Experimental features

Preface

All living languages, constructed or natural, have a tendency to fluctuate organically. A conlang like Toaq is by its very nature prescribed by its author (see reference grammar). While the inherent prescriptiveness of loglangs (whatever they are) does mean that there will always be a discernible “barrier” between the official and the unofficial, this does not mean that the prescriptive standard cannot embrace features found within the community over time.

Unofficial features may improve the language’s ergonomics by experimentation, and may eventually become adopted officially if they prove useful. Others may not gain traction, or be outright rejected by the community or the language's author. In Toaq, unlike some other loglang communities, rejected features typically die out rather than form discrete dialects used by paticular members. The creator of Toaq has himself put forth several proposals with the intention that the community test them, and even some of those have not stood the test of time.

This page documents unofficial, experimental features of the language. Each particular feature is not elaborated upon beyond what is necessary to grasp the gist of it. This is not a discussion page nor a soapbox (try Discord instead), and is intended as a historical, at-a-glance document.

The Catalogue of Experimental Features

(partly extracted from, and superseding, An Experimental Catalogue of Experimental Features sỉebaq pỏ mí tỏaq ga lẻotue pö léotue, uakci^talk, circa 2019, available in your local antique shop)

Organisation

Each proposal is dated like so: 2019–2021, where the colour (and hover text) discern its status at the given time designation:

• Active
• Inactive or rejected by the community at large
• Rejected by Hoemaı
• Accepted by Hoemaı
• Official (This means that the proposal has found its way into a definitive official document such as the refgram. Does not entail larger endorsement – just greater finality.)
• Dialectal, meaning that some specific people use it regularly despite it not having a place in the official dialect

Lexical features

Redefinitions

• soq, suı officially ___ is the most [least] in property ___

  • ___ is the singular least [most] among the however many most [least] in property ___ (2021-09, xorxes et al.) – preserves the x₂ of the original definition by relying on the cardinality being expressed in the x₃. Convenient with left grouping (see below).
  • ___ satisfies property ___ the most [least] (2022-01, uakci^#8FtyCn9fR) – attributive, not predicative; suı is not an exact opposite of soq (as it is not alienans; use soq bủ appropriately)
  • ___, among ___, is the ___-est (hoaqgıo^#yXBeLlHeW) – convenient in serial usage. Will probably be the one replace the status quo given the serial verb simplification pending

• ko officially ___ is N-th amongst ___, where N = ___, in property ___

  • ___ is ___-th amongst ___ (2021, Hoemaı, probably, given the new hard cap of 3 slots)
  • ___ is the last amongst the ___ (number) most ___ (property). (2021-09, xorxes^#_s7CDnVtp)

• mu officially ___ satisfies relation ___ with the slots swapped

  • ___ satisfies the converse of relation ___; ___ and ___ satisfy the converse of relation ___ (2021?, Ntsékees^#BDcrdhZWs et al.)
  • ___ satisfies with ___ the converse of relation ___ (2019–2021, ?) – supplanted by official definition above

  NB. mu used to be a particle until it became official that it’d be a regular predicate; at the time (2019?), it was assumed to be ternary: ___ and ___ satisfy the converse of relation ___.

Determiner-like predicates

Some of the above could be turned into determiners, since they pass the tuq test: (in older Toaq,) ke tủq hỏa ≡ sa tủq hỏa ≡ tu tủq hỏa, hence tuq is determiner-like (and has been turned into a determiner with the release of Toaq γ).

• cuaq officially ___ is the idea of satisfying property ___

  • ___ is the property of satisfying property ___. 2021-2022, uakci et al.

• peı ___ is the number representing the cardinality of ___^#EW44Y4NoP (?)

