12. Sıeqge hóq nha / It's amazing
This lesson covers pronouns that refer back to earlier descriptions, and how those are bound.
Conversation
Íqse and Rúa are talking about music they like.
Íqse: Ní gıaqche nä, ma zao súq hóa?
Rúa: Nho, zao jí hó!
Íqse: Jaq sıeqge ké nıq, dá?
Rúa: Noga, bo tá báq suaqtoa naına ꝡeı.
Íqse: Ma he baı súq báq gıaq?
Rúa: Sá gıaq nä, mala baı jí hóq.
Íqse: Bo jí báq gıta. Choq jí máq ba…
Rúa: Nhooo, fıeq úmo báq esagı chôq gíta ba!
The words nä and hóa
You can “float” a noun to the front of the sentence, or really anywhere else, by placing it before nä. Then, you can refer to it later in the sentence with the pronoun hóa.
Ní gıaqche nä, ma zao súq hóa?
This musician, do you know him?
Nä and scope
Generally, scope in Toaq is left to right: if a tú is to the left of a sá, the for-all quantification is on the outside of the there-exists quantification.
Using nä, we can not only move words around to where we want them, we can also rearrange their scopes:
Zudeq tú poq sá zu.
Every person has some language that they speak.Sá zu nä, zudeq tú poq hóa.
There is some language, that every person speaks.Zudeq, sá zu nä, tú poq hóa.
There is some language, that every person speaks.
Last time, we saw quantifiers have their scope limited by the clause they’re in. Using nä, we can pull a quantifier out of the clause.
Aojaı jí, ꝡá chuq jí sía raı.
I want that [I eat nothing].
(as in: I want to fast)Aojaı jí sía raı nä, ꝡá chuq jí hóa.
I want, of nothing, [that I eat it].
(as in: I’m not hungry)
Variables
After a description using an article, like sá poq or ké nıq, there are pronouns called variables that you can use to refer to this description.
Most simply, you can repeat the verb in the rising tone: after sá poq, “some person x”, you can say póq to refer to x. We say that sá poq binds the variable póq.
He chı sá poq, ꝡá he cho tú raı póq.
Some people believe that everybody likes them.
If there’s an adjective, you only repeat the “noun” (first word after the article). And as we can see in the next sentence, this strategy is also compatible with nä. You might prefer it over hóa to make it clear what you’re referring back to.
Sá chaq de nä, jıa geq jí súq râo cháq.
Some beautiful day… I’ll meet you on that day.
However, repeating the same word can be a bit cumbersome.
Ruaq ké galeche, ꝡá laheq, ꝡá sıomoı gáleche, ꝡá jıq gáleche.
The teacher states: that he thinks implies that he exists.
There are a few other pronouns that get bound whenever you use an article. Which pronoun gets bound by which verb depends on that verb’s class.
Verb classes
All Toaq verbs belong to one of four “classes”. You can think of these like masculine/feminine genders in French or Spanish. Each class is named after its corresponding pronoun:
| pronoun | words in this class | examples |
|---|---|---|
| hó (“he/she”) | words describing people and animals | deo, kato |
| máq (“it”) | words describing physical things | koqpıuta, haq |
| hóq (“it”) | words describing abstract things | sıo, gıaq |
| tá (“it”) | other words (mostly “adjectives”) | suoı, de |
After saying ké galeche, instead of having to say gáleche again, you can also use hó, because galeche is a hó-class word.
All four of these pronouns occur in this lesson’s conversation. Which words do they refer to?
More on verb classes
You don’t have to memorize which class each word belongs to: you can figure it out by thinking about the meaning. For example, gıaq describes music, which is an abstract/intangible phenomenon, and so gıaq is a hóq-class word.
But what’s important is that verb class is a property of the verb, not of the thing it refers to.
For example, after saying sá suoı to refer to an important king, the pronoun that gets bound is tá, not hó. The word hó is not for referring to people, but to hó-class verbs. And suoı is tá-class.
If we instead say sá req suoı, the appropriate pronoun is hó, because req describes people. It’s the first word after the article that decides which pronoun gets bound.