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 Chlìisa.
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?]
| *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/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.
Full personal pronouns
Possessive suffixes
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 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
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/ > /*kʡ/ > /*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
| PTal | Thm | 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/ | /s/ | |
| *z | z, r | /z~ʒ/, /ɾ/ | /z/ | /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/ | /ʁ/ | /r/ | |
| *w | v | /v/ | /f/ | /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]#
Vocabulary
ʔ
- ʔāzda: ‘great, big’ > Thm. ā́rd ‘ibid.’
- ʔáʔmar=ʔ: ‘fist’ > Thm. ámmái ‘grip, handle’
- ʔā́cʰa: ‘god, heaven’ > Thm. ā́thym ‘holy’
- ʔaz-: ‘towards’ verbal prefix > Thm. ar-, as- telic applicative prefix
- ʔikta: > Thm. ícht ‘jar, jug’
- ʔina: ‘I’ (1sg pronoun) > Thm. ná 'ibid.'
- ʔinh-: ‘lie, to settle down’ > Thm. inthī́ ‘let me lie’, insé ‘city, town’
- ʔṇʔ-: memory evidential prefix > Thm. ym(p)-, yn(t)- imperfect prefix