Toʼabaita language

The Independent person pronouns in Toqabaqita are for single, dual and plural pronouns for first person exclusive, first person inclusive, second and third person categories. With only a few systematic exceptions the pronominal noun phrases are used in the same position as where a lexical noun phrase would occur. Lexical nouns are marked only as singular or plural in Toqabaqita.[13]

The variants in the table marked with (1) were used exclusively by women. Of these pronouns used only by women, only the first person inclusive plural pronoun kia is used at the present time. This is specifically in the context of referring to one's home, or one's home place or one's country most commonly when away from one's home area.[16] It is notable that although there are multiple plural personal pronouns some are used more commonly than others. Some alternatives are rarely used, specifically these are the first person exclusive kamaliqa, the third person plural kiiluqa, and the second person singular qoo. Both forms of the second person plural, kamuluqa and kamaluqa are commonly used. There are phonetic associations with specific person pronouns. The dual pronouns all contain r, and the plurals all contain l, with exception of the third person plural kera. Lichtenberk suggests that this is due to their associations with the numbers rua which glosses as two, and ulu which glosses as three, and also that perhaps the plurals were previously trial or paucal forms of pronouns.[4]

In some cases where the independent pronoun and a subject marker are identical (homophones) and occur in the same sentence one will be omitted, and Lichtenberk (2008) suggests it is the pronoun that is omitted. This occurs for koro, where it is both the inclusive dual inclusive independent personal pronoun and the dual inclusive nonfuture subject marker. Similarly kulu is both the plural inclusive independent plural pronoun and the plural inclusive nonfuture subject marker. Lichtenberk believes that most speakers would avoid the repetition.[17]

In the above example the first kulu would be deleted.

The independent personal pronouns, including the third person pronouns, are used with human reference, or with spirits, very rarely with animals. They may be used with mythological animals or with an animal that is in view.

The third person pronoun can be used to specify subject topicalization, even with inanimate objects, as is:

There are numerous specific uses of the independent personal pronouns such as the third person singular pronoun being used to close off a story or a narration, in a verb-less statement:

To emphasize a pronoun the same strategies that are used with lexical nouns are also employed, but with a specific pronominal foregrounder ni.

Here the emphasis is on the persons being spoken to.

The inclusive pronouns can be used in a way to include the addressee, to index personal closeness or in a jocular sense.

Toqabaqita uses person markers with proper nouns that designate people, spirits, ogres, pets and domestic animals. They are gender differentiated, with tha used with male and ni with female people. When referring to gods and spirits and introduced Christian deities, tha is used. Tha is used to refer to all pets and domestic animals, both male and female. They are used for reference not for address, see examples 11 and 12, but even then they are not obligatory.[23]

Contrast the need for a person marker when talking about Ulufaala the named person in the narration, rather than when he arrives in person.

Tha is used with the nouns that refer to children, wela (child, young person), kale (offspring), or weleqi (adult males).

Tha is used for inanimate objects that actually have names.

In Toqabaqita there are two classes of transitive verbs, Class 1 and Class 2, and they index their pronominal direct objects differently. Class 1 transitives have object indexing suffixes only for the third person; -a for singular direct objects, -daroqa for dual categories and -da for plural objects.[28]

Toqabaqita doesn't index object status first and second person, but it is indicated by the appropriate independent personal pronoun as in (18).

Class 2 Transitive verbs have object indexing suffixes for all grammatical persons and numbers, and follow a similar pattern to the independent personal pronouns.[29]

Again there are forms that were previously used only by women, in women's speech, that are no longer used. For the third person singular there are two forms -na and -a, and their use is often phonologically determined, in particular so there are no sequences of three vowels.[29]

The -na object pronoun is used here in (20) to follow the vowel a.

Toqabaqita has subject indexing suffixes which appear on the verb and also indicate nonfuture tense, future tense, imperfect aspect, sequentiality, negative aspect, and dehortation.[30] There is some suffixes that are the same in the third person dual and plural categories. It is interesting to observe that there are no archaic women's speech forms noted by Lichtenberk.

.[31]

The simple negative occurs when negation is achieved through means of the negative subject markers alone.[40] The negative subject markers in Toqabaqita are listed above.

Syntactically, the negative subject markers occur in the verb phrase, between the irrealis marker (where present) and preverbal particles (where present). The negative subject markers always precede the verb.[41]

The negative subject markers can be used to negate a range of clause types, such as declarative and imperative, shown in (31) and (32) below.

They also occur in clauses with future- and past-time reference, as in (33) and (34) below.

The simple negation and double negation strategies are often used interchangeably, although the double negative is more common.[42] However, there is one context in which only simple negation occurs; this is where the negated verb functions as a noun modifier[43] as in example (35).

The simple negative is also used in a multi-clausal construction referred to as "negative additiveness".[44] The first clause in this construction is positive while any subsequent clauses will be negated using the negative subject markers. The underlying subjects of each clause will typically have the same reference, but the negative clause(s) will not have an expressed subject phrase.[44]

Example (36) illustrates the negative additiveness construction. The subject of both clauses is nia, third person singular, but the second clause does not contain a subject phrase.

The negative additiveness construction does, however, allow distinct subject identities when its constituent clauses involve weather expressions.[45] For example, the subject of the first verb in (37), -qaru ‘fall,ʼ is dani ‘rain.ʼ However, the underlying subject of the second verb in (37), thato ‘be sunnyʼ, is fanua ‘placeʼ[45] as illustrated in (38). Nevertheless, the only expressed subject in (37) is that of the first clause.

The second major strategy to express negation in Toqabaqita is the use of the negative verb aqi. This verb has a range of meanings, including ‘not be so, not be the caseʼ in general uses, and ‘not exist; not be availableʼ in existential constructions.[45]

Aqi diverges from typical verbal behaviour in Toqabaqita in two key ways. Firstly, it only occurs with third person singular subject markers,[45] rather than the full range of subject markers. Secondly, it typically does not take subject noun phrases.[45]

Example (39) shows the use of the negative verb to describe the non-occurrence of a prayer service.

Negative existential sentences are used to express the non-existence of an entity[47] and aqi exhibits different syntactic behaviour when used in negative existential constructions.

Firstly, where aqi normally does not take subject noun phrases, it does take a subject noun phrase when used for negative existentials. Furthermore, in negative existentials, the subject phrase follows the verb, as shown in example (40) below. This is in contrast to the standard constituent order in Toqabaqita in which the subject precedes the verb,[48] shown in the non-negative existential sentence in example (41).

Additionally, subject markers in negative existential constructions must be third person singular.[47] For example, in (42), below, it can be seen that although the subject phrase tai toqa ‘some peopleʼ is plural and human, the corresponding subject marker qe is third person singular.

The third strategy used to express negation in Toqabaqita is the double negative construction, which involves the negative verb aqi and negative subject markers in combination.[50] This construction is more common than the simple negative.[42]

Broadly speaking, the double negative involves two negative clauses used sequentially. The first of these may be considered a "mini-clause" involving a third person subject marker and the negative verb aqi. The second clause is a negative event clause that is negated using negative subject markers. The negative event clause does not include a subject phrase, however, a noun phrase corresponding to the subject of this event clause may optionally precede the mini-clause.[50]

Two subtypes of the double negative have been identified; these are referred to as the "general" and "sequential" double negative constructions respectively.

The general double negative is used to negate an event clause. It can be schematised as follows:

The NP is optional as indicated by parentheses, while the "mini-clause" qe aqi and the subsequent negative event clause are both obligatory. Example (43) shows the use of the general double negative construction without the optional noun phrase. Example (44) shows a general double negative with the subject noun phrase expressed, and example (45) shows the construction's ungrammaticality when the subject phrase occurs within the negative event clause.

The sequential double negative is different from the general double negative in its constituents, semantics, and the contexts in which it occurs.

