9. He cho súq hí? / What do you like?
In this lesson, we’ll learn how to ask questions using hí, and the difference between “episodic” and “generic” sentences.
Conversation
Lucas and Míqte find the pizzeria, but…
Lucas: Tı ké pıcarıaq hí raı?
Míqte: Ní tıeq! Kéo, oaı, naı dom ké rıaq.
Lucas: Ubaı…
Míqte: Nho. He baı nhána báq pıca noqgı.
Lucas: Kéo naı baı nhána sía raı.
Míqte: Ubaı.
Lucas: Tao úmo hí raı móq?
Míqte: Eju… enı! He cho jí máo ní sushırıaq.
Lucas: Fa úmo nánı rıaq ba!
Vocabulary
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| he | as a rule… |
| báq verb | verb-s in general |
| hí verb | which verb? |
| nánı verb | that verb over there |
| kéo | but |
| ubaı | alas / too bad |
| eju | let’s see… / let me think… |
| enı | look, here |
| dom | ▯ is closed/inactive |
| akımı | ▯ is open/active |
| tao | ▯ does ▯ |
Asking “what” with hí
The word hí is a question word (like ma) with the same grammar as an article: it means “which.” It’s also how you say “who” (which person?) and “what” (which thing?) and “where” (at which place?), and so on.
Jıa baı hí poq ké pıca?
Which person will make the pizza?Sıgı hí kıq móq?
Which movie(s) is/are interesting?
Inquisitive semantics
Compared to sá and tú, it’s hard to describe how hí “works”, because Toaq buys into a somewhat advanced theory of question semantics known as inquisitive semantics.
…I had written a rough overview here, but it’s too advanced even for one of these little colorful boxes. If you really want to read it, though, it’s on the Toaq wiki.
Episodic and generic sentences
He is a tense-like word, used to make statements that are true “as a rule” or “in general”, about no specific time in particular.
Jaı jí.
I am/was happy (at some definite time).He jaı jí.
I am happy (as a rule).
The first sentence claims the existence of a “me-happy event”. In fact, this is what any sentence without he does, and we call such sentences episodic. (They tell us about some single “episode” that happens.)
The second sentence, with he, instead makes a generic claim: one that is “normally” true about the world (though not necessarily always.)
Generic reference
Closely related is the article báq verb, which makes a “generic reference” to things which verb, without picking any or all of them out. A simple way to think of this is that it’s just like the indefinite plural in English.
báq kato
catsbáq choko
chocolate
In episodic sentences, this works out to meaning the same thing as sá:
Pu chuq jí báq choko.
(There is some past event where) I ate chocolate.Pu chuq jí sá choko.
(There is some past event where) there was some chocolate that I ate.
But in combination with he, we can make generic claims about generic nouns:
He kuo sá koruo.
(As a rule,) some ravens are black.He kuo báq koruo.
(As a rule,) ravens are black.
In English, the simple present tense very often expresses generic claims, but we don’t even think about it. You may be tempted to translate “I like movies” into Cho jí báq kıq, but this Toaq sentence only claims an episode of you doing some movie-liking at some point in time. It’s more correct to say He cho jí báq kıq, which is properly generic.
How do generic claims work?
Generics are the subject of much debate in the world of semantics, even though people seem to have clear intuitions for them.
“Ticks carry Lyme disease” sounds true, even though only a small percentage of ticks ever carry the disease. Meanwhile, “people are right-handed” sounds intuitively wrong, even though most people really are right-handed. How can we make sense of these apparent contradictions?
Some linguists posit a “generic operator” that is cognitively primal — perhaps it can be identified with whatever cognitive function allows humans to stereotype and form biases.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers an overview of this topic in its article on Generic Generalizations, but it’s not an easy read. Whatever lies at the heart of generics, he and báq are Toaq’s way of tapping into it.