Tone

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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” → 󱚶󱛌󱚴 () “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 󱚶󱛌󱚺 () 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)”, 󱚾󱛊󱚹 () “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 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 󱚶󱛌󱚺 () 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)

    Simple Focus is a proposal intended to simplify the behavior of tones with focus particles.

    External links