Changes to Boreanesian

Someone asked me what changes I have made to Boreanesian. That's
quite fair considering how much fuss it has created.

Basically, I have restructured the entire phrase marking system and
pronoun system. This includes: removing the animate-inanimate gender
distinction in favor of a proper-common noun class distinction, made
three degrees of deixis instead of just two, and applied the
bound-unbound phase distinction to the new proper/personal-common
noun class system. Removing the animate-inanimate distinction also
forced me to redo the way Boreanesian nominalizes verbs since the
type of nominalization was indicated before by the animacy of the
nominalized verb. In fact, it was this feature that prompted me to
change the system when I realized that it simply did not make sense
to do it that way. I'm amazed that noone else but me noticed that
flaw. Changing that created a domino effect so to speak. The trick
was to try to make sense of the whole verbal nominalization scheme
and at the same time make sense of the way nominal phrases are
marked since they are ultimately connected in Boreanesian (that is,
many markers are identical for both nominals and predicates).
Combined with the stress that comes with an overdose of real life, I
had difficulty keeping up with the changes. Hence the long delay in
the translation relay.

Below is the current pronoun and phrase marking paradigm just to
give an idea of how it looks like now. If any of you have saved my
earlier posts on the subject, you'll notice how big a difference
there is:

[In the transcription below: /t[/ and /n[/ are lamino denti-alveolar
stop and nasals respectively, /N/ is a velar nasal, /3/ a velar
approximant, and /@/ a schwa. The rest correspond to IPA.]

PRONOUNS
The core and oblique series are always free. The genitive forms are
postclitics. Number is never marked in pronouns. This is supplied by
the predicate or through context.

   PROPER
            1         2         3         non-specific
      COR   /kijh/    /muwh/    /t[a3h/   /k@Nh/
      GEN   /-kijh/   /-muwh/   /-t[a3h/  /-k@Nh/
      OBL   /pkijh/   /pmuwh/   /pt[a3h/  /pk@Nh/

   COMMON
            this      that.2    that.3    non-specific
      COR   /n[ijh/   /n[uwh/   /n[a3h/   /n[@Nh/
      GEN   /-n[ijh/  /-n[uwh/  /-n[a3h/  /-n[@Nh/
      OBL   /pijh/    /puwh/    /pa3h/    /p@Nh/

The proper pronouns are the same as personal pronouns. The
non-specific proper pronoun is the same as the indefinite personal
pronoun 'whoever'.

Common pronouns are the same as demonstratives. These have three
degrees of deixis: near the speaker, near the addressee, far from
the speech act participants. The non-specific demonstrative is
equivalent to the indefinite pronoun 'whatever'. As obliques, they
are roughly equivalent to spatial deictics instead, i.e.; here,
there, yonder. Similarly, the non-specific oblique demonstrative is
roughly equivalent to 'whereever'.

PHASE CLITICS
These forms are always cliticized before the noun or predicate they
mark (although predicates cannot take the genitive). Attached to
nouns, they indicate the role and the specificity of the noun.
Attached to predicates, they indicate what kind of predication is
involved. Like pronouns, they never indicate number. Number being
supplied by the noun or predicate they are attached to.

            PROPER    BOUND     UNBOUND
      COR   t[-       n[-       0-
      GEN   3t[-      3n[-      3-
      OBL   pt[-      pn[-      p-

These clitics appear to divide nouns into three class. But there are
really just two. Proper nouns would always be bound in phase, so
there is no need to make such a distinction. Common nouns on the
other hand can be bound or unbound in phase, hence the distinction.

Like I said, these examples are just a few of the changes.

-kristian- 8)