Proto-Nebulonic language

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

Consonants
The voiceless plosives /b/, /d/, and /g/ have fricative allophones [β], [ð], and [ɣ], respectively.

Vowels
Proto-Nebulonic has different vowel inventories depending on whether the syllable is initial (i.e. receives primary stress) or non-initial. Initial syllables can have any of the following vowels: Non-initial syllables can have the following vowels, which harmonize as described in the section Vowel harmony 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
Consonant gradation was allophonic in Proto-Nebulonic, becoming phonemic during the change to Late Proto-Nebulonic (after the vocalic allophony became phonemic). Consonant gradation means that plosives become one step "softer" under certain circumstances. Ejectives become pronounced as their voiceless, non-ejective counterpart (/pʼ/ > [p]); voiceless, non-ejective plosives become their voiced counterpart (/p/ > [b]), and voiced plosives delete (/b/ > [Ø]).

Consonant gradation typically occurs word-finally if the final syllable does not receive stress (primary or secondary; see above). It may also occur at the beginning of a non-initial syllable in the plosive element of a plosive-liquid consonant cluster.

Phonotactics
Roots were primarily made up of (C)V(C) 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.

Particles, used for derivation and inflection, have a (C)V(C) structure and may only be one syllable long.

Rules of phoneme placement

 * Ejective consonants may only appear at the beginning of a word
 * /ŋ/ may only appear in the middle or at the end of a word

Vowel harmony
Proto-Nebulonic had vowel harmony. The vowels in non-initial syllables harmonized with the initial vowel as follows:

Morphology
Proto-Nebulonic was an agglutinative language.

Gender
Nouns came in two genders: inanimate (which ended in a low vowel) and animate (which ended in a high vowel).

Number
Nouns are declined for two numbers (singular and plural). The number endings go after the noun and all derivational suffixes, and they go before the case ending.

Case
The only cases that can be reconstructed for Proto-Nebulonic aside from nominative are the genitive and partitive, which survive marginally in Old Nebulonic. Other relations were probably expressed through word order (for subject and object) and 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.

Nouns ending in a consonant put an epenthetic vowel between the last consonant of the noun and the ending if the two consonants cannot be pronounced together, and this vowel is the same as the vowel of the last syllable: *jub "cloud", *jubum "clouds". The same vowel is inseted between two endings that would otherwise cause two consonants to come together that could not be pronounced: *jubumur "of clouds" not *jubumr.

Pronouns
Pronouns behaved much like nouns: they declined for the same four cases and two numbers. They do not show any gender, unlike Sajem Tan.

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 Late Proto-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).

Word creation
Roots were created in three eras:
 * The first era, which consisted of the very beginning of Proto-Nebulonic. This began about 1,500 years ago and ended about three generations later. In this phase, roots were very simple, featuring no consonant clusters. Syllables would typically not have a coda (i.e., the phonotactics were more like CV). Roots coined in this era typically referred to more basic concepts, and sound symbolism was very common. Compounding and zero-derivation were the most common ways of making words from existing words, though sometimes individual sounds were changed in a word to make a new word. Different parts of speech rarely showed distinction, so a root could be both a verb and a noun with no change. In this era, the inflectional morphology was mostly all in place.
 * The second era, which occurred about 1,350 years ago. In this phase, consonant clusters were more common. Ejectives were less common, and almost never appeared in the coda position. Affixing was more common for word-formation, with suffixes (often derived from existing words) popping up to denote place, person/animal, collection, adjectivization, nominalization, and verbalization.
 * The third era occurred just before Proto-Nebulonic evolved into Late Proto-Nebulonic, 1,200 years ago. No words from this period used ejectives. Derivational suffixes for diminutive and augmentative were coined, as well as a few attitudinal suffixes and a new suffix referring to inhabitants, descendants, or followers (like English "-ling", "-ian", or "-ite").

List of words
Following is a list of Proto-Nebulonic words:
 * ˈuk-juˌbo "fog" (< *uk- "beneath; lower" + *jub "cloud") > LPN *ˈukjū (/b/ [β] deletes; /u.o/ becomes /uː/) > ON úkjū > MN úcu (/kj/ > /t͡s/; loss of vowel length) "fog"
 * ˈdi.u-ˌon "nation (family-COLL)" > LPN *ˈdi.u.on > ON djo͡u̯n (/i/ > /j/ / _V; metathesis of /uo/ to /o͡u̯/) > MN zon "nation"
 * ˈḳusa "wind" > LPN *kʰos > ON xos > MN hos "wind"
 * ˈsisa "bird" > LPN *sis > ON sis > MN sis "bird"
 * ˈṗudon "mountain" > LPN *pʰodon > ON ɸodon > MN fodon "mountain"
 * ˈjubo "cloud" > LPN *jub > ON only found in compounds, replaced with another word