Talsmic languages
Themsárimai: Gávthens tálsmimens
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 |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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
- More recent Talsmic languages have honorific systems developed from abstract nouns in the feminine gender. Therefore former feminine pronouns and verbs develop into honorific markers.
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 spirants.
- 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.
- The shift of *s into *h and subsequent 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.
- Some metathesis occurred too.
Proto-Talsmic phonology
Consonant inventory
Pyr Chlʰíse model
The following is the Proto-Talsmic consonant system as conjectured by Núrian Talsmicist Dazʰír pyr Chlʰíse: he surmised that Proto-Raxo-Talsmic ejective series had turned into an aspirated series in PTal, which has spirantized in daughter languages. This reconstruction is now considered obsolete.
| Proto-Talsmic reconstructed consonants (pyr Chlʰíse) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Alveolar | Lateral | Palatal | Velar | Labiovelar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
| Nasal | *m | *n | |||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | *p | *t | *ƛ | *k | *kʷ | *q | *ʔ | |
| voiced | *b | *d | *λ | *g | *gʷ | ||||
| aspirated | *pʰ | *tʰ | *ƛʰ | *kʰ | *kʷʰ | *qʰ | |||
| Fricative | voiceless | *s | *ł | *h | |||||
| voiced | *z | *ḽ | *ʁ | ||||||
| Approximant | *l | *j | *w | ||||||
| Trill | *r | ||||||||
Guànitzhùtł model
Xamùz Guànitzhùtł revised the pyr Chlʰíse model, positing that the ejective-to-spirant shift had occurred earlier (probably ejective plosives ~ ejective affricates > affricates > fricatives); she noted the inconsistency of evidence for aspirated stops at any stage of Talsmic languages.
| Proto-Talsmic reconstructed consonants (Guànitzhùtł) | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labial | Alveolar | Lateral | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | |||
| Nasal | *m | *n | |||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | *p | *t | *ƛ | *k | *q | *ʔ | ||
| voiced | *b | *d | *g | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | *ɸ | *s, *θ | *ł | *x | *χ | *h | ||
| voiced | *z | *λ | *ʁ | ||||||
| Approximant | *w | *l | *j | ||||||
| Trill | *r | ||||||||
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?]
| *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 | -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-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-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 | -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 | -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 | -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 sth to [verb]/a patient of [verb]
- *-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/ > /*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/