I'm still pretty excited about figuring out what a Toaq Epsilon could look like. After learning from Eatoaq, it seems some of my original wishlist items, such as a fully generative treatment of adjuncts and conjunctions, are probably out the window. But I'm glad to see a number of the other ideas there being cautiously accepted into usage today—this feels like progress. So even if Eatoaq became a bit overgrown with tonal morphemes, I'm happy that it got to set the tone for the ambitions Epsilon might have.
I realize even more now that there's probably a lot of unspoken aesthetic constraints going into Toaq's current design that I don't know about. But, in the spirit of just throwing some more ideas into the pot and exploring the technical possibilities, I'd like to share another, bolder vision for a new Toaq. It's called Koamtoaq, and its motto is: zero complementizers and zero added determiners!
Tone scheme
There are four tones: falling (de /dɛː˥˩/), rising (dé /dɛː˩˧/), low (dẻ /dɛː˨˩/), and high (dē /dɛː˦˥/). As usual, verbs and nouns take the falling tone, and pronouns and determiners take the rising tone.
Poq jí.
I am a person.
Jara tú poq.
Every person ran.
But here already comes a radical change: nouns don't have to be used with a determiner, they can also appear as bare nouns. In other words, the determiner báq is unspoken.
Marao poq.
People danced.
He kırı gochıq.
Cats are cute.
You can create adjectives using the low tone, and adverbs or prepositions with the high tone.
Marao poq dẻ.
Beautiful people danced.
Marao poq dē.
People danced beautifully.
And a content word in the rising tone becomes a name pronoun, just as in Eatoaq.
Nıq Kóıtıeq.
Koitieq is new.
Jara poq. Tea póq.
People ran. They were scared.
Objects
The key to Koamtoaq's power, how its sentences can remain monoparsing and self-segmenting without using many particles, is this: the direct objects of content words carry a hiatus, written with an underdot.
He cho jí gọchıq.
I like cats.
Jara nháo fā nạ́omı.
He ran to the ocean.
The hiatus always precedes the stressed part of the syllable, which carries the real tone contour. So a falling tone word with hiatus is pronounced with a rising-falling contour, and a rising tone word with hiatus is pronounced with a falling-rising contour.
Word order can be either VSO or VOS. Determiners and pronouns carrying a hiatus may be pronounced with a low glottal tone, when unstressed.
Luı tao jí sị́a raı.
I've done nothing.
Maı sụ́q jí.
I love you.
Prefixes are still pronounced with a glottal stop, but they're set apart from the stem with a colon rather than an underdot.
Bu mu:foaq núofua.
The bed is not uncomfortable.
Subclauses
Since there are no complementizers, the frames of content words become more important. A content clause can appear directly in subject or object position as long as the predicate's frame allows it. The frame also determines whether the clause is to be interpreted as a proposition, a property, or an event predicate.
Mıu jí gı̣rı hóq.
I think it's wonderful.
Deq jí gạokoı já mẹı.
I am capable of climbing mountains.
Bıe rẹ́oqrıao, sho laqcıa fēaojua tú raı.
After dusk, everything became eerily quiet.
Whenever a subclause appears in a non-final position within its parent clause, it is followed by the word na.
Duo jọaı súq gụ́arurıche na, duaguıq jí kụı hị́ raı tı hó Sụ́omıgua rāo fị́ajoa nha.
While you search for the ambassador, I'll look into why he was in Finland last week.
Nouns such as juna, sıo, teoq, faq, and e:leo refer to content-bearing entities. You can attach a clause to them (in the falling tone, with a hiatus) to specify their content. These "content-bearing nouns" can then be placed in any argument position, even ones that don't normally expect a content clause.
Suoı ké sıo shọ galejı súq.
The idea of you becoming a professor is exciting.
Rue ké e:leo dạna já rụ́aı.
The attempt to defeat the king was weak.
Shue rıeq bo:cua ké teoq, tı̣ Tóaqgua kēao hị́ rıaq.
The question of where exactly Toaqgua is located continues to evade us.
Finally, we come to relative clauses. They couldn't get any simpler: they use the low tone, just like adjectives.
Nheje bo ríaq sị́a raı chỏ họ́a jí.
The shop turned out to have nothing that I liked.
Serials
Content words that can form serials are known as auxiliary verbs. Some of these verbs, such as du, kuqnu, and fuı, can never appear on their own; they may only be used as an auxiliary.
Kuqnu juna ráı.
It's alleged to be true.
Joaı úmo chạteı fủı lıeı ba.
Let's search for a way that's easy to follow.
