Proto-Nnadū language

Agglutinative with inflectional and isolative features.

Consonants
p t c cᵝ k kᵝ /p t c cw k kw/ pʼ tʼ cʼ cʼᵝ kʼ kʼᵝ /pʼ tʼ cʼ cwʼ kʼ kwʼ/ b d ɟ ɟᵝ g gᵝ /b d ġ ġw g gw/ ɓ ɗ ʄ ʄᵝ ɠ ɠᵝ /bʼ dʼ ġʼ ġwʼ gʼ gwʼ/ s sʼ x /s sʼ h/ m n ɲ ŋ /m n ṇ ŋ/ l ʎ ʟ /l ḷ ł/ j β̝ /j w/

Vowels
iː ɨː uː /ī ȳ ū/ äː /ā/

e ɪ̈ ʊ /i y u/ ə /a/

Also phonemic nasalized and breathy voiced contrasts in vocalic system.

Phonotactics
(C)(C)V(R)(C)

Accent
Grammaticalized tonal pitch accent. Three stress-tones: rising (I), falling (II), rising-falling (III).


 * I - noun stress
 * II - adjectival stress
 * III - adverbial stress

Nouns

 * tripartite and three-way patient alignment
 * only core cases (preffixal): Intransitive, Ergative, Accusative, Causal, Instrumental, Dative.
 * tense marked on nominal subject or object (suffixal): past, non-past.
 * definiteness (independent particles): neutral, indefinite, definite proper, definite distant.
 * two genders (suffixal): human, non-human.
 * possessor (preffixal).
 * number combined with gender: singular, dual, plural.

[Definiteness] + [Case + Possessor + Root + Root extension + (Gender + Number) + Tense]

Verbs

 * polarity (preffixal): affirmative, negative.
 * gender-number suffixes.
 * three aspects (suffixal): Perfective, Imperfective, Iterative.
 * three moods (preffixal): Indicative, Conditional, Jussive.
 * three voices (suffixal): Active, Passive, Medial.
 * pronominal persons before verb.
 * subjective persons cliticized to subjectives.
 * evidentiality (particles): visual, non-visual, reported, assumed.

[Object + Subject] + [Evidentiality] + [Polarity + Mood + Root + Root extension + Voice + Aspect + (Gender + Number)]

Pronouns

 * tense marker
 * gender stems with number cliticization.

Syntax

 * OSV