Eta-Talmic

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The Talmic languages are a relatively isolated subbranch of the Quame language family. They are descended from Proto-Talmic (PTal).

Phylogeny

Noble Thensarian

Nurian



Bênôcian



Gelorian




Andarin



Characteristics

The historical Talmic 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 Talmic 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 Talmic 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 Talmic.
  • Some metathesis occurred too.

Proto-Talmic phonology

  • qʷ ɢʷ qʷ' > q ɢ q'
  • p' t' c' ƛ' k' kʷ' q' qʷ' > f þ s ł x xʷ χ χ
  • s > h
  • c > s
  • ƛ > t
  • z > r / V_

Consonant inventory

Proto-Talmic reconstructed consonants (Guānitzhūtł)
Labial Alveolar Lateral Palatal Velar Labiovelar Uvular Glottal
Nasal *m *n
Plosive voiceless *p *t *k *kʷ *q
voiced *b *d *g *gʷ
Fricative voiceless *s, *θ *x *xʷ *h
voiced *z, *ð
Approximant *l *j *w
Trill *r

Vocalic inventory

Front Central Back
Close *i *ī *u *ū
Mid *e *ē *o *ō
Open *a *ā

Diphthongs:

  • ai ei oi ui au eu iu ou
  • āi ēi ōi ūi āu ēu īu ōu

Proto-Talmic 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 Talmic is thought to have been a differential object marking language; only definite or specific direct objects were marked with the accusative case.

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-Talmic 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-Talmic 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-Talmic 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-Talmic saw the development of thematic vowels from derivational suffixes. Thematic vowels are found in many Talmic 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-Talmic syntax

Basic word order was most likely SVO, as evinced by the order verb-object suffix in all daughter languages.

Sound changes to Proto-Talmic

Sound changes from Proto-Talmic

Vocabulary

  • *az- telic
    • Thm. ar-/as-
      • Núr. ar- superlative, intensive; s- telic