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-tenuis stop/affricate distinction and consonant harmony.

Consonants
The tenuis stops might have been ejectives.

Vowels
Proto-Elcassa had vowel harmony; the front vowels /i, y/ cannot exist in the same word as the back vowels /ɯ, u/. The central vowels /ɨ, a/ are transparent.

Consonantal harmony
Proto-Elcassa exhibited consonantal harmony, this is divided into three groups: +tenuis (tenuis consonants), ±tenuis (plain consonants) and -tenuis (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.

Nouns
Proto-Elcassa nouns are the most simple, with inflections only regarding case and 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
 * the quirky subjects of certain verbs
 * 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
 * some distance adverbs