Lalakhmet

General Information
Lalakhmet (also known as Proto-Lalakhi) is an a priori, proto- lang.

Proto-Lalakhi is an acient language spoken along the same period as Ancient Egyptian.

Consonants
There are 18 consonants all of which, barring approximants, can be geminate (written as a double letter, /mm/ > *mm). Though typically realized as unvoiced, plosives and affricates are realized as voiced in between vowels (except if geminate).

Vowels
There are 7 vowels which contrast frontness and hight (while roundness does not technically contrast, the rounded vowels in the chart are actual realizations). Long vowels are marked with a macron (ī ē ȫ ū ō ā). Note that there are no diphthongs, with each vowel, on its own, consisting of one half-mora, or full mora if it's a long vowel (see Phonotactics for more information), including the schwa sound /ə/.

A word can have either a high pitch, marked with acute accent, or low pitch, marked with an grave accent. Typically longer words can have a second pitch (*ťápanatahāzḕk, the freshness of fresh fallen snow, have a low pitch in the last mora, -zḕk). Words where a vowel goes across frontness changes pitch obligatorily and the pitch change goes in the opposite direction as the tone in the mora prior to the vowel in question. The first mora that has the different tone is realized as a "rising" (if low > high pitch) or "falling" (if high > low) pitch, however the remainder of the word keeps that high/low pitch. Functional words and cliques don't have any pitch. The accent marks are not necessarily always written down (such as the vowel markings in Arabic or Hebrew).

Stress and Morae
Lalakhmet is a mora-timed language with stress falling on the last syllable of a pure vowel (as in, stress cannot fall on /ə/, the schwa). A single mora is defined as: two, short-vowel, open syllables (*ťápanaə, snow, is split into two morae: ťápa-náə); a syllable with a long vowel (*ḵḕjḕ, a cook, is two morae: ḵḕ-jḕ); a short-vowel, open syllable and the start geminate consonant (*záttȫ̀, bone, is two morae: zát-tȫ̀); or a closed syllable, in which vowels are automatically elongated (*hā̀sníke, a weed, is two morae: hā̀s-níke).

Phonotactics

 * A content word cannot have "radical morae" (or half-morae that don't have a pair). This is typically resolved with the addition of the -ə- adfix (which has no real meaning other than resolving the mora limitations).
 * this -ə- adfix can only be placed in open syllables but cannot interrupt a full-mora set. Therefore, it can be palced at the front of a word (like the word for Lalakhmet, *əlalāḵmēt), at the very end of a word (like word for snow, *ťapanaə), in between full morae (  ****FINISH
 * Approximants are limited to being between vowels or following consonants
 * Two consonants of the same place of articulation (except approximants) cannot juxtapose each other, except the cluster /tr/
 * Closed syllables must have long vowels (except if they are formed by geminate consonants)
 * More than two long vowels can't be in adjacent morae

Morphophonology
Lalakhmet features consonant apophony which affects tense in verbs and case in nouns

Conjugation
The  -t-  or  -z-  is the given consonant, but can be any. Grade 1 consonant apophony affects the immediate past, grade 2 for the preterite and imperfect, and grade 3 for the expectant and unknown future.

Indicative
The regular conjugation of a verb in the indicative.

Volative
The volative means "want that" or "desire that" and used in cohortative phrases such as "if only _" or "may _".

Potential
The potential (which also functions as a hypothetical mood) means "can", "able to", "possible to", or "could have _".

Necessitative
The necessitative means "need" or "required" or "have to".

Imperative
The imperative (which acts as a general hortative) means "let _", "may _", "do _", &c.

Causative
The causative means "make _", "cause _", "originate _", &c.

Declension
The  -t-  or  -z-  is the given consonant, but can be any. Grade 1 consonant apophony affects the ergative, absolutive, and accusative, grade 2 for the dative and instrumental, and grade 3 for the stative and dynamic.

"Collective" refers to the noun in general (referred in English as mass nouns) or an uncountable grouping of said noun (e.g., He ate rice - rice is an uncountable grouping of many grains of rice ; He saw a school of fish - in Lalakhmet, "fish" would be in the collective because a school of fish is an uncountable grouping ;  Dogs like to play fetch - the word "dog" is referring is to that dogs in general tend to enjoy playing fetch).

The "singulative" however refers to a single item, a small unit of said item, or when the noun's number is smaller than one (e.g., There was a grain of rice on the counter - a "grain of rice" is a single unit of rice ;  There was not but a drop of water in the well  - a "drop of water" is a small unit of water, as opposed to a glass of water, an ocean made of water, &c ;  Yeah, I bought a dog - "a dog" is a singular dog, which could be qualified as well as "we could only afford one dog").

The stative and dynamic cases are used in postpositional phrases within which the dynamic case applies to postpositions indicating movement or change and stative for anything else.

Stative
A stative noun is the pure lexical noun itself.
 * Augmentive

An augmentive noun is a noun whose size is meaningfully increased or whose importance is amplified.


 * Diminutive

A diminutive noun is a noun whose size is meaningfully diminished, whose importance is decreased, or shows endearment for the noun by the speaker.

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Ideas:
 * Adjectives with degrees of connotativeness (heinous, bad, neutral, good, wonderful) and voice (positive/negative, active/passive) with comparativeness made with another specifically declining adjective
 * Roots be at the base with verbs, noun, and adjectives being formed therefrom
 * Strong emphasis on reflexive (esp. with antipassive)