Serial verbs versus syntactic complexity

Since the most recent post I've been coming to a series of realizations about Koa syntax, in equal parts exciting and disquieting. Exciting because these realizations -- realizations about serial verbs, I should say -- open a path to a much clearer and simpler structure for a variety of types of expression that have endlessly puzzled or frustrated me. They're simultaneously disquieting, though, because I seem to have missed or failed adequately to understand a critical part of Koa grammar which happens to be least similar to the European languages of my close acquaintance. I feel rather embarrassed about the extent of that blind spot.

To be clear, this isn't a question of "correct" versus "incorrect:": it's more akin to a statement like "I went home in order that I might take a nap" being used in everyday conversation. There is nothing grammatically incorrect about that sentence, but it is heavy, wordy, extremely syntactically complex, and conspicuously out of register. Something like the following would clearly be preferable on all those variables:

I went home to take a nap
I went home and took a nap
I went home, took a nap (conversational)

So it is with Koa, in which I now realize that I've been white-knuckling it through syntactic structures that have made a lot of my writing sound like I was trying to craft a legal contract. I wince to look back at Are You My Mother? (Okay whew: I did just look, and it's not as bad as I feared. The main offenders are, appropriately, purpose clauses.)

I'm working on laying out a more encyclopedic taxonomy of Koa serial verbs and usages, but in the mean time, I wanted to document broadly some of the chief areas of usage where I think properly employed serial verbs will have the greatest effect on the "feel" of Koa.

1. Embedded Clauses

Here a SVC elegantly replaces what would otherwise be a nominal or adverbial clause.

1.1 Modal & Auxiliary Verbs (want, start, can)

ni-halu i súsose
1SG-want SV kiss.you
"I want to kiss you"

ta-ama i lalu i aki
3SG-start SV sing SV sudden
"he suddenly started singing"

ni-voi i suo po kaca
1SG-able SV eat UNIV glass
"I can eat glass" (tanavakánuni -- it doesn't hurt me)

These usages share some characteristics of section 3 (conjoined clauses), in which a single complex event is represented by multiple constituent verbs. In fact, SVC's tend to blur the lines between a lot of construction types in syntactically fussier languages.

1.2 Causatives

ka sua i mei nipaa i eha
DEF sun MAIN.CL cause my.head SV hurt
"the sun made my head hurt"
(incidentally a translation of an example sentence from my Bislama grammar: San i mekem hed blong mi i soa)

In terms of register I'm not sure how much there is to choose between the SVC as above and a version with a nominal clause, ka sua i mei nipaa ko eha: they're of exactly equal length, the significant syntactic (but not semantic) difference being determined by the choice of a single particle. The same could be said of "I want to kiss you," also possible as nihalu ko súsose. We'll have to think about this one.

Anyway, though, the usual way to express this specific example would obviously be with the causative particle mu: ka sua i mueha nipaa.

1.3 Purpose Clauses

ka amenene i luvu i meti
DEF baby.bird MAIN.CL stop SV think
"the baby bird stopped to think"

...or "stopped and thought," but the distinction is usually hardly material, and this amount of ambiguity seems to be taken in stride in serial verb languages.

2. Adjuncts & Adverbials

To my relief, these structures have been in use for a very long time! A lot of concepts that would universally be considered adverbial in European languages, and have their own dedicated words, show up as serial verbs in Koa:

ni-lóha-se i poli
1SG-love-2SG SV much
"I love you very much"

Ø-pane ka moli i lai
IMP-put DEF candle SV return
"put the candle back"

láe.va-ta i tasi, Sami
play-3SG SV repeat, Sam
"play it again, Sam"

ta-lolo ka neu i sisu i itu hoi
3SG-grasp DEF pig SV tenacious SV use foot
"she held the pig tightly and tenaciously with her feet"

In this last example, an instrumental cihoi "by means of feet" would be perfectly fine too and probably much more common -- just illustrating the possibilities.

3. Conjoined Clauses and Complex Events

It turns out that a lot of ands between verbs and clauses are most fluently translated by SVC's in Koa:

ni-mi.eki ne-masa i suo ámu.suote
1SG-INCH-sit LOC-table SV eat breakfast
"I sat down at the table and ate breakfast"

We can also use clusters of verbs to express events with very complex internal structure:

le_Kéoni i aia auto i luo puu i tui i mua
John MAIN.CL drive car SV hit tree SV smash SV die
"John crashed his car into a tree, killing it"
OR "John crashed his car into a tree and died"

I'm sure there there are many other usages that are still escaping my notice, and there's a ton more to say even about the above types: coming soon.

I have to say, it's rather fascinating to see how frustrated my rigid European linguistic mindset gets with a lot of the forms above; I seem desperately to want to imprison everything in labeled, nested hierarchic trees. This is all going to take some getting used to.

Purpose and result clauses

This is, at last, a review of the means Koa has developed to express the intended or actual effect of an action, structures which have been decided and in use for at least two years now and awaiting their moment in the sun.

One expresses these semantics via at least three entirely distinct syntactic structures, of which the simplest is the serial verb construction (speaking of long awaiting formal description). Most of the heavy lifting heretofore, though, has been courtesy of oblique nominal clauses -- known in this usage for many years -- and adverbial clauses, much more recently understood.

(Aside: I'm experiencing some onomastic frustration as I try to use English-language grammatical terminology to describe clause-level Koa syntactic structures, and had already written a multi-paragraph excursus before realizing it wasn't really going to be helpful in understanding the subject at hand. Perhaps I should flesh it out into a post of its own...)

