Pronoun
Toaq has relatively many pronouns. It makes distinctions that English does not:
- Clusivity: there are many words for “we” depending on who exactly is included.
- Exophora vs. anaphora: there are different pronouns for “things or people external to the text” (exophora) vs. “references to earlier phrases” (anaphora).
- Animacy: there are different third-person pronouns for animals vs. objects vs. ideas. There are 4 different anaphoric pronouns for different types of grammatical constructs.
| Pronoun | Meaning |
|---|---|
| jí | I, me |
| súq | you (singular) |
| súna | you (plural) |
| súho | you (you and they) |
| nháo | he, she, they (singular) |
| nhána | they (animate plural) |
| kóm* | it (inanimate) |
| ré* | it (abstract) |
| úmo | we (you and I) |
| íme | we (they and I) |
| áma | we (you, they, and I) |
| há | one (people in general) |
| Pronoun | Meaning |
|---|---|
| hó | he/she/they (latest grammatically animate DP) |
| máq | it (latest grammatically inanimate DP) |
| hóq | it (latest grammatically abstract DP) |
| tá | it (latest adjective-like DP) |
| áq | itself/himself/herself/themselves (clause subject) |
| chéq | each other (reciprocal with clause subject) |
(*Unofficial.)
Notes
- All living animals have the pronoun nháo in Toaq, not just humans.
- The subject (first argument) of a clause binds only the anaphoric pronoun áq, so you cannot use hó, máq, hóq… to refer to it.
- For each pronoun, there's a verb crated by affixing -bo to it that means “___ is (that pronoun)'s”.
- For example, suqbo means “yours” and tabo means “its” (belonging to the referent of tá).