Re: Callistic revisited (mostly phonology)

On Thu, 6 May 1999, Danny Wier wrote:

I like what I've seen of Callistic!  I've toyed around a bit with
Telarian, an IE lang. at the other end of the spectrum, as it were, from
the Calistish folk.  They are in the Adriatic (did I read that right?);
while these far farers ended up in eastern Asia.

Even so, and even though considerably affected by substrate languages,
some clear similarities can be seen:  "paatar, cocruzti welhu's-cos trems
aha'ms-tas!"  The apostrophe represents the accented syllable.  The usual
accent for words such as these is first syllable; but enclitics cause the
accent to shift from its normal location.

It's got two genders (common and neuter) with one declension for each, 8
cases, free(ish) word order; two conjugations (thematic and athematic seem
to fit the bill), three numbers, three indic. present tenses, six indic.
past tenses, pres. and past each for optative and subjunctive; essentially
two pronominal roots (co- and to-) which do duty as relative,
interrogative, personal (3rd pers.), article, & demonstrative.

Substrate effects are most strongly felt in word order (first past tense
verb in a sentence makes VSO, otherwise usual order is SOV; subjunctive
and optative forms generally fall last; present tense is quite free); the
subtle distinctions of past tenses are derived from the substrate; certain
verb endings are borrowed (2nd. dual, 1st. pl.), 2nd. dual pronouns are
borrowed.  The rather tedious use of co- and to- on almost every noun is
also derived from usage in one of the important substrate tongues.
Although much of the vocabulary remains IE, not a few IE words have
disappeared, as evidenced in the example sentence where the substrate
verbal root grodwo- (kill by dragging down) yields Telarian cruzum (to
slay).

paatar, cocruzti welhus-cos       trems ahams  -tas
father, slew     wolf   the(this) three horses the(those)

paatar is common gender vocative
cocruzti is 3rd sing. past perfect indic. of cruzum (note redupl.)
welhu's-cos is common gender nom. sing.
trems is pl. acc. of tres
aha'ms-tas is common gender acc. plural

Perhaps if the Calistan were to speak very slowly and distinctly, a
Telarian could be made to understand a little. :)

Padraic.

> Correction:
>
> >Phyxtheer, vylqh ngengyth threim hechvom!
> >"Father, the wolf killed three horses!"
>
> I goofed.  It should be:
>
> Phyxthry, vylqh ngengyth threim hechvos!
>
> (Phyxtry = voc. of _phyxtheer_ "father"; and _hechvo_ "horse" should be in
> the genitive singular _hechvos_, not accusative _hechvom_.)
>
> Danny
>
>