Let's compare each type of result clause to the corresponding purpose clause to make the structures and meaning conveyed as clear as possible. First, with oblique nominal clauses:

1A. ta-talu le_Kéoni me ko ta-sulu
3SG-push John COM NOM.CL 3SG-collapse
"he pushed John over," lit. "he pushed John with him falling down"

1B. ta-talu le_Kéoni la ko ta-sulu
3SG-push John ALL NOM.CL 3SG-collapse
"he pushed John to knock him down," lit. "he pushed John for him falling down"

In 1A the structure uses the comitative me "with" to specify the outcome of the action -- John falling down -- whereas 1B uses the allative la "to/for" to express only the intention, with the actual result remaining unexplored.

I was nervous about these structures for a long time in fear that they might be importing unexamined IE calques, but with further thought I realized that this is in fact an extremely common strategy cross-linguistically (in both Spanish and Turkish, for instance).

In the examples above, note that there is a bit of theoretical ambiguity in the intended referent of ta in tasulu: 1A could also potentially mean "he pushed John and fell down." In general, however, subject particles in an embedded clause are omitted when coreferential with the subject of the matrix clause, so with that meaning we would expect to see instead tatalu le Kéoni me ko Ø-sulu. In practice, of course, context would also strongly inform the interpretation.

An exhaustive post on the form and use of adverbial clauses is urgently needed and long overdue, and this discussion anticipates that core understanding a bit. Here are the same parallel expressions using this construction:

2A. ta-talu le_Kéoni ve ta-sulu
3SG-push John ADV.CL 3SG-collapse
"he pushed John over," lit. "he pushed John such that he fell down"

2B. ta-talu le_Kéoni ve ta-cu-sulu
3SG-push John ADV.CL 3SG-IRR-collapse
'he pushed John to knock him down," lit. "he pushed John such that he would fall down"

Note that the only difference between 2A and 2B is that in 2B the result clause contains the irrealis cu: thus the described outcome is hypothetical, and expresses only intention. I really quite love this new (well, newish -- 2023 still feels recent) addition to my understanding of how Koa can work, informed by languages as distinct as Latin, Basque and Nahuatl!

Interestingly, a very small change in both example sets completely changes the parsing and introduces additional distance between the action and result (and/or between agent and patient):

1A'. ta-talu me [ le_Kéoni ko sulu ]
3SG-push COM [ John NOM.CL collapse ]
"he pushed, and John fell down"; "he pushed such that John fell down"

2A'. ta-talu [ le_Kéoni ve sulu ]
3SG-push [ John ADV.CL collapse ]
idem

The distinction in meaning is similar to that between "he killed John" and "he caused John to die." Formally, the difference hinges on the location of the brackets: whether the subject of the result clause is felt to be a patient of the matrix verb. Thus

2A. ta-talu le_Kéoni ve [ ta-sulu ]
3SG-push John ADV.CL [ 3SG-collapse ]
"he pushed John over," lit. "he pushed John such that he fell down"

2A'. ta-talu [ le_Kéoni ve sulu ]
3SG-push [ John ADV.CL collapse ]
"he pushed, and John fell down"; "he pushed (something) such that John fell down"

Lastly, and in a fashion perhaps most natively Koa of all of these, we may use serial verbs to express the same meaning. Thus

3A. ta-talu le_Kéoni i sulu
3SG-push John SV fall
"he pushed John over," lit. "he pushed John fall down"

3B. ?ta-talu le_Kéoni i vi-sulu
3SG-push John SV IMP-fall
"he pushed John to knock him down," lit. "he pushed John let him fall down!"

3A is basic and the lightest of all available options for this semantic: a Koa speaker would likely select it unless there was a reason to prefer the greater specificity or wordiness of 1A or 2A in context. I left this construction for last, though, because the parallel form for intention, 3B, is...questionable.

Prior to my discovery of the incredible potential of ve via Nahuatl near the end of 2023, the usage of the imperative in 3B was suggested by Latvian in June; I still don't really know what to think of it and whether it makes any sense at all. I honestly don't like it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't be available...but then again there really hasn't ever been any other similar use of vi anywhere else in the language. AND I still feel weird about new modal morphology showing up late in string of serial verbs. I don't want to nix it outright, but it feels very marginal to me.

As I mull this over, I find myself wondering whether in fact 3A could indicate either result or intention depending on context. Is that possible? All of my sense of this comes either from dipping my toes into Bislama or my native speaker intuition (such as it is) from Koa -- why don't I actually speak any natural languages that use serial verbs? What have I been doing with my life??

Okay, breathing: lots more research is clearly needed, and I have some papers touching this topic queued up to review, but in the mean time I'm finding examples via Google like this one from Mandarin:

tā tuō xié jìn wū
she take.off shoe enter house
"she took off her shoes to enter the house" OR "she took off her shoes and entered the house"

For the moment, then, it seems not unreasonable to suppose that Koa could use serial verbs in the same way -- that's rather exciting! I'm going to let that percolate over the next little while. I suspect that serial verbs may end up obviating the need in everyday usage for a lot of the syntactically complex constructions that have caused me the most angst over the years...

Before closing for today, I should mention one other type of result construction: so X that Y. The Koa formula for this is iu X ve Y, as in, for example,

ta-iu-ona ve (ta-)sulu
3SG-DEG-drunk ADV.CL (3SG-)collapse
"she was so drunk she fell down"

This dates from as far back as 2017, surprisingly, long before I had any clear sense of what ve was really all about. It now occurs to me that we could also achieve the same meaning with serial verbs, e.g.

ta-iu-ona i sulu
1SG-DEG-drunk SV collapse
"she was so drunk she fell down," lit. "she's so drunk fall down"

...and we can go ahead and disallow the imperative construction from 3B, creative idea though it was.

