Chíetoaı kọcı – Lesson 6

Joaı déo kúne da. ①	The child is looking for the dog.
Kúne bï, tı hó hí raı móq, hóı máma? ② ③	The dog, where is it, mother?
Kúne bï, nıe hó kúa da.	The dog, it’s in the room.
Hí kua? ④	Which room?
Núokua. ⑤	The bedroom.
Bu nıe hó núokua da. ⑥	It’s not in the bedroom.
Nuı hó da… Ma tıa hó sófa móq?	It’s small… Is it behind the sofa?
Bu tıa hó sófa da.	It’s not behind the sofa.
Fa súq tú kua ba. ⑦	Go to every room.
Kíao bï rıa máq da, hóı máma!	The door, it’s open, mother!
Oaı! Ma buı kúne móq? Joaı úmo ba. ⑧	Uh-oh! Is the dog outside? Let us go looking.

Notes

kune “dog” is a root word with more than one syllable. We met another such root in Lesson 4. An interesting point worth appreciating here again is that the words for “dog” and “apple” are verbs in Toaq. kune means “to be a dog”, shamu “to be an apple”. The noun meanings are derived from these verbs, either via a rising tone (kúne “the dog(s)”, shamu “the apple(s)”) or via sá (sá kune “some dog(s)”, sá shamu “some apple(s)”) or tú (tú kune “every dog”, tú shamu “every apple”).
hóı is a so-called vocative marker. It is placed in front of a noun and indicates that the noun is the party being addressed by the speaker. Here, it is mother (máma) who is being addressed.
The particle bï is a topic marker. It’s preceded by a noun in the rising tone, and establishes that noun as the topic of the sentence. In English, this is sometimes expressed via phrases like “As for the dog, …”, or “About the dog, …”. The topic should be definite: that is, it should have on it instead of sá or tú before it. If you want to move a sá or tú noun to the front of the sentence, use nä as we saw in Lesson 5.
hí X can generally be translated as “which X” or “what X”. Grammatically, it works just like sá and tú. hí kua “which (thing that is a) room”, hí kune “which dog”. In the previous lesson, hí raı was given as simply “what”. This is because the verb raı means “to be something”, so hí raı means “which something”, which really just amounts to “what”.
nuokua “bedroom” is a compound whose components are nuo “sleep” and kua “room”. You should have no problem remembering that it means “bedroom”, since that’s the room which is mainly used for sleeping.
bu “not” is placed right before the verb.
ba is what turns this sentence into a command.
úmo is another pronoun. It means “we”, but specifically refers to the speaker and the listener, as opposed to the speaker and some third party.

Exercises

Translate:

Nuo déo rú máma da. “The child and the mother are asleep.”
Ma nuı sófa móq? “Is the sofa small?”
Sá kune nä nıe hó núokua da. “Some dogs, they are in the bedroom.”
Joaı kúne hí raı móq? “What is the dog looking for?”
Kuq déo mó « Sá poq nä joaı hó súq, hu máma » teo da. “The child says ‘Some person, they are looking for you, Mother’.”

Fill in the blanks:

“What’s behind the sofa?” Tıa hí raı sófa móq?
“As for the dog, the dog is small.” Kúne bï nuı kúne da.
“As for those who sleep, they are in the bedroom.” Núo bï nıe hó núokua da.
“Let us eat some apples.” Chuq úmo sá shamu ba.
“Which dog are you looking for?” Hí kune nä joaı súq hó/kúne móq?