Proto-Xās

Setting
Proto-Xās is reconstructed hypothetical ancestor of the three Xahan language families.

Due to the lack of written evidence of Proto-Xās, it has been reconstructed using various methods from both the reconstructed and recorded parts of the "Big Three".

Phonotactics
The basic syllable in Proto-Xās was mainly made up of (C)CNC forms, but the maximum form allowed for:

This structure means that each nucleus must be surrounded by at least one and at most three consonants on either end.

The nucleus could be any of the following:
 * A, Ā, E, Ē, O, Ō, Y, Q

Basic Grammar
Due to the extremely varied nature of its descendants, certain features of Proto-Xās (such as pronouns) could not be fully reconstructed.

Proto-Xās is believed to be deeply ergative, as no marker was reconstructed to belong to a non-ergative alignment.

Nouns
PX. had a mild to medium complexity nominal system, with at least five genders, 9 cases and three numbers. Gender was added as an agglutinative suffix to cases and numbers were added only in the "Template" case postpositions.

Cases
There are 9 cases in PX. They are traditionally ordered as follows:


 * 1) Ablative
 * 2) Ergative
 * 3) Genitive
 * 4) Absolutive
 * 5) Dative
 * 6) Vocative
 * 7) Locative
 * 8) Instrumental
 * 9) "Template"/Postpositional

Suffixes
These suffixes are attached to the root itself.

Template Case
The Template case was infunctional without the postpositions. These postpositions were in various places in daughter languages reinterpreted as case suffixes.

The postpositions are listed below under "Postpositions"

Genders
These reconstructions are very dubious and not very accurate, at best. The best reconstructions cite five genders, grouped under two supergenders:

These gender suffixes were strapped on to case suffixes.

Postpositions
PX. had a vast array of postpositions, most being locational and used together with the "Template". There was a three-dimensional system of suffixes, binding together type (Location, Destination, Origin), position (ON, AT, IN) and distance (Proximate, Distal, General).