Meftla

Meftla is a language with a priori vocabulary being created by Renato Montes from 2012 onward.

Meftla
Native name:	Meftla [ˈmeftla]
Writing system:	Latin
Genealogical classification:	Melha family Proto-Melha Meftla
Influences:	Standard Arabic, Romance, Chinese
Basic word order:	VSO, head-initial
Morphological type:	agglutinating ~ fusional
Morphosyntactic alignment:	accusative
Created by:
Renato Montes	2012-

Phonology

Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Velar	Glottal	Other
Nasals	m	n	ɲ	ŋ
Stops: unvoiced	p	t		k	ʔ
Stops: voiced	b	d		g
Affricates: unvoiced		ts	tʃ
Affricates: voiced		dz	dʒ
Fricatives: unvoiced	f	s	ʃ	x
Fricatives: voiced		z	ʒ
Laterals		l
Trills		r~ɾ
Semivowels	w		j			h

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i:, i		u:, u
Mid-close	e		o:, o
Mid-open	ɛ:, ɛ		ɔ:, ɔ
Open		a:, a

Stress

Stress generally falls on the last syllable of the root. Clitics never affect its location, though certain suffixes (inflectional or derivational) can attract the stress towards them.

Word Linking and the Initial /ʔ/

Word-initial words can be linked to the syllable of the last word in a similar way to English and French liaison, e.g. interested in it [ɪˈnɪt]. Note that, unlike English, the language distinguishes words with an initial glottal stop /ʔ/ and words with an initial vowel: ʔosa [ˈʔosa] 'skirt', osa [ˈosa] 'star'.

Orthography

Consonants, Vowels and Stress

The consonants are written with the exact same glyphs as the IPA symbols used above, with the exception of /r~ɾ/ which is written r at all times, and the semivowels /w/ and /j/ written u and i respectively.

The different vowel qualities are written with IPA symbols, however, vowel length is marked with macrons instead of a following (triangular) colon.

Stress is not usually marked. If a speaker feels some disambiguation is necessary, they can mark it by adding an acute accent on top of the respective vowel. Stress is normally marked in didactic and reference materials on every word as well, including these articles. (NOTE: THIS IS THE PLAN AT LEAST, STRESS STILL AWAITS BEING MARKED IN MOST CASES.)

Punctuation

The usage of periods and commas differs significantly from that of English. In an argumentative or expository text, sentences are usually thought of representing one whole idea or point of view, and it's normal to have various main clauses linked simply by juxtaposition with a comma. Such texts in Meftla would strike many English speakers as having long chains of "comma splices".

In general terms, a sentence ends once the speaker is going to start a contradiction with what has just been said, or perhaps an exploration on a very small part of it. In narrative texts, a sentence would end once the next one introduces a sort of surprise, such as a character coming in into the events.

In the same way, paragraphs aren't divided as much as it's normally done in English. Paragraphs can normally be expected to contain much introductory information with details, lists and different points of view all the way to a conclusion. Narrative texts can go on pages and pages without a paragraph break in a whole scene. A paragraph break in general represents a significant change in topic or environment, such as a new in-depth treatment of a topic in a research article or a change of location in a narration.

The style of quotation marks used is ‘‘...‘...’...’’, and unlike various English quotations styles, punctuation is never introduced if not part of what the person actually said, nor is a new paragraph started with every new quotation. Dialogue uses quotation marks as well.

Questions and exclamations use a single ? and ! at the end. Ellipses have either two or six periods: .. or ......, the latter representing a greater pause or voice drag.

Morphology

Main article: Meftla Morphology

Meftla morphology has both agglutinating and fusional elements, though tending towards the former.

Nouns and adjectives inflect for three cases, two genders and three numbers (singular, plural and supraplural). Verbs inflect for six aspects, two moods (indicative and imperative), and the gender of their subject.

The language is also rich in derivational morphology.

Syntax

Main article: Meftla Syntax

Meftla has a basic order of verb-subject-object (though in practice, many SVO sentences appear due to topicalization), and is strongly head-initial.

Of particular interest are the system of six aspects in verbs, that the feminine gender is the less marked one (and thus it's used for mixed groups, or when the gender isn't known), and the formation of reflexive/reciprocal and passive sentences (distinguished solely by gender agreement).