Causality in Hajec
Hajec is the often forgotten sister of Old Sumrë and Old Tuura, the runt of the family, having gone extinct and leaving no descendants behind. Hajec is the most conservative of the Proto-Sumric daughters as it diverged from Early Proto-Sumric whereas Old Sumrë and Old Tuura diverged from Late Proto-Sumric and share innovations such as umlaut. However even in Hajec we can observe interesting changes. In this post we’ll look at the various words for “because” in Hajec.
Early on in Hajec there were many ways to mark causality, often with expressive phrases to mark very specific instances of “because”. At this point they could be analysed as discourse particles rather than conjunctions. I’ll list them here:
easnuzǫz “that which emerges from jealousy” - when an action was done because of the subject’s jealousy. From easu- “that which emerges from” + zǫz “jealousy”.
tsioest ilasf napfo easnuzǫz
refuse-3S.ANIM.PST submit king-DAT.ANIM that emerger-jealousy
“he refused to submit to the king because he was jealous (of him)”
kitis “with intimidation” - when an action was done because the subject was forced to or had no choice in the matter. From k- “supine prefix” + it “to intimidate” + -is “with”.
ilasfest napfo kitis
submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT.ANIM SUP-intimidate-with
“he submited to the king because he was forced to to
kativokōis jirt “with imitation upon” - when an action was done because someone or something else had already done it. From kativokōis “imitation” (from k- “supine prefix + ativokō “to intimidate” + -is “with”) + jirt “upon”.
ilasfest napfo kativokōis jirt klesmir
submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT SUP-imitate-with upon friend-3S.POSS
“he submitted to the king because his friend did so (also)”
ḥvēris “with the opinion” - when the subject did the action because he thought that he should. From ḥvēr “opinion” + -is “with”.
ilasfest napfo ḥvēris
submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT opinion-with
“he submitted to the king because he thought that he should have”
vexil ezvetér “out of the mist” - used as a general “because”. From vexil “out of” + ezvetér “the mist”.
ilasfest napfo vexil ezvetér vrāōvestsāt ilasf
submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT out of DEF/mist want-3S.ANIM.PST=SUB sumbit
“he submitted to the king because he wanted to”
exskį́ji “from the seed” - Also used as a general “because”. From exskį “seed” + -ji “from”.
ilafest napfo exskį́ji vrāōvest ilasf
submit-3S.ANIM.PST king-DAT DEF/seed-from want-3S.ANIM.PST submit
“he submitted to the king because he wanted to”
Later on in Hajec each of the above become causal conjunctions which always followed the verb. However the conjunction exskį́ji fell out of everyday use and survived only in flowery speech. vexil ezvetér became lez which was the default causal conjunction. Kativokōis jirt became kōisjirt, a causal conjunction for an action that someone else did or an action done in revenge or retaliation. Kitis became a conjunction for a verb where the subject was forced to do it, but also as a discourse particle insinuiting disapproval. Easnuzǫz became restricted to stories of romance where a subject done something out of love or infatuation.