Simple Focus

Simple Focus is a proposed simplifying reform of how focus and focus particles work in Toaq Delta.

Official rules

More on this in the refgram
Syntax: Focus

Officially, focus particles "steal the tone" of heads they attach to:

(181) Chuq jí béı shamu.
(No,) it was the apple that I ate.

(183) kû rao kíachaq
on Monday

Does sentence (181) focus just "apple", or "the apple"? There is a paragraph saying

When attached to a head, the entire phrases projected by the head receives focus.

But then in this example, focus is attached to a V, and yet it isn't the whole VP that receives focus:

(182) Leo kụrıatua jí héqma.
I'm trying to open the container.

Proposed simplified rules

These rules are phrased in terms of kú, but they apply equally to any focus particle (béı, máo, tó, shúq…):

1. Attaching a focus prefix ku- to a single word always focuses just that word.
2. Placing a focus word kú before a head always focuses the whole phrase that it projects.
   • This means kú sá hao and kú râo níchaq and kú ꝡä nuo jí focus that whole constituent.
3. There is no tone-stealing. You'll never see kû or kü or ku.

Examples:

Chuq jí béı ké shamu.
(No,) it was the apple that I ate.
béı precedes a determiner ké, so the whole DP is focused.

Chuq jí ké bẹıshamu.
(No,) it was the apple that I ate.
beı- is prefixed onto shamu, so just that verb is focused.

Chuq jí bẹ́ıshamu.
(No,) it was the apple that I ate.
Again, beı- is prefixed onto shamu. The result is wrapped in .

Chuq jí bẹ́ıke shamu.
(No,) it was the apple that I ate.
beı- is prefixed onto ké, so just the determiner is focused (e.g. the apple as opposed to an apple).

Leo kụrıatua jí héqma.
I'm trying to open the container.
ku- is prefixed onto rıatua, so just the verb is focused.

kú râo kíachaq
on Monday
kú precedes the Adjunct head , so the AdjunctP râo kíachaq is focused.

kụ̂rao kíachaq
on Monday
ku- is prefixed onto the verb rao, so just that verb is focused. The result is wrapped in .

Dua nháo kú ꝡä chıeche jí.
(No,) she knows that I'm a student.
kú precedes the complementizer ꝡä, so the entire CP is focused.

Dua nháo kụ̈ꝡa chıeche jí.
(No,) she knows that I'm a student.
ku- is prefixed onto ꝡä, so just the complementizer is focused (e.g. that I'm a student as opposed to whether I am one).

What about V?

If we follow the rule about kú to its logical conclusion, we end up with kú verb meaning something a little surprising — it's probably unintuitive if you don't know Toaq syntax.

Leo kú rıatua jí héqma.
I'm trying to open the container.
kú precedes the verb rıatua, so the VP rıatua … héqma is focused.

It's good to have an interpretation for this placement, but it might be better to limit the placement of kú to only those heads/phrases that have more obvious boundaries.