Mete Language

Mete (Mete:, tr. lbeca mtêta) is an Meteic language and an official language of Federative Republic of Metenessia. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in, , and. Modern Standard Mete belongs to Napo-Meteic languages and is one of the five living members of the Meteic languages (which in turn is part of the larger Treco-Meteic branch).

Alphabet
Mete is written using a Meteic alphabet. The Modern Standard Mete alphabet consists of 17 letters. As Mete alphabet is not in Unicode, all Mete in this article will be transliterated into Latin script. Mete alphabet uses a one-sound-one-letter principle. Other letters of the Mete alphabet include y ([y]), ṯ ([θ]).

Vowels

 * 1) These sounds only occur in (some) dialects and is not found in Modern Standard Mete.

Verb
Every Mete verb belongs to one of four form classes, characterized by the infinitive ending: -at, -at, -et, or -it—sometimes called the first, second, third, and fourth conjugations, respectively.

A Mete verb has three indicative-active tenses and three aspects, all with direct English equivalents: the present tense ('I walk'), the past tense ('I walked') and the future tense ('I will walk'); the imperfect ('I walked'), the perfect ('I had walked') and the progressive ('I was walking').

When there are multiple verbs in a sentence, the non-finite ones are often placed at the end of the clause.

Regular Verb
There is an order that these components are put together in a clause: The verb component with the highest priority level would be in its ordinary position, while the others would be placed by increasing order (number 1-7) at the end of the clause.
 * Future tense is formed by using the conjugated form of the irregular auxiliary verb nat (will) and the infinitive.
 * Perfect aspect is formed by using the conjugated form of the regular (II) auxiliary verb at (to have done...) and the active participle.
 * Progressive aspect is formed by using the conjugated form of the irregular auxiliary verb hat (to be) and the active participle.
 * Passive voice is formed by using the conjugated form of the irregular auxiliary verb hat (to be) and the passive participle.
 * Negative is formed by using the conjugated form of the regular (IV) auxiliary verb lhit (to not to) and the infinitive.
 * 'if lhi(7) nimat(3) blat(4). 'Human cannot fly.'
 * Si lhi(7) lant ramentor ûe hi fahari(1) mi(2) blat(4) hat(5) nat(6). 'It will not be being able to be found by you until Thursday.'

Irregular Verb
There are relatively few irregular verbs in Mete Language. The most common two are hat (to be) and selit (to have).

Participle
Mete adjectival participles can be without tense or with tense; be active or passive; the non-tense participles are the most commonly used. The active non-tense participle stem is formed by directly taking the verb stem, while the passive non-tense participle stem is formed by adding an -r, which denotes the passive voice, to the verb stem (for (I) verbs -ir can be added if it is difficult to pronounce).
 * Kabla'if; Kablai 'if; 'if kablati (A writing person)
 * Kablarpreda; Kablari preda; preda kablarta (A written letter)

Imperative
Imperatives are formed by adding accent onto the last syllable of verbs conjugated to indicative-active-present-imperfect third person singular, first person plural and second person plural. In Mete, the use of the imperative is not seen as impolite, inappropriate or offensive. Even in polite speech, orders or requests are often given as imperatives:
 * Premá! (Stop!), commanding one person
 * Htalá! (Let's go!), commanding multiple people, including speaker
 * Kunalé! (Run!), commanding multiple people, excluding speaker
 * Teé îa ed! ('Come here!' or 'Could you come here for a moment?')
 * Ik zi šreris' mí! ('Make us some food!' or 'It would be great if you made us some food.')

Conditional
The conditional is used to express actions that are dependent on some condition.
 * Sú hlada, hladlê. (If he/she/it speaks, I would speak.)

Noun
A Mete noun has one of four specific grammatical declensions. Nouns are declined for case and grammatical number (singular, plural).

Mete has all four declensions of late Proto-Napo-Meteic. Most Mete nouns are of one of these declensions. The ending of a noun can be used to recognize noun declensions. For instance, nouns ending in -a are always third declension; -ê are always fourth declension. Nouns ending in -e are nearly always second declension. A noun ending in consonant is likely to be first declension: tor ("day"), cir ("mountain"), and blah ("snow") are first declension, while hais ("tree"), arbil ("apple") and min ("lake") are second declension.

Mete inflects nouns and pronouns into six grammatical cases. The cases are the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative and instrumental. The case of a particular noun depends on the grammatical function of the noun in the sentence. However, only nominative and genetive are needed for S-V-O syntax; the other four cases are mainly used for freer word order or to avoid ambiguity.


 * "I iêdvarh lezê issokm Invidaz" or "I a iê dvar lezê issoki in Invida" ("I give my son dogs on Invida")
 * "I faltaê lan'fat'o" or "I faltaê 'o lan'fat" ("I travel by train")

Gerund
Gerunds in Mete follow verb patterns and can be modified by adverbs, like in English. Gerunds can also be followed by objects. In Mete, gerunds are exactly the same words as infinitives.
 * Hmilmet zvorna' (Killing a bird)

Verbal Noun
Verbal nouns are also derived from verbs, but they only function like nouns and cannot be followed by objects. In Mete, verbal nouns are formed by removing the -t from infinitives, but -it changes to -ê. The declension of verbal nouns are: -a third, -e second, and -ê fourth.
 * Mešre (The trip)

Adjective and Adverb
Mete adjectives can be placed in three positions: form compound noun with the the noun they are modifying (I), precede the noun they are modifying (II), or go after the noun they are modifying (III).

For I, place the noun directly after the adjective stem: ilhais (tall tree). For II, add -i to the adjective stem: ili hais (tall tree); III is formed by adding -it- to the adjective stem. The ending after -it has to agree with the declension, number and case of the noun; usually it is same as the ending of the noun, but there are two exceptions: ending for first declension singular nominative is -iti, and ending for second declension singular nominative is -ite: hais ilte (tall tree). The use of III is usually seen as more formal, as in lbeca mtêta ("Mete language").

Adverbs can only be used in I or II, and are formed the same way as adjetives.

Comparative and Superlative
There are no exceptions or irregular adjectives.

Preposition
Prepositions in Mete can be difficult for English speakers to master. There is no real locative / time adverb in Mete: for example, we cannot say "Betor mis blah" ("Yesterday it snowed"), but the preposition "in" has to be present before "betor", or conjugate "betor" into the locative case: "In betor mis blah" / "Betorz mis blah".
 * "Ha ed" (It is here; It is this place) and "Ha ned" (It is here; It is at this place)

Relative Clause
Relative clause can be constructed in a similar way as English, using words r(i) and la. la (III) must decline to show the case and number of the noun.
 * Ha etsi r im su fihtis la. (It is he who swam in the sea.)
 * Feareê t ri m'attê la'. (I trust what I see.)

Relative clause can also come before the noun, for example:
 * Ha ed in r 'eûvasê laz. (Here is where I was born.)
 * Ha nima r îa md faltasê la'o. (Flying is how I travelled there.)
 * Nima r îa md faltasê la'o sores šabletabran. (The flight, by which I travelled there, lasted for seven hours.)
 * Laz neraê n ri daran ha fuperi. (The house in which I live is very old.)