Pronoun

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Toaq has relatively many pronouns. It makes distinctions that English does not:

A Venn diagram of personal pronouns.
  • 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) and for “references to earlier phrases” (anaphora).
  • Animacy: there different pronouns for “he/she/it” for animals, objects, and ideas. There are even different anaphoric pronouns for different types of grammatical constructs.
Exophoric pronouns in Toaq *Unofficial but popular
Pronoun Meaning
I, me
súq you
nháo he, she, they
súo y'all (you and they)
múy we (you and I)
míy we (they and I)
máy we (you, they, and I)
kóu* it (inanimate object)
ráy* it (abstract)
Anaphoric pronouns in Toaq
Pronoun Meaning
he/she/they (latest class I animate determiner phrase)
máq it (latest class II inanimate DP)
hóq it (latest class III abstract DP)
it (latest class IV adjective-like DP)
róu it (latest rising-falling tone content clause)
kúy it (latest lu DP)
it (latest object incorporating verb DP)
fúy he/shey/they/it (latest non-fuy pronoun)
bóu it (latest demonstrative noun phrase)
áq itself/himself/herself/themselves (clause subject)
chéq each other (reciprocal with clause subject)

Notes

  • All living animals have the pronoun nháo in Toaq, not just humans.
  • The subject (first argument) of a clause only binds 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 ).