A bit of science

This is a catch-all post to document properly the STEM-specific vocabulary that has been developing in Koa over the past several years. This hasn't been particularly intentional: like most of the language, the terms in each of these sets just sprang into being as I felt inspired about them for reasons best known to the Muse. (Who is the Muse of conlanging, anyway?

Here note the predicate tae meaning "science, study, domain of knowledge," very productively used to form the names of branches of science and thought:

címitae "language science" = linguistics
nóatae "name science" = onomastics
élatae "life science" = biology
nácatae "arranging science" = "taxonomy"
síhitae "plant science" = botany
kávotae "animal science" = zoology
pílitae "reptile science" = herpetology
lútetae "bone science" = osteology
métitae "thought science" = philosophy (or should we calque this as kávotae "wise science"?)
válatae "god science" = theology
lúkutae "number science" = mathematics
néatae "computer science"

International System of Units

We have some basics here, following the approximate phonetics of standard international usage. In some cases -- consonant clusters in particular -- they've had to be simplified.

For the base units, so far we have meta "meter" for length, and kamu "gram" for mass (I wish there were a clear word for byte!). The decimal multiples of these are formed via prefixes as usual, thus:

10¹²  tela- "tera-"
10⁹  kika- "giga-"
10⁶  meka- "mega-"
10³  kilo- "kilo-"
10²  heto- "hecto-"
10¹  teka- "deca-"

10^-1  tesi- "deci-"
10^-2  seni- "centi-"
10^-3  mili- "milli-"
10^-6  miko- "micro-"
10^-9  nano- "nano-"
10^-12  piko- "pico-"

The prefixes are stressed, yielding e.g. kílokamu "kilogram," sénimeta "centimeter," and so on.

Biology

Taxonomic levels:

élaine "life domain" = kingdom
osa "branch" = phylum
luo "class"
himo "tribe" = order
pele "family"
suku "kindred, stock" = genus
lei "type" = species
nálalei "subtype" = subspecies

I'm pretty happy with these except for luo which is a calque that I'm not sure is motivated by anything in particular. But on the other hand taxonomy itself is arbitrary almost by definition, so I think I feel okay with just letting that one go and turning my attention back to spending another decade wringing my hands over how to mark indefinite NPs.

At this moment I would really like to offer a devastatingly witty little mnemonic to remember these in order, like the English one about King Phillip...but alas, no such wit has yet been forthcoming. I wish E O L H P S L had an "i" in it somewhere so I could form a proper clause! How about: Énapi One Lomo Ha PaSiko Limu "if one sneaky turtle were wrapped in seaweed"..........?

Linguistics

méama "thing-er" = nominal
nóama "namer" = proper noun
étema "doer" = verbal
ílama "be-like-er" = adjectival

címihale "language structure" = grammar
vike "clause"
lelo "sentence"
siki "particle"
mohi "predicate"
mícoma "prefix"
hópama "suffix"

étema sia "active verb"
étema aivu "passive verb"
vike keha "conditional clause"
vike kevo "presentative clause"
vike keu "relative/adjectival clause"

méama tocu "simple nominal"
méama aivu "passive nominal"
méama oisi "abstract nominal"
méama lala "deverbal instantiated nominal"

méama laca "indefinite noun"
méama litu "definite noun"

Clearly lots more to come!

The conditional clause

Koa has had a word meaning "if," ha -- borrowed from Hungarian, incidentally -- since late 2010. Until recently, though, there hadn't been so much as an attempt to feel out syntax with this particle, or the syntax or semantics of conditional clauses in general: I'm not sure how this is possible, but I may have managed never even to have tried to speak or write a conditional clause in this language. With the recent formalization of clause type marking, we can finally answer some extremely long-standing questions! This post attempts to bring conditional structures up to date with the rest of Koa's development.

Before diving into whole clauses, I should mention that ha can also have the scope of a single predicate, in which case it has the sense of "would-be," "theoretical," "supposed," or rather perfectly, Polish niby. This type of usage was in fact the only example I gave in ha's initial unveiling (respelled with modern conventions):

ka ha-lóha-ni
DEF COND-love-1SG
"my would-be lover," "mój niby kochanek"

There's also a ke-compound, keha, meaning "conditional" or "hypothetical": thus vike keha "conditional clause."

Conditional structures in Koa have a protasis set off by ha "if," and an apodosis optionally introduced by translative io (roughly "already"), the presentative vo, or the heavier-handed laa "consequently," any of these the Koa equivalent of "then." The particular sequence of TAM markers in each half of the construction yields some lovely complexity, which has had the additional benefit of helping to heal the wounds of Ancient Greek studies in college...I had never expected to make friends with the words "future more vivid" again!

