Animacy: Difference between revisions

Any noun phrase belongs to one of nine '''classes''', each with its own word for “he/she/they/it” that refers back to the most recent noun phrase belonging to that class. (This system of anaphoric pronouns is the ''only'' place in Toaq where this animacy distinction comes up, so the classes are known varyingly as '''animacy classes''', '''anaphora classes''', or '''pronominal classes'''.)

Toaq's pronouns work the same way: if you describe a person as {{t|sa sảo}} (“someone big”), the appropriate pronoun to refer to them later in the sentence is {{t|tá}} (“it_adj.”), because {{t|sảo}} is an adjective. It's not correct to use {{t|hó}}, because that's the pronoun for animate ''verbs'', not animate referents.

| 0 || ({{t|raı}} alone) || ({{t|ráı}}) || {{t|sa rảı}} || something

| I || Animate verbs || {{t|hó}} || {{t|sa pỏq}} || a person

| II || Inanimate verbs || {{t|máq}} || {{t|sa jỉo}} || a building

| III || Abstract verbs || {{t|hóq}} || {{t|sa sỉo}} || an idea

| IV || Adjective verbs || {{t|tá}} || {{t|sa dẻ}} || something pretty

| V || {{tone|5}} clauses || {{t|róu}} || {{t|dûa jí sıa rảı}} || that I know nothing

| VI || {{t|lu}} phrases || {{t|kúy}} || {{t|lú tảo jí hóa}} || what I do

| VII || {{t|po}} phrases || {{t|zé}} || {{t|pó sa gỉ}} || a good one's

| VIII || Personal pronouns || {{t|fúy}} || {{t|nháo}} || they

| IX || Demonstratives || {{t|bóu}} || {{t|ní}} || this

=== Which is the "main" class? ===

How do we determine the animacy class of a DP like {{t|sa dẻ pỏq}} — a [[serial]] of a class-IV and a class-I word?

An [https://discord.com/channels/311223912044167168/889589074011230230/926472970518548490 unofficially proposed rule] seems to boil down to: "use the first non-class-IV word's class, if possible; otherwise use class IV".