Classical Talothic
| Talothic | |
|---|---|
| huttá talothikḗ | |
| Pronunciation | [[Help:IPA|hʉt.tá ta.loˈtʰi.kɛ̌ː]] |
| Created by | Limius |
| Setting | Avrid |
| Native to | Talothas |
| Ethnicity | Talothic |
Maro-Ephenian
| |
Early forms | Proto-Maro-Ephenian
|
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
| Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | voiced | m' /m̥/ |
n' /n̥/ |
||
| voiceless | m /m/ |
n /n/ |
|||
| Stop | aspirate | ph /pʰ/ |
th /tʰ/ |
kh /kʰ/ |
|
| plain | p /p/ |
t /t/ |
k /k/ |
||
| voiced | b /b/ |
d /d/ |
g /g/ |
||
| Fricative | s /s/ |
h /h/ | |||
| Trill | voiceless | rh /r̥/ |
|||
| voiced | r /r/ |
||||
| Approximate | voiceless | lh /l̥/ |
|||
| voiced | l /l/ |
||||
Vowels
| 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
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[1]. 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 (e.g. clautitz; 'I laugh'), the patient of a transitive verb (e.g. auhente; 'I look at you'), or the recipient of a ditransitive verb (e.g. tzavī'r salvae; 'you all gave me the books').
mollī
leak-3SG.E
cōmus
house-NOM.SG
'The house is leaking'
requis
return-3SG.C
te
=1SG
coptin
hat-ACC.SG
nuiun
2SG.POS.PRO-T.ACC.SG
'I'm giving back your hat'
emptās
send-POT.3SG.T
ne
=2SG
mu
=INTERR
sōlī
clothing-ACC.PL
nomī
new-IPFV.PTCP-T.ACC.SG
Sētīlī
Setil-DAT.SG
'Can you send Setil the new clothes?'
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.
Additional arguments can be expressed with pronominal clitics attached to the end of a verb in independant clauses and to the beginning in dependant ones (e.g.auhente; 'I look at you,' tzāvī'r salvae; 'you all gave me the books'), however these are not considered part of a verbs conjugation, and are optional, especially if the information can be assumed or is known between speakers.