23.
Ké kaı nî fuaq
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The author of that picture
Conversation
Two friends are visiting the Lánao Museum of Modern Art in Tóaqgua.
Cáqgu: Jua ní lea ꝡeı.
Éloa: Ika, nhó?
Cáqgu: Na, pu moı ké kaı nî fuaq hí raı, gö bu dua jí hóa.
Éloa: Jıe jua súq hí paq lô fuaq móq?
Cáqgu: Ké reo maqbo… rú, ꝡá tıo sım ké gıu. Bu lım jí pó fúaq.
Éloa: Chı jí, ꝡá muı lô fuaq sía sao ra pıao. Shụqfuaq máq dâ.
Cáqgu: Âo, ꝡä fuaqche jí, nä muıbo séu sâ raı tú fuaq jıbo.
Éloa: Na, ma mala baı súq béı shí leafuaq?
Cáqgu: …
Incorporation
Using the hiatus tone on an article makes it incorporated into the preceding verb. The following noun becomes the object of that verb.
ké fıeq hû kea
the inventor of that machinesá kuq sîa sıgı
someone who says nothing interesting
Using the hiatus tone on ꝡá lets us incorporate a content clause.
báq mıu, ꝡâ he noqgı báq sushı
people who think sushi is tasty
A verb pronoun like kéa can also be incorporated. But we don’t say kêa — that would sound like an adverb. Instead, it becomes lô kea.
ké fıeq lô kea
the inventor of the machine
Incorporation and scope
The scope behavior of incorporation is easy to explain: it makes a tiny scope island, just like predicatizers. In fact, you can think of incorporation as turning the preceding verb into a predicatizer.
Someone who said nothing interesting was at the party.
Fronting
We can even incorporate objects into the main verb. This is useful for moving a small object in front of a large subject.
Ca kú, é tua rıa súq ké tıaı bẹchıam, ní choeq.
It was you opening the magical box that caused this mess.Ca nî choeq kú, é tua rıa súq ké tıaı bẹchıam.
What caused this mess was you opening the magical box.
You might recall that we already learned a kind of incorporation in chapter 16: the object-filling prefixes like sụq- and sạ-. Compare:
Nı̣ca kú, é tua rıa súq ké tıaı bẹchıam.
What caused this was you opening the magical box.
Parentheticals
You can open a parenthetical with kïo and close it with kı. It doesn’t affect the grammar on the outside. The inside can be any grammatical Toaq text.
Zaı jí (kïo ma hao máo súq kı?), ꝡá dana jí nháo.
I hope (do you, too?) that I defeat him.
A similar construct, ïe … kı, lifts the whole current or preceding sentence to a quote. On the inside, hóa refers to the now-quoted sentence.
« He báq hobı, » ïe cuakuq jí hóa kı, « nä chuq hóa tú, ꝡë sam hó hóa tîtaı hóa. »
“A sheep,” I answered, “eats anything it finds in its reach.”
Wrapping sentences
There’s a useful little word, gö, that lets you treat the entire sentence so far as a subclause, and comment on it:
De máq, gö pu ruaq nháo hóa.
It’s beautiful — at least she claimed so.
After saying gö, you can refer to the newly-wrapped subclause using hóa. This word is useful for hedging or contextualizing a sentence after saying it. The above sentence means the same as:
Pu ruaq nháo, ꝡá de máq.
She claimed that it’s beautiful.
Multiple gö
You can have multiple gö in a sentence. Each gö marks the end of any subclauses in the preceding sentence.
Ao mıu súq ꝡá de máq, gö pu ruaq nháo hóa, gö chı jí hóa.
You’d find it beautiful — at least she claimed so — at least I believe so.Chı jí, ꝡá pu ruaq nháo, ꝡá ao mıu súq, ꝡá de máq.
I believe that she claimed that you’d find it beautiful.