Ditransitive verbs and causativity

So what, definitively, do we do with multiple objects? The last time (here, section 9) we discussed this, it was either INDIR DIR or DIR la INDIR. The latter always seemed a bit more unwieldy to me, and I'm realizing I really haven't thought of the structure as working that way at all since then. So with our serial objects, a clause would look something like this:

ni si ana ka mama ka sihi
1SG=PERF=give DEF=mom DEF=vegetable
"I gave my mom the veggies" or "I gave the mother of the veggies (to someone)"

...where this could either be two objects, one direct and one indirect, or a single object consisting of a genitive phrase. The question is, is this ambiguity acceptable? I'm inclined to say "yes," as I have a hard time imagining a situation where this distinction would actually be pragmatically relevant. I think usually the alterate interpretation would be so semantically or pragmatically anomalous as to warrant no concern. Still, supposing we decided to overtly mark the indirect object:

ni si ana la ka mama ka sihi
1SG=PERF=give DAT=DEF=mom DEF=vegetable
"I gave my mom the veggies"

OR

ni si ana ka sihi la ka mama
1SG=PERF=give DEF=vegetable DAT=DEF=mom
"I gave my mom the veggies"

In longer phrases like these I actually don't at all mind the presence of la. I think it's with pronominal objects that la messes up the rhythm:

li si ana la ni ka hiu
3SG=PERF=give DAT=1SG DEF=knife
"she gave me the knife"

OR

li si ana ka hiu la ni
3SG=PERF=give DEF=knife DAT=1SG
"she gave me the knife"

This used to bother me with Esperanto al as well, but I've completely gotten used to it now; I'm afraid this decision is going to have to be made on typological and/or aesthetic grounds. Somehow, though, I do need to come to a decision, because I want to look into valence-increasing devices, like causatives. Taking ho* as a causative marker, then, we get into this kind of trouble:

le Ela i ma nuku
NAME=Ela 3=IMPF=sleep
"Ella is sleeping"

ni si ho nuku le Ela
1SG=PERF=CAUS=sleep NAME=Ela
"I put Ella to bed"

So far so good: an intransitive verb becomes transitive, and what was the subject gets demoted to object position. What if we start with a transitive verb?

le Koko i ma suo a neko*
NAME=Koko 3=IMPF=eat INDEF=cat
"Cocoa is eating a cat"

le Mia i si ho suo le Koko a neko*
NAME=Mia 3=PERF=CAUS=eat NAME=Koko INDEF=cat
"Mia fed Cocoa a cat"

I notice my example sentences are finally starting to get more interesting, albeit perhaps slightly macabre. Where's my cookie?

Anyway, what generally happens when a transitive verb gets causative morphology added is that the existing direct object stays a direct object, but the former subject gets demoted to an oblique position as the coerced agent. In the case of Koa, it seems natural that this would be the position of the indirect object, whence the syntax up there. But we do have two other possibilities: le Mia i si ho suo la le Koko a neko* or le Mia i si ho suo a neko* la le Koko.

I HATE the second of these two alternates -- I feel like the constituents are in COMPLETELY the wrong order for the emphasis of the clause. Maybe this will help me figure out how to make the ditransitive decision -- apparently I want the indirect object to precede the direct, however it's marked.

Okay, so what if we make an already ditransitive verb causative?

le Iúli i si ana le Mia a kita*
NAME=Julie 3=PERF=give NAME=Mia INDEF=guitar
"Julie gave Mia a guitar"

Fine...but yikes, what am I going to do with three objects?

le Salatúsita i si ho ana le Iúli a kita* la le Mia
NAME=Salatúsita 3=PERF=CAUS=give NAME=Julie INDEF=guitar DAT=NAME=Mia
"Zarathustra made Julie give Mia a guitar"

Huh. Interesting. No, no, I think this could actually make sense -- a verb can have two objects, but any additionals have to be oblique. The only question is which object gets demoted to prepositional status. I don't think it can be the coerced agent, because that's still very central to the semantics of the clause. And there's currently no particle that marks a definite object, though I suppose we could press one into use, maybe ablative:

le Salatúsita i si ho ana le Iúli le Mia o a kita*
NAME=Salatúsita 3=PERF=CAUS=give NAME=Julie NAME=Mia ABL=INDEF=guitar
"Zarathustra made Julie give Mia a guitar"

That seems really weird to me -- let's forget about that option. I guess the one other possibility would be to make causatives analytical as in English: le Salatúsita i si mei* ko le Iúli i ana le Mia a kita, or something. Or we could make that option available with increased distance between cause and effect, in the way that iconicity generally works cross-linguistically.

Okay, so what have I figured out here? I think it's that we're sticking with INDIR DIR syntax for ditransitive verbs for the moment, and we'll figure out whether and where la can be used with the INDIR element later on. And that (I think) we're going to have two causative strategies, one analytical and one synthetic, to the extent that clitics constitute synthesis.

And also that I really don't like ho as the causative marker. I seem to be having trouble with the h-initial particles lately.