Firstly, the subject marker in the mini-clause is the third person singular sequential marker, ka. Secondly, the sequential construction only occurs following another clause; the coordinating construction ma 'and' may be optionally used to mark the relationship between these clauses.[53] Finally, where the general double negative expresses a general negation of the event clause, the sequential double negative expresses "unfulfilled expectation."[53] In other words, it expresses that circumstances that might have been expected (based on preceding discourse) failed to come to pass.

The sequential double negative construction can be schematised thus:

Although this construction has been identified as a double negative, the negative event clause in this construction is grammatically optional. In which case, "in clauses expressing unfulfilled expectations aqi also functions as a lexical verb."[53]

Example (46) shows this construction with the negative event clause omitted.

While the negative event clause is grammatically optional, many contexts can be found where it is expressed. Examples (47) and (48) below illustrate the use of this construction with an expressed negative event clause.

Toqabaqita, like many Austronesian languages,[61] makes distinctions between what will be termed 'spheres', wherein referent entities in a speech act may be considered members of the speaker's sphere (speaker proximal), the addressee's sphere (addressee proximal), or as belonging to neither (distal).[59] A further distinction can be made that refers to a speech act simply not belonging to the speaker's sphere.[62]

There is some flexibility in terms of which sphere a referent may be categorised, starting with the most apparent:

• physical proximity i.e. a referent that is physically closer to the addressee may be considered part of their sphere as opposed to the speaker's
• if the referent is a part of a whole, the referent will form part of the sphere to which the whole belongs e.g. a speaker's arms and legs are speaker proximal
• who is involved in a state of affairs, or else who is seen as central to the state of affairs being discussed in a speech act will also determine its sphere[59]

Additionally, spatial distinctions are often combined with temporal aspects in Toqabaqita, where the time of the speech act also approximates physical proximity to a speaker.[59]

The below table summarises this:

In addition to speaker relativity encoded by spheres, spatial distinctions are also made in terms of planar and elevational dimensions in Toqabaqita.[64] Primarily, the encoding of spheres correlates to the position of referents along a medial-distal plane, which contrasts with elevational, up-down distinctions which are described using qualifying demonstratives.

Exceptions to these distinctions are evident, which are later discussed, particularly in the elevational distinction.[65] It is also worth reiterating that spatial deixis can often be semantically combined with some notion of temporal deixis, however the full extent of these functions will not be discussed due to scope.[59]

Determiner demonstratives are modifiers within noun phrases. The internal structure of a noun phrase including a determiner demonstrative is illustrated below:

${\displaystyle [[noun]determiner.demonstrative]}$[66]

Their formal criteria are markedly different to that of the other demonstrative types listed in this section. Most saliently is their restriction in terms of syntactic use. Determiner demonstratives are the only identified type which can only apply within a noun phrase. In contrast, other demonstratives can apply as or can modify predicates, verbal predicates, and some take on extra functionality in that they are able to modify even obliques.[67]

For Toqabaqita nouns, the default is always that the referent is definite, unless specified as indefinite. The absence of determiners in Toqabaqita may be attributed to its use of postnominal markers. However this lack of definite marking helps assist in obscuring its distinctions as a demonstrative.

Example 49 shows how definite determiners are unmarked. It also includes use of an addressee proximal determiner demonstrative:

Note that the demonstrative occurs prior to the object marker. Additionally, that wela, is glossed as meaning 'the child', indicating a form of definiteness about the unmarked noun. Compare this to example 50 showing the use of the indefinite article marker, incidentally also the number one, alongside the use of a qualifying demonstrative:

Note that in this example the demonstrative has fused with the postnominal marker.

While the functionality of a qualifying demonstrative is broader in scope, and includes far less syntactic restriction than that of a determiner demonstrative (further discussion later), its usage in this example shows syntactic contrast with the prenominal indefinite article. For this reason, this example of a qualifying demonstrative is mentioned in this section, and shows that although the determiner demonstrative on its own can stray into conceptions of article functionality, it is, by formal criteria, a member of the demonstrative class.