Since purpose clauses come up a whole lot in daily usage, I'd like to sum up our three strategies, in reverse order, for saying "I went home to take a nap":

nimene lakoto i núkuki
I.went home SV nap
lit. "I went home nap"

nimene lakoto ve cu-núkuki
I.went home ADV.CL IRR-nap
lit. "I went home that I might nap"

nimene lakoto la ko núkuki
I.went home ALL NOM.CL nap
lit. "I went home for napping"

In terms of usage, the serial verb construction is once again by far the simplest/lightest/most elegant and I would imagine we would see it most often colloquially -- not that serial verbs are necessarily coded as casual in Koa usage, though, so much as that the others may be coded as formal! For those other two, I really just don't know at this point: are there any pragmatic implications that could differentiate? Or could this be like someone versus somebody where there is genuinely no meaningful difference, just personal preference? The ve structure feels vaguely more sophisticated to me, but that may just be interference from English!

Perhaps I should try to translate something more...not actually written for small children, to create the opportunity to try out all the structures I've ended posts about by saying "We'll have to consider as this comes up in context." I wonder what? It needs to be short enough not to be overwhelming, but long enough to sink my teeth into. It would be neat if it were in a language other than English, too.

Some, all and none

I feel a little grumpy about this post: this is one of those embarrassing core areas that I've somehow managed to sneak by without ever actually fully working out. Even now I'm not positive that some of the structures I'm about to document are quite right, though I also can't quite think what I could feasibly replace them with. The question is how we express ideas like "some," "all" and "none."

To begin with, we have the particles hu "∃" and po "∀". The former in particular has been awkward to understand how to use and to explain because Koa is not, in fact, a logical language like Loglan; they needed to be pragmatically useful to humans, not just computers.

A post about hu is forthcoming so I'll set the complicated history aside for now. Hu essentially identifies a referent which exists in the world, but which is not identifiable within the discourse; sometimes that can be translated as "some," but often the better English translation uses the existential verb: "there is..." Po, on the other hand, means "all" in the sense that it identifies an entire category, but does not imply any internal structure (i.e. individuals) within that category. Thus the simplest of sentences with these quantifiers look like this:

hu nosu i lusu
EXIST elephant MAIN.CL gray
"there are some elephants that are gray; there are gray elephants"

ni-loha hu nosu
1SG-love EXIST elephant
"there are some elephants I love; I love some elephants"

po nosu i lusu
UNIV elephant MAIN.CL gray
"elephants are gray"

ni-loha po nosu
1SG-love UNIV elephant
"I love elephants"

Hu and po can be combined with the specifiers ka "the" and a "a" to form pronouns: hua "(there is) something," huka "(there is) someone, some of them," poa "everything," poka "everyone, all of them." These words have existed primarily in that usage -- pronouns -- through almost the entirety of Koa's history. In extremely early Koa, though -- like 2002 early -- it was clear to me that these could also be preposed to predicates to indicate "some" and "all," but in later years this certainty quickly became muddled.

The quantifiers kind of look and behave in some ways like specifiers, and since specifiers can't be stacked before predicates anywhere else in the language, these started to feel ungrammatical. For example, ti + a = tia "this" as a pronoun, but we can't say *tia nosu "this elephant": the correct form is ti nosu. Poa and friends, though they look parallel and I've even called them "correlatives" in unguarded moments, are actually made of a quantifier and a specifier; their syntax is quite different. As such, we can say:

hu-a nosu i lusu
some-INDEF elephant MAIN.CL gray
"some elephants are gray"

hu-ka nosu i lusu
some-DEF elephant MAIN.CL gray
"some of the elephants are gray"

po-a nosu i lusu
all-INDEF elephant MAIN.CL gray
"all elephants are gray"

po-ka nosu i lusu
all-DEF elephant MAIN.CL gray
"all of the elephants are gray"

Of course, there is no logical distinction between e.g. "elephants are gray" and "all elephants are gray," but there are clearly important pragmatic differences; the same is true of "there are some gray elephants" and "some elephants are gray." The nature of these distinctions would be good for me to try to spell out at some point, but I will need to be at my sharpest and tonight is not the time for that attempt!

The above structures with hu can also be negated (nahu, nahua, nahuka), in which case they come to mean "no" or "none"; on their own, of course, nahua and nahuka are pronous, "nothing" and "no one/none of them."

na-hu nosu i lusu
NEG-EXIST elephant MAIN.CL gray
"there are no elephants that are gray"

na-hu-a nosu i lusu
NEG-EXIST-INDEF elephant MAIN.CL gray
"no elephants are gray"

na-hu-ka nosu i lusu
NEG-EXIST-DEF elephant MAIN.CL gray
"none of the elephants are gray"

Aside: If you're holding your breath in hopes I'm about to issue a judgment on whether negation is doubled in clauses like "I don't love any elephants," I'm afraid today will be disappointing on that point too. Just to lay the question out there again, should the Koa translation of this be...

ni-loha na-hu-a nosu
1SG-love NEG-EXIST-INDEF elephant

...or...

ni-na-loha hu-a nosu
1SG-NEG-love EXIST-INDEF elephant

...or yet again...

ni-na-loha na-hu-a nosu
1SG-NEG-love NEG-EXIST-INDEF elephant

Irritatingly, I have not the slightest idea how to choose between Slavic and Germanic logic on this question, and continue to hedge by allowing both. Someday I'll need find some criteria by which to make a decision.

