Talsmic languages

Themsárimai: Gávthent tálsmiment

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).

Phylogeny

Raxo-Talsmic

Proto-Talsmic

Proto-Southeast Talsmic

	Snaħħian

	Núrian

Proto-Northwest Talsmic

	Noble Themsarian

	Qelorian

Ractamic

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
Fricative	voiced		*z	*ḽ			*ʁ
Approximant		*w		*l	*j		*ʁ
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.

Full personal pronouns

Possessive suffixes

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	-iri-	-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-iri	-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-iri-	-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	-iri-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	-iri-ʔ	-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	-ir-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/

Sound changes from Proto-Talsmic

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)'

g

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)'