Pimbic language

The Pimbic language (lemba pümbja) is a language spoken in the Republic of Blyland, and in scattered areas in Namari.

History
It is not clear how the ancestors of the speakers of Pimbic ended up in Likkra. However, the date of settlement must have been around 200 BC, according to archaeological records. What is known is that the Proto-Pimbic speakers lost contact with the Roman Empire before the spread of Christianity, due to the lack of Christian terms in the older forms of the language, and that contact with Earth was not re-established until contact with the Blylandic people (who retained some form of contact with Europe even after settling in Likkra).

Historical Phonology
Currently in progress

Vowels
Omitted are vowel sequences beginning with /i/ or /u/; these become /j/ and /w/ respectively and induce palatalisation and labialisation/u-mutation respectively, if not stressed. The above development of the vowel sequences only apply to unstressed vowels; stressed vowels tend to induce hiatus or insertion of a semivowel.

Consonants
All geminates are palatalised before degemination.

Labials absorb any labialisation without change, while other consonants either change in articulation (e.g. /tʷ/ becomes /p/) or induce u-mutation (e.g. /ot͡ɕʷ/ becomes /ut͡ɕ/). If /r/ occurs next to /t/, /d/ or /s/, it induces retroflexion before disappearing (note that /l/ does the same to /s/).

Consonants
[ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ before /k/ and /g/. [ɳ] is an allophone of /n/ before retroflex consonants.

All consonants except /j/ have palatalised forms. However, note the following cases: The palatalised consonants listed above cannot be further palatalised.

Vowels
All vowels can either be short or long, although short vowels predominate. Long vowels cannot occur in posttonic position.

Pimbic does not have any diphthongs; all vowels occurring next to each other are pronounced separately.

Stress
Pimbic stress always falls on a particular syllable, which is partially marked in the orthography. The following rules are observed: Note that word-final <ë> is never pronounced, and only serves to shift the location of stress to the final syllable. This <ë> only appears in multisyllabic words (e.g. amòrë [ɑ.ˈmɔr] "to love" possesses this letter, while it is absent from ťòr [ˈθɔr] "to stand, to be"). It never appears after a syllable containing <ï>.
 * If the final syllable is long, it is stressed.
 * Otherwise, if the vowel of the penultimate syllable is written as <ï>, then the antepenult is stressed.
 * Otherwise, the penult is stressed.

Orthography
The orthography of Pimbic is diacritic-heavy; the only digraphs involve  and  (note that  indicates palatalisation when occurring after a consonant, and  cannot occur in consonant clusters).

Vowels
The main difference between <ü> and <ï> is that <ï> cannot take stress (it often appears in the penult to indicate that the antepenult is stressed instead) and that two syllables with <ï> cannot occur next to each other. Historically, <ï> is the reflex of the Latin sonus medius. Historically, the stressed counterpart of <ï> was ; however, this only occurred in morphology, and all <ï>/ alternations have since been levelled to . The letter <ë> only serves to indicate that stress is on the final syllable rather than the penult; historically, this developed from word-final short /e/ (which became /ɛ/ <è> in other positions, with word-final short /ɛ/ originating from shortening of posttonic vowels).

Grammar
Pimbic, like the other Likkran Romance languages, largely developed separately from the other Romance languages, and its grammar shows significant differences from those of real-life Romance languages.

Nouns
Nouns are split into three declensional classes. They decline for four cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative) and two numbers (singular and plural), and possess one of three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter).

In all cases, the nominative and accusative forms are identical for neuter nouns.

First declension
The first declension is composed mainly of feminine nouns, although there are a few masculines.

The following is the declension of ava (water, feminine):

Second declension
The second declension can have nouns of any gender, although feminines are rare.

The following is the declension of wüfüz (wolf, masculine):

Neuter nouns show different declensional endings in the nominative and accusative. The following is the declension of uwy (egg, neuter): Note that uwu becomes ū due to phonotactics.

Third declension
Nouns in this declension may be of any gender, and often have irregular nominative forms. The merger of the consonant and i-stems, already well under way in Classical Latin, was completed in Pimbic.

The following is the declension of omu (person, masculine):

The following is the declension of numjä (name, neuter):

The following is the declension of nōš (night, feminine):

Pronouns
Note that some pronouns possess an additional instrumental case form.

Currently in progress

Personal pronouns
Other than the instrumental forms (which are always stressed), these forms may either be stressed or unstressed. Unstressed forms may only occur next to a verb or unstressed pronoun form.

Possessive pronouns
The possessive pronouns decline as if they were first and second declension adjectives.

Interrogative and relative pronouns
Pimbic has merged the interrogative and relative pronouns.

Demonstrative pronouns
Pimbic has three demonstrative pronouns: ec (proximal), ēs (medial) and elj (distal). All three decline identically.

Declension of ec:

Adjectives
Adjectives decline for case, number and gender.

