Hickic Reconstruction Notes

These are working notes for Hickic reconstruction. They are not a polished reference grammar. Use them to collect evidence, test sound-change assumptions, and separate inherited Proto-Hick material from later branch innovations.

Working Tree

The current working model treats the documented stages as historical layers rather than a single direct jump from Proto-Hick to Early Hick.

Proto-Hick
├─ Proto-Apgarian Hickic
│  ├─ Estregan
│  ├─ Anasaian
│  └─ Sanerian / Standard Apgarian
└─ Island / Seafaring Hickic
   └─ Proto-Maritime Hickic
      ├─ Maritime island branches
      ├─ later maritime pidgin and sailor lingua franca
      └─ Proto-Seneran Hickic
         └─ Pre-Early Hick
            └─ Early Hick

Each protolanguage represents both a shared ancestor and a period of shared innovation after some degree of geographic or social isolation. Proto-Apgarian may preserve older mainland features, but it is still a daughter branch with its own innovations. Proto-Maritime reflects the spread of reliable seafaring and island settlement. Proto-Seneran reflects later settlement in Senera and subsequent local development.

Method

For each reconstruction problem, collect evidence from:

1. canonical Early Hick forms used in the Seneran reference material
2. Lexurgy outputs from early-hick.lsc
3. known later Seneran or Modern Seneran survivals
4. Apgarian and Maritime cognates where available
5. semantic and morphological plausibility

Then classify each result as:

• keep: fits the sound changes, morphology, and attested descendants
• revise: useful older intuition, but likely needs better rules
• investigate: promising, but not yet supported by enough evidence
• branch-specific: valid in one branch but not necessarily Proto-Hick

Stage Checkpoints

The current early-hick.lsc file includes stage markers:

Stage 0: Proto-Hick
Stage 1: Proto-Maritime Hick
Stage 2: Proto-Seneran Hick
Stage 3: Pre-Hick
Stage 4: Early Hick

These should be treated as testable checkpoints. The stage labels may need renaming or splitting as the wider Hickic family model becomes clearer.

Proto-Hick Morphosyntax Working Hypothesis

Do not assume that Proto-Hick already had the full Early Hick case system. Most documented Early Hick case marking is better treated as a later Seneran development or grammaticalization layer. When reconstructing Proto-Hick, start from looser morphosyntax:

• action nouns or event words
• discourse particles
• postpositions or clitic-like relation markers
• serial predicates or predicate chains
• pragmatic word order and context
• optional responsible participants rather than obligatory ergative marking

Early Hick may preserve older discourse habits while expressing them through newer case suffixes. For example, a later Early Hick pattern such as “absolutive event + ergative responsible agent” may reflect an older pragmatic shape:

named event + responsibility/agent phrase

rather than an inherited Proto-Hick ergative-absolutive sentence frame.

This is especially important for commands, requests, possession, spatial relations, and clause linking. Proto-Hick may have had the beginnings of these functions through particles and discourse structure before later daughter branches turned them into case suffixes, verbal suffixes, or fixed auxiliaries. Future Apgarian, Maritime, and Seneran comparative work should test whether a function is inherited as:

• a lexical root
• a particle or postposition
• a word-order/pragmatic construction
• a later branch-specific case marker or suffix

Calibration Form: lawesu

The root family around *lawesu is a useful test case because it touches lexical inheritance, grammaticalization, and fossilized case morphology.

Current Lexurgy Outputs

Using the current early-hick.lsc rules:

lawesu        > lawes
laʔesu        > la'es
lahesu        > las

ʔelu lawesu   > ewes
duwesu        > duwes
duhawesu      > duwes

ʔimeru lawesu > imewes
ʔimeru laʔesu > ime'es
ʔimeru lahesu > imes

bramu lawesu  > brawes
bramu laʔesu  > bra'es
bramu lahesu  > bras

Working Interpretation

Plain *lawesu currently behaves best as a lexical root: “consume, take in, use, eat.” It can support fossilized compounds such as ewes when combined with the older comitative-instrumental particle *ʔelu.