Additions to the core vocabulary/lexicosemantics

• puoq^#f--unNNjd ___ is for purpose ___ (2021-09-18, Seoqrea)
• sıy^#ONzdI-jV6, fay^#spTVywkdY: ___ is an event with ___ as its source [destination] (2021-10?, uakci)

Grammatical features

Particles extending existing classes

• da

  • kâ^#tObOJdaIg – sloppy declarative illocution; does not require the speech act to be the direct cause of the proposition stated (2021-09-10, uakci)
  • shôu^#YMaThxHA- – offerative illocution (2022-02, seoqrea)
  • sou^#U6SM_6jVM – non-literal, non-assertive, “consider this” illocution (2022-02-07, magı; previously so – 2021-09-27–2022-01 uakci)

• ru

  • re – ‘iff’ (2018, Ntsékees)
  • huq – ‘not X, but rather Y’ (2018–2022, Ntsékees) – useful for corrections
  • buru – ‘not X and Y’ (?)
  • rubu – ‘X and not Y’ (2021?)

• po

  • deı^#i9fWapkku – ___, ___, ___… satisfy relation X (?–2019-08)
  • loao^#irTpBtujm – property ___ is satisfied by X (2019-02-18–2020-07–2022; hoaqgıo)
  • lo^#rT9pcYG57 – ___ is a repetition/instance of X; po-class equivalent of guo (2021-08-04–2022-02; hoaqgıo)

• mu (the now insolvent class of predicate modifiers)

  • doı^#pTN8Ky42d – forces the highest arity in a predicate (2018-11). Inactive by virtue of Hoemaı’s inclusion of doı

• hu

  • jıy^#AiF-mbYS8 – self-identification particle, I am ___, hu’s converse (2020-02-08, Hoemaı et al.)
  • so – attitudinal particle – turns following phrase into an ad-hoc interjection, such as so jảı ‘yay!’ (2018–2020?, Ntsékees)

• bı

  • bıbı, bına – signal the beginning and end of the scope of a multi-sentence prenex (2018-03, Ntsékees)

• la

  • so^#XMTv7iECL – signals non-polar question in forethought (2022-02, magı)

Make one thing work like another thing

• sa ⊂ raı (2019–2020?, uakci)

• hı, co ⊂ la (2019-03, uakci)

Predicate-like particles; predicatizers

• poı (2017-10–2021?, originally proposed by Hoemaı)

  • As a plain predicate: ___ is an event whose first-slot participant also satisfies property ___^#2487EMdnD. Requires so-called structure-preserving propositions to function.
  • As a particle: pòı and põı used to be official particles until [?] happened.

• po ∈ mı (2021-11?, uakci)

  Make po accept all kinds of phrases – like mı, mıru, unlike mea, jeı – including prepositionals (po nèo tóqfua ga kủe ‘book on the table’) as well as elliptical “phrases” (chỉ jí pó bũ ‘I think not’).

Serial predicate composition

• Head-initial composition (2019?-2021-08, spearheaded by xorxes)

  Define the serial composition relation ∘ as left-associative. This brings benefits in more complicated constructs where filling two slots one at a time is necessary.

• Numeric predicate interactions (2018-03–2022, various people, notably Ntsékees, Seoqrea, uakci)

  A restricted version of the above: define some predicates as numeral-consuming and group them tight with following numerals, e.g., ((ko shỉ) pảq).

• Predicate-consuming slots (2019-04–2020, uakci)

  Certain verbs would subordinate entire predicates, consuming all of their places. Originally motivated by jane^#SyvvCRFbE.

Numeral systems

See Ntsékees’ detailed document.

New grammatical productions

• raı go raı (2018-11–2019-07, uakci)

  Redundant to the present-day genitival serial construction.

• Focus tag maker ku (2018-11–10-10-2022, uakci)

  Originally meq; consumes a predicate to turn into a focus marker (ku class – like ku, mao, tou, juaq).

• Conjunctivizer jıoı (2019-02-20–2022, Ntsékees)

  For any binary predicate phrase hảo, jıoı hảo ga constitutes a conjunction that feeds both “branches” of a sentence to hảo. Specifically, nủ shí jıoı hảo ga gú ≡ hảo nû shí cy nû gú.

• sâ in pre-complementizer position (2021-11-09, Lynn)

  sa may precede la in a clause. Such determiners take in a content clause and in a relative clause. They quantify instances of an event – i.e., sâ pảı is ‘some friendship’, while bâq pảı is ‘instances of friendship in the abstract’.

  Canonically, bâq hảo is interpreted as the guo₂ version of lâ hảo.