Proto-Martuk

Proto-Martuk, from Martuk, the nominative of the root mart-, meaning language, occasionally refered to as Proto-Irmartuk, formed from the same base and with the addition of the prefix ir-, meaning great, ultimately derived from Proto-Umartuk urtmartuk, was an agglutinative, nominative-ergative-accusative language spoken in Hieret around 4000 ED. It was the ancestor of the Irmartuk languages, and thus of languages such as the aforementioned Martuk and of Meruk. Though spoken in Hieret, the language bore very few similarities to the Hiereti languages, for example, making distinctions between the subjects of transitive and intransitive nouns and employing the phenomenon of suffix absorption, by which a noun could be inflected for more than one case.

Nounal Morphology
Nouns in Proto-Martuk declined for six cases (nominative, ergative, accusative, genitive, dative and locative, with the locative being employed as a general case denoting motion), with an additional, non-obligatory possessed case, used to show agreement with a genitive, two numbers (singular and plural) and two genders (animate and inanimate, with the former being unmarked and the latter being denoted through the addition of the suffix -wi to the preceding case endings), and nouns were commonly inflected for more than one case. Definiteness and partitiveness (the latter also being used to emphasise indefiniteness) were conveyed through the addition of suffixes, with each noun having an unmarked indefinite form. In addition to the different inflexions, there were three classes of verbs, denoted by their different nominative endings (-i, -e and -uk).

Clitics
There were a number of clitics in Proto-Martuk, generally used in place of conjuctions or to provide additional information when a locative case is used (for example tu-ROOT-lil described motion away from something, paš-ROOT-lil described motion towards something and ROOT-lil simply denoted that something was located at a place). Clitics were attached to the base noun they described, as well as the noun of agreement. Typically, the clitic inflecting the base noun was a proclitic, while the clitic of agreement was an enclitic (both and neither were the exceptions to this rule, with the base and the agreement both being proclitic).

Morpheme Chain
Due to the large number of inflections in Proto-Martuk, their positions in relation to one another were strictly ordered by a morpheme chain, which was as follows:

1. locative clitic; 2. conjunctive clitic; 3. root; 4. plural marker; 5. agreement case; 6. main case; 7. possessed case; 8. gender marker (or dimunitive marker); 9. conjunctive clitic; 10. locative clitic; 11. definitiveness

An example of this morpheme chain would be tu-ni-bur-s-uk-s-ut-s-ri-wi-ni-ru X, meaning and from both of the houses of X.

Verbal Morphology
Verbs in Proto-Martuk conjugated for six moods (indicative, emphatic indicative, subjunctive, imperative, conditional and dubitative), four tenses (aorist, imperfect past, present and future), two numbers (singular and plural), three persons (first-person, second-person, third-person) and two genders (animate and inanimate).

Adjectival and Adverbal Morphology
Adjectives and adverbs in Proto-Martuk did not take separate endings from the nouns and verbs which they modified, and were only distinguished through the addition of an adjectival/adverbal prefix si- or not at all if the adverb/adjective in question had a unique root.

Examples
Urtšaptar penubripaš tububuǧ laǧelem pašnimenlil pašsemlilni, nitubsur Bešmihuti penepemu > The great king led his army to the crossing and to the border, and they fought the Bešmifuti/Bešmifir.