Proto-Läptälm language

Proto-Läptälm is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Läptälm languages spoken in the Kraj tu Ungu Peninsula by the Läptälm peoples.

Phonology
Proto-Läptälm has 23 consonant phonemes. Note that Proto-Läptälm has 16 distinct plosives. The glottal stop is a marginal phoneme used to separate two adjacent vowels.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! colspan=2 rowspan=2 | ! rowspan=2 | Bilabial ! rowspan=2 | Alveolar ! rowspan=2 | Palatal ! colspan=2 | Velar ! rowspan=2 | Glottal ! plain ! labiased ! colspan=2 | Nasal ! rowspan=3 | Plosive ! voiceless ! aspirated ! voiced ! colspan=2 | Fricative ! colspan=2 | Approximant
 * + Consonant phonemes of Proto-Läptälm
 * m || n || ɲ ⟨ñ⟩ || ŋ || ŋʷ ||
 * p || t || c || k || kʷ || (ʔ)
 * pʰ || tʰ || cʰ || kʰ || kʷʰ ||
 * b || d || ɟ ⟨j⟩ || ɡ || ɡʷ ||
 * || s || || || ||
 * || l || || || ||
 * }

Vowels
Proto-Läptälm has eight vowels monophthongs and no diphthongs. Proto-Läptälm has a backness vowel harmony system.


 * {| class="wikitable" style="text-align: center;"

! rowspan=2 | ! colspan=2 | Front ! colspan=2 | Back ! unrounded ! rounded ! unrounded ! rounded ! Close ! Mid ! Open
 * + Vowel phonemes of Proto-Läptälm
 * i || y ⟨ü⟩ || ɯ ⟨ï⟩ || u
 * || ø ⟨ö⟩ || || o
 * æ ⟨ä⟩ || || ɑ ⟨a⟩ ||
 * }

Grammar
Proto-Läptälm is a polysynthetic and agglutinative language with almost exclusively suffixation. Every type of word apart from nouns and verbs are suffixed to the latter. Proto-Läptälm is a head-initial and verb–object language (VO). Verbs always come first in the sentence.

Nouns
Nouns in Proto-Läptälm are inflected for cases and are suffixed with adjectives, determiners, postpositions, conjuctions, in that order. Proto-Läptälm has 19 cases. The following table shows the cases in their back and front forms:

Genitive constructions are formed by suffixing the possessee to the possessor like an adjective. The possessee harmonises with the vowels in the possessor. Proto-Läptälm does not have a separate verb for possession. Possession is expressed with the genitive structure "be-possessee possessor-dative". For example, Ŋäklinskäp klamnïm 'the woman has a comb', Ŋäkmöʔäŋʷgʷim 'I have a cow'.

Adjectives
Predicative adjectives are either suffixed to a reduplicated noun or incorporated into the verb. For example, the sentence "the cow is brown" would be either "the cow is a brown cow" (Ŋäkmö mögʷiplöb) or "the cow brown-is" (Ŋäggʷiplöbmö).

Verbs
Verbs in Proto-Läptälm are conjugated for tense, aspect, mood and voice.

Noun incorporation
Subject nouns and pronouns regardless of function are incorporated into the verb, placed following it. Although objects and adverbials are normally expressed as separate words, they may be incorporated as affixes before the subject. In which case, the objects lose their case markers, and their functions are, instead, expressed by means of word order alone. For example:


 * *Tlödñiltʰ äldbük klamnïm tlötkäpilt
 * bake-man bread- woman- oven-
 * The man bakes bread to the woman in the oven.


 * *Tlödältpklämntlötkäpiltñiltʰ
 * bake-bread-woman-oven--man
 * The man "in-oven-for-woman-bread-bakes".