Old Nambāno

Old Nambāno, also known as Early Nambāno or Proto-Nambāno, is the ancestor of most language varieties within the Nambāno dialect cluster, believed to be the oldest Koyanic language spoken in Qnōp'.

Palatal obstruent
The palatal obstruent *j was likely a fricative [ʝ] or affricate [ɟʝ], though may have already been pronounced as an approximant [j] as it is most typically in Nambāno.

Vowels
Long vowels derive primarily from compensatory lengthening via two sources:


 * Loss of coda *h, itself a merger of older Proto-Namb *f and *x.
 * Loss of coda *r.

Five of the six vowels additionally had nasalised forms, *ã *ẽ *ĩ *õ *ũ. These resulted from loss of nasals at the end of words and before older fricatives and nasals, also lengthening the vowel, with the nasalised form of *ɨ merging with *ã. The bilabial nasal *m, however, was retained in these environments. Vowels before coda *n were likely also pronounced with nasalisation, but were not lengthened and simply represent allophones of the short vowels.

In addition to the monophthongs, three diphthongs are found in Old Nambāno, *ei, *ou and *iu.

A table of vowel reflexes in Nambāno languages is shown below:

Phonotactics
Old Nambāno had a maximal CCVC syllabic structure, with various constraints placed on the onset cluster and coda consonant.

Onset
Medial nasals in the onset could not have the same place of articulation as a preceding plosive, thus *bn- and *tŋʷ- are allowed onset clusters while *bm- and *tn- are forbidden.

The velar consonants *g *k *h *ŋ could occur preceding any vowel except *u, where they are neutralised into a labialised velar + *ɨ. These exact pronunciation of these syllables is not reconstructible, e.g. it is not known whether *gʷɨ was actually [gʷɨ] or [gu], but it is reconstructed as such due to the later nambāno form gua [gʷa] reflecting the regular *ɨ > /a/ shift seen elsewhere.

Coda
Obstruents could occur in coda position, though not at the end of words, but the labialised velars *gʷ *kʷ *hʷ *ŋʷ were not allowed in the coda.

Consonant clusters
Consonant clusters most typically arise at morpheme boundaries, since most underlying stems end in a consonant which resolves into one of the five rhymes when placed before an obstruent. Various morphophonological processes of assimilation limited the possible *-BB- clusters that were possible that could occur across syllable boundaries. These processes can be sorted into progressive and regressive assimilation:


 * Progressive assimilation
 * The velar fricative *h(ʷ) assimilates to any preceding consonant, e.g. *-th- *-rh- *-ŋh- > *-tt- *-rr- *-ŋŋ-.
 * *hʷ additionally causes a preceding bilabial consonant to shift to a labialised velar, thus *-mhʷ- *-bhʷ- *-phʷ- > *-ŋŋʷ- *-ggʷ- *-kkʷ-.
 * Regressive assimilation
 * Plosives assimilate to following nasals of the same place of articulation, e.g. *-pm- *-dn- *-kŋ- > *-mm- *-nn- *-ŋŋ-.
 * Labial stops *b *p *m assimilate to following velar stops, e.g. *-bg- *-pk- *-mgʷ- > *-gg- *-kk- *-ŋgʷ-.
 * Lingual nasals *n *ŋ assimilate to the place of articulation of any following consonant, e.g. *-nk- *-ŋn- *-ŋb- > *-ŋk- *-nn- *-mb-. Note that *m only assimilated to velar consonants as per the rule above, thus sequences like *-mt- and *-ml- were allowed.
 * Lingual plosives *d *t *g *k assimilate to the place of articulation and voicedness of any following plosives, *s and *j, e.g. *-dp- *-gs- *-tj- > *-pp- *-ss- *-jj-.

A full table of possible intrasyllabic clusters of two consonants subject to these rules is shown below:

Number
The basic form of all nouns is the "uncounted" form, which can represent a generic plural or generic reference to a type or category. Most nouns were countable, exhibiting a "counted" form of certain grammatical cases, which was singular by default but could take modifiers to specify quantity, such as numerals.

Case
Nouns have seven basic cases: absolutive, accusative, oblique, dative, comitative, ergative-genitive and ablative. An eighth case, the possessive, appears on exclusively animate nouns.

