Copula

If you’re a beginner wondering how to say is

Internalize the following:

In Toaq, there is no copula (a word for linking two nouns into a sentence, like the am in I am an elephant).
You just use verbs.

Verbs often come with a builtin is. For example, to say I am an elephant, you say

Elu jí da.

Elu here translates as is an elephant. No standalone word for is in sight.

Times where copulas exist and are useful

jeı – the identity copula

Sometimes, you might run into a situation where you’re talking about two things, and it turns out that those two things are the same, and you want to state that they’re the same – conflate their identities. This form of is is only meant to appear when both noun phrases refer to singular concrete entities and not classes (so the apple or this apple here but not apples).

So imagine this situation: your friend is talking about her friend, who she calls mí Jenı. You are talking about your crush, who you call mí Junı. You exchange statements about the two, both thinking that you’re talking about two different people, when at some point it turns out that you’d misheard Jennie’s name as Junie when she’d been introducing herself to you for the first time and that name has stuck in your head. So your friend is like:

Kéo ꝡa jeı mí Jenı mí Junı ꝡo!
But Junie is Jennie!
More pedantically: But “Junie” and “Jennie” refer to the same thing!

Other examples of this phenomenon include:

• the morning star is the evening star – both descriptions refer to the planet Venus
• Bruce Wayne is Batman – one is an alias of the other. Note that this is a meaningful statement: Bruce Wayne and Batman could be considered separate identities backed by the same person, so this is a statement which explicitly conflates them

In general, if you’ve got two definite noun phrases, you can conflate their identities like this. The apple I ate is not the apple you ate could be Bu jeı shámu bọchuq sûq shámu bọchuq jî. This person [I’m pointing at] is Björk [that artist you already know] could be Jeı kú mí Björk ní poq.

eq and ıq – the kind and predicate copulas

Let’s look at the definitions of the two:

eq

___ is [an instance of] ___ (usually a kind).

ıq

___ satisfies property ___.

With pronouns

The two are useful when you’ve got a pronoun pointing at a kind or property and you’d like to apply it to something. For example, imagine your friend says

He leo gıtoı jí báq toıgı da.
I [usually] try to treat kind people well.

But you’ve been feeling anxious about the fact that your friend has been treating you unkindly these recent days. So you reply, indignantly,

Kéo jeha eq jí hụ́baq dâ!
But I am one of those! [= a kind person]

And then ıq works similarly, but with properties. So for instance, if you wanted to refer to a property as hú or hụ́la, then you’d use ıq to apply it to an object (since it can’t just be turned into a verb).

Or maybe you've fronted a property, in which case you combine ıq with hóa:

Lä mıe já dâqmıq, nä ıq sía req hóa.
To live eternally is something no human does.

Quantifying over properties

One idiom is to combine ıq with quantifiers:

Joaı jí sá tuaja ru tucaı ru cheaqgı.
I'm looking for someone courageous, strong, and trustworthy.

Iq jí sía nu da!
I satisfy no such properties! (I'm nothing like that!)

Jeha ıq súq ní saq da.
You do satisfy these three. (You are those three things.)

Combining eq and ꝡë

Another idiom is to use eq with a kind and a relative clause.

báq chıeche, ꝡë faı hạoguaırıeq hóa
students that often procrastinate

Eq nháo báq chıeche, ꝡë faı hạoguaırıeq hóa.
He's one of those students that often procrastinate.

Using îq

You can create arbitrarily complex eventive adverbials using îq lä…

Kuq nháo sá de îq, lä âo, ꝡä tı súq ní, nä ca já, ꝡä roq súq.
They said something beautiful — if you were there it would've made you cry.