Re: Thalassan possessive and object suffixes

 From the possessive suffixes' development, especially in the plural,
I would have assumed something like  *qaunatuntas (< qaunatunintas)
or *vikhatuntthas (< vikhatunitthas), but the "linking vowel" makes
the language easier to parse - and such devices can be found in
various languages, of course.

Christian

Sidenote:
In Viennese German, for instance, the Standard German phrase "Wie
ein" is often pronounced [v1r\6] or something like that (No guarantee
for corrext X-SAMPA given.), so between the "wie" (rendered by the
[v1] and the "ein", rendered by the lonely vowel [6] or [a], the [r\]
distinguishes the words and makes them easier to parse and
differentiate: [v16] would only mean "Wie". Without this "linking
consonant", no one would know if you said "wie" or "wie ein".
BTW: What is the correct expression for something like that?

>I also forgot to add... /i/ is used as a linking vowel in the plural
>possessive and object suffixes when phonotactics require it:
>
>_qaunatun_ 'the dogs (acc.)'
>_qaunatunintas_ 'our dogs (acc.)'
>_vikhatunitthas_ 'y'all's houses (acc.)'
>_aspitunistas_ 'their shields (acc.)'
>
>However, I might change the accusative ending to remain as _-m_ when
>followed by a suffix, e.g. _qaunatumintas_ instead of above.  That would
>better reflect the diachronic development of the language.
>
>- Rob