Proto-Nebulonic language

The Proto-Nebulonic language is the hypothetical, unattested ancestor language of the Nebulonic language. The reconstruction is very incomplete.

Consonants
In this table, Plosives can be fit into a three-by-three grid: This grid is important to consonant gradation, which will be explained below.

Allophony
After ejectives, the vowels /i/ and /u/ are realized as [e] and [o], respectively.

Before /l/ and /r/, voiceless, non-ejective stops are realized as aspirated.

Stress
Proto-Nebulonic stress was trochaic; the first syllable of a word received primary stress, the next would receive no stress, and the third would receive secondary stress. From there, there would be alternation between no stress and secondary stress. As the language changed, unstressed vowels were syncopated under certain circumstances; this is characteristic of the Late Proto- and Old Nebulonic period.

Consonant gradation
In consonant gradation, plosives become one step "softer". Ejectives become their voiceless, non-ejective counterpart (/pʼ/ > /p/), voiceless, non-ejective plosives become their voiced counterpart (/p/ > /b/), and voiced plosives delete (/b/ > /Ø/).

(Figure out the circumstances under which consonant gradation occurs)

Phonotactics
Roots were primarily made up of (C)V syllables (usually one or two), with few consonant clusters and no diphthongs. The only existing consonant clusters were voiceless plosive + liquid or /s/ + voiceless plosive; the consonant clusters of Old and Modern Nebulonic are often the result of Late Proto- and Early Old Nebulonic syncope.

Morphology
Proto-Nebulonic was an agglutinative language.

Nouns
Nouns declined for relatively few cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, partitive, prepositional); other relations were expressed through postpositions attached directly onto the end of the noun, much like Sajem Tan's "pseudo-cases". In Old and Modern Nebulonic, these are true postpositions.

Verbs
Proto-Nebulonic had a rich system of auxiliary verbs. These mostly became proper verbs that take dependent clauses in Old and Modern Nebulonic; however, the aspect particles of Primitive Nebulonic (for example, *te, which marks the perfective aspect) derive from auxiliary verbs, and these survive in Old and Modern Nebulonic as the onsets of the tense-aspect particles (for example, the ‹tj› in Old Nebulonic tjon).

Lexicon
Following is a list of Proto-Nebulonic words:
 * uk-ju "fog" (< *uk- "beneath; lower" + *jug "cloud": /g/ lost due to consonant gradation) > PmN *ˈukju > ON úkju > MN úcu "fog"
 * di.u-on "nation (family-COLL)" > LPN ˈdju.on > ON djo͡u̯n > MN zon "nation"