Talsmic languages

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:

• lack of inflectional case
• rigidly head-initial word order
  • verb-initial clauses
• heavy grammatical use of pronominal suffixes/enclitics on possessed nouns, verbs and prepositions, that index their dependents
  • some languages use bare possessum forms.
• 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
• prominence of tense rather than aspect in verbal TAM, unlike in mainland Zachydic languages.

Characteristic phylogenetic innovations vis-à-vis Zachydic include:

• Loss of final vowels/case endings.
• Rhotacization of /*z/ to /*r/ V_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 often fricativize in daughter languages.
• 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.
• 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.

Proto-Talsmic phonology

The following is the Proto-Talsmic sound system as reconstructed by Talsmicist Dàžiir pyr Chlìesa.

Consonant inventory

Proto-Talsmic reconstructed consonants
		Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		*m	*n
Plosive	voiceless	*p	*t	*c	*k	*q	*ʔ
	voiced	*b	*d	*ɟ	*g
	aspirated	*pʰ	*tʰ	*cʰ	*kʰ	*qʰ
Fricative	voiceless		*s	*ç			*h
	voiced		*z	*ƶ		*ʁ
Approximant		*w		*j
Trill			*r
Lateral app.			*l

/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

Phonotactics

The maximal syllable structure was CCGVCC, where G was a glide.

CC- could be comprised of:

• [not glide][liquid/glide]
• [voiceless obstruent][voiceless obstruent]
• [voiced obstruent][voiced obstruent]

-CC could maximally be sonorant + obstruent or obstruent + obstruent. -CC was only permitted word-finally.

Proto-Talsmic grammar

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		*çúmūç		*méisar		*méisoir		*méisāne
Accusative	*çúmeç		*çúmōç		*çúmūt		*méisaç		*méisoiç		*méisina
Genitive/Prepositional	*çúmu		*çúmār		*çúmakʰe		*méiset		*méisair		*méis(in)ir
Ablative
Allative			?								?
Instrumental/Locative	*çúmīl						*méisai

The essive case (*-ēr) 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

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 one thematic vowel to the expense of the others.

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

Other verbal affixes

Other reconstructible affixes include:

• the memory evidential prefix *ʔṇʔ-.
• -va-, passive suffix.

Syntax

Basic word order was most likely SVO.

Sound changes to Proto-Talsmic

• *wj
  • > *j / #_
  • > *w / otherwise
• /ř/ > */r/ _V, */l/ 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/
• /*nr/ > /*mr/

Sound changes from Proto-Talsmic

Talsmic consonant correspondences

PTal	HThm	LThm	Tiz	Sn	Qel
*m	m	/m/	/m/	/m/	/m/
*p	p	/p/, /b/			/p/
*b	b	/b/			/b/
*pʰ	f	/h/			/p/
*n	n	/n/			/n/
*t	t	/t/, /d/			/t/
*d	d	/j/			/d/
*tʰ	th	/f/		/ħ/	/t/
*s	s	/s~ʃ/			/s/
*z	z, r	/z~ʒ/, /ɾ/			/z/
*ç	th, f	/f/	/ʃ/, /tʃʰ/	/ʃ/	/h/
*ƶ	ð, f	/v/	/ʒ/, /dʒʱ/	/ʒ/	/j/
*c	ŧ	/ts~tʃ/	/tʃ/, /tʃʰ/	/tʃ/	/ts/
*ɟ	ł	/j/	/j/, /ɧ/	/dʒ/	/dz/
*k	c, ch	/k/, /g/, /tʃ/, /ʒ/	/k/, /kʰ/		/k/
*g	g, ch	/g/, /ʒ/, /w/	/g/, /gʱ/		/g/
*kʰ	ch, c	/x/, /ʃ/	/x/, /kxʰ/		/k/
*q	q, ħ	/ɴ/, /h/	/ʡ/, /ʡʰ/	/ŋ~ɴ/	/q/
*ʁ	ħ, v	/h/, /w/	/w/, /ʍ/	/ʁ/	/ʁ/
*qʰ	ħ	/h/	/ʕ/, /ħ/	/ʕ/, /ħ/	/χ/
*l	l	/l/			/l/
*r	r	/ɾ/			/r/
*w	v	/v/			/b/, /w/
*j	ı	/j/			/j/
*h	h	/h/			/h/
*ʔ	Ø	Ø			Ø

to Tizian

• /w/ > /v/
• /ʁ/
  • > /w/ _C[-velar],
  • > /ʕ/ otherwise
• /n/ > /ː/ _C[-glide]
• /l/ > /r/ _C[-glide]
• /z/ > /r/ / _C[+voiced, not /z/]
• /sŧ, šŧ/ > /št/
• Stress accent develops from initial stress.
• /aː/ > /o/
• /eː oː/ > /e˞ o˞/ <ee oo>
• /iː uː ʉː/ > /iɚ uɚ ʉɚ/ medially.
• /ai ei/ > /ei i/
• /ç ʝ/
  • > /ʃ ʒ/
• /p t ŧ k b d g/ > /pʰ tʰ ŧʰ kʰ bʰ dʰ gʰ/
  • _V[+high tone]
  • _C[+fricative]#