Anyway, back to quantification, there are a few other structures available within this general category worth mentioning here. With nai "some/rather," we can say

nái-pi nosu i lusu
some-QUANT elephant MAIN.CL gray
"some elephants are gray"

nái-pi ka nosu i lusu
some-QUANT DEF elephant MAIN.CL gray
"some of the elphants are gray"

If there's any real distinction between hua nosu and náipi for "some elephants," I think it might be that the latter would be drawing attention to the fact that the number is indefinite or unknown, rather that to the truth value of the overall proposition. In practice, I wonder if it might often be a question of register?

With visi "each, every," we have

po nosu visi i lusu
UNIV elephant every MAIN.CL gray
"every elephant is gray"

ka nosu visi i lusu
DEF elephant every MAIN.CL gray
"every one / each of the elephants is gray"

I've asked myself whether vísipi could possibly be a synonym for poa in the way that náipi is slightly synonymous with hua, e.g.

?vísi-pi nosu i lusu
every-QUANT elephant MAIN.CL gray
"all elephants are gray"

...and I'm not sure if that feels more marginal because it's new, or because it's wrong. Theoretically it could emphasize number like nai, as in "every single elephant..." That might work! I'll let it sit.

Lastly, we have tele "several," as in

téle-pi nosu i lusu
several-QUANT elephant MAIN.CL gray
"several elephants are gray"

or alternatively

hu nosu tele i lusu
EXIST elephant several MAIN.CL gray
"several elephants are gray; there are several gray elephants"

Coming soon will be that post about hu, and particularly the difference between hu and a! I'm hoping I can finally, once and for all, set that matter to rest.

Topics in Koa meta-analysis

Back in 2023 I realized with excitement that I was in the position to calculate some statistics on the origin of the Koa lexicon. Since then some additional forensic techniques have developed, and I can now lay out a significantly clearer and more detailed picture, including previously unexamined data around patterns and subjects of inspiration and productivity. I have to say I'm endlessly fascinated by this kind of intense meta navel gazing, and the kind of autobiographical insight it can provide (assuming I can figure out how to interpret the data).

In the domain of etymology, first of all, I now have data on all but 50 of my 1066 roots, and year-of-creation data for all but one of them. Below are the percentages of my predicate roots by source; origins with fewer than 10 tokens apiece (5% of the total) have been grouped into "Other," representing a wide range of both natural (Basque, Latin, Malay, Nahuatl, Quechua, Swahili, Turkish and many others) and artificial languages (Doraja, Esperanto, Quenya, Seadi, etc.):

Some notes on the categories...

Random words (30%) were created with the help of my vocab tracker and random-word selector, which ensures no unintended homophony among roots, and provides random suggestions for needed words weighted by the preferability of their structure. I should clarify that I never make these choices without considerable thought and review: my program makes a suggestion, but the aesthetics have to feel right before I'll accept it.

Created words (7%), on the other hand, were inspired by the Muse in some way, and created specifically for their intended use. These include mina "woman" and kane "man," lai "come back," tasi "repeat," tai "be, exist," mua "die," itu "use," kuhu "owl," etc.

Internal coinages (7%) were formed via clusters of existing vocabulary, mainly (but not exclusively) particles:

to "that [adjectival]" + a "[indefinite]" > toa "that [pronominal]"
me "with" + no "without" > meno "regardless, anyway"
ke "which" + ne "in, on, at" > kene "location"
ai "[question marker]" + saa "receive, be allowed" > aisa "pardon, excuse me, may I"

Slavic words (2%) comprise loans from Polish, Russian, Bosnian and Macedonian. There were actually enough Polish words to constitute a category in their own right, but I didn't want the remaining Slavic loans to be hidden in "Other"...

Polynesian words (11%) include Hawaiian, Samoan, Tahitian, Tongan and Maori. I think I originally expected this category to be much larger given Koa's nearly Polynesian phonology, but it's turned out that Finnish words tend to be more amenable to the constraints of Koa root structure.

Finnish loans (26%) are the largest non-random category, providing more than a quarter of Koa's core vocabulary. When looking to assign a new root, I almost always check Finnish first -- if it has a suitable word, or one I can easily modify to be suitable, it's generally my first choice. I'm positive that this is a reflection of my own aesthetic biases, but it certainly also helps that the phoneme inventory and syllabic constraints of Finnish are not much more complicated than Koa's, while providing more variety and salience than Polynesian for this purpose.

Family & Friends (1%), lastly, include coinages for Koa by other people in my life! Two former partners are represented here (anu "water" from Amelia, culi "move" and many others from Olga), friends (soto "meditate" from Jonathan), and of course my daughter (lapa "safe"). I actually really love these little lasting artifacts of my loved ones; I wish I'd sought more of these over the years! I've been considering giving other friends and family members the phonology and commissioning creations for words that have been problematic heretofore (like "rice," "springtime," "spoon" and "unenvious").

In addition to the origins of Koa words, it's also interesting to look at the timing of their creation, which has been anything but linear.

There were two significant spikes, centered on 2011 and 2023, one with a lead-in from the previous year, the other with a coda into the following. In all, these two spikes and their entourage are responsible for 876 roots, 82% of the total. It appears that word-creation is something of a separate "project" for me: to be taken on when necessary, but otherwise proceeding only at a trickle. Let's see what happens if we compare the rate of word creation with blog post creation...

