Northern Dialect of Watakassi'

I've been working on a northern dialect of Watakassi'.  The phonology is
as follows (in orthography):

p    t    k
b    d    g
m    n    ng (ng = /N:/)
f    s  x    (x = /S/)
v    z  j    (j = /Z/)
     ts tx
     dz dj
(u)    (i)   (u and i are also used as glides /w/ and /j/)

i      u
 e     o
       a
ei  ou

All consonants can be either non-geminate or geminate, with the
exception of ng, which can only be geminate.

/i/ and /u/ cannot exist in open syllables.  Like the Standard Dialect,
at an earlier stage, there were only three vowels, /i a u/ (in turn
derived from a six-vowel /i e a o u @/).  However, [e] and [o] existed
as allophones of /i/ and /u/ in closed syllables (the same as in the
Standard Dialect).  Syllable-final stops were lost, thus causing a
phonemic split.  This is why /i/ and /u/ cannot exist in closed
syllables.

Syllables:

C(glide,z/s)V(C)
Restrictions:
The final consonant cannot be a stop, nor can a nasal consonant precede
a stop
Consonant-z and Consonant-s sequences are derived from Consonant-r; /r/
became /z/ (in the Standard Dialect, /r/ became /l/)

Stress is regular.  The word is stressed on the last heavy syllable
(defined as closed or containing a diphthong), or on the final syllable
if no syllables are heavy.

Grammar:

This dialect is not as rigidly verb-initial as the Standard Dialect.
Also, it has lost gender 4, influenced by some dialects further north
where the prefixes for first and fourth (ti- and ki-) had become
homophonous.  In those dialects, /k/ and /t/ both became /tS/ before
front vowels, while in this dialect, /k/ became /ts/ before high vowels.

Common Kassí had dual and plural inflections, with paucal existing in
the pronouns, the personal inflections, and in the gender-prefixes.  The
Standard Dialect retained the dual ending for nouns, and was split
between dual and paucal for the gender-prefixes (1-3 used the dual,
while 4-7 used the paucal), while the personal inflections lost the
paucal in second and third person (same with the pronouns); this dialect
retained the plural for both nouns and the prefixes.  In addition, the
paucal was lost everywhere.  The old pronouns were cliticized in all
dialects; in the Standard, the nominative, genitive, and (in third
person) the absolutive were retained as clitics, with free pronouns
derived from "my soul, our souls", etc.  In this dialect, the cliticized
pronouns remain only as first and second person genitive suffixes, while
the free pronouns are derived from the old ergative inflections (thus,
CK qóka; I-erg, became kuka, I, with case-suffixes placed on it
regularly, thus kukaz = I-ergative, historically two ergative
suffixes!).

This dialect has lost the irrational (non-sentient being) personal
inflections, and the inceptive and cessative aspects.  However, the
prefixes are almost exactly the same as Common Kassí's, it has retained
all of the applicatives, which the Standard Dialect has lost (except two
with slightly changed meanings).  The only change has been the loss of
the Remote Past tense.  The SD, on the other hand, lost the Past tense
and added a large number of modal prefixes.

Here is an example of the Standard Dialect and this northern dialect:

Standard: Wasaggá kla pinaabbí tiDikáuf
         [wAsag'gA kl_Oa pina:b'bi tSidi'kAwf] (' indicates high-pitched
syllable)
Northern: Pitaskon satas pinaksabi sondjikawunaf
         [pitas'kon sa'tas pinaksa'bi tendZikAwu'naf]
"Language is a gift of the Goddess" ("of the gods" in the second)

In both, the first two words are unrelated to each other, but the last
two are related.  Pinaabbí and pinaksabi both come from naqër(a)bé (the
Standard form comes from the a-less form), while Dikáu/jikawu come from
dekáho.

The specific changes, if anyone is interested are:

Standard: naqërbé -> naqëbbé -> naqbbé -> naqqbí -> naqhbbé -> naabbí
Northern: naqërabé -> naqrabé -> naqrabi -> nakrabi -> naksabi

Standard: dekáho -> dekáo -> dikáu
Northern: dekáho -> dekáo -> dikau -> dikawu -> djikawu

(Accent marks are dropped in the later stages because the stress ceased
to be lexical)

Incidentally, the roots represented in the Northern taskon and sa
(stripped of inflections) exist only as prefixes in the SD, ta-
(language of) and sa- (to be; added to adjectives)

--
"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men
believe and adore, and preserve for many generations the remembrance of
the city of God!" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
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