Classical Talothic

Talothic
huttá talothikḗ
Pronunciation	[[Help:IPA|hʉt.tá ta.loˈtʰi.kɛ̌ː]]
Created by	Limius
Setting	Avrid
Native to	Talothas
Ethnicity	Talothic
Language family	Maro-Ephenian Talothic Talothic
Early forms	Proto-Maro-Ephenian Proto-Talothic

Dalitian, also known as Talothic, or ýta talothíki (Talothic language) is a Maro-Ephenian Language spoken primarily by about 5 million people in Dalitia, as well as small communities throughout Avrid. It is closely related to Aeranir, and throughout history was considered an important language for art, trade, and philosophy.

Phonology

Consonants

Classical consonant phonemes

		Labial	Alveolar		Velar	Glottal
			plain	lateral
Nasal	voiced	mh μ̔ /m̥/	nh ν̔ /n̥/
	voiceless	m μ /m/	n ν /n/
Stop	aspirate	ph φ /pʰ/	th θ /tʰ/		kh χ /kʰ/
	plain	p π /p/	t τ /t/		k κ /k/
	voiced	b β /b/	d δ /d/		g γ /g/
Fricative			s σ,ς /s/	ś ϻ /ɬ~l̥/		h /h/
Trill	voiceless		rh ῥ /r̥/
	voiced		r ρ /r/
Approximate	voiceless		lh λ̔ /l̥~ɬ/
	voiced		l λ /l/

Vowels

Classical vowel phonemes

	Front		Central		Back
	long	short	long	short	long	short
Close	i /i/	ī /iː/	u /ʉ/	ū /ʉː/
Mid-close	e /e/	ei /eː/			o /o/	ou /oː/
Mid-open		ē /ɛː/				ō /ɔː/
Open			a /ä/	ā /äː/

Verbs

Agreement

The DGA pyramid, originally developed by u/Darkgamma, 2018. The Total Cacophony of Bäladiri Verb Agreement and Argument Assignment.

Verbs in Talothic are conjugated to agree with the number, the person, and in the third person singular, the gender of the most oblique argument given a word's valency, as defined by the DGA pyramid. Here, S represents the subject of an intransitive verb, such as 'the person' in 'the person laughed.' A represents the agent of a transitive verb (also occasually called the subject), or the person or thing that does the action of the verb, such as 'the child' in 'the child reads the book.' D marks the donor, a special type of agent, who gives something or does a the action of a verb for the benefit of another, such as ‘the senator’ in ‘the senator gave the cat some milk.’ These are collectively called the nominative argument, and are expressed usually with the nominative case, but also occasionally with the genitive case in dependant clauses.

P represents the patient of a transitive verb, or the person or thing towhich the verb is done, also called the direct object, such as ‘the book’ in ‘the child reads the book.’ T represents the theme, or the object that is given to someone or something, such as ‘the milk’ in ‘the senator gave the cat some milk.’ These two roles make up the accusative argument, which is marked with the accusative case. Finally, R represents the recipient, or the person who recieves the theme from the donor, or benefits from the donor's action, with a ditransitive verb, also commonly called the indirect object, such as 'the cat' in 'the senator gave the cate some milk.'

Talothic verbs conjugate their endings to agree with the most oblique argument in a clause. That means the subject of an intransitive verb, the patient of a transitive verb, or the recipient of a ditransitive verb.

ἐπᾰ́λαι

well_built-AOR.3SG.E

κομός

house-NOM.SG

ἐπᾰ́λαι κομός

well_built-AOR.3SG.E house-NOM.SG

'The house is well built'

ἐτέπτεᾰ

drink-IMPERF.2SG

ᾰ̓́κηρ

farmer-NOM.PL

ᾰ̓λυπᾰ́

power-ACC.SG

ἐτέπτεᾰ ᾰ̓́κηρ ᾰ̓λυπᾰ́

drink-IMPERF.2SG farmer-NOM.PL power-ACC.SG

'The farmers were drinking water'

κισῷν

return-2SG

αἰππᾰ́

1SG.NOM

ῴσιν

power-ACC.SG

κισῷν αἰππᾰ́ ῴσιν

return-2SG 1SG.NOM power-ACC.SG

'I'm returning the power to you'

It should be noted that a verb in the active voice must always have the maximum number of arguments according to its inherent transitivity. This means, for example, that one can never say 'John eats.' Because 'to eat' is transitive, there must be a patient, or direct object, e.g. 'John eats food.' However, there are a number of valancy dropping operations available in Talothic to allow various arguments to be dropped, which are discussed in the section on voice.