Blog posts -- which tend to occur alongside significant structural or theoretical work on the language -- have spikes too, though apparently following a different drummer than word creation. For one thing, interestingly, spikes tend to skip years: unlike with words, there are no two consecutive years with blog posts being written at a higher than average rate. Also, though there may not be enough data to justify attributing causation, it would appear that structural work may drive word creation: in both cases of a significant word-creation spike, a period of structural work preceded it, sometimes for several years.

Thinking about this subjectively, I suppose it ought not to be surprising. Assigning words is probably my least favorite area of conlanging: (1) the stakes feel high, as these choices end up determining much of the aesthetic character of the language: where I make choices I dislike, these can affect my interest in the whole language; and (2) it's almost entirely a subjective/creative/artistic process, something that I can do but which is much more difficult for me to access than, say, problem-solving. (This is one reason I enjoy the company of ADHD folks, for whom eliciting that kind of creative vision tends, seemingly, to be rather effortless.)

In other words, then, what seems to happen is that my main conlanging inspiration is structural or philosophical -- phonology, morphology, syntax, pragmatics, even sociolinguistics -- and I turn to lexis basically to support my ability to continue developing those areas, or when needed in order to produce or translate a certain kind of text. Fascinating! I really had no conscious sense of this.

I did, however, have a sense that there were certain times of year when I tended to be more active in Koa development than others, and finally found a way to explore this. Again taking blog publishing rates as a convenient approximate metric on activity level, we can see that there are interesting patterns associated with months of the year:

In particular, a post is about twice as likely to get written between November and April (69%) than it is between May and October, with February by far the most productive month. On the other end of the spectrum, in almost 26 years there have only been four posts written in the month of August. My immediate assumption was that this differential was likely to be weather-related, so I did some additional research...

Using Weather Underground's history features, I put together a grid showing the average monthly temperature for each month in which posts were published, localized to wherever I happened to be at the time.

This bears out my suspicion in that again a post is about twice as likely to be published when the average temperature is below 60°F, but it's hard to get more than that from these data because the frequency of posts gets entangled with the frequency of the temperature ranges themselves. To counteract this, I redid the chart showing post frequency per temperature as a percentage of a baseline in which temperature did not affect productivity. Here the results are pretty striking:

Below a monthly average temperature of 60°F, posting activity is approximately at or significantly above baseline, reaching a magnificent high of 149% between 50°F and 54°F. On the other hand, as soon as the temperature rises to 60°F the productivity rate compared to baseline begins to fall rapidly, as low as 48% when the average temperature is at or above 70°F.

The interesting conclusion is that I clearly feel more inspired or productive when the weather is cooler: approximately the range of temperatures in which I tend to wear a hat and socks indoors, and keep a space heater running in my room. When the temperature is warmer I tend to spend more time outside doing other activities, for one thing, but I think that beyond that my mindset changes somewhat: it's not the way I spend my time, it's the way I'm inspired to spend my time.

Another thing I thought was interesting is that it seems I'm significantly more likely to feel like working on Koa when the temperature is cool but not too cold. This surprised me: I had assumed there was just a "warm weather" mode and a "cold weather" mode, but it appears that outdoor temperatures below a certain point diminish inspiration or motivation in some way.

In the end I worry whether all this may just represent cheerful but ultimately frivolous data-crunching...but given that I've given so much time, thought and effort to this project over so many years of my life, I find it rather wonderful and meaningful to get to take a look at the character of the work itself. When I feel inspired, that fire tends to seize me and I don't really notice what I'm doing; it turns out that there is some kind of internal form and science, not just to the product but to the inspiration itself. It feels kind of moving, somehow, and makes me want to take more pride, and have more faith, in my particular curious artistic process.

Social Niceties IV: Politeness & Obscenity

At last, the fourth and final installment of this series on social-focused language in Koa: ways of indicating respect or politeness on the one hand, and obscenity or disparagement on the other. The foundation for both types of language is long-standing, and some of the constructions discussed here have existed for a long time, but in many cases there was a lot of development and extrapolation needed.

Here is a start to the subject, with the caveat that real patterns of usage will need to be developed via...well, usage. This is an area for which need has arisen rather less in existing Koa texts, in which I've been primarily (A) journaling, or (B) talking to children!

11. Respect & Politeness

11.1 The honorific -a

The most basic morpheme to add formality, politeness or deference to an utterance is the honorific particle -a (-ha after -a in the stem), which has been mentioned many times previously in this series. By default, the honorific is suffixed to the verbal unit:

kea sa se-hálu-a?
what FOC 2SG-want-HON
"what would you like?"

ai se-me-táli-a?
QU 2SG-COM-offspring-HON
"do you happen to have any children?"

kéle-a sa se-noa?
what-HON FOC 2SG-name
"what might your name be?"

The last two translations are getting a bit heavy-handed in trying to convey a kind of formality that English doesn't really express consistently. Languages with T-V-type distinctions don't quite get at it either: kélea sa senoa? could sometimes translate into Spanish as ¿cómo se llama Usted? but not always. Honorifics can be inserted to denote extra politeness even in contexts where a Spanish speaker would not use Usted except in jest: with a romantic partner, for example.

It's important to keep emphasizing that these translations are attempts to get at the intended meaning, but miss the mark somewhat. In my idiolect, "sir" is quite formal; I would always address my boss with héia "hello" or kea sa semáia "how are you?" where I would never dream of calling him "sir" in English.

It is possible to amplify the implied politeness by adding -a to more than one constituent, though in all but the most formal of situations this may feel a little over-the-top:

kéle-a sa se-nóa-ha?
what-HON FOC 2SG-name-HON
"what might your name be, sir?" "might I have the honor of your name?"