First and second declension
The first and second declension adjectives decline similarly to nouns in both the first and second declensions.

The following is the declension of atüz (tall):

Some adjectives display the "pronominal" declension. This is demonstrated below, using tuťüz (all):

Third declension
The third declension adjectives decline similarly to third declension nouns. Third declension adjectives do not distinguish between the masculine and feminine, and only have separate neuter forms in the nominative and accusative.

The following is the declension of atruš (atrocious, terrible): Note that not all third declension adjectives form adverbs with -ïťèr; those whose stems alternate betwen -s and -nt- have adverbs ending in -ntèr instead. Comparative adverbs are identical to the neuter nominative/accusative singular forms.

The following is the comparative declension, demonstrated below by mèljor (better):

Currently in progress

Irregular adjectives
Note that the general declension of an adjective is always regular with respect to its declensional (sub-)class. However, some adjectives have irregular adverbial, comparative and/or superlative forms.

Determiners
Pimbic possesses both a definite and an indefinite article. The indefinite article is yn (an unstressed version of the numeral ynüz, where -üz is dropped, the genitive plural -ry is reduced to -r, and y- is dropped for all forms except the genitive singular and masculine nominative singular). The definite article is es. Both articles decline identically and are unstressed.

Numerals
Numerals are a special class of adjectives and determiners, and are used to denote quantity or rank.

The numeral ynüz (one) declines as a pronominal first and second declension adjective. The plural forms are only used with plurale tantum, or when used as an indefinite article.

The declension of the numeral düwo (two) resembles that of a first and second declension adjective:

The numeral trjäs (three) declines irregularly:

The higher cardinal numerals up to 20 do not decline for gender.

The numerals from 11 to 19 decline identically, as do the decades from 30 to 90.

The other cardinal numerals are as follows:

All numerals higher than 19 are (neuter) nouns, and require the noun to be modified to be in the genitive plural. Additive numerals always use the neuter forms.

All ordinal numbers decline as first and second declension adjectives. They are listed below:

Verbs
Pimbic verbs diverge significantly from Latin and other Romance languages. While parts of the original Latin tense-aspect system remained, Pimbic innovated a new set of tense-aspect combinations, which are formed by agglutination. The following suffixes represent each form in the active voice: All of the above suffixes (with the exception of the imperfect indicative, which uses a different, but regularly derivable stem) attach directly to the stem (derived by removing the -r(ë) of the present infinitive). For the TAM combinations without any given suffixes, they vary between conjugations, and may alter the stem itself.

The mediopassive is also formed by agglutination, by simply adding -sè (a reduced form of the reflexive šä) to the end of the verb. This forms -Vsè, -Všè, -Vcè, -Vmüšè, -Vtešè, -Vnsè for each person-number combination (V is a vowel). The negative is also formed by agglutination (with -nu), to form -Vnu, -Vsnu, -Vntu, -Vmüsnu, -Vtesnu, -Vnju in the active voice and -Vsènu, -Všènu, -Vcènu, -Vmüšènu, -Vtešènu, -Vnsènu in the mediopassive.

In general, there are four conjugational classes, which are distinguishable by their infinitive:
 * First conjugation verbs end in -òrë.
 * Second conjugation verbs end in -järë (the -j- palatalises the preceding consonant, if it exists).
 * Third conjugation verbs end in -èr.
 * Fourth conjugation verbs end in -irë.

Currently in progress

First conjugation
The first conjugation is the main productive conjugational class, and possesses the majority of Pimbic verbs. The following is an example of a first conjugation verb (amòrë "to love"):

The suffixes which define this conjugational class are as follows:

Second conjugation
The suffixes which define this conjugational class are as follows:

Third conjugation
The suffixes which define this conjugational class are as follows: Verbs in this declension often have irregular preterite stems (which are used to form the simple past, as well as the pluperfect indicative), and may have irregular past participles. As such, verbs in this conjugational class are said to have three principal parts.

Fourth conjugation
The suffixes which define this conjugational class are as follows:

Irregular verbs
The following is the conjugation of èšèr (to be): This verb is a merger of three different Latin verbs (sum/esse, sto/stare and sedeo/sedere), ultimately deriving from four different Proto-Indo-European roots. This is the most irregular verb in Pimbic, with most of its forms exhibiting a null stem. This is also one of only two verbs with an r-imperfect (the other being pošèr "to be able").

The following is the conjugation of pošèr (to be able): For forms not listed above, the stem of this verb is poťè-

The following is the conjugation of wèljèr (to want): For forms not listed above, the stem of this verb is woljè-.

The following is the conjugation of avjärë (to have): This verb has irregular present forms, owing to its frequent use.

The following non-third conjugation verbs have irregular preterite stems and/or past participles:

The verb dar (to give) does not fall into any of the declensional classes; rather, its stem-final vowel is -a-. However, its forms are largely regular: