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THIS IS AN OLD VERSION OF TOAQ. IF YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT TOAQ, GO HERE INSTEAD: MODERN TOAQ Tòaq Dzũ Alpha A Primer
August 2013
Table of
Contents
1.
What
is this language? 1.1.
Features 1.1.1.
What
has been implemented? 1.1.2.
What
has not been implemented, but will
be? 1.1.3.
What
will not be implemented? 1.2.
Just
another Lojban? 2.
Phonology 2.1.
Consonants 2.2.
Vowels 2.3.
The
Syllable 3.
The
Sentence 3.1.
The
Full Sentence 3.2.
Non-Sentences 4.
The
Tones 5.
Parts
of Speech / Tone Functions 5.1.
Predicates 5.1.1.
Simple
Predicates 5.1.2.
Compound
Predicates 5.1.3.
Complex
Predicates 5.2.
Terms 5.2.1.
Argument
Phrases 5.2.1.1.
The
Structure of Argument Phrases 5.2.2.
Argument
Restrictive Relative Clauses 5.2.3.
Prepositional
Phrases 5.2.3.1.
Sentence
Prepositions 5.2.3.2.
Argument
Prepositions 5.2.4.
Adverbial
Phrases 5.2.4.1.
True
Adverbs 5.2.4.2.
Vague
Adverbs 5.3.
Non-term
Sentence Restrictive Relative Clauses 5.4.
Particles 5.4.1.
Illocutionary
Operators 5.4.2.
Sentence
Prefixes 5.4.3.
Prenex 5.4.4.
Numbers 6. Conjunctions 7. Conclusion
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1. What Is This Language Toaq
Dzu (working title) is a tonal loglang (a logical
language based around predicate logic) invented by selpa'i. Work began
in
August 2013. An online parser and an online dictionary are now
available
at tools.selpahi.de:20000/parser
and tools.selpahi.de:20000/dict
respectively.
1.1 Features The
general approach used in the creation of Toaq Dzu
is the search for general mechanisms that are applicable in a variety
of
situations, as opposed to having 100 different solutions to 100
different
problems. The language is simple in its overall structure, and
completely
regular. Apart from the pronunciation of the tones, anyone should be
able to
grasp the rules of the language in a very short time. Another asset is
that it
is relatively succinct; the average Toaq Sentence is about as long as
an
English one, though there are many cases where it's noticeably shorter
than
English. And compared to Lojban, Toaq needs slightly over 50% fewer
syllables
to express the same things.
1.2 Just another Lojban? If
you are
a Lojbanist, you might expect all the things you can find in
Lojban to
be found in Toaq as well. This is not the case. The languages are
related, to
be sure, but they are both unique. Some things found in Lojban are
never going to be part of Toaq — one example being
Lojban
{kau} —
because Toaq
would have little use for them or because the author doesn't agree with
their design. There
will
not be multiple different words for connectives for different parts of
speech,
there are no direct equivalents of tanru, and there are no elidible
terminators. The formal grammar is quite a bit shorter and simpler than
Lojban's; {bo}-like patchwork mechanisms are nowhere to be
seen.
Yet, a Lojbanist can feel quite at home. Prior knowledge in one of the
other Loglandic languages is likely to facilitate the learning of Toaq,
though it's not a requirement by any means. |
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2. Phonology The
phonology of Toaq is similar to that of Lojban in that it uses much of
the same
phonemes, but differs from Lojban in that it permits fewer clusters and
that the syllable structure is a bit simpler. Toaq has two
phonemes less than Lojban. 2.1 Consonants There are 20 consonant phonemes: As
can be
seen, the "missing" consonant phonemes (from a Lojban perspective)
are /x/ and /ʔ/. On the other hand, there is an additional phoneme /ŋ/,
denoted
by the grapheme <q>. Also,
pay
extra attention to the fact that <y> is not a vowel, but
that it stands for /j/. /w/ and /j/ can only appear in a very specific spot, namely right after the initial consonant of a word. They may never begin a syllable. /h/ has [h], [x] and [χ] as allophones. 2.2 Vowels There are only five vowel phonemes. /a/ /e/ /i/ /o/ /u/ In terms of Lojban, /ə/ is "missing" as a phoneme. However, in the word "na", the /a/ can be realized as [ə] in non-sentence-final position. 2.3 The Syllable Simplified,
every syllable is of the form:
[C|CC](w|y)[V|VV](q) C
means
any consonant other than /w/ and /j/, V means any of the five vowels. CC
is one
of the predefined consonant clusters, and VV is a predefined diphthong. ()-brackets
denote optional components, | means xor, and []-brackets are merely for
grouping purposes, but don't mark their content as optional. Thus,
the
shortest syllable is:
CV
and
the
longest syllable is more or less:
CCwVVq Maximal
syllables are rather rare, however.
Every
word in Toaq is monosyllabic, so anything said
about syllables is also true for words, excepting borrowings
or
lexical compounds, which may consist of multiple syllables. The vast
majority of words, and certainly all the base words are monosyllabic.
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3. The Sentence There
are two types of sentences: Full sentences
(those that contain a predicate), and non-sentences (those that don't).
3.1 The Full Sentence The
general form of a sentence can be described with this simple formula:
<sentence-prefix><prenex><predicate><terms><illocutionary operator> Constituents marked
in bold are mandatory, the rest is optional. This means that
the most
basic of sentences is <predicate><illocutionary> For example:
Both
(3.1a) and (3.1b) have dropped subjects, which is a
common thing to do in Toaq. Anything that is obvious from context can
be
omitted. In a different context, (3.1a) and (3.1b) could have different
interpretations,
of course.
3.2 Non-Sentences A
non-sentence is a sentence without a predicate. As
such, it can occur in different shapes. The main types are:
Prenex-sentences
(containing nothing but a prenex), and term-sentences (containing
nothing but a
list of terms).
A
natural
situation in which (3.2b) occurs is as an answer to a question such
as "Where are
you going?". The questionee doesn't repeat the entire question, but
only
fills in the blank(s).
This concludes our treatment of sentence forms. |
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4. The Tones A
major
aspect of Toaq are the tones. The tones do almost all the work! They
are to
thank for a lot of the succinctness of Toaq. There
are nine tones. No, that's not a typo. The following table will show
what they
are, how to write them and what to call them.
Nine
may
seem like a lot, but it's really manageable. Chances are that your
native
language makes use of tones, and you just aren't fully aware. |
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5. Parts of Speech / Tone Functions The tones introduced in the last section all have very specific functions. Their job is it to specify what the part of speech of a given word is. Each tone corresponds to a different part of speech. The following table lists the correspondences:
5.1 Predicates Predicates
are part and parcel of any language built around predicate logic. Toaq
tries to provide regular place structure patterns.
Predicate words of similar topics have parallel place structures. For
example, predicates concerning movement are all of the form "x1 moves
to x2 from x3".
Predicates in Toaq are multigrade; each predicate word is really a family of related predicates differing in their arity. What does this mean? Let's consider the predicate word dui: dui : x1 goes to x2 from x3 This is how the dictionary lists the word, but it's actually only one of multiple dui-predicates. The word dui is really a family of predicates, one having one argument place, the other one having two, and the third one having three. We could write: dui1 : x1 goes dui2 : x1 goes to x2 dui3 : x1 goes to x2 from x3 Three different predicates by the same name, which differ by the number of arguments they relate. Which of them applies to a predication depends on how many arguments are being supplied. If only one argument is supplied, then the unary dui is used. If there are two arguments, then the binary dui, and so on. It is important to note that any predicate is always at least unary. When no arguments are overtly expressed, the predicate is unary and contains an implicit de (an anaphoric pronoun) in its first (and only) argument place. (5.1a) and (5.1b) are identical in meaning.
5.1.1 Simple Predicates Simple predicates are made up of a single predicate word carrying the 1st tone (mid-high tone).
5.1.2 Compound Predicates — Serial Compounds Predicate
words can be chained together to form serial compounds with regular
semantics. Each additional predicate word carries the 1st tone. In a
serial compound, the place structures of neighboring predicate words
merge to become a single new predicate.
Why does (5.1.2a) mean what it means? Let us decompose the sentence. tou: x1 is/does very/much x2 dae: x1 is beautiful In
a serial compound, the second argument place of the first predicate
word aligns with the first argument place of the second predicate word:
x1 is very x2 x1 is beautiful ------------------------ x1 is very - beautiful Thus, tou- dae- has the definition "x1 is very beautiful". Another example:
kai: x1 quickly does x2 dui: x1 goes to x2 from x3 Aligning and merging: x1 quickly does x2 x1 goes to x2 from x3 -------------------------------------- x1 quickly - goes to x2 from x3 Thus, kai- dui- has the definition "x1 quickly goes to x2 from x3". There
is no limit on how many predicate words can appear in a serial
compound; they only have to make sense! (5.1.2c) shows a tripartite
serial compound.
5.1.3 Complex Predicates Predicates can also be constructed by combining certain particles with other parts of speech. For example, sentences or numbers can be turned into predicates. 5.1.3.1 Names In Toaq, all names are predicates with the definition "x1 is the one called <name>", where the <name> placeholder is a string of any length of legal syllables. If the name is not natively Toaq and its form violates the rules of Toaq phonology, then it has to be adjusted to fit. Let's use the name "John". In Toaq letters, it would be written djan, or djon, depending on your accent. Neither of these forms are legal, however, because a syllable cannot end in n. Therefore, the n is replaced by q, yielding djaq (or djoq). To signal that something is a name, it has to be preceded by the particle mi.
Note that djaq- carries the 1st tone (high tone). This is because the name continues as far as the high tone reaches. This allows names to be as long as desired:
A name-predicate behaves like any other predicate. Thus, it can be used as an argument,
it can be quantified,
and it can have a relative clause attached to it:
And of course it can also be used in serial predicates and anywhere else a predicate can be used. There are no exceptions to this. 5.1.3.2 Quotations [coming soon] 5.2 Terms "Term"
is a broad category. It includes arguments,
prepositional phrases and adverbs. Anything that counts as a term can
be used
in a termset. And any two terms can be connected by a conjunction.
5.2.1 Argument Phrases Arguments
are things related by a predicate. In "I love you", "I" and
"you" are arguments filling different argument places of the
predicate "love". 5.2.1.1 The Structure of Argument Phrases The
full structure
of the argument phrase is:
<quantifier><predicate-word+high-tone><relative
clause> The
part
in bold is again mandatory, the rest optional. Thus
the
most basic argument phrase is:
Here is an example of a quantified argument phrase:
And here one with a relative clause:
And lastly one quantified and with relative clause:
(keeping in mind that this is actually quantifying over them) 5.2.2 Argument Restrictive Relative Clauses Argument
Restrictive Relative Clauses (a long name, but for a reason), are used
to
restrict the referents of an argument phrase or to restrict the domain
of
quantification. 5.2.3 Prepositional Phrases Perhaps
some
Lojbanists will see the term "preposition" and immediately conclude
that it is one of those "terrible natlang things". But really, what
Lojban (or Loglan) does by inventing bogus words like "modal" is just
fraudulent labeling. Sumtcita are prepositions to a linguist, and the
author
sees no reason to avoid this terminology. Prepositions
in Toaq are not lexicalized. Instead, they are derived directly from
any old
predicate word, by simply using one of the two prepositional tones on
them, and
then following them up with a sentence (or argument, depending on the
type of
preposition). 5.2.3.1 Sentence Prepositions Sentence prepositions carry the 6th tone (low-falling tone). The name sentence preposition comes from the fact that they must be followed by a sentence.
tuoq is a normal
predicate, "x1 happens after
x2". When used as a preposition, the first argument place (x1) is
automatically
filled by the sentence that the preposition is embedded in. Let's see
how this
works:
Here,
the main sentence is "mēo
kóq zé na", "The
man comes home". Embedded in this sentence is
the prepositional phrase "tùoq lāq na", "after work".
5.2.3.2 Argument Prepositions Argument
prepositions work exactly like sentence
prepositions, except they are to be followed by an argument phrase.
Argument
prepositions carry the 5th tone (peaking tone).
Again, the main clause is automatically supplied in the first argument place of the preposition-predicate (dji), and the following argument fills the next argument place.
Of course, the two preposition types can be combined:
5.2.4 Adverbial Phrases Toaq
implements adverbs in a consistent and formalized way. To turn any predicate word
into an adverb, use the 7th
tone (creaky-dipping tone) on it, e.g. kau →
kãu. ∃x ( ( x is an event of <proposition> ) ∧ ( x <adverbial predicate>) ) <>-brackets denote placeholders for actual Toaq propositions and predicates. Because
this is specifically designed for predicates
with an abstraction in their first argument place, many predicates that
don't
meet that criterion have alternate forms which do. For example, consider
kai = x1
does x2 swiftly As
this
wouldn't be useable as a true adverb (the first argument is not an
event), a
regularly derivable form exists. In this particular case that is:
kau = x1
(event) happens quickly.
Formally, this means: ∃x ( ( x is an event of <I ate the banana> ) ∧ ( x <happens quickly>) )
5.2.5 Termsets Termsets
allow us to make multiple claims at the same
time, when all those claims revolve around the same predicate.
Go [I quickly]&[you slowly] lake Which
means more or less the same as Argument
phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbs
can all be used as components of termsets. Any number of terms can be
used, but
the same number of terms must be on both sides of the termset
connection.
5.3 Non-term Sentence Restrictive Clauses The
prepositional phrases shown so far were all terms, and thus fell under
the
scope of any scope-introducter to their left. Non-term
sentence restrictive relative clauses are different. They are not
terms, and
they always have top scope. When multiple such relative clauses appear
in a
sentence, they all scope equally high (or are equally far to the left).
They carry the 3rd tone (dipping tone).
A (term) prepositional phrase would not have worked in place of the non-term sentence restrictive clause, as the meaning would be quite different:
5.4 Particles Particles carry the 9th tone (neutral tone). Usually, using a different tone on a particle won't have any effect (other than perhaps sounding a bit strange), though for some of them, there is a defined meaning change that goes along with such a change in tone. 5.4.1 Illocutionary Operators These operators specify the illocutionary force of the utterance. They tell you whether a sentence is an assertion, a command, a request, a question, etc. They normally carry the 9th tone (neutral tone) and are always the last word of a sentence (be it a subclause or a top-level sentence). These are the illocutionary operators currently defined:
However, there will be several more. Here is one example of each operator:
5.4.2 Sentence Prefixes Sentence prefixes are little words that are placed in front of a main-level sentence. Apart from serving as explicit sentence breaks, they also contain discursive information. For example, the sentence prefix ma indicates the returning to the main topic of discussion, while sa indicates a new topic:
Not many sentence prefixes have been created yet, but a fair number are expected to exist eventually. 5.4.3 Prenex The prenex is an optional part of the sentence. The prenex is there to place all the quantifiers of the sentence first so as to be able to more easily get the intended scope, but without having to rearrange the order of the constituents of the main sentence. Another use is as a topic marker. A sentence may have infinitely many prenexes. The function word bi marks the start of a prenex. A prenex ends with the occurence of a predicate (a predicate word carrying the 1st tone (high-mid tone)).
5.4.4 Numbers and Math Expressions (MEX) The digits 0-9 are:
Expressing numbers is simple: Just string the digits together.
Any number or mathematical expression can be used as the quantifier of an argument phrase. Quantifiers come before the argument. They can be arbitrarily complex.
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6. Conjunctions
Conjunctions are interpositions and belong to the Particle category. Thus, they carry the neutral tone. There are logical and non-logical conjunctions, though no non-logical ones have been added yet.
Conjunctions are extremely versatile. They can connect a large number of constructs: Sentences, predications, predicates, terms (arguments, prepositional phrases, adverbs), prepositions, illocutionary operators, MEX expressions and sentence prefixes. The two connected bits need to be of the same type, though any term can be joined with any term (e.g. a prepositional phrase with an adverb), so in effect almost anything can be connected.
6.1 A Note on Adjectives From a logical point of view, there is no need to treat adjectives as a distinct part of speech. Frequently, an adjective-plus-noun construct is logically equivalent to a logical conjunction.
Thus, no additional machinery for adjectives is necessary. However, there are times when a simple logical conjunction as in (6.1a) leaves something to be desired. Consider for example the phrase "a small star". A small star is still extremely big compared to most things we deal with on a daily basis. It would not be optimal to express "a small star" with the same pattern we used in (6.1a): ∃x ( x is small ∧ x is a star ) We could exclaim: "But a star is not small! Not even a small one is!" So, more precisely, when saying "small star", we mean a star that is small for a star. Toaq has a special particle (fi) to express this difference. Fi means "and" just like ru, but it has just the additional semantics we need here.
Thus, we can express both readings of "small star" unambiguously. In (6.1b), the star can reasonably be assumed to be as small as other things we'd normally describe as small. In (6.1c), we are explicitly told that it's a star that is small by the standard of stars, but it's probably still way bigger than our planet. |
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7. Conclusion Hopefully
this primer was able to give an appropriate overview
of Toaq Dzu and that it managed to spark some interest in the reader.
It
is now necessary to test the language in real world situations, and/or
to attempt some literary translations. It is reasonable to assume that
the
language — in its current state, but certainly
once the finer nuances have been worked out — is
well-equipped for either task. It offers a variety of expressive tools,
is flexible, and fares very well in terms of succinctness (besting
Lojban by a great margin and more than just keeps up with natural
languages).
Please email your feedback or questions to: selpahi at selpahi.de Your opinions may very well influence the future of Toaq Dzu. |