Small Grammar Update

An often-quoted 2020 Discord message by Hoemai announcing a grammar update. https://discord.com/channels/311223912044167168/311223912044167168/726562475012522096

A small update on the grammar: I have decided to simplify adverbials. Together with my recent conclusion that Toaq does (or should) have a TP, this solves all the previously unsolvable problems.

What this means is that there will simply be two types of adverbs, depending on where they attach. For now, the low-attaching adverbials are those formed with and , while the high-attaching ones need a non-tonal head (ıq, for instance). Low adverbs have lower scope than quantifiers and they don’t scope over each other. High adverbs work like the old adverbs. The placement of all adverbials is also simplified so that low adverbs (x) must appear either right after the verb or after the arguments (V x SO x), while high adverbs (y) are sentence-final but can be moved to be prenex (y bı V S O y).

I also looked into the possibility of merging and so that one of them could be used for high adverbs instead, but this isn’t possible without introducing a terminator, as far as I can tell (let me know if you can think of another solution).

In any case, this would put the overall progress at 90+%, so I’m going with that instead of the frustrating-to-formalize (and hard-to-use) status quo.

Current status

The low—high distinction is official as of Toaq γ and is now referred to by the moniker Type I and II adverbials. Only certain verbs (modals, bũ, tense) can function as Type II adverbs.

Discussion

A low adverb is one that only adorns the claim it's in, but doesn't stop it from being asserted. An old-school high adverb actually wrapped the whole claim in some predicate, which had the power to stop it from being asserted.

It has since been announced that there will be no actual word like “ıq”, and maybe no high adverbs at all (instead you just serialize them into the main verb, or make them the main verb).

The update means that Sủaq súq dẽ da now means "You dance (and do so) beautifully", whereas it used to be "It is beautiful that you (at some point somewhere) dance", which unintuitively did not assert any dancing.

However, this behavior will not extend to tense-like predicates, where not presently asserting something is the whole point — because "You dance and do so in-the-past-ly" is never meaningful or useful, and we probably want to keep things like bũ and pũ around.

In Lojban terms, the (default) meaning of has moved from soi'a to poi'a. Even if you're not a Lojbanist, this blog post by Hoemai about their attempt to add useful adverbs to that language might help you understand the situation of Toaq adverbs.