2023-02-26 18:20:43 +00:00
|
|
|
|
#+setupfile: ../headers
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
* Typological Outline of the Eittlandic Language
|
|
|
|
|
|
# - Is the language dominantly isolating or polysynthetic?
|
|
|
|
|
|
# - If the language is at all polysynthetic, is it dominantly
|
|
|
|
|
|
# agglutinative or fusional? Give examples of its dominant pattern
|
|
|
|
|
|
# and any secondary patterns.
|
|
|
|
|
|
# - If the language is at all agglutinative, is it dominantly
|
|
|
|
|
|
# prefixing, suffixing or neither?
|
|
|
|
|
|
# - Illustrate the major and secondary patterns (including infixation,
|
|
|
|
|
|
# stem modification, reduplication, suprasegmental modification, and
|
|
|
|
|
|
# suppletion).
|
|
|
|
|
|
# - If the language is at all polysynthetic, is it dominantly
|
|
|
|
|
|
# "head-marking", "dependent-marking", or mixed?
|
|
|
|
|
|
# - Give some examples of each type of marking the language exhibits.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Over the last centuries, Eittlandic evolved to become a language
|
|
|
|
|
|
leaning more and more towards an analytic language, losing its
|
2023-03-20 16:27:36 +00:00
|
|
|
|
fusional aspect Old Eittlandic once had. Its grammar now greatly relies
|
2023-02-26 18:20:43 +00:00
|
|
|
|
on its syntax as well as on grammatical particules rather than on its
|
|
|
|
|
|
morphology. Let’s take the following sentence as an example.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Barn etar fisk
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
barn et-ar fisk
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
child.nom eat-3sg fish.acc
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A child is eating a fish
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In this sentence, the word order helps us understand the child is the
|
|
|
|
|
|
subject of the sentence while its subject is /fisk/, although we have no
|
|
|
|
|
|
information on their number; the sentence could also very well mean
|
|
|
|
|
|
/children are eating fishes/. Unlike in Old Eittlandic where we could
|
|
|
|
|
|
have the following sentences.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Barn etar fiska
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
barn et-ar fiska
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
child.nom eat-3sg fish-pl.acc
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A child is eating fishes
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Fiska etar barn
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
fisk-a et-ar barn
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
fish-pl.acc eat-3sg child.nom
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A child is eating fishes
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Both have the same meaning as the Eittlandic sentence. However, the
|
|
|
|
|
|
near-complete (or even complete in Standard Eittlandic) loss of case
|
|
|
|
|
|
marking makes the sentence /fisk barn etar/ much more gruesome.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Fisk etar barn
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
fisk et-ar barn
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
fish.nom eat-3sg barn.acc
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
A fish is eating a child
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Eittlandic is a V-2 language, meaning in most cases, finite verbs are
|
|
|
|
|
|
in second position in their clause and may be in first position
|
|
|
|
|
|
interrogative clauses and dependent clauses, as shown below.
|
|
|
|
|
|
- Han talð mér þat kom han hér í gær
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
han talð mér þat kom han hér í=gær
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
3sg.m.nom tell-3sg.pret 1sg.dat that come.3sg.pret 3sg.m.nom here yesterday
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
He told me he came here yesterday
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Loss of case marking also affected adjectives which share most of
|
|
|
|
|
|
their declensions with nouns. The parts where Eittlandic retains its
|
|
|
|
|
|
fusional aspect is with verbs, where loss of its words’ final vowel
|
|
|
|
|
|
had much less impact, as we could see in /barn fisk etar/. In this case,
|
2023-03-20 16:27:36 +00:00
|
|
|
|
/etar/ is the third-person singular declension of the verb /et/, a weak
|
2023-02-26 18:20:43 +00:00
|
|
|
|
verb.
|