The related but distinct *wesu branch covers “cover, enclose; enclosed space” and better explains wesp, -esp, brises, and duwes-type compounds.

The form *lahesu currently produces las. This makes it a strong candidate for a later grammaticalized allomorph that became the productive Early Hick illative suffix -las.

The form *laʔesu produces apostrophe-bearing -'es shapes. This may belong with archaic or fossilized inward/receptive forms, but it should not be treated as productive Early Hick morphology.

Provisional Analysis

Proto-Hick:
*lawesu = consume, take in
*ʔelu-lawesu = consume/take in together > ewes
*wesu = cover, enclose

Proto-Maritime or Proto-Seneran:
*lahesu = reduced or grammaticalized inward allomorph

Early Hick:
*lahesu > -las

Possible fossil layer:

Proto-Maritime or exploratory coastal usage:
*-laes / *-aes = inward, into, where something enters

The -aes layer is best treated as Proto-Maritime or early exploratory fossil material rather than productive Early Hick morphology. This especially suits hydronyms and coastal descriptions, where Maritime Hick speakers may have named features during first exploration. For example, bram-aes can be understood as an older description of a tidal river or estuary, later inherited as Bramaes > Brams.

This means the older statement *lawes > *laes > -las is too simple. The productive Early Hick -las descends from a branch-specific grammaticalized allomorph, while -aes survives as a fossilized or borrowed Maritime layer.

Calibration Form: imris

The ellative and source-causative marker -imris is another high-value calibration form because it is productive in Early Hick, but its older etymology is less secure than its synchronic function.

Current Lexurgy Outputs

Using the current early-hick.lsc rules:

ʔimeru ʔirisu  > imer'iris
ʔimeru ʔisu    > imer'is
ʔimerisu       > imeris
ʔimeru risu    > imeris

hisu           > is
hirisu         > iris
himrisu        > iris
himirisu       > imiris
himeru hisu    > imes
himeru hirisu  > imeris
himeru himrisu > imeris

ʔisu           > is
ʔirisu         > iris
risu           > ris

Working Interpretation

The transparent derivation ʔimeru ʔirisu > imris is not produced by the current rules. The closest regular output is imeris, from either ʔimerisu or ʔimeru risu.

The current working model is:

Proto-Hick or early branch material:
*ʔimer-isu / *ʔimerisu = breath/soul at-or-outward, released breath

Regular development:
*ʔimerisu > imeris

Pre-Hick to Early Hick productive morphology:
imeris > imris

The final imeris > imris reduction should be treated as a special reduction in high-frequency bound morphology, not as a general sound law. The productive Early Hick marker then extends from physical/source ellative use into derivational and clause-linking functions:

out of, from
> arising from
> caused by, because of
> cause to emerge or bring out

The *risu root is attested as “reed”, so it should not be repurposed as the source of -imris. The *-isu suffix is documented as locative “at, in”; its exterior/outward use should remain a branch-specific or contextual development unless stronger comparative evidence is found.

The Early Hick word kiris should not currently be used as firm evidence that *isu originally meant “out”. Its etymology may need reanalysis or may represent folk etymology.

Candidate Reanalysis: kiris

The current Early Hick lexicon derives kiris from *kiru-ʔisu “body-out”, but the current Lexurgy rules produce kir'is, not kiris. The cleaner sound-change path is:

*kiru-risu > kiris

Since *risu is independently attested as “reed”, this gives a literal sense “reed body”. That phrase can remain available as a botanical description of the body or stalk of a reed, while also developing a socially marked sense through contact with plantlike fey:

reed body
> reed-bodied being
> plantlike fey, especially wetland or reedbed spirits
> fey outsider, strange non-human person

This development fits a Maritime or Seneran setting better than an inherited Proto-Hick exterior case etymology. Raibon Island and Senera both have strong later traditions of fey contact, wetland crossings, and bog-associated magical beings, so kiris may reflect a branch-specific folk or contact term rather than a general Proto-Hick derivation from *-isu.

Working Form: pe, mope, penar

Proto-Hick likely had an inherited negative or refusal particle distinct from the later Seneran darkness and evil negation cluster:

*pe = no!, refusal!

This root should not be derived from *muru “night, darkness” or *ʔimu / imur “evil, harmful force.” It belongs instead to an older expressive refusal layer: a short, bodily negator associated with refusing food, touch, command, or expected action.

In Seneran Early Hick, productive negation is supplied by mo-, while *pe survives in fossilized and child-directed forms:

*pe        > pe      "no!" (childish, petulant, or teasing refusal)
mo-pe      > mope    "no" (ordinary standalone negative answer)
*pe naru   > penar   "inaction, refusal to act, sulking non-action"
*peka      > pek     "refusal, denial" (bound or lexicalized stem)
*peka heru > peker   "to refuse, deny"
pe-ok      > pekok   "naysayer, habitual refuser; idler"

The form mope should be treated as reinforced negation or negative concord, not as a logical double negative. The newer Seneran negative mo- reinforces the older inherited refusal particle pe, producing the normal standalone negative answer. This lets Early Hick keep mo- as the productive clausal and derivational negator while still preserving an older Proto-Hick negative root in everyday speech.

The pe family gives Early Hick a small register of childish or socially marked refusal:

• pe! “no!” in child speech, petulant refusal, or teasing adult imitation
• penar “inaction; refusal to act; sulking non-action”
• peker “to refuse, deny”
• pekok “naysayer; habitual refuser; by extension, an idle or unskilled person perceived as refusing expected work”

These forms should remain lexical fossils. They do not make pe- a productive Early Hick negation prefix.

Working Form: ig, ignar, nater

The affirmative and desiderative clusters should be kept related through *naru, but not derived from the same immediate form.

Affirmative and Correctness

The current best reconstruction for Early Hick ignar, gnar, and nar is:

*ʔiga = correct, fitting, true
*naru = action, deed, enacted response

*ʔiga naru = correct action, fitting response
> ignar [ignər]
> gnar
> nar

Current Lexurgy output supports the first step:

ʔiga      > ig
ʔiga naru > ignər
naru      > nar

Early Hick preserves ignar as the visible full-form reflex of the older formula, but its primary living sense is “fit, accord with an established pattern or norm.” This keeps the link to naru and to the clipped ordinary form gnar visible without making ignar the normal standalone “yes.” The form gnar is the common affirmative and correctness term, while nar is an informal clipped affirmative, similar to English “yup.” The older *gnaru reconstruction should be retired unless comparative evidence later requires a separate root.

The ig element may become useful as a Hickic sound-symbolic marker of correctness, fittingness, or truth. At present this should be treated as a promising reconstruction clue, not as a proven productive sound-symbolic rule across the family.

Desiderative and Intended Course

The desiderative is cleaner if it comes through an early lexicalized *nateru, from transparent *naru teru, rather than directly from gnar-ter:

*naru teru = action-flow, course of action
> *nateru
> nater
> intended course, desired outcome
> desire, intention
> nat-'er by reanalysis with productive -'er
> -nat

This keeps the semantic bridge natural:

flow of action
> course of action
> intended course
> desired outcome
> desire, intention

This also gives the meaning enough time to settle before -nat becomes productive. A transparent late compound naru teru currently yields narter in Lexurgy, while already-fused nateru yields nater, so the desired form is better treated as an earlier lexicalized stem.

The related form gnater can remain in Early Hick as a correctness-colored analogical variant. It likely began as gnar-ter “correct flow, fitting course” after gnar had lexicalized as “correct; yes.” Because it sits beside nater, it can pick up a secondary desire/intention sense where the desired thing is understood as fitting, proper, or rightful. It is not the direct source of the productive suffix -nat.

Request and Command Reconstruction Notes

Early Hick Requestive naterlas

Early Hick can grammaticalize a soft requestive from nater-las:

nater-las = desire/willingness-ALL
> naterlas "toward willingness"
> polite requestive, "please; would you be willing to..."

This should not be reconstructed as a Proto-Hick request marker. The allative -las belongs to the later Seneran spatial case system. What may be older is the pragmatic construction discussed above: a requested action is treated as a named event, then combined with a particle or predicate of desire, correctness, negation, or responsibility. Early Hick expresses that older discourse pattern with its newer case morphology:

ACTION-es!                         direct event call
ACTION-'er-es nater AGENT-el       willingness request
ACTION-'er-es naterlas AGENT-el    soft requestive
ACTION-'er-es ignar'er AGENT-el    obligation / fittingness request

For Proto-Hick and early branch reconstruction, prefer reconstructing roots and particles relevant to the construction, such as *naru, *teru, *nateru, *ʔiga, *pe, and whatever earlier negative particles were active.

Request-Specific Branch Comparison

When reconstructing Proto-Hick or early branch daughters, use the Early Hick request system as evidence for discourse patterns, not as direct evidence for inherited case morphology.

The likely inherited pattern is:

named action/event + discourse particle or predicate + optional responsible participant

Early Hick realizes this through absolutive event calls and later Seneran case marking. Other Hickic branches may instead preserve older particles, postpositions, serial verbs, or looser action noun constructions. This gives several comparative predictions to test once Apgarian, Maritime, and other Seneran descendants are developed:

• If another branch has a requestive particle cognate with nater or *nateru, then Early Hick naterlas may be a Seneran renewal of an older Hickic willingness-request strategy.
• If another branch uses a correctness or fittingness predicate for advice and obligation, compare it with Early Hick ignar'er and the proposed *ʔiga naru correctness formula.
• If another branch has bare action nouns or event words as commands, that supports reconstructing an older “event call” imperative strategy without reconstructing Early Hick -es.
• If another branch marks the responsible doer in commands with a particle or postposition rather than an ergative suffix, compare its function with Early Hick targeted imperatives like vinud-es, Aigral-el!.
• If another branch has a special prohibitive particle, compare it against Early Hick mo-ACTION-'er! and ACTION-es mo'er!. Early Hick may have renewed prohibition through its productive mo- negation, while older Hickic may have used a separate negative command marker.
• If another branch expresses beneficiary through possession rather than a benefactive case, compare it with Early Hick request phrases such as tan-ul vinud “one’s own dwelling.”

Working Form: medial demonstratives

The Early Hick medial direct pair is layered rather than a simple inherited animate/inanimate pair. The inanimate or default form is inherited:

Proto-Hick *ena "that, there in shared attention"
  > Early Hick -en MED.DIR.INAN/default

An inherited animate counterpart either merged with -en, was lost, or became too opaque to maintain the animate distinction. Early Hick then renewed the animate medial direct form through Princely Channel contact:

Old Chemise tan "sibling, comrade"
  > Princely Maritime tan "comrade, crewmate"
  > Early Raibonian / Maritime Lingua Franca tan
     "that known person, that fellow there"
  > Early Hick -tan MED.DIR.ANIM

This keeps -tan out of the core Proto-Hick demonstrative inventory while explaining why it is so strongly animate and socially direct in Early Hick. It also leaves tan available as an ordinary borrowed/contact stem meaning “comrade, associated person, one of one’s own side”; in phrases like tan-ul vinud, -ul is still the regular possessive marker.

The medial indirect pair is layered in a different way. The inanimate/default form appears inherited:

Proto-Hick *etha "that hidden, sensed, or indirectly available thing"
  > Early Hick -eth MED.INDIR.INAN/default

The animate indirect form can be explained as a native renewal from lexical thir “air, wind.” Since wind is an unseen moving force, thir could extend to unseen presences before becoming a bound animate indirect demonstrative:

thir "air, wind; unseen moving force"
  > thir "unseen animate or agentive presence"
  > Early Hick -thir MED.INDIR.ANIM

This also explains why lexical thir narrows toward “air” in ordinary use while bressim becomes the regular word for wind as a weather event or gust.

Working Form: distal demonstratives

The distal pair is the most conservative part of the Early Hick demonstrative system:

Proto-Hick *ʔuma "that distant thing"
  > Early Hick -um DIST.INAN/default

Proto-Hick *ruma "that distant animate one"
  > Early Hick -rum DIST.ANIM

Current Lexurgy rules support these direct paths:

ʔuma > um
ruma > rum

They do not directly support hi + ʔuma > rum; such forms produce an initial i or glottal trace instead. If the r- of *ruma reflects older animacy morphology, that effect must already predate Proto-Hick proper. A plausible deeper note is that pre-Proto-Hick *hi + *ʔuma produced or preserved a rhotic animate-deictic linker, but by Proto-Hick *ʔuma and *ruma were separate stems.

Lexicalized Compound Smoothing

Forms such as gnater and thragral suggest a tendency for lexicalized compounds to smooth heavy or redundant boundary material after speakers stop feeling the internal boundary clearly:

gnar-ter > gnater
thral-gral > thragral

This should not be encoded as a broad Lexurgy sound law yet. It is a case-by-case lexicalization tendency affecting high-frequency, culturally important, or semantically opaque compounds.

Calibration Form: itaru

The superessive marker -itar and the inland/fossil form -iter need to be kept separate in synchronic Early Hick description, even if they may be historically related.

Current Lexurgy Outputs

Using the current early-hick.lsc rules:

ʔitaru > iter
hitaru > iter

The regular sound-change path is:

*ʔitaru
> *ʔi.ta.ru
> *'ʔi.tə.rə
> *'i.tə.rə
> *'i.trə
> iter

Bare itaru is not a valid Proto-Hick input under the current syllable model, because vowel-initial forms require an onset repair. The roots.wli file may contain generated phonotactic test words, so its *-itaru-like outputs should be treated as sound-change feasibility rather than canonical lexical attestation.

Working Interpretation

The current working model is that -iter is the regular inherited reflex of an older onset-bearing superessive or upper-surface marker, while -itar is the productive Early Hick superessive that spread from a separate Seneran dialect layer.

regular inherited reflex:
*ʔitaru / *hitaru > -iter

prestige or restored dialect form:
*-itaru > -itar

In the coastal and eastern trade standard, the productive ellative -imris became the clearer marker for source, emergence, and outward motion. This likely caused inherited -iter to lose productivity where it overlapped with ellative meanings. It survived mostly in inland, conservative, domestic, or ritual vocabulary, such as venuiter and related forms.

The productive superessive -itar is best placed in Ranterg highland or eastern-slope prestige speech. During the middle Early Hick period, the growing ritual and political importance of Thrantorgral in the Ranterg Mountains may have carried this highland form into broader Early Hick usage. Its meaning remained comparatively clear: “on, upon, atop, supported by; onto/upon with motion verbs.”

Regional Model

The resulting Early Hick standard is not purely coastal. It is a layered contact variety:

Eastern/coastal trade speech:
  -imris becomes the productive ellative

Western inland and agricultural speech:
  -iter survives in older fossilized forms

Ranterg highland prestige speech:
  -itar spreads as the productive superessive

Coastal Early Hick became the practical base of the standard because eastern and coastal communities controlled the trade routes to the wider Beteran community. Ranterg speech then contributed prestige religious or political forms after Thrantorgral gained importance.

The strongest dialectal drift should be expected in the most isolated Seneran regions. The Maltreks, especially the remote northwestern highlands, are the best candidate for the most conservative or divergent local speech. They likely remained marginal to island-wide standardization until rare minerals made the region economically important late in the Early Hick period or later. Northeastern Senera is a likely secondary isolation zone, because colder and less productive conditions would have limited settlement density, trade intensity, and regular contact with the coastal standard. This northeastern or Skelmark zone likely had little island-wide influence during the Early Hick period. Its larger influence begins in Middle Hick, after the Iutlandish landing made it a base for inland expansion. The inland Western Lowlands and eastern Rannek may also preserve local features because of distance from the eastern maritime network, but their agricultural importance likely created more regular trade contact. They should therefore be treated as conservative contact zones rather than fully isolated dialect pockets. These regions may preserve older reflexes or develop stronger local innovations than the eastern trade coast or the Ranterg prestige corridor.

One small confirmed Maltreks or upper Malter Valley split is the regional earthworm form grapal, especially plural grapales, beside standard Early Hick grapar/grapares. This should be treated as a local lexical variant, not as a general Early Hick liquid sound law. The form likely reflects local liquid leveling in a familiar inherited compound:

standard lexicalized compound:
gral-par > grapar "earthworm"

regional leveling:
grapar(es) > grapal(es)

The split fits the broader expectation that isolated western and mountain regions preserve local reductions, but it should not be projected onto all r/l environments without further evidence.

This explains mixed formal expressions such as:

'ilitar venuiteres
good-SUPE birth-ELL.DIAL-ABS
"blessings upon your birth"

Here, 'ilitar uses the standard or prestige superessive, while venuiter preserves an older inland/fossil birth term.

Working Form: esp

The direct reconstruction *espu > -esp is currently weak. It produces the desired Early Hick shape, but it looks more like a placeholder than a motivated Proto-Hick form.

A better working model derives -esp from a grammaticalized compound around *wesu and the locative/interior particle *pu:

*wesu pu
> wesp
> -esp

The likely older senses are:

*pu = at, in, within; interior place
*wesu = dwelling, enclosed space
     > enclosure
     > cover, enclose

The independent Early Hick root wes preserves the later lexical sense “cover, enclose.” The compound *wesu pu preserves a more spatial use: “within an enclosure, enclosed interior, covered place.” The important semantic development is:

enclosed interior, covered place
> under-cover place, beneath a surface, under the ground
> subessive -esp "under, below, beneath"

This should not be treated as a fully formed Proto-Hick subessive. The best chronology is:

Proto-Hick:
  *wesu pu = within an enclosure, enclosed interior

Maritime / Proto-Seneran:
  enclosed-interior sense broadens in island and maritime settings
  > covered interior, ship hold, enclosed lower storage space,
    under-cover place

Pre-Hick:
  wesp = covered/beneath-place

Early Hick:
  root-wesp > root-esp
  -esp becomes the productive subessive case marker

This path fits the current Early Hick lexicon better than bare *espu. It also explains why wesp could survive as a separate lexical relic: Maritime Hick could shift the older enclosed-interior sense toward ship holds and enclosed lower storage spaces, while Early Hick later generalizes the independent word to “cellar”, “basement”, or “lower enclosed space.” It explains saresp “sprout” as “leaf under/covered,” with growth understood as emergence from concealment or from beneath the ground. It also gives aiesp “bathe” a more concrete source: “water covering/enclosing the body,” rather than only abstract “water under.”

Lexurgy currently gives:

*wesu pu > wesp
*brisu-wesu-pu > brisesp

The second form is important because the current compound rules already allow w to disappear after sibilants at a compound boundary. The phonotactics also do not allow general Cw onset clusters. Once wesp was reanalyzed as a bound suffix, forms like *imer-wesp, *sar-wesp, or *gral-wesp were therefore prone to repair as imer-esp, sar-esp, and gral-esp. This makes wesp > esp plausible as a common-use reduction of a very frequent grammatical suffix: sibilant-final compounds could surface with -esp, and consonant-final stems would independently favor loss of the weak initial w. Speakers then generalized -esp as the productive subessive.

This should be treated as a common-use reduction and analogical leveling, not as a global sound change deleting all w before e.

The same locative/interior *pu also helps explain dup:

*duha pu
> *duhapu
> dup

Here *duha contributes “meat, flesh” and *pu contributes “inside, interior.” The lexicalized compound therefore means “thing within flesh; internal concretion,” which gives Early Hick dup “pearl; lump, mass” a better source than older dupu-style placeholder forms. The form should be treated as a lexicalized compound before regular reduction, not as a fully transparent productive phrase.