When comparing features cross linguistically, the issue of comparability is often that there are no one-to-one correlations between languages.[56] Combining universal criteria from both Himmelmann[56] and Diessel,[57] there are arguments for and against including what are called here "determiner demonstratives" as a type of demonstrative as opposed to a type of determiner or article. The name for this type of functionality in Toqabaqita itself hints that they possess flavours from both camps.

See below for a full list of determiner demonstratives and their meanings:

Note that the numbers 2, and 3 in parentheses in the table exist to differentiate the addressee and the distal, since in English, there is no comparable distinction.

Determiner demonstratives can all function as exophoric markers, i.e. whose meaning refers to reference beyond the discourse, however only some may be used endophorically, i.e. referencing either an item previously mentioned (anaphoric) or that will be mentioned later in the discourse (cataphoric). There is further debate in typological linguistics as to whether endophorically referencing demonstratives are perhaps a different subgroup, in contrast to exophoric functionality which is widely considered core to the definition of demonstratives.[56][58] Since determiner demonstratives encode such a strong sense of spatial deixis in Toqabaqita, they have been included in this section, despite the increased level of syntactical restriction in typological formal criteria pertaining to its usage.

There are two phonologically varying forms of speaker proximal determiners; naqi and neqe; and qeri, which more commonly encodes temporal deixis, however can include some spatial deixis.

Speaker proximal determiners encompass speech acts which refer to the speaker sphere.

This is most straightforward in its use to signify the referent's proximity to the speaker as in example 51:

However the speaker proximal also applies to speech acts where the referent is a part of the speaker's whole e.g. if the speaker was referring to a body part in the speech act (see example 52).

If the referent is the speaker's location, or an area that includes the speaker's location, the speaker proximal is also used. Note that in example 53, the less common variant, neqe, is used, however the meaning is the same and naqi, would be exactly interchangeable.

Speaker proximal determiners can also be used when the referent involves the speaker's state of affairs, or else, that which refers to something within the speaker's vicinity (see example 54).

When the addressee proximal determiner is used, qena, the referent, or noun phrase to which qena modifies, is within the addressee sphere.

Example 55 illustrates physical proximity to the addressee:

Examples 56 and 57 demonstrate the addressee proximal forms used where the referent is part of the whole:

and lastly where the referent refers to the addressee's location or state of affairs:

As can be seen, the nature of the addressee proximal form also means it is often used in imperative forms.

These are used when the referent belongs to neither the speaker's nor the addressee's spheres, provided that the referent is not significantly displaced vertically with respect to the deictic centre. The distal determiner appears in three phonological variants, lakoo, lokoo, and labaa, however to some speakers, labaa applies to relatively great distances, as opposed to lakoo, and lokoo for short distances. Semantic nuance aside, the three forms are nonetheless grammatically interchangeable overall. Example 58 demonstrates the most common form, lokoo, in use, however it would be perfectly grammatical to substitute lokoo with either lakoo or labaa.

There is yet one more type of determiner demonstrative, baa, which signals the absence of the referent from the speaker's sphere.[73] Unlike the other determiner demonstratives, baa, signals exophoric use which describes the absence rather than the location of a referent. Essentially, the use of baa doesn't tell us where the referent is, rather where it is not (the speaker's sphere). It is used to refer to entities which were once in the speaker's sphere, but which are no longer, for instance, it is commonly used in questions asking for where things are (see example 59).

Note that in example 59, baa has fused with the subject marker.

Although not discussed here, baa also signals temporal deixis.[75]

In Austronesian languages, the speaker and addressee sphere distinctions are common, and languages will usually also include one other sphere, that of the distal or the absence.[58] What is interesting about Toqabaqita is that it includes all four.[55]

There are two qualifying demonstratives, together used to signal vertical displacement from the deictic centre:[76]

While these qualifying demonstratives can also indicate temporal deixis,[77] its discussion here will be limited to how spatial deixis is signalled.

There is some overlap in terms of formal criteria with the determiner demonstratives in that the qualifying demonstratives also occur as part of the noun phrase. However, only qualifying demonstratives may take third person pronouns as the head, as in example 60:[69]

Note that, the qualifying demonstrative, loo, has fused with the subject marker.