There are two broad categories of conditional clauses, each with a set of subtypes. The first category describes situations/conditions that are really and demonstrably true, and is characterized by a protasis and apodosis both in the realis mode. The second category describes situations/conditions that are hypothetical, contrafactual, idealized, or otherwise imaginary; these are characterized by the irrealis mode in the apodosis, and usually the protasis as well.

Table 1: Real Situations

Type	Example	Protasis	Apodosis
General nonpast	If X is true, then Y is true	simple	simple; imperative
Habitual nonpast	Whenever X happens, Y happens	simple (habitual)	simple habitual
Deductive nonpast	If X is true now, that means Y was true then	simple	anterior (presumptive)
General perfect	If X has happened, then Y happens	anterior	simple
General past	If X was true, then Y was true	anterior	anterior
Habitual past	Whenever X happened, Y happened	anterior (habitual)	anterior habitual

Table 2: Imaginary Situations

Type	Example	Protasis	Apodosis
Ideal nonpast	If X happens, then Y will happen; If X were to happen, then Y would happen	simple	irrealis; imperative
Ideal perfect	If X were to have happened, then Y would happen now	anterior	irrealis
Ideal past	If X were to have happened, then Y would have happened	anterior	irrealis anterior
Unreal nonpast	If X were true now, then Y would be true now	irrealis	irrealis
Unreal perfect	If X had happened, then Y would happen now	irrealis anterior	irrealis
Unreal past	If X had happened, then Y would have happened	irrealis anterior	irrealis anterior

Notes:

1. In Habitual clauses, habitual marking in the protasis is optional.
2. Other TAM information may be added to the protasis and/or apodosis (ma [imperfect], for instance) without affecting the conditional semantics.
3. The distinction between Ideal and Unreal is somewhat idealized (no pun intended). Irrealis marking is the default for both protasis and apodosis in imaginary situations, especially in speech (other than the "vivid future," see below).
4. The Ideal Nonpast corresponds both to what Ancient Greek would consider a more vivid future ("If the babysitter is free, then we will go see the concert") and a less vivid future ("If the baby sitter were to be free, we would go to the concert"). The Koa sense of things is that all futurity is hypothetical and thus does not make this distinction; but if the apodosis describes intention or will, the volitive lu rather than irrealis cu can be employed to approach some of that sense ("If the babysitter is free, we mean to go to the concert").

Now for the fun part: examples. There are a lot of possible uses for each of these types, so this will be just an overview to give a general sense.

Examples - Real Situations

hu anu ha ne ka ipu [simple], ka ipu vo na-moha [simple]
EXIST water COND.CL LOC DEF cup DEF cup PRES.CL NEG-empty
"if there is water in the cup, then the cup is not empty"
(General Nonpast)

ha ni-ca-nuku he-tula iva [simple], vénea-ni [imperative]
COND.CL 1SG-cont-sleep TEMP-hour nine wake-HON-1SG
"if I'm still asleep at 9 o'clock, please wake me up"
(General Nonpast)

ha me-vua [simple], ka toto i io-va-mi-hulu [habitual]
COND COM-rain DEF child VB.CL TRANS-HAB-INCH-crazy
"if/whenever it rains, the kids go crazy"
(Habitual Nonpast)

ka ovi ha hemo [simple], laa se-li-si-tule la.koto me ka áva.le [anterior presumptive]

DEF door COND.CL unlocked therefore 2SG-PRSM-ANT-come home COM DEF key
"if the door is unlocked, then you must have brought the keys home"
(Deductive Nonpast)

le_Kéoni ha si-náe-nu mo-like [anterior], vo nu-me-háka.te [simple]
John COND.CL ANT-see-1PL SIM-together PRES.CL 1PL-COM-trouble
"if John saw/has seen us together, we're in trouble"
(General Perfect)

ha ni-si-kánu-se [anterior], ve na-ilo sa ni-si-ete [anterior]

COND.CL 1SG-ANT-harm-2SG ADV.CL NEG-know FOC 1SG-ANT-do

"if I hurt you, I did so unwittingly"
(General Past)

ha si-va-me-sua ne-lani kica [anterior habitual], ni-simo i si-va-mi-tumu pe-pa.mana [anterior habitual]
COND ANT-HAB-COM-sun LOC-sky clear 1SG-heart VB.CL ANT-HAB-INCH-full BEN-intention
"if/whenever the sun was shining in a clear sky, my heart would fill up with plans"
(Habitual Past)

Examples - Imaginary Situations

le_Lóliki ha kii po kunu [simple], ta-io-cu-opi aha pe-imi [irrealis]
Olga COND.CL get UNIV dog 3SG-TRANS-IRR-learn something BEN-self
"If Olga got a dog (and she might), she would learn some things about herself"
(Ideal Nonpast - her idea!)

