Re: First thoughts on Prevli or Pervil

Hallo!

Roger Mills wrote:

> Prevli ~Pervil is the language of the "primitive" Lang-lang people who live
> in the mountainous interior of Yanatros, the large island where my dialect
> of Kash is spoken. They are also "feline" descended, but of mysterious
> origin-- a different species from the Kash, and cannot interbreed. Where the
> Kash are mostly black-furred, the L-L are mostly tawny, but stripes, spots,
> and black-white combos occur. The Kash find them quite exotic.
>
> Subject to change without notice...
>
> Numbers: 0 duN (which probably means 'nothing')
> 1 nak, 2 lat, 3 tan, 4 sar, 5 pan, 6 pnak, 7 plat, 8 ptan, 9 psar
> 10 naknó, 11 nonák, 12 nolát... 20 latnó, 30 tannó... 100 sasta
> Ordinals add am- (before C) ~ ma- (before CC)
>
> Personal pronouns:
> 1st sg. kan ~gna
> 2nd sg. mil ~bli
> 3rd sg. --- or zok ~sko ("z" is probably /dz/, phonology not yet totally
> figured out...)
> 1pl. kant ~kanta
> 2pl. milt ~miltä
> 3pl. zet ~zeta
Which factor conditions these alternations?

> Reflexive pronouns: (basically reduplications) kanka, milmi, osko, kantak,
> miltim, este
>
> Subject+Object pronoun forms:
> 1sg+2sg kòum, 1s+3s kaska, 1s+1p kakant, 1s+2p kämilt, 1s+3p kazent
>
> 2s+1s mek, 2s+3s mez, 2s+1p milkänt, 2s+3p mezent (no 2s+2p)
>
> 3s+1s zehak, 3s+2s zehim, 3s+3s zehen or hen(?) (non-reflex.),
> 3s+1p zehat, 3s+2p zehimti, 3s+3p zehent or hent ("h" is probably /x/ or an
> allophone of /k/)
>
> 1p+2s mikänt, 1p+3s eskant, 1p+2p imlitkän, 1p+3p zeknat (no 1P+1s)
>
> 2p+1s imlikna, 2p+3s imlitse, 2p+1p miltikän, 2p+3p miltent (no 2p+2s)
>
> 3p+1s zetan, 3p+2s zetel, 3p+3s zeten~zetne, 3p+1p estant
> 3p+2p estim, 3p+3p zetant (non-reflex.)
Nice!  One can still see where these forms come from, though the
image appears to be somewhat blurred by sound changes.  This looks
very realistic.

> I don't think these will be any more taxing to the Lang-lang brain than
> Basque aux. forms :-)))))
>
> There is some vowel harmony going on, possibly fossilized, I'm not sure
> yet...The original thought was that every base must contain either all high
> vowels (i,u) or all low vowels (e,o,a), all front (i,e,&=ä) or all back
> (u,o,O=ò). (/a/ can be either front or back). But this seems to lead to
> considerable homophony...  Morphophonemics are not yet figured out yet
> either; quite likely a form like /pnak/ '6' will be pronounced either [fna?]
> or perhaps [mpa?].  The plural morpheme is -t(a), d/r alternate
> allophonically-- that's about all I know so far.
>
> Prevli ~Pervil is from *pede 'tongue' + *wili 'word'.
>
> I think the underlying form of most words is CVCVCV(CV), where alternate V
> may be deleted under so far unspecified circumstances.
>
> Comments?
Looks promising!

Greetings,

Jörg.

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