Calibration Form: simu

Early Hick already has a general growth root in the stor family:

Proto-Hick *storu "grow, increase"
> Early Hick stor "growth, addition, increment"
> Early Hick stor'er "to grow, to increase"

Because of this, *simu should not be reconstructed as the ordinary Proto-Hick verb “grow.” Instead, it is better treated as a more specific root meaning “fine hair, lash; hairlike surface growth.” This preserves the current Early Hick lexical noun sim while giving the translative suffix -sim a plausible semantic bridge:

Proto-Hick *simu "fine hair, lash; hairlike surface growth"
> Early Hick sim "fine hair, lash"
> lexicalized X-sim "put forth / take on the visible trait of X"
> translative -sim "become, transform into"

The contrast with *storu is useful:

• *storu covers ordinary growth, increase, and addition.
• *simu covers visible surface change, especially the emergence of fine or hairlike growth.

This gives Early Hick -sim a transformation sense without making it redundant with stor. It also fits other Early Hick images where change is described as emergence into visibility, such as saresp “sprout” as “leaf under/covered.” The pathway should remain a working reconstruction until *simu is added to the Proto-Hick lexicon as a canonical root.

Calibration Form: asam

The asam family is best treated as a shared-base reconstruction problem, not as a strictly sequential derivation from a live Early Hick verb.

Working Interpretation

The current Early Hick material supports three related but distinct outcomes:

Proto-Hick:
*xasamu = rest, repose, resting place

Early Hick lexical noun:
asam = rest, resting place

Early Hick case marker:
-asam = sublative, downward / onto a lower surface

The most economical analysis is that the noun and the case marker are cognate developments from the same older base. The case marker does not need to be synchronically derived from a live finite verb such as asam'er. Instead, the grammaticalization path is better understood as:

rest, resting place
> toward rest
> down into rest
> onto a lower or supporting surface
> sublative -asam

This fits the Early Hick lexical evidence better than a model where speakers first derive a verb “to go to rest” and only later turn that verb into a case marker. If asam'er is later normalized or explicitly documented, it can be treated as a transparent finite verbalization of the lexical base asam, not as the historical source that speakers must reconstruct in order to understand -asam.

Synchrony vs. History

Synchronically in Early Hick:

• asam is a lexical noun
• -asam is a productive grammatical case suffix
• forms such as asamasam and asamitar show later lexicalized derivations built from the noun-plus-case family

Historically:

• the noun and suffix are related
• but they should be treated as parallel outcomes of older *xasamu material, not as a simple live chain asam > asam'er > -asam

Coordination Particles

Early Hick coordination currently preserves at least four historical layers:

Proto-Hick *ho
> Early Hick o

Proto-Hick *storu "grow, increase"
> Early Hick stor "growth, addition, increment"
> clipped/grammaticalized Early Hick ru "and"

Proto-Hick *ʔaha "other, another; alternative"
> Early Hick 'a "or"
> Early Hick 'atil "'a + 'etil, other one; alternative"

Proto-Hick *ʔelu lawesu "consume/take in with"
> Early Hick ewes "together with; together"

The Lexurgy path supports *ho > o, so the bare Early Hick enumeration particle does not need to come from a vowel-initial Proto-Hick form. *ʔo also yields o, but *ho better respects the current Proto-Hick preference for onset-bearing simple particles while explaining the weak onset’s loss in Early Hick.

The additive coordinator ru should not be treated as the regular direct reflex of *storu, since *storu yields stor. Its best current analysis is grammatical clipping from the same additive semantic family as stor: “grow, increase” > “addition, increment” > “and, plus.” This makes ru a later Pre-Hick or Early Hick coordinator shaped by repeated use in o...ru list frames.

The disjunctive coordinator 'a is the grammaticalized reflex of Proto-Hick *ʔaha “other, another; alternative.” Synchronically, bare 'a is chiefly a coordinator in o...'a list frames, but the older alterity sense is preserved through the lexicalized compound 'atil (< 'a + 'etil “living thing, entity”). Corrective expressions such as “not that person, the other one” provide a natural bridge from contrastive alterity into the ordinary lexical sense “other, different thing; alternative.”

The shared-action coordinator ewes is older and more securely phonological. The tested path *ʔelu lawesu > ewes supports the existing analysis where older comitative-instrumental *ʔelu survives in fossilized compounds and coordinators. Synchronically, ewes behaves like a particle that can take case for a coordinated group, but diachronically it belongs to the same fossil layer as other *ʔelu compounds rather than to the newer productive ergative -el.

This alterity/disjunction family should remain distinct from the haran / 'iran / ran / ran- family. *ʔaha > 'a concerns alternatives and choice, while the haran family concerns physical or conceptual division, partition, and exclusive part-whole structure.

Division and Partitive Doublets

The haran / 'iran / ran / ran- family should not be treated as a simple direct inheritance from Proto-Hick *haranu through the regular Seneran sound-change pipeline.

Lexurgy currently predicts the following regular Seneran outcomes:

*haranu
> Early Hick thren/thrən

embedded *... haranu
> Early Hick ...rən

*ʔiharanu or *hiharanu
> Early Hick iren/irən

This means ordinary inherited Seneran material does not directly yield lexical haran, nor does it cleanly explain all uses of ran. The better working analysis is a doublet family from mainland Hickic contact:

older naturalized mainland Hickic borrowing:
'iran = bifurcation point; branching divide in flowing water
> ran = stream, brook; one branch of the divided flow
> ran- = partitive, generalized from "divided portion/share"
> telran- = exclusive partitive, tel- "end, limit" + ran-

later learned mainland Hickic reborrowing:
haran = split, separate; divide a whole object; divide mathematically

Under this model, lexical ran and grammatical ran- are related but not sequentially derived from one another. ran narrows the hydrological sense of 'iran to the flowing branch after a fork, while ran- grammaticalizes the same division/share sense into partitive morphology. Later haran is a more conservative or learned mainland Hickic form, useful for physical division of a whole and for mathematical division.

Tense Particles

The Early Hick tense particles should be treated as Seneran/Early Hick grammaticalizations, not as inherited Proto-Hick tense morphology. Proto-Hick may have had lexical temporal expressions and deictic particles, but the current evidence does not require reconstructing a PHK tense system with branum, branrum, or mulsum as grammatical tense markers.

Current working paths:

bran "branch, offshoot" + -um DIST/default
> branum "that branch; that remote branch of events"
> ordinary past marker

bran "branch, offshoot" + -rum DIST.ANIM/remote
> branrum "that remote/ancestral branch of events"
> far past marker used for mythic, ritual, epic, genealogical, or otherwise remote time

mulis "dream, vision" + -um DIST/default
> mulis-um "that envisioned thing; that foreseen event"
> mulsum "future marker"

This explains why branum can have generalized to ordinary past while branrum preserves a more marked remote-past function. It also keeps mulsum from needing to descend from a Proto-Hick future marker: the future sense can arise when a deictic “envisioned/foreseen event” formula becomes the ordinary way to mark expected or upcoming events. By Early Hick, mulsum is fully grammaticalized and does not require a ritual, prophetic, or dream-divination context.

Open Questions

• Does Apgarian preserve a form closer to *lawesu?
• Does Maritime preserve *lahesu, *laʔesu, or a separate inward marker behind fossil -aes?
• Does Apgarian or Maritime preserve an imeris-like form before the productive Early Hick reduction to imris?
• Is the exterior/source sense of *-isu inherited from Proto-Hick, or is it a Proto-Maritime/Proto-Seneran contextual development?
• Does Early Hick kiris come from *kiru-risu “reed body”, and did that meaning develop through plantlike fey contact?
• Is -itar specifically a Ranterg highland prestige form, or did the same restored superessive survive in multiple Seneran regions?
• Which stage first developed productive spatial case suffixes?
• Are duwes, ewes, and -las part of one derivational family, or do they reflect separate lexical and grammaticalized branches?