Verbs
Verbs have three underlying stems:


 * Basic — Used to form the indicative and the gerund.
 * Subjunctive — Used to form subjunctive and jussive forms of the verb, marked with a nasalised vowel + *-hʷ.
 * Modal — Used to form aspectual derivations of the verb, typically marked by a fronted stem vowel and ending in *-i, *-ī or *-ei.

For the vast majority of verbs, the three stem forms were regularly related to an underlying stem-final segment, which was either a consonant or one of four vowels, *i, *ɨ, *u, or *a.

Gerund
The citation form of the verb is the gerund, an uncounted noun formed by adding the suffix *-nō to the basic stem.

Jussive
The jussive is a form of the verb used with second and third person subjects to express commands and exhortations. It is formed by adding the suffix *-na to the subjunctive stem which regularly deletes its final *-hʷ, for example the verb *kefinō has the subjunctive stem *kefĩhʷ- and jussive *kefĩna. An archaic suffix *-nɨ originally distinguished an imperative used specifically to issue commands to the second person, but this was lost by the extension of the usage of *-na.

Person agreement
Verbs in the indicative and subjunctive mood take suffixes which agree with the person of the subject. Three forms are distinguished:


 * First person singular
 * First person plural
 * Second or third person (singular or plural)

The indicative mood is formed by adding a person suffix to the basic stem, while the subjunctive mood uses the same suffixes on the subjunctive stem. The form of a suffix can change depending on a preceding vowel, as shown in the table below. The table below shows an example of regular conjugation of the verb *kabunō "to move".

Modal suffix
The vast majority of verbs are perfective by default, though many verbs carry unique lexical aspect. The aspect of a verb can be modified by joining the modal stem with a suffix, which then has its own associated conjugation. Some suffixes apply a broader modification to the verb, most typically imperfective aspects, but can also be an explicitly perfective aspect, as well as certain other forms such as a conative.

The modal suffixes are a closed set, of which not all could apply to every verb and not all were fully regular.

Verb prefix
Old Nambāno verbs could take an optional prefix consisting of two parts:


 * Relative tense marker, either present *r-, past *hʷ-, or unmarked *∅-
 * Emphasis marker, either unemphatic *-ō- or emphatic *-ã-/*-ãn-/*-an-

When not marked for tense, the unemphatic prefix is used for conditionals and periphrastic future tense, while the emphatic prefix takes a negative meaning.

The unemphatic prefix can be dropped if the temporal context is already established.

Pluractionality
Plurality is not marked on nouns, rather some verbs are pluractional, meaning the plurality of the subject is marked by the verb. Pluractionality is a lexical property in Old Nambāno, some verbs are pluractional while others are not, with the exception of two copulas which have special pluractional forms. Pluractional verbs do not conjugate for person and may only be used with second or third person referents.

A pluractional verb implies that the subject, which must be in the "counted" absolutive case, consists of a plural group of subjects which are each taking part in the verb individually. A non-pluractional verb can still be used with a noun representing a group, but this implies the group acting as a whole in the action.

Irregular verbs
Some Nambāno verbs do not follow a fully regular pattern of conjugation, though generally the verb prefix is always regularly attached even to irregular verbs.

Some examples of common irregular verbs are shown in the table below.

Perhaps the three most common verbs in Old Nambāno are the three "copulas", which are the only verbs to feature irregular prefixed forms, though the initial relative tense-marking prefix (present *r-, past *hʷ-) still regularly applies.

Equative copula *unō
The first copula is the equative copula *unō, which has a highly irregular conjugation in both the indicative and subjunctive.

It additionally features a distinct pluractional form in the second/third person.

Attributive copula *hʷinō
The second copula is the attributive copula *hʷinō, which attributes circumstantial properties, including locative and possessive uses, and also features pluractionality. The conjugation is essentially regular, but features the rare first person singular and plural forms *-i and *-iu respectively, which also appear on the modal suffixes *-si and *siu (forms of *-snō).

Stative copula *einō, ĩhʷ-, isi-
The third "copula", *einō, isi-, is not a copula in the strict sense, rather it describes states of existence, usually temporary or involving actions performed by the subject, often taking a gerund as direct object. When used intransitively, takes the meaning "to be present" or "to exist".