Old Kassan
From FrathWiki
Old Kassan is the ancestor of the Kassan branch of Kasshian languages. It was similar in many ways to Common Kasshian. See the Common Kasshian article for more information. This article will only focus on the differences between Common Kasshian and Old Kassan
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Phonology
/h/ was lost. Vowel sequences generally coallesced into diphthongs. Initial i or u became y and w.
Grammar
Nouns
Number
The old plural was lost, with the old paucal filling its place
Gender
The gender system was somewhat simplified.
- Gender IX was lost, most were merged into gender VI, except for divinities which were merged into gender XIII
- Gender XIII merged with gender XII in the dual and plural
- Some body-parts began to take the gender of their possessor
- Some nouns moved from gender VII to gender VI
Inflections
Case
The case-like postpositions of Common Kasshian became attached to the noun and reduplicated on agreeing adjectivse.
Verbs
Personal Prefixes
The personal clitics became obligatory prefixes. They were placed on the aspectual auxilary, if any, or the verb itself. Sometimes they were placed in suffix position if there was no auxilary (essentially analyzed as an auxilary with a null form).
Applicatives
The use of these prefixes changed. Dative came to be reanalyzed as the dative-object voice, so- was reanalyzed as the antipassive, while the commitative was used solely in the collocation of ko-ran- (with reflexive ko-) as a reciprocative.
Aspectual auxilaries
These lost their free existence, and became suffixes on the verb.
Pronouns
These were rarely used as free words, mostly as clitics. They lost their dative and postpositional inflections.
Syntax
Old Kassan had freer word-order than Common Kasshian. A tendency for the verb to assume initial position had developed, but topicalized nouns still generally preceded the verb.
