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:
- conversion of a former case system into a system of state distinctions
- 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 descendants eventually creep toward being polysynthetic, supplanting former finite verbs with possessed infinitives and participles of complex compound verbs
- 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 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.
- 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 | 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 | |||||
| voiced | *z | *ḽ | *ʁ | ||||||
| Approximant | *w | *l | *j | ||||||
| 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 |
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- | -ʁēj |
| 3.f | -isi | -tēj | |
| 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-ʁēj |
| 3.f | -ā-isi | -ā-tēj | |
| 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 | -ʁēj-ti |
| 3.f | -isi-ti | -tēj-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 | -ʁēj-ʔi |
| 3.f | -isi-ʔi | -tēj-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:
- *-iwe: potential. (e.g. Thm. tacvéi 'know (a fact)' < tak-iwe-īn 'be able to say')
- *-wa- passive suffix.
- the *-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
- /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
Vocabulary
ʔ
- *ʔāzda: ‘great, big’ > Thm. ā́rd ‘ibid.’
- *ʔáʔmar=ʔ: ‘fist’ > Thm. ámmái ‘grip, handle’
- *ʔā́cʰa: ‘god, heaven’ > Thm. ā́thym ‘holy’
- *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’