Proto Csillan

General information
Proto-Čeuŋ ('tʃewŋ) is the ancestor of language family spoken by the Čis ('tʃis)- a humanoid blue-skinned race inhabiting the planet Ksilla ('ksil.la) in the Unknown Regions- the most famous of which is Grand Admiral Ťran (θran). The language was first mentioned in the book Outbound Flight written by Timothy Zahn as "Cheunh." Proto-Čeuŋ was spoken circa 10,000 BBY, before the Čis developed spaceflight technology. Note Zahn used spellings Cheunh, Chiss, Csilla and Thrawn in place of Čeuŋ, Čis, Ksilla and Ťran.

Consonants
Note- the phonemes b and bz are very rare and are likely allophones of p and ps, however no rules to explain where p and ps voice to b and bz can be reconstructed with given evidence.

Though the existence of ɣ without a plosive reflex g or a voiceless reflex x seems unlikely (especially considering the existence of the affricate gz), its descendants include dropping (where similar consonants don't drop), rhotacizing to an alveolar trill, palatalizing to a fricative or affricate, and hardening to a g only as the result of post-nasal or pre-plosive fortition, all suggesting that what was once g changed to ɣ by the time Proto-Čeuŋ split.

Variations
Though not all places of articulation are definite, it is fairly certain that l and s are alveolar, and p, b and f are all labial (not labiodental, which does not appear in any Čeuŋ language), w is labiovelar, k and ŋ are velar, and y is palatal. N and t likely had both dental and alveolar allophones.

Vowels
The acceptable diphthongs include “ay, ey, oy, iw, ow and aw.” Vowels can also be lengthened, though it is unknown if length affected vowel quality at this point.

Phonotactics
Reconstructed words have been organized to follow a specific set of rules deducted from present patterns, given below. Since conlang wikia has an aneurysm whenever I use a combining diacritic, an apostrophe is used whenever m/n/ŋ/l is not clearly syllabic: i.e. lwom (one syllable) means human, l'wom (two syllables) means inaction.
 * The majority of base roots are disyllabic, with the syllables morphing and with prefixes and/or affixes added on for morphology. A few roots are monosyllabic.
 * Geminates do not occur, nor do long vowels in a diphthong. Only one of each diphthong and long vowel can occur per word (if an ending adds a diphthong or long vowel, any original ones are shortened/lose their glide.)
 * Initial constructions include C, Cl, Cw, Cy, and m/n/ŋ/lC followed by any vowel/diphthong.
 * Medial constructions include the same except the m/n/ŋ/l is no longer syllabic, as it follows a vowel
 * Final constructions depend on the grammatical ending.

Nouns
Nouns decline to case and number in three declensional patterns. Each declension can be recognized by the consonant and vowel in its ergative singular ending.

1. -(o/i)(f/p/m)

2. -(e/i)(s/t/n)

3. -(a/o)(ɣ/k/ŋ)

The three declensions are also called labial-grade, dental-grade and velar-grade respectively

NB: the hyphens separate morphemes (some of which, like the second w in *tonwāwēts, have no grammatical meaning and simply serve to prevent illegal clusters)

•If the first syllable has a diphthong, the glide is removed whenever there is another diphthong in the ending. Same with long vowels.

•The ergative is just the stem form- the plural adds w, y, or a long vowel before the stem consonant for each declension respectively.

•The absolutive adds an –l, displacing the stem consonant. The plural switches around the diphthong (displacing any w, y, or l present in the stem) and adds an –l (for the 3rd declension, the w/y/l is preserved if present in the ergative since there is no diphthong)

•The dative adds ps/ts/ks to the absolutive ending for each declension respectively, displacing the –l.

•The genitive simply lengthens the stem vowel in the ergative and removes the stem consonant (in 1st and 2nd declension plurals, the vowel and glide are also switched because long vowels cannot diphthongize.) Prepositions that indicate anything other than motion or location take this case.

•The locative adds the postposition -*ok to the root stem (the word without the ergative ending.) The plural adds the postposition to the ergative plural (for the third declension, a w is added to the postposition since the nom. pl has no diphthong.) For all declensions, the glide is considered part of the last syllable (thus why the diphthong ay in saykleyok and saykleyēfp is still preserved.)

•The allative case works the same as the locative except with –*ēfp.

Though endings only decline to two numbers (singular and plural), many more quantifying particles can be prefixed to the word.

* ako- a few

* oti- many

* ame- a group of

* ksē- all

* to- any

* psa- one

* mye- two

* kwo- three

* nli- four

* se- five

* bzo- six

* day- seven

* leygza- eight

* wāŋɣe- nine

* kiw- ten

* kiwpsa- eleven (kiw + psa)

* myekiw- twenty (mye * kiw)

Person
Every verb comes from a noun- the noun itself (usually with one of the prefixes discussed later) can be used as a gerundive or infinitive, the ergative, dative, and genitive forms of the root noun (as well as their plurals) form the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd persons respectively. Thus wonaydzom (consider) has the present tense forms

Sing. wonaydzom, wonaydzops, wonaydzō

Pl. wonaydzowm, wonaydzwops, wonaydzwō

And tlesotsen (understand, like) has

Sing. tlesotsen, tlesotsets, tlesotsē

Pl. tlesotsey, tlesotsyēts, tlesotsyē

Prefixation
The verbs can be distinguished from regular nouns since they always bear one of the following prefixes: In addition to these prefixes, prepositions of motion and location can be prefixed to verbs of motion or location respectively.
 * wo- (from *wom, an action (intransitive connotation)), means "do X," e.g. kaɣ (life) > wokaɣ (do life, i.e. live), tsōdom (tree) > wotsōdom (do as a tree, i.e., grow)). Can also mark basic transitive verbs, e.g. samtoɣ (sight) > wosamtoɣ (see, transitive meaning only). Verbs with this prefix take the ergative case.
 * ne- (from *nes, a being), means "be X," e.g. lwom (human) > nelwom (be a human). Verbs with this prefix take the absolutive case.
 * tle- (from tletsōŋ, entitlement or ownership) means "have X," e.g. mket (hearing) > tlemket [the m disyllabifies] (be able to hear). Verbs with this prefix take the absolutive case.

Voice
Proto-Čeuŋ has four voices: active, antipassive, causative and middle; these are infixed right after one of the prefixes above.
 * active: default, woteksim (hunt)
 * antipassive: -ma- (from *mawof, recipient; object), womapsōntet (be eaten) note: switches expected ergative case to absolutive case
 * causative: -pyo- (from *pyomlin, cause; means), tlepyosotsen (cause another to understand) note: takes ergative case no matter what the prefix
 * middle: -dzo- (from *dzoɣ, self)