Eta-Talmic

Eta-Talmic-English lexicon
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Eta-Talmic
θensārimem
Pronunciation	[/θensaːrimem/]
Created by	IlL
Extinct	220 v.T.
Language family	Quihum Talmic Eta-Talmic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	qth

Eta-Talmic is the the ancestor of all living Talmic languages. It is inspired aesthetically by Proto-Celtic and Latin, grammatically by Hebrew, Ancient Greek and Native American languages.

Todo

• PQ a > Thn. o (?)

Notes on notation

Glossary

• ^CLF: classifier tone pattern (non-desinential or desinential)
• H: vowel hiatus with next syllable
• N: denotes a homorganic nasal
• Z: denotes r before a vowel or voiced C, s before a voiceless C, null before z
• ~: cognate to

Background

See also: Eta-Talmic/Sound changes from Proto-Quihum.

The Eta-Talmic (/θɛmˈsɑɹiən/) language (Eta-Talmic: gaθuem θensārimem "the Eta-Talmic throat") is a language classified into an isolated subbranch of the Raxo-Talmic language family, along with other para-Eta-Talmic languages which are/were natively spoken in the peninsula of Tálsym in the northwestern part of the Gameda subcontinent. The language remains clearly related to its continental relatives such as Naquian (It is often said that Eta-Talmic uses the same affixes as Raxic with different meanings); however, due to its long period of isolation and substrate influence (the substrate is sometimes speculated to have been a head-initial polysynthetic language), Eta-Talmic was a typological and lexical outlier in the larger family, within which it was distinguished by its heavily head-marking inflection in both clauses and possessive NPs as well as its strongly head-initial syntax and and its verb system approaching polysynthetic languages in complexity. The name of the Eta-Talmic language comes from the Thensár region, from whose dialect arose the prestige language of the Andaegōr Empire. This elevated register/lect existed in a state of diglossia with the vernacular "dialects", diverse and often mutually unintelligible but still quite similar at this time. The prestige language described in this article, called Noble Eta-Talmic (themsārimem ħentem), was used as a living language by the ruling class for a period spanning 600 years until its demise in the year ca. 220 v.c., and was continued to be used as an important literary, academic and religious language on the peninsula and surrounding mainland areas.

Phonology

Consonants

Eta-Talmic used 22 consonants. Unusually for the family, it is devoid of affricates, ejectives, and lateral obstruents, possessing instead a preponderance of fricatives.

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Radical	Glottal
Nasal		m /m/	n /n/			n [ŋ]
Plosive	voiceless	p /p/	t /t/			c /k/	ȝ /ʡ/
	voiced	b /b/	d /d/			g /g/
Fricative	voiceless	f /f/	θ /θ/	s /s/		χ /x/	ħ /ħ~ʜ/	h /h~ɦ/
	voiced		δ /ð/	z /z/		γ /ɣ/	ȝ [ʕ~ʢ]
Trill				r /r/
Approximant		v /w~ʋ/	l /l/		j /j/

Notes

• Voiceless plosives /p t k/ are lightly aspirated.
• /r/ is a postalveolar trill [r̠] or tap [ɾ̠].
• /l/ is mildly velarized dental [l̪ˠ].

Conditioned allophony

Allophony in Eta-Talmic is limited.

Phoneme	Allophone	Condition(s)
/n/	[ŋ]	_C[+velar, +plosive]
	[ɱ]	_C[+labiodental]
C[+obstruent, ±voiced]	C[+obstruent, ∓voiced]	_C[+obstruent, -guttural, ∓voiced]

Vowels

Classical Eta-Talmic has a six-vowel system with a quantity distinction. Short vowels have one mora (except for epenthetic i/y which has zero morae), and long vowels have two morae.

	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i /i/	ī /iː/	y /ÿ/	ȳ /ÿː/	u /u/	ū /uː/
Mid	e /e/	ē /eː/			o /o/	ō /oː/
Open			a /a/	ā /aː/

Diphthongs: ae au ui

Notes

• /ÿ ÿː/ is close central compressed [ɨᵝ ɨːᵝ].
• /e eː o oː/ are mid vowels.