For other, transitive verbs, using them as an auxiliary is said to be a shortcut for a content clause with an implied subject. The exact paraphrase, whether the subject of the content clause is the gap pronoun já or the same subject as in the outer clause, depends on the verb.
Shao mıe jí.
I want to live.
Shao jí mı̣e jí.
I want myself to live.
Ma zaı sho galejı súq?
Do you hope to become a professor?
Ma zaı súq shọ galejı súq?
Do you hope you will become a professor?
Chıe naolıaı jí.
I learn to swim.
Chıe jí nạolıaı já.
I learn to swim.
You can control the scope of the object by choosing whether to front it.
Aojaı juq sạ́ chaı jí.
I would like to get some tea.
Aojaı juq jí sạ́ chaı.
There's some tea that I would like to get.
Adverbs
Verbs that select for events or that don't particularly care about the type of their object are said to form low adverbs; they modify the event predicate of the lowest verb in the serial.
Naı taoshao reum nhána rụ́olua rāo lụ́echaq.
They now intend to perform the play on Wednesday.
Verbs that select for propositions, as well as polarizers, modals, adverbs of quantification, and focus adverbs, are said to form high adverbs; they wrap the entire clause of the highest verb in the serial.
Sho zao jí hụ́ gıaqche kūı bụq:cho paı jị́ họ́.
I came to know that musician because a friend of mine loves him.
Pua poanıe kẹ́ jıo tú poq bū.
Everybody did not enjoy being trapped in the building.
But regardless of whether an adverb is high or low, the grammar and the tones follow exactly the same patterns: falling tone for fronted adverbs, and high tone for adverbs in the post-field.
Ao cho nị́ lua súq.
You would like this story.
Ao zụdeq jí Tọ́aqzu na, jaı jí.
If I were able to speak Toaq, I would be happy.
Jaı jí āo zụdeq jí Tọ́aqzu.
I would be happy if I were able to speak Toaq.
A few other adpositions follow these same patterns—for instance, the vocative particle hoı, the topic marker bı, and the pendent phrase marker na.
Hoı pạ́ı, tı hị́ raı súq?
Tı hị́ raı súq, hōı pạ́ı?
Friend, where are you?
Kẹ́ ıjose bı, cuakuq nháo tō gı̣.
Cuakuq nháo, kẹ́ ıjose bī, tō gı̣.
As for the presentation, she had only good things to say.
Sị́a raı na, shoe jí kụq súq rạ́ı.
Shoe jí, sị́a raı nā, kụq súq rạ́ı.
For no value of X do I allow you to say X.
Fragments
Any noun, pronoun, or determiner phrase can stand on its own as a sentence fragment, simply by carrying a hiatus.
Lạ́nao
Lanao
Ạrane ꝡo!
Spider!
"But what about observatives, verb fragments, adverb fragments?" Right, Eatoaq supported those, but I've come to realize two things: first of all, that it's important for fragments to be as syntactically efficient as possible (they should never be more verbose than the non-fragment alternative), and second of all, that bare nouns really aren't so different from observatives, when you think about it. So this time around I've kept just the one type of fragment and avoided creating any tonal morphemes.
Agreement
It's worth noting that Koamtoaq, in fact, uses no tonal morphemes at all. Instead, content words receive tones based on agreement with the grammatical structure to which they belong. This has the effect that the adjective tone and adverb tone always go directly on the verb, skipping over any modal, polarity, tense, aspect, or degree words that may come before it.
Laoshue árane daı tīa kẹ́ nam.
The spider waits, perhaps behind the bread.
Tısha jí kẹ́ jearıaq luı rảqkuq họ́a hú paı jị́.
I arrived at the market which that friend of mine had mentioned.
These tones even skip over topics and pendent phrases. A hiatus added to a content clause behaves similarly—it lands on the main verb of the content clause. Thus we get the following contrast:
Shoe jí, sị́a raı nā, kụq súq rạ́ı.
I allow—for no value of X—you to say X.
Shoe jí sị́a raı na kụq súq rạ́ı.
I allow there to be no value of X such that you say X.
Thoughts?
The price of entry for this design (that hiatus now shows up everywhere) should be obvious. But it really does bring quite a number of exciting things to the table:
Bare nouns
Bare fragments
Bare subclauses
Self-segmenting sentences
Unified patterns for low and high adverbs (which didn't come so easily for Eatoaq)
A form for "fronted low adverbs" (as in Rao nụ́aq, ruqshua; really just a verb with a fronted object) that requires no special syntactic or semantic handling
A fix for the shao serialization gotcha
No tonal morpheme hacks
Are these results worth it? Is it practical for Toaq to phonologically distinguish subjects and objects? You tell me. Maybe this vision hides some insights as to how we could achieve some of the same results with less radical changes.