11.2 Terms of address

For polite address, the most flexible is based on the root cano "honorable, admirable":

cánoa "sir/ma'am/miss"
cano, cánoka/cánoe "gentleman/lady"

The first expression, cánoa, is ungendered: an all-purpose form of direct address for anyone being shown overt respect: approximately English "sir," "ma'am" or "miss." In 3rd-person reference the root may also appear on its own, or with the gendered suffixes -ka or -e if desired: Ai secuteapu ti cáno(ka)? "Could you assist this gentleman?" In these cases the honorific is not usual: *cánokaha.

Where "sir" or "ma'am" is intended to denote serious deference or adherence to a hierarchy -- speaking to a superior officer in the military, for example -- we have an additional option using the root ula, literally "higher in a hierarchy." Again, the form with the honorific affix is used primarily in direct address, the other forms in the 3rd person:

úlaha "sir/ma'am"
úla, úlaka, úlae "superior, superior officer (m/f)"

Note that the opposite of ula, nala "lower in a hierarchy" may be used without disparagement to refer to, for example, one's direct reports: nálaka/nálae. However, note that -- outside of the military -- in direct address this term is likely to be taken as strange or offensive: Mitace, nálaha! "With all due respect, silence, underling!"

Speaking to or of one's boss or leader specifically, etu "main, chief, lead" is available: étua for direct address, etu/étuka/étue in the 3rd person. Etu without an honorific has a jocular sense, much like "boss" may sometimes appear in English.

Lastly, if the referent is a literal member of the nobility in a given society, terms based on the root ialo would be used: iáloa "my lord, my lady, noble born"; iáloka "gentleman, nobleman"; iáloe "lady, noblewoman."

11.3 Phrases of deference

In contexts of great social distance between speaker and addressee, a number of expressions use the roots vati "require" and kase "command":

sevátia? "What can I do for you?" lit. "You require?", short for Kea sa sevatiá? "What do you require?"

kásea? or sekásea? "What would you like, sir/ma'am?" lit. "(you) command?", short for Kea sa sekásea "What do you command?"

These phrases have much wider usage than the direct English translations might suggest. (Se)kásea? might be used by a server in a nice restaurant to mean "what would you like to order?", or as a formal "pardon me?" in a situation of receiving instructions from a superior.

Also relevant to these types of contexts is heti, literally "immediate," meaning "right away, got it, yessir": a statement of understanding/acceptance of direction.

12. Disparagement & Obscenity

12.1 The pejorative -mu

Parallel with the honorific -a is the pejorative suffix -mu, indicating dislike, irritation, disrespect or general disparagement. When its scope is a whole utterance, like -a it tends to appear on the verb:

kea sa se-éte-mu?
what FOC 2SG-do-PEJ
"What the hell did you do?"

-mu is somewhat freer than -a, however, in that its scope may also apply specifically to the constituent to which it is affixed. In the above, this gives an additional possible reading of "What did you screw up?" Other examples:

nekea sa ka túsi-mu-ni?
where FOC DEF book-PEJ-1SG
"Where's my damn book?"

ka áuto-ni i súlu-mu
DEF car-1SG MAIN.CL collapse-PEJ
"my car fucking broke down"

ka áuto-mu-ni i sulu
DEF car-PEJ-1SG MAIN.CL collapse
"my lousy car broke down"

Note that the sense of ka áutoni i súlumu, with the pejorative suffix on the verb, is general upset about the situation; in ka áutomuni i sulu, on the other hand, the suffix on "car" identifies it as the specific object of disparagement.

Question words like kea "what," keka "who" and nekea "where" may themselves also take -mu for a sense of "what/who/where the hell":

kéa-mu sa se-ma-éte?
what-PEJ FOC 2SG-IMPF-do
"What the hell are you doing?"

12.2 Obscene words

Cursing and obscene invective are, alas, not yet particularly well developed in Koa, and are still rather tame. In approximate order of intensity, the ones I've identified so far are:

havu "nasty, dishonorable, shameful" -- the opposite of cano. In my idiolect, this might correspond in strength to words like "lousy," "bastard," "asshole," etc.
ceu "despised, damned"
peke "goddamn, fucking, piece-of-shit"

The above are all adjectival in core sense, but are commonly used as interjections as well:

havu "hell, bastard, asshole"
ceu "damn"
peke "fuck, shit"

Combinations with question words are also possible:

kea/keka ceu..., ke ceu... "what/who the hell..."
nekea peke... "where the fuck..."

12.3 Phrases of disparagement

The obscenities discussed in the previous section may be directed at another party either via the imperative particle vi, or in apposition with se "you":

vihavu, havu se "you bastard/asshole"
viceu, ceu se "damn you"
vipeke, peke se "fuck you"

The imperative forms may be strengthened with a following ablative directional marker o, roughly analogous to "off" in some English expressions:

viceu o "go to hell"
vipeke o "fuck off"

Note that o is stressed in such uses, and may be so spelled: vipeke ó, etc.

Other expressions of disapprobation, all of which become stronger/more vulgar with -mu:

mitace(mu) (o) "shut (the hell) up"
(vi)lahe(mu) o "go (the fuck) away"
láhe(mu)ni o "leave me (the fuck) alone"

Of course, obscenity in Koa is still in its infancy, and a skillful speaker will no doubt find many additional creative ways of expressing these kinds of emotions!

This concludes our catalog of the language currently at Koa's disposal for social, discourse and emotive purposes...but again, this is an open-ended and constantly evolving domain in any language, and will continue to develop as opportunities for use emerge. If I can recruit even one additional speaker someday, I'm sure the richness of the language in these areas will swell very quickly.

Polynesian in the pronouns

I just had a crazy, but maybe kind of good, idea? I was rereading this post from 2010, in which I said:

20) And speaking of pronouns, I have a provisional decision. For a little while there I was doing singular/plural for all persons (ni/nu, se/so, ta/tu), but I don't think that's the way to go. Instead, I've kept nu for "we," possibly exclusive, on the grounds that it really does mean something different than "I," along with seni/senu for dual/plural inclusive. Also possible are ponu "we, all of us (exclusive)," poseni "y'all and me" and posenu "y'all and us." This then becomes the strategy for the other persons: "y'all" is pose, and "they" is pota.

 

What's uncertain is whether I really want to maintain an inclusive/exclusive distinction (my gut says probably not in an IAL, though seni is still a useful thing to have), and also what happens when these longer forms are used with verbs: i or no i?

 

Also, if there's seni, why not tani? A matter for further thought. Maybe I'm not as sure about the above after all.

Obviously many things changed (or failed to change) in the following 15 years. I retained nu "we," so "y'all" and tu "they" in use as the plural pronouns despite what I wrote above; seni "you and I," ponu "all of us," poso "all of you" and potu "all of them" have remained in the lexicon, but to my knowledge have never actually been used.

It just occurred to me...now that my tether to IALdom has begun somewhat to fray, what would it look like if all possible combinations of pronouns could be used as long forms? This would yield amazing, Polynesian-level specificity, or beyond:

1st Person Inclusive
seni "you and I"
senu "you and we"
soni "y'all and I"
sonu "y'all and we"

1st Person Exclusive
tani "he/she and I (but not you)"
tanu "he/she and we (but not you)"
tuni "they and I (but not you)"
tunu "they and we (but not you)"

2nd Person
tase "he/she and you"
taso "he/she and y'all"
tuse "they and you"
tuso "they and y'all"

That's a lot of roots to use up for such an experimental purpose, not even getting into the fact that some of them already have meanings. But...according to the accentuation rules I've since established, clusters of particles are typically accented on the final member whereas predicates have penultimate stress: thus soní "y'all and I" could exist unambiguously alongside soni "vein."

We could even combine the extended 1st- and 2nd-person forms into some wildly specific clusters:

1st Person Universal
tasení "he/she, you and I"
tasenú "he/she, you and we"
tasoní "he/she, y'all and I"
tasonú "he/she, y'all and we"
tusení "they, you and I"
tusenú "they, you and we"
tusoní "they, y'all and I"
tusonú "they, y'all and we"

How, though, would any of these forms actually be used? How do they fit into syntax? Let's see...

1) I think it's clear that they would need to fit into the category of pronominals we recently discovered that we have: that is to say, they would not take specifiers.

2) It should be unproblematic for these to show up in topicalized, focalized, and oblique positions. In the case of topicalization, the verb would still carry a pronominal prefix if the formal role of the pronoun in question is subject. These forms cannot, however, appear as pragmatically unmarked subjects:

ta.ní, nu-hui he lúlu.pai
she.and.I 1PL-meet TEMP Thursday
"she and I -- we met on Thursday" (topicalized)

se.ní sa luta ka lina kuo
you.and.I FOC find DEF city lost
"it was us (you and I) who found the lost city" (focalized)

ni.papa vo kau tea la se.ní
my.dad PRES.CL send letter DAT you.and.I
"my dad sent us (you and I) a letter" (oblique)

*ta.ní hui he lúlu.pai
she.and.I meet TEMP Thursday
"we (she and I) met on Thursday (unmarked)

3) What about object position, though? Do we say

ta-si.nae se.ní
3SG-saw you.and.I
"he saw you-and-me"

or

ta-si.náe-nu se.ní
3SG-saw-1PL you.and.I
lit. "he saw us you-and-me"

I believe it would be the former, because Koa doesn't have obligatory pronominal clitics for definite objects in other positions (like Macedonian would do in e.g. ја купив книгата "I bought (it) the book"). I think this spread of usages would thus mirror those of the emphatic pronouns nini, sese, etc., though I haven't spelled them out before. In fact, one could potentially regard these as a more specific, more marked category of emphatic pronoun!

Let's throw the "all" forms of the plural pronouns in there as well:

ponú "all of us"
posó "all of you"
potú "all of them"

I don't see any particular drawbacks to letting these all exist while we explore what they might feel like in actual usage. How neat!

Social Niceties III: Discourse Markers

This is inevitably going to be a very incomplete post. Though I'm excited finally to be collecting and documenting the words and phrases that help manage the flow and structure of discourse, this has got to be one of the most fluid and least prescribed areas of any language; I'm sure I've left out a great amount of what would be considered basic social fluency in a competent speaker of Koa. This is one of the places where Koa development is seriously impaired by its extremely small community of speakers (i.e. only me), and therefore the fact that discoveries via conversation are kind of...imaginary.

Regardless, there's a lot here, and I've done my best to sort everything out into the broad Maschler categories described by the Wikipedia article. Many of these expressions could use a whole post unto themselves to fully explore their use, so this should be regarded mainly as an inventory. Note: some expressions appear in more than one category, where senses overlap.

