Nominal vs adjectival predicates in Koa, OR attribution vs identity

I wrote Allison an e-mail last week asking for her help in clearing up some long-standing confusion/debate in the Koa universe. We haven't solved the big problems yet, but the process of writing and initially talking about the e-mail has provoked some changes already, so I want to document it here.

Hey, Allison,

Pursuant to our eventual conversation (or possibly even instead, depending on how easy this ends up being to resolve), I wanted to give you the scoop on the Koa issue I'm struggling with along with some examples. You may want to print this, as it is several thousand pages long. :)

What causes the issue is that Koa doesn't have IE-style parts of speech at all. There are basically three categories: content words, particles, and names. Particles are a closed class of monosyllabic words with primarily inflectional/syntactic and some derivational functions; names are predictably an open set not required to conform as strictly to Koa phonology; and the bisyllabic base content words which can be combined to render new meanings.

What English POS a Koa content word belongs to is determined entirely by syntactic position: any word can fall into any class depending on how it's used. For example, using koa "good":

eme koa

magic good

"good magic" (adjectival)

ti eme i koa

that magic 3P good

"this magic is good" (verbal/stative)

ka koa ta ni si ana la ka sene

the good TOP 1SG PERF give ALL the cat

"as for the good one(s), I gave it/them to the cat" (nominal)

ei se si suo koa ne tipai?

QU 2SG PERF eat good LOC this.day

"have you eaten well today?" (adverbial)

The logic behind all this goes something like the following. Starting with kani "sing" and pua "bad," we can progress like this:

ka kani

the sing

"the one singing, the one who sings, the singer"

ti kani

3SG sing

"she sings"

ka kani pua

the sing bad

"the one singing badly/who sings badly, the bad singer"

ti kani pua

3SG sing bad

"she sings badly / she is a bad singer"

The problem comes up with the gloss of that last item. Are "she sings badly" and "she is a bad singer" really identical in meaning outside of lojban? I got here because I was trying to translate the sentence "she's a good singer, but she's singing badly today." I was going along these lines:

ti kani koa, no ti ma kani pua ne tipai

3SG sing good but 3SG IMPF sing bad LOC this.day

"she's a good singer, but she's singing badly today"

See, verbs without an aspect particle are automatically aorist, so ti kani koa has a timeless, general, non-referential meaning, whereas ti ma kani pua is referring to a real instantiation of bad singing occurring at some point in time.

Another option would be to use some derivational morphology to help accent the distinction being made. The suffix -ma indicates frequent/serious involvement with the root in question, either professionally or otherwise, so we could make kánima, "singer":

ti kani-ma koa, no ti ma kani pua ne tipai

3SG sing-AG good but 3SG IMPF sing bad LOC this.day

"she's a good singer, but she's singing badly today"

But what if she's not someone who identifies as a "singer?" What if she's actually an accountant who just sings at family gatherings sometimes and is actually pretty insecure about her voice, despite the fact that she sings well (except for tonight). I feel like using -ma here dilutes whatever utility that suffix would ordinarily have.

Or again, we could use the putative particle mo. I've been going back and forth for at least 8 years on whether this should actually exist; it would be an adverbializing particle, meaning "in the manner of" or "as/like," etc. Literally, then, we could do something like

ti ma kani mo pua

3SG IMPF sing as bad

"she is singing in the manner of a bad one = she is singing badly"

I feel like this starts to get at the disconnection I want to see between her current performance and her actual identity. At the same time, though, I wonder whether I'm being picky about having access to exactly the same distinctions I use in English, despite the fact that this is an IAL and there's going to HAVE to be a lot of context informing anything anyone says.

In other words, is the difference between English "she sings badly" and "she is singing badly" (and the Koa analog, the difference between an aorist and imperfect verb) sufficient to be the ONLY structural difference between these two concepts in a language?

English tends to get at this sort of thing with parts of speech, too, which is something that makes me feel uncomfortable about Koa. What if I want to say something totally straightforward, like "John is a man?" Note that "masculine" in the glosses below doesn't mean "characterized by some qualities associated with men" like in English, but rather a pure adjectival form of "man" which English has trouble forming.

a mehe

a man

"a man; a male/masculine one"

a keli mehe

a dog man

"a male/masculine/man dog"

le Keoni i mehe

NAME Adam 3SG man

"John is a man OR John is male/masculine"

Is this a problem? Is there a difference between "John is male" and "John is a man," leaving aside questions of age?

Going back to mo, I originally conceived it with the aim of using it to set off all adverbial phrases. I realized later that it's not actually necessary for that purpose, and abandoned it. Later I started to think it might not be superfluous after all and relegated it to limbo. What about a concept like "she sings like a dog?" Can I do this with that V X structure where X is automatically adverbial?

ti kani keli

3SG sing dog

"she is a canine singer = she dogsings = she sings like a dog?"

