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?]

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/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 the a-paradigm 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/		/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]#