Another formal difference which distinguishes the qualifying demonstratives from the determiner demonstratives is that the former are able to occur with indefinite, but referential noun phrases.[69] In these cases, the qualifying demonstrative needs to specify indefiniteness, otherwise the default is definite. Recall example 50 used in earlier discussion. This demonstrates how an indefinite head can be modified by a qualifying demonstrative:

This example also shows the use of a pronominal indefinite article, as well as a postnominal demonstrative.

Qualifying demonstratives are also able to be used alongside a determiner demonstrative when used anaphorically, and in these cases, both modify the same head noun.[78] The qualifying demonstrative occurs after the determiner, as in the example 61:

It is clear the formal criteria used to distinguish qualifying demonstratives encompasses greater syntactic possibility, however its similarities to determiner demonstratives still attest to its typological classification as a demonstrative.

These can be divided into two types. presentative adverbs, and general locative adverbs. Together they identify the location of an entity in space, or the presence, existence of an entity at a location.[80]

Locative demonstrative adverbs make distinctions between speaker and addressee spheres as well as elevation:

Note that the speaker proximal form, neq(e), also functions as an emphatic marker, however this function will not be discussed here.[81]

Despite diverging in formal criteria to the aforementioned demonstrative types, locative adverbs remain a form of demonstrative due to their function in distinguishing spatial deixis.[56] Furthermore, if we broaden our definition of demonstrative to beyond our conceptions of its functionality in English, we can conceive that it is possible for parts of speech other than the noun phrase, to take on demonstrative, deictic marking.

These are used when the referent is visible at that location, and can be pinpointed.[82]

Example 62 shows the speaker and addressee proximal presentative adverbs used in conversation between two speakers:

They are able to form part of a predicate, or as the predicate itself, the latter tending to be of emphatic use and often accompanied by relatively strong stress and higher pitch.[84] This formal criterion demarcates it from previously discussed demonstrative typology.

Example 63 illustrates how the presentative locative demonstrative adverb, neq(e), is used to modify the predicate. in this case in the relative clause, rather than the subject noun of the whole phrase, bauta:

Note that locative adverbs are not part of the noun phrase, and so they are not, for instance, followed by a postnominal marker, which has been a criterion of both determiner and qualifying demonstratives (see example 64).

While determiners are confined in use as part of a noun phrase, the use of the presentative locative demonstrative adverbs is far less restricted.[82] It can also be used with possessor phrases, where the determiner may be used alongside.

The presentative adverb may also take on an oblique object, as in example 65:

These are applicable when the entity or location referent is not visible, in contrast to the presentative adverb.[87] Likely due to this function, there are no speaker or addressee approximal forms.

Example 66 shows labaa in use:

General locative adverbs also show some flexibility in which clausal phrases they are able to modify, for instance they are able to capture prepositional phrases as seen in example 67:

There are other less common applications for general locative adverbs, however which are not included here due to scope restraints.[89]

These encode spatial/temporal deixis with an emphatic-identifying function, of which there are three members.[90] They are listed below alongside their spatial meanings:[91]

• neri (speaker proximal)
• nena (non speaker proximal)
• nabaa (past temporal significance, sphere is irrelevant)

These are clause level constituents and occur clause finally. While their use does include functions beyond spatial deixis, discussion here will be limited due to scope.[92] For the same reasons, nabaa, although listed to provide an accurate summary, is not further discussed here.[93]

Example 68 shows the use of both neri and nena:

In this case, the speaker changes from neri to nena which is also an imperative (see example 69).

Stylistic choices are also possible in that it is grammatical to choose a situational adverb depending on how the speaker wishes to contextualise the speech act. For instance, neri, the speaker proximal, can be used to describe an addressee's situation if that same referent also impacts the speaker. This could be due to physical proximity, however could be more abstract, as in example 70 which involves a mother reprimanding her children in response to an earlier event which could have impacted all of the, including the mother herself, and thus invoking the speaker proximal: