11.
Mıu jí, ꝡä…
/
I think that…
Let’s look at how to create more complex Toaq sentences: ones that involve subclauses.
Vocabulary
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ruaq | ▯ states ꝡä |
| zoaı | ▯ doubts ꝡä |
| mıu | ▯ opines ꝡä |
| chı | ▯ believes ꝡä |
| dua | ▯ knows ꝡä |
| cuo | ▯ assumes ꝡä |
| aojaı | ▯ wants ꝡä |
| zaı | ▯ hopes ꝡä |
| juna | it’s true that ꝡä |
| sahu | it’s false that ꝡä |
| le | it’s likely that ꝡä |
| laheq | ꝡä implies ꝡä |
| dana | ▯ defeats ▯ |
Content clauses
A content clause is introduced by ꝡä, which means “that”. It turns the following clause into a noun phrase, so that it can act as the subject or object of another clause.
In a Toaq dictionary, if a verb has “that ▯ is the case” in its definition, it means you can put a ꝡä-clause there. In this textbook, we’ll just write ꝡä instead.
Jıa dana súq nháo.
You will defeat him.Chı jí, ꝡä jıa dana súq nháo.
I believe that you will defeat him.
A ꝡä-slot can still be filled by other nouns or pronouns, as long as they also refer to facts.
Chı jí hú nıqdao.
I believe the news.Ꝡä jıa dana súq nä, chı jí hóa.
That you will defeat him — I believe it.
A verb can relate two content clauses. For example, the following sentence uses laheq “ꝡä implies ꝡä”.
Laheq, ꝡä zudeq súq Tóaqzu, ꝡä Toaqpoq súq.
The fact that you speak Toaq implies that you’re a Toaqist.
In Toaq, we write commas around the start and end of a subclause.
Terminators
If ꝡä marks the beginning of a content clause, how do we mark the end? Doesn’t that last example sentence need a terminator, like Lojban’s kei?
A Toaq parser just looks at the arity of the verb to figure out where the clause ends. Zudeq has two slots, so after súq and Tóaqzu, what follows can’t be a third argument, and instead the clause must end here.
Trailing adverbs belong to a subclause, if possible. Consider this pair of sentences:
Ruaq jí, ꝡä noqgı ké haq râo fíachaq.
I state that the food was good yesterday.
Ruaq râo fíachaq jí, ꝡä noqgı ké haq.
I stated yesterday that the food is good.
Scope islands
In Chapter 7, we learned about how tú kompıuta wraps the clause it’s in with a for each computer. Now that we are dealing with subclauses, it finally matters that we said “clause” instead of “sentence.”
Zoaı nháo, ꝡä zujoe súq tú zu da.
She doubts that you are fluent in each language.
Words like ꝡä create scope islands, and any “scope operator” (like tú or bu) applies to the innermost scope island containing it.
We can mark scope islands using rectangles. A word like tú has its “for-each” apply to the smallest rectangle it’s in:
↓
∄p: p thinksthat it's likely∃x: ∀z: x speaks z.
Nobody thinks it's likely that somebody speaks every language.
The word ꝡa
The word ꝡa, in the falling tone, marks the start of a main clause, and therefore the start of a sentence.
Saying ꝡa doesn’t change the meaning of a sentence, but you can say it while thinking of what to say next, or just to clearly mark that you’re starting a new sentence.
Ꝡa… jıa faq hí raı?
So… what’s going to happen?Ꝡa fa áma ké saodoaq dâ.
We’re going to the city.