7. Interpersonal Discourse Markers

First, the so-called affective particles: sounds that communicate the speaker or hearer's emotion in the context of the discourse.

aa understanding (surprise)
ee uncertainty, reluctance, hedging ("ummmm, wellll...")

ei calling attention ("hey! oh! hang on!")

eu disgust ("ew, ick")

ii pain, dislike or nervousness ("ow, yikes, ugh")

oi request for repetition or confirmation ("Huh? What's that?; Isn't that right?")

oo understanding (synthesis)

ui regret, commiseration ("oy, oh man, aww")

uu excitement, pleasure ("oooh, eeeee, yay")

Requests for repetition, confirmation or understanding checks:

tasi(a)?; nóia? tási nóia? "What was that? Come again? Beg pardon?"

ai? tag question
ainá? tag question in positive sentences ("isn't it?" n'est-ce pas?)
aiá "Oh yes? Indeed?" Also: tag question, negative sentences ("is it?")

ai eso/tota? "is that so? really?"

ai mao? "are you sure?"
tule/tei/pea "go on!"

io is one of the most common discourse markers, and extremely difficult to translate. An extension of its translative meaning -- marking that pragmatically relevant change has occurred -- io shows a shift in topic, "now then..."; or agreement, acceptance, comprehension, or mustering of thought or courage, "m'hm, okay, aha, I see, sure, got it, so..."; or readiness or completion "there we go, that's it." It may appear in various lengths, from short, chopped off by a final glottal stop; or drawn out to ioo. Very few conversations of any length will take place without a liberal sprinkling of ios.

In this meaning, io appears in a number of frequent constructions. It conveys greater immediacy, or finality, or emphasizes the transition to this new state from whatever preceded it, compared to the forms without it:

io ika "okay, that's fine"

io koa "okay, great"
io iha "fantastic, awesome, wonderful"

io cuti "lovely"

io kica "clearly; got it"
io sao "that's right; for sure; no kidding"

io pakoma "understood"

The opposite of io, ca "still" indicates pragmatically relevant lack of change, and conveys reassurance, support, conciliation, deescalation, or bashfulness:

ca, caa "aww, mmmmmm; there there; now now; shucks"

Following another expression, io adds sharpness: tule io "come on!" kulu io "listen up!" ika io! "FINE!" By contrast, ca adds softness: tule ca "come along now," ika ca "that's just fine; it's okay, hon," tei ca "go right ahead."

A frequent way of showing engagement with the discourse uses the information status markers ku "old/expected" and ho "new/unexpected" to announce the listener's relationship to the status of the information being conveyed. They both function like English "m'hm," showing up in similar circumstances.

ku, kuu, kukuku "yeah, totally, naturally, of course"

ho, hoo, hohoho "oh my, yes?? oooh! you don't say. no!"

The evidentials and viridicals provide additional means for listeners to react to information, this time showing their relationship to the origin or reliability of the information:

pu "so they say, apparently, that's what I heard"
li "must be, stands to reason, you'd figure"
vu "I guess, suppose so, if you say so"

A large number of expressions convey more complex emotional orientation to the discourse, from positive to negative; here is a sampling of the most common:

eso "really! right! yeah! exactly!"

voho "wow!"
lele "oh my, oh my goodness"

nóia "oh my, my goodness" lit. "please"

oo válani "my God"

hoia X "what a X"
(io) vo, vo nu/se/ta "there you go, there it is, here we go, here it comes, wait for it"

leki "not quite; as if!"

iti! "unlikely! as if!"

pono "that's right! as it should be! damn straight!"

su/lue/luvu/lahe "no way/come on now/get out" (shock or mock disbelief)

levi/kupo "uncool! not okay!"
kéamu "WTF"

alo "can't be helped, it is what it is"

memi "oh well" lit. "sigh"

ave "too bad, it's a shame"

As with many other expressions, these often appear with io or ca as described above: ave ca "aww, well, that's the way it goes"; nóia caa "well well, good heavens"; io pono "now that's what I'm talking about!"; luvu io "seriously, stop."

8. Referential Discourse Markers

These expressions connect the discourse in terms of sequence, causality and the like:

laa "so" (therefore, consequently, for that reason)

nii "so" (then, in that case, that being so)

sii "then, next" (subsequently)

loko "because..."

eko "also"
eta "and, but, meanwhile, on the other hand" (balancing, drawing comparison: Slavic a, Latin autem, Greek μεν...δε)

iati "that aside, besides"

ala "but, however"

hotai... "actually"
sili... "at least"

hio/male "on the contrary, just the opposite"

meno "anyway, regardless"

caene "what's more"
cahaa vela "yet again"

e tei motoa, etm. = etomó "and so on, et cetera"

molala "for example"

9. Structural Discourse Markers

Introducing information to the discourse, and indicating its perceived importance to the speaker:

io "so...; now:" (introducing something)
veama "first of all, to start with"
velopu "finally, lastly"
io poa "that's it, that's all"

kulu "look, see here; here, check this out" lit. "hear/listen"

huo "see here; check this out" (emphatic) lit. "notice"

soko "here, consider this, how about this" lit. "take this"

10. Cognitive Discourse Markers

Revealing the speaker's thought process:

ee uncertainty; filler ("um, uh, er")
nou "well, so, hmm..." or "what was that thing I can't quite remember??"
ilo/mue "y'know" lit. "know/remember"

moko/sema "like...I mean..."

Lastly, a series of words for replacing structures of different syntactic types when the speaker can't quite remember the word, or perhaps wishes not to mention it overtly:

mea "thingy, whatsit," lit. "thing, matter": nominal
ila "thingish," lit. "be like": adjectival
ete "whatevering," lit. "do": verbal

In the fourth and final installment we'll finish up with a more dedicated discussion of respectful (and disrespectful) address, including a very first treatment of obscenity.