I was thinking that maybe "dogsinging" isn't quite the same concept as singing like a dog, in which case it would be preferable to say

ti kani mo keli

3SG sing as dog

"she sings like a dog"

Although once again I'm wondering if I'm just trying to parallel English structure here. A similar example:

ti kani 1642

3SG sing 1642

"she is a 1642 singer = she sings like it's 1642?"

or

ti kani mo ne 1642

3SG sing as LOC 1642

"she sings in the manner of in 1642 = she sings like she/they did in 1642"

I guess the semantic I'm trying to put my finger on is that of "like" above: resembling something, but not actually being it. She's not really singing back in time, so the sentence shouldn't be saying she is. But, but...in the sentence that started all this off, she really WAS singing badly! So if that's what mo means, I can't use it anyway. But there is this situation, which may really and finally necessitate it:

ti kani ka keli ni

3SG sing the dog 1SG

"she sings my dog. what the hell does that even mean."

ti kani mo ka keli ni

3SG sing as the dog 1SG

"she sings like my dog"

...in which case the adverbial construction V X would be interchangeable with V mo X in carrying implied indefiniteness: essentially V mo a X. Mo could be used, or not, depending on speaker preference and whether it seems to add clarity. It would be required, though, when X is definite, modified, etc. I think.

Anyway, this is the patch of thorns that I've been unable wholly to extricate myself from for the last ten years or so, and I'm hoping you have some amazing crystal-clear thought that forever eliminates all doubt. Or something. What do you say?

-Julie

The line between demonstratives and personal pronouns

Vis-à-vis the previous post, if ti can be both "he" and "that," what does this mean for the other personal pronouns?

This is to say: what, actually, should ni talo and se talo mean?

One option is that we've created a three-way deictic system along Romance lines. I have to say, though, that using the personal pronouns in this way feels intensely counterintuitive to me. I need some feedback here from other humans.

Another option would be to treat these structures as appositive. In this way, we'd have

ti neko = him, the cat = "that cat"

se neko = you, the cat = "you cat," as in "you cat, you!" or "you, cat that you are..."

ni neko = me, the cat = "me, being the cat that I am..." etc.

Maybe that's the most sensible thing. Note that this means ni neko does NOT mean "my cat" anymore.

I find myself wishing that the 3rd-person pronoun could be to instead of ti. On the other hand, I like the kea/tia opposition several thousand times more than this putative kea/toa idea, so I'm stymied again.

The pronoun waffle

No, no, it definitely is a real and serious problem that speakers of Cantonese can't distinguish between the current 1st- and 3rd-person singular pronouns in this putative IAL. I think we've got a built-in solution, though, happily: now that pronominal possession is accomplished via postposed pronouns, there's nothing stopping our using ti both as a pronoun and a demonstrative. This means we can express the following range of meaning with ti:

ti talo i puna

"this house is red"

(demonstrative specifier)

tika i puna

"this is red"

(demonstrative pronoun)

ti si mene la le Elopa

"he went to Europe"

(personal pronoun)

ka neko ti i na si mene

"his cat did not go"

(possessive pronoun)

Now the only problem is that ti sure does sound like a second-person pronoun to my Indo-European ears. *sigh* You can't please all the people all the time.

Specifier clarification, possession, and other changes

The world of Koa has been fairly quiet for ages now, but the last few weeks have brought some important progress (starting on our honeymoon, on Sant'Erasmo). Here goes:

1) For the last time, w and y are not fated to be Koa phonemes. Just looking at the new words that contain them in my lexicon after a year and a half to sober up made this clear: sewe, yomo, wohi, yuhu, wene, uye, maya, yume, mawa, paye, weo, yaye and yoki are so obviously not Koa words. Somehow I have to remember this and not go through any more angst on this issue.

2) The genitive phrase, including for pronominal possession, is now formally always ka X Y, where Y is the possessor. There currently remains a little bit of wiggle room for phrases like ni mama, etc., but the jury's still out. In any event, responding to a question I asked several years ago, pronoun objects will certainly not be acceptable preverbally: *ni se loha, etc. It's not so bad, really -- ka talo ni has a certain elegance to it.

3) After much consideration, during which for a brief period I was leaning heavily towards a Hungarian-style "my X exists" structure, I've come to the conclusion that verbal possession needs to be via prepositional phrase, using either me or la (final decision pending). So, for example:

this cat is mine = ti neko i me ni
this is my cat = tika i ka neko ni (note: why not tika i neko ni? let's come back to this)
I don't have a cat = na neko i me ni (or hu neko i na me ni, logically? yuck)
do you have a cat? = ei a/hu neko i me se?

There are some unresolved questions about usage here, but in general I think this will work well. In the main, my concerns are about the negative/interrogative, and pertain to the existential construct in general -- I keep wanting to say something like na tai neko me ni, which is clearly in violation of everything everywhere. I think what's happening is the collision of the logical design of the language with human language intuition; hopefully they won't end up being too difficult to reconcile.

