Re: Thalassan possessive and object suffixes

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:40:36 -0000, Christian Thalmann <cinga@...>
wrote:

>--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote:
>
>> _mijai kapha_ 'my head' (inalienable)
>> _sjai kapha_ 'his head' (" ")
>> _qaunai kapha_ 'the dog's head' (" ")
>>
>> _vikhamis_ 'my house' (alienable)
>> _mijas vikha_ '*my* house' (emphatic alienable)
>> _saris vikha_ 'the woman's house' (alienable)
>
>...and...
>
>> Hanrun qaununqin vit'an.  Hanar t'ukhassjan.
>> man.sg.acc dog.sg.acc.AND see.ACTIND.1sg.  man.sg.nom
>lead.ACTIND.3sg.3sgO.
>> "I saw a man and a dog.  The man was walking [lit. 'leading'] it."
>
>Wait, wait, wait.  From what I've picked up, this language
>is supposed to be pre-IE European.  While I'm inclined to
>believe this as far as the grammar goes, the vocab has IE
>in bright flashy letters written on it.
>
>Compare:
>
>1st sg: Th mim, Latin me
>2nd sg: Th thim, Latin te
>3rd sg: Th sjam, Latin se
>
>dog: Th qaunun, Latin canem, Greek kunon
>see: Th vit'-, Latin vide-
>lead: Th t'ukh-, Latin duc-
>head: Th kapha, Latin caput, Greek kephalon
>
>In fact, the words with obvious Latinate roots appear to
>outnumber the original ones.  I strongly suggest you go
>through the effort of making up a set of basic non-IE
>roots for your lostlang family if you want it to have any
>verisimilitude.
My assumption is that Thalassan is a cousin language to IE via the
Nostratic hypothesis.  In other words, Thalassan and IE both derive from a
common ancestor.  Most of the words I've used in Thalassan are roots that
are cognate with IE roots, but not descended from them.  Thalassan does not
share many of IE's phonological and morphological processes, e.g. it does
not undergo Ablaut and does not have the so-called "sigmatic nominative".
On the other hand, Thalassan does have features that IE lacks, including
enclitic suffixes for possessive and object pronouns.  Those features that
Thalassan has in common with IE are presumed to have been inherited from
the ancestral tongue.

- Rob