Just a couple notes, as inspired by a reddit post.
- The islands dialect probably doesn't maintain the symmetrical voice system. Instead, it is strictly actor oriented at all times, much like its substrate languages. However the undergoer infix remains in a number of contexts. First of all, it is often used when the undergoer is relevant to the discourse, basically acting as a definiteness marker for undergoers. I haven't decided if this will include subordinate clauses or only happen in main clauses. It might be the case where it works as a definiteness marker in main clauses, but as a relative marker when the head is an object.
- Other as of yet unused dialects include the Central Plains, the Lower Plains, probably one for the rivers/delta region and maybe some for the Western Plains as it slowly turns into related languages (though these might be better understood as sister languages not descended from Classical Kikxotian). The Central Forest region probably has one as well. Probably either Central Plains or Lower Plains is the prestige dialect and likely one of the two is also the most conservative/closest to Classical Kikxotian. This of course isn't everything but it helps fill in the map and create an actual dialect continuum defined by phonological changes.
- I want a dialect that has some consonant mutation. The basic idea is that loss of initial vowels (and final /ǝ/) resulted in a dialect where some class I and IV verbs are distinguished in transitivity only by lenition (and others not at all).
Funnily enough (because I knew very little when making my roots 6+ years ago), in class I lenition would represent transitivity while in class IV it would represent intransitivity. My guess is that since class IV is a lot more common than class I, analogy would probably switch them to be the same (except maybe with some heavily used verbs).Not sure how this would interact with the undergoer voice, but if it does then there's also a set of verbs (Class II verbs and some ditransitive verbs) which have a mutation in said voice. For example the root NYK ("ear", I) vs TÚJ ("mouth", I) vs BFW ("hatred", IV): - ūniyk -> nīk "to listen"
- niyka -> nīk "to hear something"
- ūtiúj -> þīj "to speak"
- tiúja -> tīj "to eat something
- ūbifw -> ṿifā "to be afraid"
- bifwa -> bifā "to hate something"
- In general, I want to think more about grammar and syntax, not just phonology. Also define things without needing to get too strange, as some of my current dialects are weird (which is why I highlighted them)
e: I'm dumb, lenition marks intransitivity in both classes.
