Proto-Elcassa

General information
Proto-Elcassa is the reconstructed version of Elcassa. It was emerged in 1000, and then later than begin to develop to Old Elcassa. Its grammar and phonology featured the following characteristics, no labials, no inflections for tense nor aspect, very limited syllable structure, a plain-aspirated-inaudible stop/affricate distinction and consonant harmony.

Consonants
The stops with no audible release might have been ejectives.

Vowels
The weak vowel counterpart of the front vowels were *y, the central vowels *ģ and the back vowels *w.

Prosody
Proto-Elcassa had no phonemic stress, instead, it had a pitch accent, which was an increase of tone on the vowel /á/.


 * The tone always fell on the last syllable by default.
 * For 1st declension nouns what end in -e, the tone is on the final -e

Consonantal harmony
Proto-Elcassa exhibited consonantal harmony, this is divided into three groups: +inaudible (consonants with no audible release), ±inaudible (plain consonants) and -inaudible (aspirated consonants). This phenomena happened to all stops and affricates in suffixes, when following a syllable and its stop/affricate. For example:

Phonotactics
The phonotactics of PE is very limited, with only CV(n) allowed.

Phonetic abbreviations
When transcribing sets of PE consonants, the following symbols are used:


 * D stands for a dental stop
 * J stands for a palatal stop
 * G stands for a velar stop
 * Q stands for an uvular stop
 * Z stands for a dental affricate
 * Ć stands for a palatal affricate
 * Ǧ stands for a velar affricate
 * Ḡ stands for an uvular affricate

Nouns
Proto-Elcassa nouns are the most simple, with inflections only regarding case and possession. Number, definiteness and gender are not termed as grammatical categories.

Cases
There are four cases in Proto-Elcassa, absolutive, oblique (ergative-dative), ablative and comitative.

Absolutive
The absolutive case is used for:


 * the subject of an intransitive verb
 * the object of a transitive verb
 * the donor of a ditransitive verb
 * all oblique phrases except honorifics
 * some adverbs

Oblique
The oblique case is used for:


 * the subject of a transitive verb
 * the theme of a ditransitive verb
 * the recipient of a ditransitive verb
 * most adverbs

Ablative
The ablative case is used for:


 * movement away from a noun
 * certain time prepositions (e.g. *noǧe (before))
 * most distance adverbs

Comitative
The comitative case is used for:


 * accompaniment of nouns
 * possession of nouns
 * some distance adverbs

Declension
Proto-Elcassa had no distinctions of number. It also had a set of three declensions depending on ending phoneme.

First delcension
The first declension included nouns that mostly ended in front and transparent vowels. It is sometimes called the front declension. The declensions of the nouns *tugi (pig), *kü (ice) and *llaṭe (smoke) are shown on the table below.

Second delcension
The second declension included nouns that mostly ended in back vowels. It is sometimes called the back declension. The declensions of the nouns *gu (dog), *ŋacu (plant) and *yaḳo (snow) are shown on the table below.

Third delcension
The third declension included nouns that mostly ended in *-n. It is sometimes called the nasal declension. The declensions of the nouns *jedon (spring), *tin (flower) and *neq̇on (milk) are shown on the table below.

Possession
Possession of nouns only decline by person, because number was not categorized as a grammatical category. The possession suffixes of the nouns *gu (dog), *tin (flower) and *riḳe (sheep) are shown on the table.