New Lang, Puesodán (long-ish)

Ce jangades los díos!

Ever since receiving Penny's "A History Of The Spanish Language" for
Christmas I've been toying with the idea of a Old Spanish-style language
for Telmona, and am now quite happy with the results. Extratextually, the
area of my conworld where I concentrate most of my efforts is a sort of
parallel Europe, with a "classical" Indo-European language which fractured
into a number of pseudo-Romance tongues (the one I have discussed most here
is Carashán, which is Puesodán's neighbor and vaguely Portuguese or
Romanian in flavour). Before I describe Puesodán, I'd like to point out
that I'll be using various accents:

á is a-acute, é is e-acute, í is i-acute, ó is o-acute, ú is u-acute, ç is
c-cedilla and ñ is n-tilde. Hopefully everyone will be able to read them.

1 Phonology
Puesodán has phonology quite unlike either Carashán or its ancestor Aredos.
Orthographically, it shuns the digraphs of Carashán, preferring diacritics
to mark the new sounds which have arisen since the Carastan period.

1.1 Vowels.
The Aredos system of length disappeared very early on, producing first a
seven-vowel system which then transmuted into a five-vowel system:
i                       u
         e               o
                 a
Which are all semi-long and "clear", i.e. with no diphthongisation.
Puesodán posesses four diphthongs- two rising and two falling: ue /we/, ie
/je/, ai /aj/ and au /aw/

1.2 Consonants
Puesodán posesses the following consonants:
         lab     dent    pal     vel
         p, b    t, d    -       k, g
         P, B    s, z    S, Z    -
         -       ts, dz, tS      -
         w       -       j       -
         -       r, l    l_j     -
         m       n       n_j     N

Which are represented orthographically like so:
/p/     - p
/b/     - b
/t/     - t
/d/     - d
/k/     - c
/g/     - g

/P/     - f
/B/     - v
/s/     - s initially and finally, ss intervocalically
/z/     - s (only occurs intervocalically)
/S/     - x
/Z/     - j

/ts/    - ç
/dz/    - z
/tS/    - ch

/w/     - u
/j/     - y when initial, i otherwise.

/l/     - l
/r/     - r
/l_j/   - ll

/m/     - m
/n/     - n
/n_j/   - ñ
/N/     - ng

The orthography also indicates an <h>, although this is always silent
(except when after <c>) and merely cosmetic.

1.3 Stress
Unlike classical Aredos, which had a pitch accent, Puesodán has a stress
accent. Generally this falls on the penultimate syllable of a word, unless
the final consonant is /r/ or /l/, in which case the accent is on the final
syllable. Deviations from this rule are marked by the acute accent: e.g.
néssero "shirt".

2 Morphology
Like Carashán, Puesodán has changed Aredos' relatively synthetic style to a
more analytical one. Gone are the eight inflected cases and three numbers
and the three verbal moods. Instead more use is made of prepositions and
auxiliary verbs.

2.1 Nouns

2.1.1 Gender
Puesodán has lost Aredos' neuter gender, leaving only the masculine and
feminine. Gender-marking is generally obligatory, and so recognising the
gender of a noun from its form is relatively easy. Nouns ending in -a, -ón,
-e, -il and -i or -y are generally feminine while those ending -o, -r, -al
etc. are masculine.

2.1.2 Number
Although Old Puesodán exhibits a two-case system similar to Carashán's, by
the end of the Dark Years analogical levelling had reduced it to a simple
singular/plural distinction. The Puesodan plural morpheme is -s, which is
added directly to words ending in a vowel and with an epenthetic vowel -e-
to those which do not:
diembro -> diembros    "builder, builders"
lluera -> lueras    "flower, flowers"
sagrozod -> sagrozodes    "priest, priests"

2.2 The Articles

2.2.1 The Indefinite Article
The indefinite article alters for the gender and number of the noun it
describes. Masculine singular is uno, although when followed by a vowel
this becomes un, feminine singular is una, which similarly becomes un
before a vowel. Masculine plural is unos, similarly the feminine plural is
unas.

2.2.3 The Definite Article
Like the indefinite article, the definite article changes for gender and
number: masculine ingular is elo, feminine singular is ela, save when
before a vowel, in which case both become ell. Plural forms are los and las.

2.3 Demonstratives
Puesodán preserves the three-way demonstrative distinction of Aredos, i.e.
"this here", "that by you" and "that yonder", although it uses reflexes of
different words.

This here       esto    esta    estos   estas
That there      esso    essa    essos   essas
That yonder     ecuello ecuella ecuellos        ecuellas

There are also short enclitic forms of esso, which are se, sa, ses and sas.

2.4 Adjectives

2.4.1 Declension
Like articles and demonstratives, adjectives agree in gender and number
with the noun they qualify. To describe a feminine noun, the adjective adds
-a, which displaces any final vowel and they pluralise in the same way as
nouns:

elo diembro viejo "the old builder"
los diembros viejos "the old builders"
ela llembra puena "the clear flame"
las llembras puenas "the clear flames"

2.4.2 Comparison
In Aredos, the comparison of adjectives was synthetic, all modern Carastic
languages (save Corfeg) have changed this to an analytic system. Puesodán
is unique in that it uses the reflex of Aredos ualdê "strongly" instead of
mêgê "greatly", like Carashán and the other Carastic languages.

çeiro "angry"
vaje çeiro "angrier, more angry"
elo vaje çeiro "angriest, most angry"
meno çeiro "less angry"
elo meno çeiro "the least angry"

ce çeiro ce "as angry as"

Note that before an adjective beginning in a vowel vaje becomes vaj and
before a stop (p, t, c, b, d, g) vaje becomes vax.

Some very common adjective have retained their syntetic forms:

bueno "good" > méjor "better" > elo mejor "best"
malo "bad" > péjor "worse" > elo pejor "worst"
biejo "beautiful" > béjor "more beautiful" > elo bejor "most beautiful"

2.5 Adverbs
Most adverbs in Puesodán end in -(e)vel: çeiro > çeirovel "angrily".
Although in Old Puesodán matters were different, Modern Puesodán compares
its adverbs in the same way as adjectives. The irregular adverbs bien and
mal "well" and "badly" have irregular comparison, viz:

bien > mejor (note accent)
mal > píor

2.6 Personal Pronouns

         Subject Direct Object   Ind Object      After Preposition
1s      yo              me              me              mi
2s      tu              te              te              ti
3s m    el              lo              lle             el
3s f    la              la              lle             la
1p      nos             nos             no              nos
2p      vos             vos             vo              nos
3p m    ex              los             lles            los
3p f    las             las             lles            las
ref     -               se              se              si

Verbs will follow shortly. Does anyone have any thoughts or comments? And
do I get the feeling of Old Spanish well?

Dan

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
semo la flamma, semo la casea
semo la tuta, semo la cambea

We are the spark, we are the flame
We are the people, we are the change