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Register & Colloquial Forms

Tonesu isn't one voice. The same grammar serves formal proceedings, casual conversation, and institutional record-keeping — but the choices speakers make shift across contexts. This page shows what changes and what stays fixed.

Formal vs casual: polar questions

The clearest register marker is how you ask a yes/no question.

Formal

to-si  —  la-tu  ki  pa-li-pu  ta-ti-be
Are you going to the city soon?

to-si — fronted before the proposition. Neutral, explicit, unambiguous. Appropriate in any context.

Casual

la-tu  ki  pa-li-pu  ta-ti-be  ku?
Going to the city soon?

ku replaces to-si — and moves to clause-final position. Same question, different social signal. ku says: I know you, this is informal, we're peers.

The rule

Both are grammatically correct. Neither is "more correct." The choice signals social proximity (ku) or neutrality/formality (to-si —). Using ku in an arbitration hearing would be as jarring as using to-si — with a close friend over a meal.

Evidential frames across register

The evidential frame () wraps a clause to mark it as reported, inferred, or unattributed:

(lo-mu  zo-to)
Reportedly, the machine has a soul.

Spoken realization

In casual speech, prosody alone marks the evidential frame — a slight pitch shift or pause boundary. No explicit spoken token is needed.

In formal, legal, and dictation register, the spoken forms vund (opening) and vunds (closing) are required:

vund lo-mu zo-to vunds

The stakes are different. In conversation, a missed evidential frame is a social misstep. In a legal record, it's the difference between "I assert this" and "I'm told this" — which can be the difference between perjury and testimony.

ze in formal proceedings

After genuine ze ambiguity is produced in a proceeding (see C008), subsequent turns prefer explicit NPs over ze back-reference until the referent set resets.

Casual

A: la-ze  de  lo-si-de
B: la-mi  si  [la-ze  no-de  lo-si-de]
A: lo-ze  to-fe-ka!
Fine — ze is clear enough from context and the conversation can tolerate a moment of ambiguity.

Formal (after ambiguity event)

A: la-ze  de  lo-si-de
B: la-mi  si  [la-to-su-li  no-de  lo-si-de]
A: lo-to-su-li  to-fe-ka

After B's hypothesis introduces a competing referent, the formal record switches to the full NP (la-to-su-li) rather than risk ze ambiguity. This isn't a grammar rule — it's institutional practice. But it's consistent across the corpus.

ke — stale vs fresh denial

The pivot particle ke ("implied denial + advancing claim") and the explicit denial no — [claim] are not interchangeable. The choice depends on information freshness.

Fresh denial → use no —

When the denial is new information — the listener doesn't already know you disagree:

no — lo-to-re-su  to-fe
No — the doctrine has not crossed the epistemic threshold.

The denial is performed explicitly because the listener needs to hear it for the first time.

Stale denial → use ke

When the denial is already contextually established and re-performing it adds no information:

ke, lo-to-re-su  ne-ra  nu-be  lo-wi-to
[Moving past that:] the doctrine's resonance exceeds the plan.

ke acknowledges the prior disagreement without re-litigating it, then advances. In formal registers (clinical, legal, diplomatic), using no — when the denial is stale may be coded as bad-faith re-litigation rather than genuine counter-evidence.

Colloquial contractions

High-frequency compounds of 3+ morphemes can contract to CVC shortforms in casual speech. The formal compound remains the canonical entry; the contraction is a registered alternative.

Registered forms

Short Full compound Meaning First attested
zol zo-se-so-li canid (dog/wolf) S269
zof zo-se-so-fe felid/fox S269
zod zo-se-so-di bird S284
zos zo-su plant S292
mas ma-su rock/stone S299
zom zo-se-ma fish S313
zop zo-se-so-pa whale/cetacean S311
zon zo-se-ne herd ungulate S320

Contraction rules

  1. At least 3 morphemes in the source compound
  2. Short form is unambiguous within the discourse domain
  3. Formal compound remains the canonical written form
  4. CVC shape (matches the lexical atom tier)

Namespace collisions

Not every compound gets a clean short form:

  • zo-pe (arthropod) → zop collides with whale → stays as disyllabic zo-pe
  • zo-ne (fungal) → zon collides with herd animal → stays as disyllabic zo-ne

When the CVC namespace is already occupied, the compound doesn't contract. The collision is documented and the form stays long. No ad-hoc workarounds.

Epistemic nesting as institutional register

In formal institutional contexts, one speaker can certify another speaker's epistemic state:

la-mi  to  {la-tu  no-se  lo-ne-ra}
I hold as established: you have not perceived the resonance.

A knowledge-keeper converts a witness's personal epistemic floor into a formally certified matter of record. This construction — a to frame wrapping another agent's se/si/to state — is characteristic of institutional register. You wouldn't use it in casual speech because you wouldn't normally claim authority to certify someone else's perceptions.

Notation symbols in speech

Several written notation symbols have spoken equivalents. In casual speech these are rarely used (prosody serves instead), but in formal contexts they become mandatory:

Symbol Spoken form Register
' (juncture) peld pedagogical, dictation
~ (approximation) ven all registers (also poetic)
- (morpheme boundary) feld metalinguistic, teaching
() (evidential) vund / vunds formal, legal, dictation
"" (quotation) sild / silds formal, legal
[] (aside) zeld / zelds dictation, pedagogical
{} (structural slot) suld / sulds teaching, formal
: (topic/definition) helm all (also predicate use)
:: (identity) helms formal, poetic, philosophical
/ (parallel) vel formal
; (sequential) teld dictation
— (suspension) el all (verse, poetic, formal)

The spoken forms are always available but the expectation of their use is register-dependent. In a casual conversation, nobody says vund. In a courtroom dictation, everybody does.

Register summary

Feature Casual Formal
Polar question ... ku? to-si — ...
Evidential frame prosody only vund / vunds required
ze after ambiguity continue using ze switch to full NPs
Stale denial ke or no — (flexible) ke preferred; no — risks bad-faith reading
Long compounds colloquial CVC forms OK full formal compound
Notation symbols silent (prosody) spoken forms expected

The grammar doesn't change across registers. The particle choices and disambiguation strategies do. Register in Tonesu is about how much precision and explicitness the context demands — not about different rules.