Moving forward, I’ll be referring to variety of Karyoł spoken in Pagria as Larlaroł, a self-designation Twāogowe settlers in Pagria use for themselves and for their language after the Paleo-Pagric term larularul, ‘Southerners’. Karyoł as spoken in Twāo will still be called just plain Karyoł. It’s getting a bit cumbersome to refer to each dialect’s locality when I want to highlight differences. When I needed to refer to the language continuum as a whole, I’ll use ‘Common Karyoł’. – It may be fun to note that in terms of internal language history the –ł in Karyoł is etymologically an l, but has been influenced by oblique/more-marked nominative ending –(a)ł. In terms of external language history, what actually happened when I was creating the darn thing, is simply that I failed to pay close enough attention to my etymological notes when I wrote in a distinction between l and ł, and accidentally confused the ł at the end of ‘Karyoł’ as a case-marker. Ahem. I figure if I can make the mistake, the Twāogowe, even with their rather self-aware philological tradition, can too.

Today’s Grammaticalizanuary post deals with another purely Larlaroł instance of grammaticalization. wao began its life as a term for any permanent structure. The earliest ancestors Twāogowe were desert nomads, and permanent structures were rare and the exclusive property of tribal monarchs: fortified dwellings, towering granaries, and cliff-side astronominal observatories nested in the extreme east of the Aurès Mountains. Up until 0 AT, the building used for Twāogowe religious activities are still referred to as Nāebānaɲyaɲ Wao, ‘Astronomical Colleges’.

In the South, wao refers to a kind of tray with architectural references used for holding cosmetics. In the North of Twāo Proper, and later in Pagria, the word comes to refer to any mudbrick stucture of any size.

Up until today, Karyoł has only had a no-longer-productive nominalizing suffix in –(ō)am; most of the forms marked by this suffix have non-combinatorial meanings. The goal in creating this new suffix (or enclitic, albeit a tightly bound one, as it can modify an entire verbal phrase) is to develop a simple and productive means of nominalizing VP’s. In northern Karyoł the participle is less-used than in the Southern dialect, and the lemma form may be used to modify a N directly, which makes for sleek, efficient V + N univerbation. N + N univerbation, on the other hand, is rather clunky, owing to the periphrastic nature of the Karyoł system of linking and possession.

The first uses of –wao refer explicitly to physical structures: harwao ‘shit-house = latrine’ and cāmawao ‘roast-house = brick stove’. But the meaning comes to be extended to abstract states, following the prevalent states-are-places metaphor.

Of fairly recent origin, –wao is a disjunct marker and does not cause lowering-harmony.

Words to add to the Larlaroł vocabulary are:
gāhyawao ‘nation, one’s countrymen (as opposed to the majority Kepper population)’
narbwao ‘hunger, privation, shortage, deficiency’
tiɲcuwao ‘pleasure, recreation, idle pasttime’
tatwao ‘beauty (esp. of a woman)’
netehoalwao ‘collection of books, library’