Verb phrase

Revision as of 17:24, 9 March 2022 by Laqme (talk | contribs)

In Toaq, a verb phrase (jeotoame) is any phrase with the same grammatical behavior as a single verb.

Toaq is built around verbs, so verb phrases are everywhere. All of the tones actually operate on verb phrases: falling creaky tone doesn't just turn a verb into an adverb, it turns a verb phrase into an adverb phrase.

A verb phrase is either:

  • A single-word verb. (See that article for why "young" is a verb in Toaq.)
    • Nỉo nháo da. "They are young."
  • An object-incorporating verb (po, mea, jeı) followed its incorporated object noun phrase, optionally terminated by ga.
    • Mẻa chíeme nháo da. "They are among the class."
  • A name verb (mı, mıru) followed by a name phrase, optionally terminated by ga.
    • Mỉ Sảra nháo da. "They are Sara."
  • A free relative construction: lu … (ky), where the phrase's resumptive pronoun hóa is the argument of the verb phrase.
    • Lủ sẻa hóa dãqleı ky nháo da. "They are someone who rarely rests."
  • A serial verb, made by juxtaposing a non-serial verb phrase with another verb phrase.
    • Jỏaı kảqshıa nháo da. "They seek glasses."
    • Pỏ súq ga chỉetuache nháo da. "They are your teacher".
      • The common pỏ X ga Y "is X's Y" construction is a serial verb of pỏ X ga ("is X's") and Y. The ga is mandatory in this position, otherwise súq chỉetuache would be interpreted as a serial verb conjugated in rising tone.

When tone-conjugating a verb phrase, only the falling tone on the first word changes to the new tone:

rising tone rising-creaky tone falling tone rising-falling tone
nío
the young one
nïo hóa cy
…who is young
nỉo
is young
nîo (súq) cy
that (you) are young
méa chíeme
the one among the class
mëa chíeme hóa cy
…who is among the class
mẻa chíeme
is among the class
mêa chíeme (súq) cy
that (you) are among the class
mí Sảra
(the) Sara
mï Sảra hóa cy
…who is Sara
mỉ Sảra
is Sara
mî Sảra (súq) cy
that (you) are Sara
lú sẻa hóa dãqleı ky
the one who rarely rests
lü sẻa hóa dãqleı ky hóa cy
…who is someone who rarely rests[1]
lủ sẻa hóa dãqleı ky
is someone who rarely rests
lû sẻa hóa dãqleı ky (súq) cy
that (you) are someone who rarely rests[2]
jóaı kảqshıa
the glasses-seeker
jöaı kảqshıa hóa cy
…who seeks glasses
jỏaı kảqshıa
seeks glasses
jôaı kảqshıa (súq) cy
that (you) seek glasses
  1. It's simpler to just say sëa hóa dãqleı, so this one isn't very useful.
  2. Here, too, it's simpler to just say: sêa súq dãqleı.