Talsmic languages

Themsármai: Gávthir tálsmimir

The Talsmic languages are a relatively isolated subbranch of the Zachydic language family; with Raxic they form the Raxo-Talsmic subfamily. They are descended from Proto-Talsmic (PT or PTal).

Characteristics

The historical Talsmic languages have all shared the following characteristics to some extent:

• conversion of a former case system into a system of state distinctions (e.g. definiteness, possessedness, predicative/attributive, generic/specific)
• rigidly head-initial word order
  • verb-initial clauses; modern Talsmic languages are topic-prominent and thus have V2 independent clauses and verb-initial dependent clauses.
• heavy grammatical use of pronominal suffixes/enclitics on possessed nouns, verbs and prepositions, that index their dependents
  • some descendants eventually creep toward being polysynthetic, supplanting former finite verbs with possessed infinitives/participles of complex compound verbs, and predicative nouns
• differential indexing of the direct object and the possessor, and occasionally the prepositional object
• grammatical apophony (tonal, vocalic or consonantal)
• word order changes for topicalization and focusing

Characteristic phylogenetic innovations vis-à-vis Zachydic include:

• prominence of tense rather than aspect in verbal TAM, unlike in mainland Zachydic languages.
• Rhotacization of /*z/ to /*r/ / V_V and V_#, and secondary rhotacization (often before consonants, the choice of which depends on the language).
• Development of Proto-Zachydic ejective stops into aspirated stops, which have fricativized in daughter languages.
• Conflation of non-labialized and labialized dorsal stops, and preservation of the velar-uvular distinction.
  • Also common is the transition of the uvular series into the radical series; uvulars are still found in some phonetically conservative languages and dialects, however.
• Assibilation of affricates occuring after primary rhotacization (/*cʼ, *c/ > /*s/, /*ʒ/ > /*z/ etc.) greatly reduces the consonant inventory; this also contributes to the fricative-rich flavor of Talsmic.

Proto-Talsmic phonology

The following is the Proto-Talsmic sound system as reconstructed by Nūrian Talsmicist Dàzīr pyr Chlī̀sa.

Consonant inventory

Proto-Talsmic reconstructed consonants
		Labial	Alveolar	Lateral	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		*m	*n
Plosive	voiceless	*p	*t	*ƛ		*k	*q	*ʔ
	voiced	*b	*d	*λ		*g
	aspirated	*pʰ	*tʰ	*ƛʰ		*kʰ	*qʰ
Fricative	voiceless		*s	*ł				*h
	voiced		*z	*ḽ			*ʁ
Approximant		*w		*l	*j
Trill			*r

/qʰ/ may have been realized as an affricate, [qχ].

Vocalic inventory

	Front	Central	Back
Close	*i *ī		*u *ū
Mid	*e *ē		*o *ō
Open		*a *ā

The only diphthongs were those that could be considered vowel-[j/w] sequences.

Proto-Talsmic morphology

Nominal morphology

Nouns and adjectives had retained from Proto-Zachydic 6 cases (nominative, accusative, genitive/prepositional, allative, ablative, locative/instrumental), 3 numbers, 2 genders (masculine, feminine), and additionally possessive inflection for nouns. Like its daughter languages as well as Proto-Zachydic, Common Talsmic is thought to have been a differential object marking language; only definite or specific direct objects were marked with the accusative case.

[Genitive is partitive > indefinite?]

Declension

	*çúma=ʔ 'air'						*méisar 'segment'
Gender →	Masculine						Feminine
Case ↓	Singular		Dual		Plural		Singular		Dual		Plural
Nominative	*çúma		*çúmōr		*çúmū		*méisar		*méisoir		*méisāne
Accusative	*çúmeç		*çúmōç		*çúmūt		*méisaç		*méisoiç		*méisina
Genitive/Prepositional	*çúmu		*çúmār		*çúmakʰe		*méiset		*méisair		*méis(in)ir
Ablative	*çúmenʔ						*méisanʔ
Allative			?								?
Instrumental	*çúmīl						*méisai

The essive case (*-ēri) was marginal, and was only used adverbially (cf. Th. -ēr adverbial suffix).

Some nouns took the "thematic" suffix/clitic *-ʔ with an uncertain meaning, a holdover from the classifier system in Proto-Zachydic.

Pronominal morphology

Proto-Talsmic free pronouns can be reconstructed with less confidence because all case marking except as clitics and suffixes was eliminated.

Verbal morphology

Tense

The Proto-Talsmic verbal system has converted the pre-existing aspect-based perfective/imperfective dichotomy into a time-based one (past/non-past). The irregularity of the past system is probably a result of conflation of many different parent aspect systems.

Aspect

The following aspect suffixes can be reconstructed:

• prospective *-eh-
• inceptive *-lʁa-
• cessative *-mbe-

Mood

Proto-Talsmic has kept many moods intact (imperative, desiderative, hortative, optative). The negative imperative used the prohibitive particle along with the hortative form, as in Proto-Zachydic. The moods are frequently collapsed by its progeny (e.g. jussive in Themsaran).

Thematic suffixes

Proto-Talsmic saw the development of thematic vowels from derivational suffixes. Thematic vowels are found in many Talsmic languages, but modern languages often generalize the a-paradigm to the expense of the others.