Syllable structure and morphophonology

1st Consonant	Last Consonant
	m	n	p	t	k	b	d	g	s	š	tl	ts	tš	h	x	w	ǧ	y	l	r
m	mm	mb	mb	nd	ng	mb	nd	ng	ss	šš	ndr	ns	nš	mm	nǧ	mm	nǧ	ny	lm	ndr
n	nd	nn	mb	nd	ng	mb	nd	ng	ss	šš	ndr	ns	nš	nn	nǧ	mm	nǧ	nn	lm	ndr
p
t
k
b
d
g
s
š
tl
ts
tš
h
x
w
y
l
r

Phonological diachronics

Simple consonant correspondences

PTal	*m	*p	*b	*ɸ	*n	*t	*d	*s	*z	*r	*θ	*ł	*λ	*l	*j	*k	*g	*x	*kʷ	*gʷ	*xʷ	*w	*q	*χ	*ʁ	*ʔ	*h
Thm.	m	p	b	f	n	t	d	s	z, -r-	r	θ	θ	δ	l	j	c	g	χ	c	v	f	v	ʒ	ħ	γ	0-	h-

Consonant clusters

• tp, tb, tk, tg > rp, rb, rc, rg?

Vowel reflexes

Usually:

• *a > o
• *ə > e
• *i > i
• *u > u (or o if *a should > a)
• *ay > ȳ
• *əy > ae
• *uy > ū
• *iy, iʔ, ix > ī
• *aw > au
• *əw > iō
• *iw > iū
• *uw > ū
• *Cx̌, Cx̌ʷ > Ca
• *Cxʷ > Co
• *Cx > Cy
• *əx, ix̌ > ē
  • or *ix̌ > iā/ia/ea?
• *ux̌, x̌u > ō for sure
• *axʷ, ax̌ʷ > au?
• *ix̌ʷ > iō?
• *ux̌ʷ > ō?
• *iyx̌, iyx̌ʷ > iā

Orthography

Eta-Talmic runic script.

The standardized Eta-Talmic alphabet, whose variants are also used to write other Talmic languages, is a native alphabetic script consisting of consonant and vowel letters in addition to diacritics for vowel length.

The alphabetical order is as follows:

1. R:
2. D:
3. Z:
4. I:
5. Γ:
6. A:
7. Ħ:
8. F:
9. M:
10. L:
11. G:
12. C:
13. H:
14. B:
15. S:
16. V:
17. O:
18. J:
19. Ȝ:
20. Δ:
21. Y:
22. Χ:
23. T:
24. N:
25. Θ:
26. P:
27. E:
28. U:

Morphology

Verbs

The verbal system is one of the most complex aspects of Eta-Talmic grammar. A verb can take many affixes which are arranged in the following template:

1. switch-reference marker
2. applicative or derivational prefixes
3. object prefix
4. (prefix or reduplication for some TAMs)
5. STEM
6. voice suffix
7. TAM + subject
8. emphatic suffix -is

Verbs often take an emphatic suffix or clitic -is, which is more often used with affirmative statements than negative statements.

TAM + subject markers

Thensarian verbs are conjugated in present, imperfect, preterite, future, perfect, and pluperfect tenses; indicative, subjunctive, optative and imperative moods; and active and passive voices.

• Consonant stems: (-y-)
• Vowel stems: -a-, -e-, -i-, -o/u-?

Present

• 1sg -n(is)
• 2sg -r(is)
• 3sg.m -m(is)
• 3sg.f -si(s)
• 3sg.n -((i)s)?
• 1ex -maeχ(is)
• 1in -nte(s)
• 2pl -sce(s)
• 3pl -ti(s)

Preterite

• 1sg: -nno(s)
• 2sg: -rȳ(s)
• 3sg.m: -smi(s)
• 3pl.f: -ssi(s)?
• 3sg.n: -so(s)?
• 1ex: -mer(is)
• 1in: -ter(is)
• 3pl: -scer(is)
• 3pl: -ster(is)

Future

• 1sg -tēn(is)
• 2sg -tēr(is)
• 3sg.m -tēm(is)
• 3sg.f -tēsi(s)
• 3sg.n -tē(s)?
• 1ex -tēmaeχ(is)
• 1in -tēnt(is)
• 2pl -tēsce(s)
• 3pl -tēti(s)

Subjunctive

• 1sg: -nae(s)
• 2sg: -rae(s)
• 3sg.m: -mior(is)
• 3sg.f: -sior(is)
• 3sg.n: -ior(is)
• 1ex: -nχae(s)
• 1in: -ntae(s)
• 2pl: -scae(s)
• 3pl: -tior(is)

Optative

• 1sg -von(is)?
• 2sg -vor(is)
• 3sg.m -vom(is)
• 3sg.f -vosi(s)
• 3sg.n -vo((i)s)
• 1ex -vomaeχ(is)
• 1in -vunt(is)
• 2pl -vosce(s)
• 3pl -voti(s)

Imperative

• 2sg: -e(s)/-(is)
• 1pl.in: -ntē(s)
• 2pl: -scē(s)

Syntax

Like many of its descendants, Thensarian is almost completely head-initial (except for compounds).