Simple Focus

Simple Focus is a proposed simplifying reform of how focus and focus particles work in Toaq Delta. Hoemaı has said[1] it "looks entirely reasonable."

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 , 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 before a head always focuses the whole phrase that it projects.
    • That is: before a determiner (D) focuses the DP, before a complementizer (C) focuses the CP…
    • Basically, this means sá hao and râo níchaq and ꝡä nuo jí focus that whole underlined constituent.
  3. There is no tone-stealing. You'll never see or or ku.

Examples

Chuq jí béı ké shamu.
(No,) it was the apple that I ate.
béı precedes a determiner , 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 , so just the determiner is focused[2] (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
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.
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[3], 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 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.

If kú D (determiner) focuses a DP (determiner phrase), and kú C (complementizer) focuses a CP (complementizer phrase), then logically kú V (verb) focuses a VP (verb phrase), which is a combination of verb and object that's usually disjoint in surface-level Toaq.

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

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

Footnotes

  1. https://discord.com/channels/311223912044167168/311223912044167168/1206242053667819531
  2. To focus just the   determiner, we can use its allomorph , giving bẹ́ılo (the).
  3. Officially, words in   can't have prefixes, so this last example needs something like the Prefix Reform to be pronounceable (and then it'd be spelled kuꝡä). However, it's also not a very realistic use-case; it's presented here only to clarify the rules.