical categories. While it gives the basic semantic content of the verb, its meaning is most commonly somewhat vague and is refined further by derivational suffixes and inflectional affixes.

Proto-Wargish stems can be divided into a handful of categories:
 * Regular stems
 * "Rooted" stems - having a non-zero root
 * Zero-root stems - composed only of affixes
 * Irregular stems
 * Alternating - with slightly different forms based on grammatical categories
 * Suppletive
 * Dualistic stems - having two different stem shapes that encode for a binary property (ex. transitivity or telicity)
 * Triplistic stems - having three different stem shapes

Almost all verb stems belong to the regular category. There are no stems that are attested as having more than three suppletive stem shapes.

Derivation (+1)
The derivational suffix in the Proto-Wargish verb template attaches directly to the stem of the verb. Due to the primarily semantic component of this slot, most of its properties are not described in this section. An important morphophonological property of this slot is that, when the stem ends in a consonant, the slot gets filled with an arbitrary thematic vowel, usually an echo vowel. If the stem is avocalic (lacking a vowel), the thematic vowel is consistently either /ɜ/ after palatals and retroflexes or /ɒ/ elsewhere.

Transitivity (+2)
The transitivity slot features only a binary inflection of transitivity:

Gnomicity (+3)
The gnomicity slot features a binary inflection:

Volition/Animacy (+4)
=Example text=

=Language Family=