Eta-Talmic: Difference between revisions

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Eta-Talmic (view source)

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==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
*[[w:Differential object marking|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==
==Proto-Talmic phonology==
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