4) Speaking of which, I think I've finally got the specifier system figured out. A lot of it had to do with realizing that the hu/po predicate logic design isn't necessarily all that relevant to human linguistic needs; what I've done is to give that meaning to these particles in conjuction with an article, but to give them a more pragmatic/specifier-type when immediately preposed to a noun. Here, then, are all our current specifiers.

ka neko = the cat(s), refers to something already on the discourse stage
ti neko = a deictic subset of cats, either of those already on stage or a new set being raised to the stage
a neko = a/some cat(s), refers to specific animals someone has in mind which are not yet onstage but are being raised
hu neko = a/some cat(s), nonspecific referents, with no intent to raise to the stage
po neko = cats in general
ko neko = the abstract idea of being a cat: cathood, felinity, etc.
na neko = no cat
ke neko = what/which cat
ni neko = my cat (optional shortening of ka neko ni)

Many of these can be be increased in specificity by adding a definite or indefinite article, as follows:

tika neko = (how does this differ from ti neko?)
huka neko = one/some of the cats already onstage/in the given set
hua neko = a/some cats, out of all the cats that exist
huti neko = one/some of the cats in the deictically indicated set
poka neko = all of the cats onstage/in the given set
poa neko = every cat, period
poti neko = all of the cats in the deictically indicated set
naka neko = none of the cats onstage/in the given set
keka neko = which of the cats onstage/in the given set? which of these cats?
nika neko = this set of my cats, these particular cats of mine

In the same vein, all of these (and a few more with -a) also stand alone as pronouns:

tika = this one, these ones
tia = this [stuff, idea], all this
huka = one/some of them, someone
hua = something
huti = one/some of these
poka = all of them, everyone
poa = everything
poti = all of these
naka = none of them, no one (nahuka with same meaning)
naa = nothing (nahua preferred?)
keka = which one?
kea = what?
nika = mine, this one of mine

5) There's an unanswered question about ditransitive clauses. Where both the accusative and dative arguments are full nouns, they form what is formally a genitive phrase if listed in dative-accusative order with no preposition:

ni si ana ka mama a neko
1SG=PERF=give DEF=mother INDEF=cat
"I gave my mother a cat" or "I gave the mother of a certain cat [to someone]"

...as opposed to unambiguous

ni si ana a neko la ka mama
1SG=PERF=give INDEF=cat DAT=DEF=mother
"I gave my mother a cat"

For this reason I was about to say that the dative-accusative order is only acceptable when the dative argument is pronominal, but then the ambiguity above isn't really pragmatically worrisome. For the moment I'm going to assume that context and animacy will nearly always resolve this, and leave both options open.

6) Negative clauses: how are they done? To answer an old question, for the moment I'd like to leave all the possibilities available. They all make sense, and the "double negative," while perhaps logically confusing, would never be pragmatically so. Therefore, "I didn't see anyone" could be translated in any of these ways:

ni si nae na(hu)ka
ni na si nae huka
ni na si nae na(hu)ka

7) A small but important matter: what is the word for "cat?" When I was in Europe I was feeling pleased with my choice of neko in homage to Japanese, but checking my dictionary a few weeks later I remembered that I already had a word for "cat," sene. I feel torn in my allegiance; we'll need to come back to this one.

Second thoughts about the conative

So, yeah, thinking about it cross-linguistically, conative really isn't the term for what I'm talking about for the meaning of lu -- I think I'll have to go back to volitive. The conative would be focusing on the idea of the attempt, the effort, the trying; a useful semantic, but not what I'm going for here.

A new modal particle

Ladies and gentlemen, meet lu, our new volitive/desiderative particle. Since halu = "want," I think the sound works rather well.

Lu will be helping us by translating some of the English future tense semantics, specifically when the notion of futurity involves intention or desire. According to current plans, there will be another particle (form TBD) used in making predictions and the like. Par example:

ni lu polo o ka talo la ka noni
1SG=VOL=run ABL=DEF=house ALL=DEF=mountain
"I'll run from the house to the mountain"
"I think I'll run from the house to the mountain"
"I'm planning to run from the house to the mountain"

There is a certain amount of semantic overlap with halu and a full complement clause, as in

ni halu ko polo o ka talo la ka noni
1SG=want COMP=run ABL=DEF=house ALL=DEF=mountain
"I want to run from the house to the mountain"

I guess the question is whether the focus is on the action and the futurity thereof, or on the wanting itself. Note that English blurs the lines as well sometimes -- the sentence "today I wanna run from the house to the mountain" could encode an expression of desire, but I feel like more often it would be showing intent for the future.

By the way, note that the following sentence would not mean "everyone will learn Koa" in the way we'd usually expect to interpret that phrase, but something more like "everyone's planning to learn Koa," "everyone's thinking about learning Koa," etc.:

poka i lu opi le Koa
everyone 3=VOL=learn NAME=Koa

A question for you linguists: is there a better term than volitive or desiderative for this mode? I want to highlight the intentionality more than the desire, but intentative...AHA! Conative, that's it, from cōnārī "to try". The ol' Latin's getting a bit rusty. The above interlinear, then, should read

everyone 3=CON=learn NAME=Koa

And now, how about all those other modes I need particles for?

Koa script

Here's a sort of pixellicious graphic of the Koa syllabary, as worked out at some point in the early 2000s:


I still feel like this has all kinds of potential, though now I have to dump the C column and invent characters for Y and W. Hm.