Diachronic Linguistics

There are three broad periods of Taran language history: Early Taran (NS 1-421), Middle Taran (NS 421-704), and Modern Taran (NS 704-1063). The Taran language's developments can also be analyzed across broad historical periods: the Nomadic Period (NS 1-233), Early Sovereignty (NS 233-421), Fractured Sovereignty (NS 421-476), Early Middle Sovereignty (NS 476-704), Late Middle Sovereignty (NS 704-869), and Modern Sovereignty (NS 869-1063).

The Taran language was greatly influenced by the Faraham invasion in NS 421 during the start of the Fractured Sovereignty Period, leading to a high number of lexical borrowings from Shenwarii languages, as well as the alteration of some aspects of the phonetic-phonological system. This spurred the change from Early to Middle Taran.

The start of the Late Middle Sovereignty, when the Western Peaks rose to a vast empire, spurred the development of the language into Modern Taran. Contact with a variety of languages from the 700s to present day, include Khantou and Shenvaan, have led to further changes and the emergence of new regional dialects.

Partial Disappearance of /h/
The phoneme /h/ is becoming realized in increasingly fewer instances. In some dialects, it is only present word-initially or as the second consonant in a consonant cluster.

NS 1-550         h present and realized in any VhV situation

NS 500-750     VhV à V: where V1 and V2 are the same vowel

NS 700-1063   elsewhere VhV à VxhV where V1 and V2 are different

Nominal endings
Nouns in Early Taran always contained a final vowel or a case ending if they were the subject or object of the sentence. The final vowel depended upon the previous vowel according to Taran vowel harmony rules. During the first hundred years of Middle Taran, during the Fracture Sovereignty Period, vowel harmony was reduced and lost. Many nouns' final vowel became reduced to schwa, and by 600 NS, some had lost the final vowel completely. New nouns which entered the language, such as Faraham loan words or verbal backformations, lacked a vowel ending.

NS 1-500         -V (i/u/a)

NS 480-600     -a reduction to many endings

NS 600-1063   nouns often lack final vowel and others have reduced; verbal nominalizations lack vowel ending

Verb conjugation and the grammaticalization of the additive valence marker
The verb conjugation system changed for all tenses. The chart below depicts the changes that occurred within the present tense, but near-parallel charts can be made for the past and future tenses. The difference is that the distinct transitive markers for the past and future tenses, -Vgh and -Vxh respectively, were lost completely around 400-450 NS.

Grammaticalization of -sa-
The infix -sa- originally came from the verb saem, meaning "to cause". The frequency of same in verbal constructions allowed it to be predictable, consequently reducing it until it became reinterpreted as its own separate phoneme. In some verbs like sahaaq, it has been reinterpreted to be part of the root itself. Over time, the pattern can be generalized as saem -> sem -> səm -> sə.

NS 1-200         saem verbal construction

NS 200-420     sem

NS 400-500     sam

NS 500-1063   sa

General rule
Nouns are very frequently converted to verbs in Taran. The paradigm for nominal verbalizations, however, has changed, co-occurring with noun ending changes and suffixal verb conjugation changes. The changes for nominal verbalization can be described below:

NS 1-421         - full noun (with V ending) + h for transition into verb (-VtV)

NS 421-704     - full noun with merged vowel to the verb, so verbal deletion

NS 704-800     - verb form of nominalized verb always short and never have vowel

NS 800-1063   - backformations may occur without nominal end

Example
In order to demonstrate the changes that occur with nominal verbalization, suffixal endings, valency, pronoun movement, and word order changes, two sentences have been translated by Taran as it would have been spoken for every fifty years. The two sentences are, in order, "I eat food," and "Xhadouk killed Faraset."

Early Taran

NS 1                Hla foqohox faahov. Xhadouka saemhukugh Farasetav.

NS 50              Hla foqohox faahov. Xhadouka saemhukugh Farasetav.

NS 100            Hla foqohox faahov. Xhadouka saemhukugh Farasetav.

NS 150            Hla foqohox faahov. Xhadouka saemhukugh Farasetav.

NS 200            Hla foqohox faahov. Xhadouka semhukugh Farasetav.

NS 250            Hla foqohox faahov. Xhadouka semhukugh Farasetav.

NS 300            Hla foqohax faahov. Xhadouka semhukagh Farasetav.

NS 350            Hlafoqohax faahov. Xhadouka semhukagh Farasetav.

Middle Taran

NS 400            Hlafoqohot faahov. Xhadouka samhukaxagh Farasetav.

NS 450            Hlafoqot faahov. Xhadouka samhukaxat Farasetav.

NS 500            Hlafoqat faahov. Xhadouk sahukaxat Farasetav.

NS 550            Hlafoqat faahov. Xhadouk sahakaxat Farasetav.

NS 600            Hlafoqata fah. Xhadouk sahakaxta Faraset.

NS 650            Hlafoqata fah. Xhadouk sahakaxta Faraset.

Modern Taran

NS 700            Hlafoqata fah. Sakaxta Xhadouk Faraset.

NS 750            Hlafoqta fah. Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.

NS 800            Hlafoqta fah. Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.

NS 850            Hlafoqta fah. Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.

NS 900            Hlafoqta fah. Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.

NS 950            Hlafoqta fah. Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.

NS 1000          Hlafoqta fah. Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.

NS 1050          Hlafoqta fah. Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.

Word order change
The Taran language changed from a SVO basic word order to a verb initial VSO word order.

It is to note that in Early Taran, the presence of the case system on subjects and objects allowed for more flexibility. Therefore, verb initial sentences were present, but the majority of declartive sentences were nevertheless SVO. The presence of subject pronouns preceding verbs resulted in pronomial cliticization to the following verb; object pronouns were then brought forward and placed as a second, outer clitic at the front of the verb. At this point, the case system was lost because of predictive word ordering, and sentences shifted to verb initial patterns. The VSO word order is said to be a trait of Modern Taran.

NS 1-350         SVO with nouns containing case suffixes, where -av is the subject marker and -ov object marker. Full nouns or pronouns are present in the sentence, but not both

NS 350-500     Subject pronoun becomes cliticized to verb; nominal subject and pronoun co-occur

NS 500-550     Loss of case on subject

NS 550-600     Object moved into the verb at the front

NS 600-700    Object case lost and SVO order weakens.

NS 700-1063   Verb moves to VSO order.

Example translations
Example translations are taken from NS 200, NS 500, and NS 1050, respectively.

"I eat food."
 * Early Taran: Hla foqohox faahov.

"Xhadouk killed Faraset."
 * Middle Taran: Hlafoqat faahov.
 * Modern Taran: Hlafoqta fah.
 * Early Taran: Xhadouka semhukugh Farasetav.
 * Middle Taran: Xhadouk sahukaxat Farasetav.


 * Modern Taran: Sahaaqta Xhadouk Faraset.