Talish

Notation

 * Phonetic transcriptions are denoted by rectangular brackets          [ˈkæːk̚tɪs]
 * Phonemic transcriptions are denoted by slash brackets                 /kæktɪs/
 * Native phonemic transcriptions are denoted by angle quotes         «cactis»
 * Italic front style denotes native words                                          cacto
 * Boldface denotes English approximations                                    cactus
 * Bold letters also indicate suffixes being demonstrated                  tú comerías el cacto

Classification and Dialects
Talish (locally Twlér) is an a priori language. Defining characteristics include:
 * A large number of morphological irregularities caused by sound changes from its predecessor (referred to here as Dalean)
 * A metric ton of T-A-M's

Phonotactics

 * Consonant clusters with more than three consonants are never permitted.
 * Consonant clusters with more than two consonants must begin with a sonorant.
 * Final «z» is not permitted.

Sound Changes
Note:  This is not a complete list of the sound changes that drove Talish's divergence from Dalean. Rather, these sound changes are the ones still in effect that contribute to Talish morphology. Further irregularities arise from the fact that voicing in consonant clusters sometimes changes to match the first obstruent, sometimes the second, and sometimes the difference in voicing is retained. These are referred to as VM 1, VM 2, and VM 0 respectively. Due to the nature of the declension paradigms, VM designation applies to feminine nouns only. All sounds are implied to have « angle brackets » around them (native Talish letters, not IPA)

rt » d / V_V

r » d / _t

ø » f / m_

c » x / C_V# ! _(n,r)

l » Ø / _xV

l » r / _x

Nouns
Talish nouns decline to case and number, with two regular categories of declension based on grammatical gender and a large number of irregular declensions caused by old sound changes still in effect. Nouns of the opposite gender can be formed by adding the following suffixes to the base form of the noun before declension. When no suffixes are added, the noun is assumed to be gender neutral regardless of its default grammatical gender. To assign femininity to a noun that is feminine by default, or masculinity to a noun that is masculine by default, the following suffixes are used: This allows for sets of words like the following:
 * Masculine « -i »
 * Feminine  « -g  »
 * Masculine « -gi  »
 * Feminine  « -iv  »
 * Nalop     - Student
 * Nalopi    - Male student
 * Nalopcin - Female student (VM 1)

Masculine
Masculine nouns end in vowels in the accusative.

Feminine
Feminine nouns end in consonants in the accusative.

Verbs
Talish verbs conjugate to tense, aspect, mood, and voice in all cases. They also conjugate to number in the past tense, and person and number in the present tense. In Talish, the conditional acts more like a tense than a mood, since the conditional can be combined with more than one mood. Verbs are conjugated fusionally as opposed to the more agglutinative noun declensions; all verbs end in vowels in « -ov » in the infinitive.

Nouns
The VM column indicates what occurs when consonant clusters arise with different voicing on different consonants. The number 1 indicates that the voicing of the second obstruent is changed to match the first, 2 indicates the opposite, and 0 indicates that the difference in voicing is retained. Due to the nature of the declension paradigms, VM designation applies to feminine nouns only.