ha tu-si-mene i tesu [anterior], vo tu-cu-sano po pa.opo mu.kiki he.lila.tana [irrealis]
COND.CL 3PL.ANT.GO VB.CL travel PRES.CL 3PL-IRR-say UNIV story funny tonight
"If they were to have gone on a trip (and they might have), they would tell some funny stories tonight"
(Ideal Perfect)

ha nu-si-ne le_Pékeli he.sama [anterior], nu-cu-si-te-hi-nae ve.na-huo! [irrealis anterior]
COND.CL 1PL-ANT-LOC Berkeley at.the.same.time 1PL-IRR-ANT-ABIL-REFL-see without.noticing
"If we were to have been in Berkeley at the same time (and we might have been), we could have seen each other without realizing it!"
(Ideal Past)

ka piha i cu-via taa [irrealis] ha cu-me-vua [irrealis]
DEF yard VB.CL IRR-content surpass CON.CL IRR-COM-rain
"The yard would be happier if it were raining (but it's not)"
(Unreal Nonpast - protasis and apodosis reversed)

ka ámo.e ha na-cu-si-láhe-ni [irrealis anterior], ni-na-cu-éki-ne ve.ona ne-sáki.lo he.ti.tia [irrealis]
DEF wife COND.CL NEG-IRR-ANT-leave-1SG 1SG-NEG-IRR-sit-LOC drunk LOC-bar right.now
"If my wife hadn't left me (but she did), I wouldn't be sitting here drunk in a bar right now (but I am)"
(Unreal Perfect)

ha cu-si-me-vitu [irrealis anterior], ka nui i io-cu-si-mu.kino poli_i_taa [irrealis anterior]
COND.CL IRR-ANT-COM-dragon DEF world VB.CL TRANS-IRR-ANT-interesting much.more
"if dragons had existed (but they didn't), the world would have been much more interesting (but it wasn't)"
(Unreal Past)

One comment: as table note 4 above mentions, the Ideal clause types -- though valid -- are less likely to be used in flowing speech: I think they would be more formal or literary if used. The corresponding Unreal types are more natural Koa for both meanings; this causes a small amount of ambiguity in the interpretation of such clauses, but this would be resolved in context:

le_Lóliki ha cu-kii po kunu [irrealis], ta-io-cu-opi aha pe-imi [irrealis]

Olga COND.CL get UNIV dog 3SG-TRANS-IRR-learn something BEN-self

"If Olga got a dog (and she might), she would learn some things about herself" OR
"If Olga were getting a dog (but she's not), she would learn some things about herself"

Whew. It took me a day to write up the grammatical description and several weeks to write the examples...it's clear which is the preferred activity! But I'm happy with the range of meaning these sentences were able to showcase.

De Cuup, where are you?

Dear Robert,

I've been intrigued by your comments on my Koa posts over the years, and even more intrigued by the fact that you were apparently actually reading, and seemingly following and remembering, the content of my exposition at all. Who are you? None of my conlang friends seem to recognize you. Let's have a more substantial bidirectional conversation! My e-mail address is on the About Me page.

-Iúliki

Pronominal predicate correction

After a (decade-)long period of uncertainty, I announced back in 2021 that pronominal predicates -- that is, the form that personal pronouns take for emphasis and when they need to be able to perform all the syntactic roles of full predicates -- would have the following forms:

ni -> nika "I"
se -> seka "you"
ta -> taka "he/she/it"
nu -> nuka "we"
so -> soka "you guys"
tu -> tuka "they"

I've been doing some imaginary conversation practice this past week, and unfortunately I'm now pretty sure that was the wrong decision, for two reasons.

Prior to that 2021 post, we'd always assumed that the emphatic pronouns would simply be doubled versions of the simple ones, e.g. nini, sese, tata, etc. The problem here was that that meant that tata could not reasonably also mean "dad," which left papa in that role...about which I seethed with resentment and hatred. I have no idea why I've felt so strongly about the aesthetics on this one tiny issue, other than that tata is also "dad" in Polish.

I feel like, now that I'm in my 40's, I might finally be old and wise enough to rise above that pettiness. There isn't anything objectively wrong with papa for "dad," and in fact studying Swahili has helped: baba is really a rather nice "dad" word, and is nearly the same as papa.

ANYWAY, the primary issue with nika, seka, taka, &c. as we've had them the last few years is that they feel wrong in speech. Where I've tried to use them they just haven't worked, subjectively, and I've been surprised to find myself using the reduplicated versions instead. I wish I had any actual examples to discuss at this point; unfortunately these practice conversations seem to be the linguistic equivalent of those spontaneous music improvisation sessions with emergent unrecorded marvels that I can never reproduce.

One reason for that sense of wrongness -- maybe -- is that although nika and friends do look like pronominals (toka "that one," poka "everyone," nahuka "none of them"), the derivational process that would lead to them would actually give them a different meaning! To wit...

ti ulu "this fingernail" -> tika "this one"
ni ulu "my fingernail" -> nika "my one, mine" (!!)

