Tone

This page has been updated for Toaq Delta. See Archive:Tone for the Toaq Gamma version.

Toaq is a tonal language. It has tones! That is: saying a word with a rising or falling vocal intonation, for example, makes for a difference in meaning.

Function of tones

Toaq has mostly grammatical tone: when you change the tone of a word, its grammatical function changes (for example 󱚶󱚴 (de) “is beautiful” → 󱚶󱛌󱚴 (dê) “beautifully”).

This is in contrast to lexical tone, like in Chinese: there, when you change the tone of a syllable, it becomes a different word (lexeme) entirely. For example 西 xı̄ “west” → 媳 xí “daughter-in-law”.

Toaq has a little bit of lexical tone, too, limited to particles: 󱚶󱚺 (da) and 󱚶󱛌󱚺 (dâ) are two different lexemes.

The four tones

1. The falling tone is used for verbs, predicatizers, and adjectives. (󱚴󱚺 (fa) “goes”, 󱛘󱛄󱛊󱚲󱛍󱚴󱛙 󱛃󱚹 (kúe gı) “the good book”, — 󱚳󱛃 󱛘󱛄󱛊󱚺󱚷󱛃󱛙 (… po káto) “… of the cat”)
2. The rising tone is used for nouns, determiners, and pronouns. (󱛘󱛄󱛊󱚺󱚷󱛃󱛙 (káto) “the cat”, 󱚺󱛊󱚺 󱛘󱛄󱚺󱚷󱛃󱛙 (sá kato) “some cat(s)”, 󱚾󱛊󱚹 (jí) “I/me”)
3. The low glottal tone is used for complementizers and clause-initiating words. (󱛁󱛋󱚺 󱛃󱚹 (ꝡä gı) “that it’s good”)
4. The rising-falling tone is for adverbial adjuncts. (󱚴󱛌󱚴󱛎󱚹 (fêı) “angrily”, 󱚵󱛌󱚹󱛍󱚴 󱛘󱚷󱛊󱚹󱚺󱛎󱚹󱛙 (nîe tíaı) “inside the box”)

Interaction with parts of speech

This table shows how the four tones interact with Toaq's parts of speech:

	Falling tone	Rising tone	Glottal tone	Rising-falling tone
Verb	Verbal complex Serial tail Adjective Determiner complement	Bound variable		Adjunct
Pronoun		Argument		Incorporated object
Determiner		Argument		Incorporated object
Complementizer	Speech act complement		Subclause head	Incorporated object
Interjection	Interjection	Inquiry		Expression of empathy
Speech act particle	Lexical tone (i.e. 󱚶󱚺 (da) and 󱚶󱛌󱚺 (dâ) are simply different lexemes)
Focus particle	Steals tone from head if possible, otherwise rising tone
Conjunction	Highest precedence	Default precedence		Second highest precedence

Interaction with focus particles

Tone on focus particles is a little nuanced. If you focus something carrying a tonal inflection, like the in 󱛘󱚰󱛊󱚺󱛎󱛃󱚾󱚺󱛙 (máoja), then the focus particle "steals" the tone. But if the word is uninflected (in the "default tone" for its part of speech), the focus particle stays in its default rising tone form.

Here are some examples of how this works for each of the focusable parts of speech:

	Falling tone	Rising tone	Glottal tone	Rising-falling tone
Verb	Uninflected, must use prefix form to avoid conflict with rising tone 󱛄󱚲󱛒󱚻󱚹󱛍󱚺󱚷󱚲󱛍󱚺 (kụrıatua)	󱛄󱛊󱚲 󱛘󱚰󱚺󱛎󱛃󱚾󱚺󱛙 (kú maoja)		󱛄󱛌󱚲 󱛀󱛃󱛎󱚹 (kû shoı)
Pronoun		Uninflected 󱛄󱛊󱚲 󱚾󱛊󱚹 (kú jí)		󱛄󱛌󱚲 󱚾󱛊󱚹 (kû jí)
Determiner		Uninflected 󱛄󱛊󱚲 󱚲󱛊󱚺󱛂 󱛘󱚵󱚺󱚱󱛙 (kú báq nam)		󱛄󱛌󱚲 󱚲󱛊󱚺󱛂 󱛘󱚵󱚺󱚱󱛙 (kû báq nam)
Complementizer	Unattested		Uninflected 󱛄󱛊󱚲 󱛁󱚺󱛋 (kú ꝡä)	󱛄󱛌󱚲 󱛁󱚺󱛋 (kû ꝡä)

One exception is the event accessor verb 󱚴󱛋 (ë), which carries an inherent glottal tone due to being both a verb and a subordinator.

	Falling tone	Rising tone	Glottal tone	Rising-falling tone
Event accessor verb		󱛄󱛊󱚲 󱚴󱛋 󱚰󱚺󱚻󱚺󱛎󱛃 (kú ë marao)	Uninflected, must use prefix form to avoid conflict with rising tone 󱛄󱛋󱚲󱛒󱚴 󱚰󱚺󱚻󱚺󱛎󱛃 (kụ̈'e marao)	󱛄󱛌󱚲 󱚴󱛋 󱚰󱚺󱚻󱚺󱛎󱛃 (kû ë marao)

External links

• Refgram: Tones