• *-īn: basic verbs
• *-a-īn: denominative or transitive verbs
• *-e-īn: dynamic or reflexive verbs

TAM/subject affix paradigm

Todo: rederive past tense... they don't look like they could (all) be perfective suffixes.

Subject affixes
Present/Non-past
	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.ex	-īn	-dir	-mī
1.in	-	-ʁ-sē	-n-sē
2	-r	-r-sē	-l-sē
3.m	-m	-iri-	-ʁih
3.f	-isi		-tih
Simple past
	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.ex	-nʔe	-sid	-mā
1.in	-	-ʁʔā, -tar	-nʔā, -taq
2	-rʔe	-rʔā	-lʔā
3.m	-ā(-m)	-ā-iri	-ā-ʁih
3.f	-ā-isi		-ā-tih
Prospective
	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.ex	-eh-īn	-eh-dir	-eh-mī
1.in	-	-eh-ʁsē	-eh-nsē
2	-eh-r	-eh-rsē	-eh-lsē
3.m	-eh-m	-eh-iri-	-eh-ʁēj
3.f	-eh-isi		-eh-tēj
Imperative
	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.in	-	-ʁsi	-nsi
2	-h	-rsi	-lsi
Hortative
	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.ex	-īn-ti	-dis-ti	-mī-ti
1.in	-	-ʁs-ti	-ns-ti
2	-ti	-rs-ti	-ls-ti
3.m	-m-ti	-iri-ti	-ʁih-ti
3.f	-isi-ti		-tih-ti
Desiderative
	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.ex	-īn-ʔi	-dir-ʔi	-mī-ʔi
1.in	-	-ʁsē-ʔi	-nsē-ʔi
2	-r-ʔi	-rsē-ʔi	-lsē-ʔi
3.m	-m-ʔi	-iri-ʔ	-ʁih-ʔi
3.f	-isi-ʔi		-tih-ʔi
Optative
	Singular	Dual	Plural
1.ex	-īn-aʔ	-dir-aʔ	-mī-aʔ
1.in	-	-ʁs-aʔ	-ns-aʔ
2	-r-aʔ	-rs-aʔ	-ls-aʔ
3.m	-m-aʔ	-ir-aʔ	-ʁ-aʔ
3.f	-is-aʔ		-t-aʔ

Other verbal affixes

Other reconstructible affixes include:

• *-pe- potential (e.g. Thm. tacvéi 'know (a fact)' < tak-pe-īn 'be able to say')
• *-re- passive
• *-ina- causative, i.e. supply sb with a [verb]-in
• *-ska- causative
• *az-, "towards" directional prefix.
• the memory evidential prefix *ʔṇʔ-.

Proto-Talsmic syntax

Basic word order was most likely SVO, as evinced by the order verb-object suffix in all daughter languages.

Sound changes to Proto-Talsmic

• *wj
  • > *j / #_
  • > *w / otherwise
• /*ɢ/ > /*ʁ/
• C[+ejective]
  • > C[+aspirated] (the pathway may have been /*kʼ/ > /*kˀ/ > /*k^ʡ/ > /*kᴴ/ > /*kʰ/)
  • > C[-aspirated] / _C
  • > /*ʔ/ / _#
• C[-ejective]
  • > C[-aspirated]
  • > C[+aspirated] / _C
• /*z/ > /*r/ / V_V, V_#
• /*c *ʒ *cʰ/ > /*s *z *s/, /*cc *ʒʒ *ccʰ/ > /*ts *dz *ts/

Vocabulary

ʔ

• *ʔáʔmar=ʔ: ‘fist’ > Thm. ámmáin ‘grip, handle’
• *ʔan-: 'father' > Thm. anétt
• *ʔā́ƛʰe-: 'heaven' > Thm. ā́them ‘holy’
• *ʔāmar: 'mother'
• *ʔāzda: ‘great, big’ > Thm. ā́rd
• *ʔiʔ: 'and' > Thm. ie
• *ʔihira: > Thm. ī́r 'island'
• *ʔikta: > Thm. ícht ‘jar, jug’
• *ʔina: ‘I’ (1sg pronoun) > Thm. ná
• *ʔinh-: ‘lie, to settle down’ > Thm. inthī́ ‘let me lie’, insé ‘city, town’
• *ʔūra: 'many, much' > Thm. ū̀r

b

• *búka: 'way' > Thm. búcosáin 'doubt (< have two ways)'

d

• *da: 'הִנֵּה, here it is' (deictic/presentative particle) > Thm. -d in some def. suffixes, daer 'is not' (predicate negation), dáte 'here/near us (inclusive)'

h

• *hám: 'do not (prohibitive)' > Thm. hám'
• *hir: 'not (indicative)' > Thm. hir- negative prefix, tír (< *ʔet-hir 'not ever') 'not (indicative)', daer (< *da-hir) 'am/is/are not (predicate)'

j

• *jénaqa: 'water' > Thm. jénā́

k

• *kéhma: 'one' > Thm. cḗm

n

• *neła 'sweet, pleasant' > Thm. néth

pʰ

• *pʰinʔar 'daughter' > Thm. fínne

w

• *wélja: name > Thm. véli