Thus it would appear that, if anything, the personal pronominals with -ka formatives ought to be possessive pronouns!

...except that I don't really love possessive pronouns for Koa: they don't quite seem to match the soul of the language. Instead we have constructions with keme "attribute" and oma "one's own, belong to":

ka ulu kémeni "MY fingernail" -> ka kémeni "my one, mine"
ka ulu ómani "my very own fingernail" -> ka ómani "the one that belongs to me"

I will note that I came to a very similar (and well-researched) set of conclusions to literally all of the above about 7 months earlier in 2021 when I first tried to hash out the form of these pronominals in detail. This seems to happen to me; it can be hard to trust past Julie over the fire of the current moment, and sometimes it takes several cycles before things finally stick.

On the other hand, Koa has been starting to allow a much greater range of complexity recently as a sense of register has developed, and it occurs to me that nika et al. could continue to exist but just feel very formal or old-fashioned, rarely used in speech. Like maybe it could show up in legal contracts? On a meta-level this doesn't sound like I'm talking about an IAL at all, but on the other hand who's to say that the typical, purely philosophical historical attempts at IAL design have been right to eschew this kind of pragmatic range? What good is human language without deep poetry?

Given that it's a children's book, then, all this does have some implications for Are You My Mother? I think there are three tokens in that text of emphatic pronouns, which now need to change, e.g.:

Ni-ilo ka imi SESE, ka ame-nene i sano.
1SG-know DEF self 2SG.EMPH DEF bird-baby VB.CL say
I know the equals-YOU one, the baby bird said
"I know who you are, said the baby bird."

Ame sa se, e mama óma-ni sa!
bird FOC 2SG and mama belong.1SG FOC
A bird is what you are, and it's my own mama!
"You are a bird, and you are my mother!"

The degree to which these feel wildly better than what I first posted is some additional evidence that these revised decisions are sound!

I knew this kind of thing would happen as soon as I published that piece. I considered just making edits to the original post as they occurred to me, but it feels dreadful to erase past process like that. Maybe when I'm reasonably sure (ha ha) that there are unlikely to be future changes, I can release a PDF or something.

Very lastly, going back to tata vs papa for "dad," I might also note that this issue has spurred the creation of a fleet of other heretofore nonexistent kinship terms as well. This is still solidifying, though, and doesn't really bear on the topic at hand, so I'll save it for another post...

Headless relatives and nominal subjects

This is a brief excursus to note an interesting consequence, and some interesting questions, arising from the way we've just decided to handle nominal subjects in relative clauses, in the context of the way we handle headless relatives specifically. This occurred to me with surprise just now while writing about something else and I didn't want to forget it!

To set this up, let's take a second to remember how predicates used adjectivally work in syntax. At base, the predicate simply follows the head it describes, without specifier:

ka sivu vihe
DEF leaf green
"the green leaves"

These adjectivals can also stand on their own with a specifier to describe an unnamed entity with the given characteristic, thus

ka vihe
DEF green
"the green one(s)"

It does occur to me to wonder in this moment if there's a "Ø" in the nominal slot in that kind of construction -- not the kind of thinking we've typically applied to the syntactic motivation of lexical class in Koa, but it's an interesting question:

?ka Ø vihe
DEF Ø green
"the green Ø"

Anyway, we can also give that adjectival a verbal force by turning it into a relative clause with u, thus

ka sivu u vihe
DEF leaf REL.CL green
"the leaves that are green"

So far so good, and uncontroversial in modern-day Koa. Now, looking at that last example, suppose we adjust the relative clause to have a nominal subject:

ka sivu [ le Kéoni u ako ]
DEF leaf [ NAME John REL.CL pluck ]
"the leaves John picked"

Here the entire clause le Kéoni u ako "that John picked" is functioning as an adjectival modifying the head ka sivu "the leaves." But what happens if, like ka vihe "the green ones" above, we want to delete the head noun? What if we just want to say "the ones John picked"? It would appear, keeping the structures parallel, that we would have to be left with the following!

ka [ le_Kéoni u ako ]
DEF [ John REL.CL pluck ]
"what John picked, the one(s) John picked"

Integrated into a matrix clause, we'd have:

Ai se-si-nae ka [ le_Kéoni u ako ] ?
QU 2SG-ANT-see [ John REL.CL pluck ]
"Have you seen the one(s) John picked?"

Even though this output follows logically, and I don't see anything wrong with the structure itself, it boggles my mind in a rather uncomfortable way. It's possible that I still need some time to get used to these newly-approved clause type markers and the way they show up in syntax; if that were older hat, perhaps the above wouldn't look surprising at all.

As an excursus to the excursus (an exexcursus?) I might mention that another allowable strategy for the relative clause up there would be to remove the clause marker and thereby make it non-finite; I've been saving the full discussion of these structures for some presumably upcoming post on nominalized clauses specifically. But just for completeness, this would be another way to say the same thing:

ka [ le_Kéoni ako ]
DEF [ John pluck ]
"the one(s) John picked"

Back to the plot, however weird it looks, ka le Kéoni u ako does again seem to be completely above board syntactically according to all the rules we've worked out to this point. Pushing into extremely speculative territory, though, I do have a tiny tingle of curiosity about whether -- in addition -- ka could itself show up as a clause type marker instead of u for this particular kind of construction. That would give e.g.

?le_Kéoni ka ako
John ?.CL pick
"what John picked, the one(s) John picked"

...or, in a larger clause,

?Ai se-si-nae [ le_Kéoni ka ako ] ?
QU 2SG-ANT-see [ John ?.CL pluck ]
"Have you seen the one(s) John picked?"

Honestly, I don't know! It's beautiful in the same way as the other dependent clauses, it just never, ever occurred to me that Koa syntax could possibly work this way. Since there's more than one possible specifier for the item(s) picked, though, would this logic take us into complete absurdity?

ti vihe
this green
"this green one"

po vihe
UNIV green
"green ones (in general)"

po_ka vihe
all green
"all the green ones"

Now with the standard headless relativization strategy:

ti [ le_Kéoni u ako ]
this [ John REL.CL pluck ]
"this one John picked"

po [ le_Kéoni u ako ]
UNIV [ John REL.CL pluck ]
"ones John picked (in general)"

po_ka [ le_Kéoni u ako ]
all [ John REL.CL pluck ]
"all the ones John picked, everything John picked"

So far so good...but

?le Kéoni ti ako
"this one John picked"

?le Kéoni po ako
"ones John picked (in general)"

?le Kéoni po ka ako
?po le Kéoni ka ako
"everything John picked"

Uhh...my parser definitely just broke. My instinct is the clauses with ka kind of make sense -- though I would need to do some research to decide what even to call such a clause...just "headless?" -- but that it's madness to allow any and every possible specifier to sub in for a clause type marker. Given, though, that it's a basic Koa principle that where one particle/predicate/structure of a given type can go, any other such particle/predicate/structure can go, we would have to be careful with definitions here. We'd have to say...that ka as a clause type marker is homophonous with ka "the" but is in fact a different marker, in the same way that ko forms abstract nouns but also has a separate identity marking finite clauses used as nominals.

Going to have to sit with that.

In the mean time, let's try a more complex sentence and see whether that creates a train wreck with any of these strategies: "I gave you what John said Mary wanted." That has two levels of embedded clauses, one of which is a headless relative and both of which have nominal subjects...

1. ni.ána.se ka [ le_Kéoni u sano [ le_Meli ko halu ] ]
I.gave.you DEF [ John REL.CL say [ Mary NOM.CL want ] ]

2. ?ni.ána.se [ le_Kéoni ka sano [ le_Meli ko halu ] ]
I.gave.you [ John HDLS.CL say [ Mary NOM.CL want ] ]

3. ni.ána.se ka [ le_Kéoni sano ko [ le_Meli halu ] ]
I.gave.you DEF [ John say COMP [ Mary want ] ]

Example 1 uses the standard form with finite dependent clauses; example 2 incorporates the experimental new headless relative clause marker; and example 3, for contrast, shows the alternative strategy in which both subordinate clauses are nominalized (nonfinite).

Between (1) and (3) I feel like I'm getting a difference in register. With finite dependent clauses there's no question that the syntax is much more complex, in perhaps a slightly formal/scientific/legal/nerdy way? The closest similar distinction I can draw off the cuff in English would be between "the things that Mary said that she wanted" and "what Mary said she wanted," but I think in Koa the difference in register is wider. Interesting.

With (2)...I think this structure is still too experimental for me to have intuitive feelings about it. I can get at le Kéoni ka sano as "what John said," but once that clause starts to take its own complement I can't process it at all. This may be a place where we need either more examples in actual use, more crosslinguistic evidence, or both.

What about other kinds of headless relatives, though? What about where John said it? Oh dear. Traditionally I think we would have this, with a ke-compound; unfortunately the article on theta clauses had not one single example clause with a nominal subject, so my choice of ko as the clause type marker here is intuitive rather than examined!

kene le_Kéoni ko sáno-ta
location John NOM.CL say-3SG
"(the place) where John said it

or, non-finite,

kene ko le_Kéoni sáno-ta
location COMP John say-3SG
"(the place) where John said it

Actually I think we're okay. By analogy to the other headless relative types we've just been discussing I was wondering if we might also have e.g. ne ka le Kéoni u sano, but that's something different: it would mean "in the things John said."

To be fully transparent, I have to say I'm wincing a bit at sentences like niánase ka le Kéoni u sano le Meli ko halu; the syntax is complex at a level that younger Koa would have rejected reflexively as clearly, obviously unacceptable to the charter and to the spirit of the language. I feel a bit wistful, or regretful, for our now lost fully modular structures, which would have made this sentence come out simpler and much more recognizable to Koa's original creole muses:

ni.ána.se ka [ le_Kéoni i sano ko [ le_Meli i halu ] ]
I.gave.you DEF [ John FIN say COMP [ Mary FIN want ] ]
"I gave you what John said Mary wanted"

I don't know what to do with how much I like that...and how much more I like it than most of what we've been talking about here today. I wonder how much choice between structural options is reasonable in a language: could all of these options be acceptable depending on style and register? Swahili certainly has multiple allowable strategies for relativization, for example, each kind of singing its own song. This feels like it's verging onto artlang territory just a bit, but maybe that's inescapable as soon as any conlang is subjected to the expressive needs of actual use, whether or not its speakers admit it.

Well, that was much less brief than I expected or intended, and way to make myself question everything yet again. I guess it turns out this was a corner of Koa syntax that still needed some rigorous investigation! ...and as to that final point, some additional soul-searching.

Ai Se Sa Nimama? Interlinear - Part 2

This is the conclusion of the interlinear gloss and commentary for my Koa translation of Are You My Mother. Part 1 is here, and the full text is here.

Ka ame-nene i luvu ve cu-meti.
DEF bird-baby VB.CL cease ADV.CL IRR-think
The baby bird ceased (in order) that he might think
"The baby bird stopped to think."

Directly inspired by Nahuatl, here we have an irrealis adverbial clause ve cumeti "in order that he might think." This is one of two primary ways of showing purpose (more about this in an upcoming post on adverbial clauses); the other would be the nonfinite la ko meti, literally "for thinking."

Ka séne-to e ka móa-he i na-ta-mama.
DEF cat-CHILD and DEF chicken-FEM VB.CL NEG-3SG-mama
The kitten and the hen are not his mama
"The kitten and the hen were not his mother."

In re the little argument I had with myself in Part 1, here's yet more internal evidence that inalienably possessed nouns can be predicates on their own...

Ka kunu e ka léma-e i na-ta-mama.
DEF dog and DEF cow-FEM VB.CL NEG-3SG-mama
The dog and the cow are not his mama
"The dog and the cow were not his mother."

Ni-ku-me-mama, — ka ame-nene i sano,
1SG-OLD-COM-mama DEF bird-baby VB.CL say
I clearly am with mother, the baby bird said
"I have a mother, said the baby bird."

I originally translated this as ni-ia-me-mama with the ia "yes/certainty" viridical showing verum; in this interpretation, the baby bird was pushing back against a universe he felt was suggesting he might not have a mother. I don't think that's positively wrong, but as I thought about it, in this moment I don't think he's focusing on the truth of his statement so much as establishing a base of known information. Ku is much better, a particle which is almost impossible to translate succinctly and fully into English (Polish has a perfect translation, przecież: Matkę przecież mam... "I [obviously] have a mother..."). It indicates that the information being conveyed is old, and is already (or should already be) known. English can kind of get at it with "clearly," "obviously," "of course," or "you know."

Ni-ilo, ia-ki-tai.
1SG-know VERUM-DEB-be
I know, it must be
"I know I do."

...on the other hand, here he definitely is asserting truth (just like I am in this moment), so ia is the most appropriate translation.

Ni-lu-lúta-ta. Ni-cu-lúta-ta. IA-CÚ!
1SG-VOL-find-3SG 1SG-IRR-find-3SG VERUM-IRR
I want/intend to find her. I will/would find her. Will/would!
"I will find her. I will. I WILL!"

I'm attempting here to convey the baby bird's escalating commitment to the task at hand, though using somewhat different words than the English. I continue to be a little uncertain about full extension of contextual meaning available to each of these particles lu "volitive" and cu "irrealis"; I'm hoping that lu can convey intention in the first clause, and then that cu could be a prediction of the future in the others. Now I wonder if all three clauses are really more about determination than fortune telling, though...should I have done lu for all three? Nilulútata. Ialú. IALÚ!

I guess there are two issues here: the accuracy of the translation of the English meaning on the one hand, and the naturalness of the Koa on the other. When I read just the Koa, this feels like a reasonable thing for the bird to say in this moment, in line with the vibe of the English if not exactly the same. For the moment I'll leave things as they are with the lu version as an understudy...and I'd really better think more about distinguishing intentionality versus desire with lu, and futurity versus imagination with cu.

Ie-he-toa ka ame-nene vo nae a mea iso.
JUST-TEMP-that DEF bird-baby PRES.CL see INDEF thing big
Just at that time, behold, the baby bird sees a big thing
"Just then the baby bird saw a big thing."

Should I have thought more about this calque of the English "just then"? It might very well be idiomatic Koa, but it's also not a phrasing I've ever actually used before. On the other hand, the presentative vo is doing great work in this sentence.

SEKA sa ni-mama! — ta-sano.
2SG.EMPH FOC 1SG-mama 3SG say
You are the one who is my mama! he said
"You are my mother! he said."

Noting in passing the first recorded use of the emphatic/predicative version of a personal pronoun. The bird could have said just se sa nimama, but not with the degree of emphasis we see here.

Ka mea iso i sano — HUAUU!
DEF thing big VB.CL say snort
The big thing said SNORT
"The big thing said, 'SNORT!'"

I have no idea how to actually say "snort" in Koa, so I tried to imagine how one might write the sound of a steam shovel in Koa phonology...

Ii, na! — ka ame-nene i sano.
EMOT NEG DEF bird-baby VB.CL say
Yikes, no! the baby bird said
"Oh, no! said the baby bird."

Hidden away in the "Particles" tab of the Koa lexicon and never before mentioned aloud is a list of emotive noises. I was glad I had something ready to translate that "oh, no!" intentionally! The full list is:

aa understanding, surprise
ee uncertainty; filler (um, uh, er)
ei calling attention
eu disgust
ii pain, dislike or nervousness
oi request for repetition or confirmation
oo understanding, confirmation
ui regret, commiseration
uu excitement, pleasure

Na ni-mama sa se. Huauu mu-pato sa se!
NEG 1SG-mama FOC 2SG Snort CAUS-fear FOC 2SG
It's not my mama that you are. Snort cause-fear is what you are
"You are not my mother. You are a scary Snort!"

Ka Huauu i nose ka ame-nene
DEF Snort VB.CL raise DEF bird-baby
The Snort lifted the baby bird
"The Snort lifted the baby bird"

i la-nomu, la-nomu, la-nomu.
VB.CL DAT-upper DAT-upper DAT-upper
to-upper, to-upper, to-upper
"up, up, up."

Sii hua i osu.
next something VB.CL occur
Next something happened
"Then something happened."

Ka Huauu vo ie-pane ka ame-nene
DEF Snort PRES.CL JUST put DEF bird-baby
Behold, the Snort just put the baby bird
"The Snort put the baby bird"

ie "just" is translating the sense of "right back in the tree" in the next line.

i lai la ka puu.
VB.CL return DAT DEF tree
returns to the tree
"right back in the tree"

Ka ame-nene i ho-ne-koto!
DEF bird-baby VB.CL NEW-LOC-home
The baby bird is wow in home!
"The baby bird was home!"

Ho is exactly the opposite of ku, marking information that's new, previously unknown, or surprising. This could also have been a strategy for two clauses above, as in Ka Huauu vo hoiepane ka amenene. This particle's usage is still in the process of being fully understood so I'm not sure whether two ho's in quick succession like that would be too much stylistically; in case it would be, I thought it should be reserved for the conclusion of that series of dramatic occurrences.

Ie-he-toa ka ame-mama vo lai.
JUST-TEMP-that DEF bird-mama PRES.CL return
Just at that time, behold, the mama bird returned
"Just then the mother bird came back."

Ni-ilo ka imi SEKA, ka ame-nene i sano.
1SG-know DEF self 2SG.EMPH DEF bird-baby VB.CL say
I know the equals-YOU one, the baby bird said
"I know who you are, said the baby bird."

Na séne-to, na móa-he, na kunu sa se.
NEG cat-CHILD NEG chicken-FEM NEG dog FOC 2SG
It's not kitten, not hen, not dog that you are
"You are not a kitten or a hen or a dog."

Na léma-e, na Huauu sa.
NEG cow-FEM NEG Snort FOC
It's not cow, not Snort
"You are not a cow or a snort."

Ame sa se, e mama nika sa!
bird FOC 2SG and mama 1SG.EMPH FOC
A bird is what you are, and it's my mama!
"You are a bird, and you are my mother!"

No further commentary here other than that I particularly like the translation of the last five sentences. On the whole, warts and all, I'm pretty happy with this inaugural translation in general; I feel like a Koa-speaking toddler would find it fun, natural and idiomatic. I suppose now I ought to try another genre...maybe a short news story? That would maintain the presentative nature of the information structure, but flip to the far other side of formality of language: maybe an interesting exercise. I'll think about it.

Finite clause types at last

In the winter of 2012, while on a dog walk in Washington Manor, out of the blue I had an idea about Koa clause marking. This idea felt crazy and revolutionary, but also beautiful, and possibly even ingenious. I dismissed it as too revolutionary and let it go for almost a decade, but never forgot it; and in the past few years of feverish Koa development I haven't been able to stop thinking about it.

The idea concerns the i that precedes the VP when it lacks a pronominal subject. Prior to 2012 I assumed the rule was simply that verbs have a pronoun slot that must be filled, so if an overt pronoun is absent, i is required as a placeholder. This is the case (more or less) in Toki Pona, which originally inspired this marker.

The revolutionary idea was that perhaps I had misanalyzed my own syntax. What if, instead of being a  pronoun, i is marking the clause type? And if that's the case, what if the ko I had previously regarded as a specifier that nominalizes clauses, or a complementizer, is actually just marking another type...and the u I thought was a relativizer was marking yet another? And what if there could be other markers too?

Borrowing from the original post in January 2012 in which I introduced and then immediately discarded this idea, this would give us the following marking for finite clauses:

i - verbal
ko - nominal
u - adjectival

...and the following template for the VP:

(SUBJECT) TYPE (PRONOUN) (TAM) VERB (OBJECT)

There's an important bit of subtlety here that I need to make sure to touch on before continuing. When languages nominalize clauses they usually become non-finite, sort of by definition; but as I said above, clauses with these markers are all finite. What one has to remember is that every Koa predicate can be verbal, nominal, or adjectival depending on its syntactic position; in this system, clauses are no exception. These clause type markers identify what the clause is doing in syntax -- i.e. whether the clause is acting like a verbal, nominal, or adjectival predicate -- but the clauses are still finite regardless.

Clause nominalization, the nonfinite variety, is an entirely different topic...though it does also exist in Koa, and would also be able to used for similar purposes! This is all very easy to confuse, and I think I've been consistently inconsistent or imprecise in my language here in the past: in Koa there's an extremely important distinction between a nominal clause and a nominalized clause. I should possibly ideally find a different term for one of these!

Anyway, those who have been following the plot closely may have noticed that I've been nonchalantly slipping structures like these into example sentences and translations for more than a year. After I discovered last year that Macedonian does "nominal clauses" this way too, e.g.

не сакам [ Јуле да знае ]
NEG want.1SG [ Julie NOM.CL know.3SG ]
"I don't want Julie to know"

...for which the precisely parallel Koa translation would be...

ni-na-halu [ le Iúliki ko ilo ]
1SG-NEG-want [ NAME Julie NOM.CL know ]

...and also discovered that Basque does nominal (and conditional, and adverbial) clauses this way:

[ bere aita Californian dago-ela ] esan_du Mikelek
[ his father California.LOC be.3S-NOM.CL ] say.3SG Michael.ERG
"Michael says his father is in California"

le_Mikele i sano [ taémaka ko ne le_Kalipónia ]
Michael VB.CL say [ his.father NOM.CL LOC California ]

...and that Swahili does relative clauses this way:

kitabu [ a-li-cho-ki-soma mtoto ]
book_β [ 3SG.SUBJ_α-PAST-REL_β-3SG.OBJ_β-read child_α ]
"the book that the child read"

ka tusi [ ka toto u luke ]
DEF book [ DEF child REL.CL read ]

...I was convinced that this isn't a completely outlandish, typologically ridiculous strategy at all. It's certainly not augmenting Koa's IAL-worthiness, but as I keep pointing out, in some cases the art is starting to feel more important than the charter, and these structures feel right for Koa. They're simple and elegant, and Koa syntax as a whole actually makes more internal sense when they're handled this way.

And so, by the power vested in me, I hereby admit these structures into the Koa canon. As ever I have the right to change my mind, but I'm going to give them their fair shot and see how Koa feels in practice when it makes full use of them.

I alluded above to the possibility that there might even be more than the three clause types referenced so far, and indeed many more have surfaced. Here are the categories and subcategories of clause types as identified so far:

i - verbal: neutral unmarked
vo - verbal: presentative
oe - verbal: obligative
ea - verbal: hortative
ko - nominal
u - adjectival
ve - adverbial
ha - conditional

Notes about distribution:

1) Verbs with pronominal subjects have some special properties, which affect the use of these clause markers. i is not used (or is extremely marked, TBD); ko is optional; and u is also optional. The remaining markers are required in all circumstances regardless of clause type.

2) A clause carries one and only one clause marker; BUT

3) Serial verbs to the right of the main verb are marked by i regardless of the clause type of the main verb (see example below).

In any event, this is really just an introduction and opportunity for me to welcome this new(ish) syntax out loud. Many of these types will need a post of their own to demonstrate usage; first up and currently in progress is a discussion of the newly discovered and rather exciting conditional structures, which have been patiently waiting for someone to notice them for 25 years.

Oh, and about those actually legitimately nominalized clauses I mentioned earlier...it turns out I got those right in that same 2012 post as well, actually. They're formed with specifier version of ko, and all clause markers -- as markers of finiteness -- are omitted. One example for now, pending a full treatment in a later post:

le Mia i sano ko [ ka moa Ø ma-lalu i poli ]
NAME Mia VB.CL say NOM [ DEF chicken NONFIN IMPF-sing VB.CL much ]
"Mia said the chickers were singing a lot"