Koa Update 1: Lexical Class & Particles

Up early on a Saturday, the rest of the house still sleeping, time for Koa? Definitely.

I've been panicking a bit, frankly, at the scope of my table of contents, which has continued to grow over the past week. I just realized with relief, though, that for now at least I don't need to write a full description of everything! Initially I think I just need to identify the things that have changed from the understandings and assumptions that have been demonstrating on this blog. And so...

1. Lexical Class in Koa

Koa entirely lacks lexical class (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) in the way familiar to European languages, predicate function being determined constructionally from syntactic context. However, Koa does have a different type of lexical class in the form of the distinction between particles and predicates. This is not new, but it is worth saying overtly.

Koa being a designed, planned language, all lexical classes are closed except for those predicates which are proper names. However, new meanings can be created via derivation, compounding, etc.

1.1 The Particle

Koa particles contribute grammatical (syntactic, morphological, derivational, pragmatic) meaning. They are monosyllabic in form, most typically (C)V: a, ki, te, etc. Some are orthographically VV, but still represent phonological monosyllables: ai, io.

Particles may frequently be compounded, in which case the scope of each leftward particle layers over the material to its right. When scoping a predicate, particles are typically spoken as a single accentuation group with that predicate: that is, as a single phonological word. When occurring independently they are accented on the last member unless that compound has been accepted as an independent predicate root: haná "unless" lit. "if not," civé "although" lit. "even [given] that"; but meno "regardless, nevertheless, either way" lit. "with without," nini 1sg emphatic lit. "I I."

1.1.1 Typing & Distribution

Particles have both a typing function and a distributional outcome. Their typing function determines how the material within their scope is construed internally; the completed construction’s distribution determines the syntactic positions in which it may occur. Thus:

ka types its scope as an argument (ka sene "a/the cat") and forms an argumental construction, licensing it for argumental distribution (ka sene i peme "the cat is soft").

i types its scope as a nucleus (i peme "is soft") and forms a clause (ka sene i peme "the cat is soft").

ko types its scope as a clause (ko ka sene i peme "that the cat is soft") and forms an argumental construction (ni lule ko ka sene i peme "I think that the cat is soft").

ne types its scope as an argument (ne miti "on [a/the] bed") and forms an adjunctive construction (ni mahiva ka sene ne miti "I am petting the cat on the bed").

pi types its scope as a quantifier (kume hitu pi "17 [of something]") and forms a quantifier construction (ni mahiva kume hitu pi sene "I am petting 17 cats").

...and so on. This is also not new, but it has never been articulated and made plain before! I've adjusted the particle listing in my lexicon to include this (internal type, external distribution, etc.) and a number of other important attributes.

1.1.2 Particle Categories

This is rather nifty -- I've finally got my particles organized into 15 groupings by type and function, their previously having formed a kind of vague cloud I was never sure how to describe systematically. Particle categories include:

Argument markers, marking constituents being used as -- surprise! -- arguments. These include a subclass of specifiers (ka anchored reference, ti proximal/cataphoric, to distal/anaphoric, ke interrogative, le proper name) and quantifiers (a existential/nonempty, co unrestricted, po universal/generic). You may notice some big business in progress around ka and a, and the absence of hu in this list...this is possibly the biggest deal in my understanding of Koa since 2002 and will be discussed in detail in section 1.2.1.1.

Aspectual particles, determining the aspect of predication. We have ca persistive, hu prospective (!!!), io iamitive, ma progressive, mi inchoative, si anterior, su cessative, va habitual. hu in this meaning is experimental, suggesting something that is imminent, about to occur: Le Iúliki i huete cai "Julie is about to make tea." (Don't mind if I do...)

Clausalizers mark the constituent in their scope as a clause, however long it happens to be, and license it to be used in a particular syntactic distribution. ko creates an argument clause, ve a circumstantial adjunct clause, ha a protatic adjunct clause, and u a modifier clause. Yes, I have (hopefully permanently) retracted my elegant Washington Manor idea, to be discussed in full in section 6.1.

Emotive particles communicate the emotional state of the speaker. aa understanding/surprise, ee uncertainty, eu disgust, ii pain/dislike/nervousness, oo understanding/confirmation, ui regret/commiseration, uu excitement/pleasure.

Epistemic particles give information about the information: the speaker's commitment to it, its source, or its familiarity status: ho mirative, ku common ground, pu reportative, li presumptive, vu dubitative. Ia, though formally classified as a polarity particle (see below), could also belong to this group to the extent that it represents a full commitment to the information.

Interactional particles interact with the attention of the listener: ei attention-getting, oi feedback-seeking, vo presentative. vo also has a large role in structuring discourse and information.

Junctive particles connect constituents, whether clauses, predicates or even particles (e.g. ia ai na? "yes or no?"). ai interrogative/alternative, au disjunction, e conjunction.

Medial Dependency is a catchall category including particles that form a link between constituents on either side of them, conveying particular information about each. sa, focalizer, places the discourse focus on the constituent to its left, with the gapped clausal residue to its right; pi, quantificationalizer (ugh I know, but I'm really having trouble finding a better term) creates a unit of quantity, formally a quantifier, to its left, which quantifies the domain to its right. In both cases, the material to the right may be elided when recoverable from context.

Modal particles contribute mode/mood to the predication: cu irrealis, vi imperative-optative, ki necessitative, lu volitive, te potential.

Polarity particles: na negative, ia affirmative/verum.

Nucleus markers, identifying and typing the nucleus (or nuclear complex) of a clause. These include the general nucleus marker i, and the more specialized ao precative, ea hortative and oe admonitive. It is an open question, probably to be answered by hypothetical future Koa syntactical theorists rather than by me, whether pronominal particles (see below) also fall into this category or simply suppress the appearance of i (i.e. le Iúliki i kiuni "Julie is tired" vs [i?] ta kiuni "she is tired").

Pronominal particles can function as person/number marking of a pronominal first argument of the nucleus, or as independent arguments in their own right: ni 1sg, se 2sg, ta 3sg; nu 1pl, so 2pl, tu 3pl.

Relators create adjuncts, indicating a physical, temporal, conceptual or other relationship with the scoped argument: he temporal, la goal, lo reason, me comitative, mo similative, ne location, no privative, o source, pe reference. Note that (A) ci has been removed as an instrumental marker, this role being taken over by me or i itu for instruments and o for demoted agents; (B) almost all meta-language deriving from IE case systems has been replaced with more neutral terms, e.g. "goal" rather than "dative" or "allative."

Scalar particles indicate the degree or inclusivity of their scope. These include ce degree-raising, iu degree-matching, ie restrictive ("just"), ci inclusive ("even"). In some cases, as with e.g. a ce kane "a real man" lit. "a very man," the predicate's meaning is coerced into a scalar; whether these particles should therefore also be considered to type their scope as modifiers is an open question. ci as an inclusive scalar feels like a much better use than the erstwhile instrumental, and it provides an elegant means for forming concessive clauses (separate post to come).

Lastly, valence particles perform valence operations on the nucleus they scope: hi reflexive/impersonal, mu causative, pa passive.

I'm also pleased to have finally standardized abbreviations for all these, so my glosses will be a little more coherent in the future.

...I was going to try to do the entirety of Section 1 in this post, but there is so very much to say about predicates that I'm going to stop for breath here and pick up at 1.2 next time.

Excursus for posterity: Syntactic nomenclature

This preamble to a post on purpose clauses was originally written on July 27, 2025. Now that the world has changed this has become rather quaint, but I preserve it here as an artifact of what I was already beginning to feel strongly last year. I note that I was also seeing this in the water as long ago as January 2012, which feels a little poignant to read. I have been struggling with this for such a long time!

There is also an onomastically frustrating pair doing a lot of heavy lifting: on the one hand the nominal clause, referring to a finite clause being used in nominal syntactic positions; and on the other the nominalized clause, a non-finite clause which has formally become a nominal with all the expected syntactic properties. As discussed previously, we really seriously need some better nomenclature here.

As also discussed previously, it's not entirely clear how applicable or useful the language of "finiteness" is for Koa in the first place. I continue to use the terminology out of habit because that's how these structures might be described in other languages, and I haven't come up with anything more Koa-specific. I suppose I could use even more standard language and say "complement clause" instead of "nominal clause," "relative clause" instead of "adjectival clause," and so on, but here's the thing:

In most languages there's a haphazard variety of strategies in use to achieve these communicative needs, and it makes sense to group them under a labeled conceptual umbrella like "complement clause." In Koa, though, most of these are just clauses -- plain old finite clauses, like any other -- and the only difference is which clause marker they each bear. This is analogous to the way that Koa dispenses with formal lexical class, with nominal/adjectival/verbal/adverbial/etc. status being determined entirely by syntactic context. It feels weird to give something a secondary label when its meaning is already transparently derivable from first principles.

Just like all "content words" in Koa are called "predicates," and when I need to refer to their use in a specific context I can say "nominal predicate," or more wordily "a predicate used in a nominal context," I wonder if I could do something similar with clauses. Koa has its own terminology for these things: for example méama, literally "thinger," for the above type of syntactic context.

The mistakes we make

For the last 24 years there have been two areas of Koa syntax that have vexed me above all others. My posts on the subject have constituted a kind of chronicle of miseries as I thrashed back and forth trying to make sense of these things; I have made and then retracted the same decisions multiple times. To wit --

On specifiers and indefinite participant marking: First thoughts on syntax (2002), The birth of the modern article system (2003), Specifier clarification, possession, and other changes (2009), The sweeping generalization in Koa (2010), Specifier flowchart (2010), Object incorporation (2011), Marking indefinite NPs (2012), Quantifiers and specifiers (2021), What's in a specifier? (2022), Some, all and none (2025)

On dependent clauses: More Thoughts, Obtained Whilst Tossing & Turning (2007), Embedded clauses: the show so far (2012), New embedded clause options (2012), The Grand Unified Theory of dependent clauses (2019), Entr'acte: The vanity of logic and typological neutrality (2021), Resolving the probability waveform of dependent clauses (2021), Dependent clauses re-re-reenvisioned (2023), Bride of the nominalized clause (2023), Finite clause types at last (2025)

I had also been noticing that, as happy as I was in the moment with my recent progress in these areas, Koa syntax had become rigid and brittle in a way I was increasingly dismayed with. It made me less excited to work on the language or speak it, and I found myself wondering with a certain amount of resentment how it was that Nahuatl -- omnipredicative very analogously to Koa -- was allowed to be so fluid and relaxed.

And then, out of nowhere, earlier this week it suddenly dawned on me that these woes are really all the same problem. Crucially, it's not the syntactic/pragmatic design problem I thought it was: in fact, it's a cluster of dead ends manufactured largely by Indo-European grammatical terminology and the assumptions imported along with it. There are actually good answers to these formerly intractable questions, answers that are internally consistent, cross-typologically defensible and loyal to the spirit of the language, answers that let Koa sway and breathe.

Answers to other questions, sometimes surprising ones, have tumbled out alongside them this past week, and I find myself in a rather profound moment in the conceptual history of this language. All of this -- the understandings, the changes that follow from them, and a new meta-language of description that won't tie the system in knots with IE artifacts -- is still unfolding. Nonetheless I want to try to document what I now know about my own language, and where I suddenly clearly see critical mistakes to have been made in the past.

...unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, the implications of all these changes and realizations have turned out to be quite broad. I had initially thought I would be writing a single post today that would sum it all up, but my docket has ballooned to essentially the size of a small reference grammar:

1. Lexical Class in Koa
1.1 The Particle
1.2 The Predicate
1.2.1 Predicate Functions
1.2.2 Pronominals
2. Argument Marking
2.1 Specifiers
2.2 Quantifiers
2.3 Operator Nesting / Scope layering
2.4 Compound Proforms (Correlatives)
2.5 Existential Structures
2.6 Negative Existentials & Concord
2.7. Disambiguation & Emphasis
3. Modifiers
3.1 Modifier Marking
3.2 Relativization
3.3 Object Incorporation
4. Argument Juxtaposition
4.1 Pronominal Possession
4.2 Predicate Possession
4.3 Ditransitive Arguments
4.4 Other Uses of Juxtaposition
5. Adjunctives & Relators
5.1 With Arguments
5.2 With Clauses
6. The Clause
6.1 Clause Markers
6.2 Finiteness & Nominalization
7. Constructional Specification
7.1 Categorical Typing
7.2 Output Constructions

So this is a very exciting list of topics to (A) finally understand fully and (B) get to write about, and also I wish I could take a week off of work in which to do it: I'm pretty sure the right venue for this would be a cabin by an alpine lake in Slovenia. Hopefully my girls will let me sneak away a bit this coming week.

Koa Phonology I: Vocalism

Voa usi iolo! Viloa 2026...

Despite the fact that phonetics and phonology are arguably my favorite areas of linguistics (with honorable mention to historical change), I've managed to go 18 years on this blog saying very little about these things. It's time to make amends! This will be the first in a series in which I'll try to describe Koa's phonology with the rigor it deserves.

1. Koa Phonology

Having been conceived as an international auxiliary language, it may be helpful as a conceptual device to imagine a world in which Koa is spoken as an L2 by people from many different language backgrounds. In such a world, we would inevitably see a great deal of regional variation in the actual realization of Koa's phonology; it was in fact an original design parameter that the phonology expect and allow for this variation. Though we attempt here a description of a neutral standard, then -- coincidentally the dialect of the author -- it is important to bear in mind that no single region is intended as the language's center of gravity, validity or prestige. From a prescriptive perspective, L1 constraints may drive the precise realization of these phonemes freely as long as they remain consistent and distinct from one another.

For this reason, each section below describes both the standard and the range of expected acceptable variation we might expect to encounter around the world.

1.1 Vocalism
1.1.1 Monophthongs

Koa has the five short vowels typical of many world languages, and three long vowel phonemes; vowels are rounded only if [+back]:

	Short				Long
	Front	Central	Back		Front	Central	Back
High	i [ɪ]		u [ʊ]		i: [iː]		u: [uː]
Mid	e [ɛ]		o [ɔ]
Low		a [ɑ]				a: [ɑː]

Long vowels are held for approximately 1.5 times the duration of short vowels. Note that mid vowels lack a long counterpart, long */e:/ and */o:/ having merged with /ei̯/ and /ou̯/ respectively (see 1.1.2 Diphthongs). Short /a/ tends to be rather more front than long /a:/. Vowel quality and quantity do not vary with stress or position.

Note: /i/ and /u/ are very peripheral and notably closer than the usual realization of the corresponding phonemes in e.g. English or German.

1.1.1.1 Variation

Provided that all phonemes remain distinct from each other, we may see variation in the following areas:

* Long vowels held for the duration of two full short vowels e.g. /a:/ → [ɑːː], or pronounced as two distinct short vowels in sequence e.g. [ɑɑ]
* Tensing of high vowels to [i u] or further laxing to [ɪ̞ ʊ̞]
* Closer mid vowels [e o]
* Frontness of /a/ anywhere from [a] to [ɑ], some rounding towards [ɒ], or some raising towards [ɐ] or [æ]
* Unrounding of back vowels, particularly /u/ as [ɯ] or [ɨ]
* Fronting of /u/ to [ʏ] or [ʉ]

* Full centralization of at most one phoneme, e.g. /a/ as [ə] or [ʌ]

Whatever the exact realization of each phoneme, it is strongly preferred that it remain consistent in quality in all positions to ease parsing by speakers of other dialects.

1.1.1.2 Devoicing

There is a tendency in rapid speech for unstressed non-initial high short vowels partially or completely to lose their voicing -- though not their duration -- following a voiceless consonant: /ákuci/ → [ˈɑkʊ̥ʃi] "hunter," /ti‿élate/ → [tɪ̥ˈɛlɑtɛ] "this life," /àpu‿taéma/ → [ˌɑpʊ̥tɑˈɛmɑ] "help his parents." This may occur even if the high vowel is stressed within its own word, but not its larger prosodic group: /ka‿somaéte‿mokùne/ → [mɔˌku̥nɛ] "what you're doing together." Utterance-final devoicing is possible but less common.

1.1.2 Diphthongs

Combinations of any two unlike vowels are possible within a single lengthened syllable. Such diphthongs exist in two types: falling (short) and balanced (long).

Falling: Where the origin is non-high and the target is high, the sequence is realized as a falling diphthong at approximately 1.2 times the duration of a short monophthongal vowel: ai [ɑɪ̯], ei [eɪ̯], oi [ɔɪ̯], au [ɑʊ̯], eu [ɛʊ̯], ou [oʊ̯].

Balanced: In other cases, diphthongs can be considered balanced in that neither the origin nor target is fully non-syllabic; the origin tends to have slightly greater duration than the target. These diphthongs are approximately the length of a long vowel, that is 1.5 times that of a short vowel: ae [ɑ͡ɛ], ao [ɑ͡ɔ], ea [ɛ͡ɑ], eo [ɛ͡ɔ], ia [ɪ͡ɑ], ie [ɪ͡ɛ], io [ɪ͡ɔ], iu [ɪ͡ʊ], oa [ɔ͡ɑ], oe [ɔ͡ɛ], ua [ʊ͡ɑ], ue [ʊ͡ɛ], ui [ʊ͡ɪ], uo [ʊ͡ɔ].

1.1.2.1 Variation

Alternative possible realizations include:

- Pronunciation of diphthongs as two consecutive full short vowels
- Diphthongs with an initial high vowel as rising: ia [ɪ̯ɑ], ie [ɪ̯ɛ], ua [ʊ̯ɑ], ue [ʊ̯ɛ], etc.
- Centralization of the origin of /ai/ and /au/ → [əɪ̯ əʊ̯], [ʌɪ̯ ʌʊ̯], [ɐɪ̯ ɐʊ̯], etc.

1.1.3 Orthography

Koa vowels are written identically to the phonemic symbols here used, whether single or in combination, except that long vowels are shown orthographically by doubling: aa /a:/ etc.

The allowable word

Pai ko Kito iolo -- Happy Thanksgiving! After delightedly discovering eight potential new Koa predicates earlier this week that had been hiding around the edges of the phonologically permissible, I wanted to document this area more fully: what is, and is not, allowed to be a Koa word?

I've been turning a series of proper posts about Koa phonology over in my head for years, and maybe I'll finally get around to this now that the temperatures have fallen and the rains have set in. In the mean time I hope this discussion will help me firm up my understanding and description of some of the more complex corners of this topic.

So then: the simplest Koa lexical word (i.e. predicate) shapes are of the form (C)VCV, as in

CVCV: halu "want," lani "sky"
VCV: ika "acceptable," oto "crow"

The above are clearly bisyllabic, theoretically the defining criterion for predicates as opposed to particles. I say "theoretically" because another major group of Koa roots, though formally similar, behaves quite differently phonetically.

CVV: moe "dream," kai "sea," hiu "knife," paa "head," suu "mouth"

The reality is that, under ordinary circumstances, these VV sequences are not, in fact, pronounced as two consecutive full-length vowels in separate syllables, but as monosyllables: as lengthened vowels or diphthongs. We need a different phonological category here which I'm not entirely sure how to label: "long vowels" and "diphthongs" each sound exclusive of the other. "Polymoraic nuclei"? That's a bit much. Perhaps "complex vowels," against the "simple vowels" of the first two shapes?

Complex vowels, as it turns out, then, occupy about 1.2 to 1.5 times the duration of simple vowels, and thus CVV words are quite a bit shorter than CVCV words. Bisyllabic lani "sky," for example, is noticeably longer in duration than monosyllabic lai "return" or laa "therefore."

Where the two vowels are the same, we end up with a single long vowel: paa [pɑː]. This means that the orthography is imprecise at present; the aa in e.g. taahe "his arm," for instance, is pronounced as two full vowels in sequence, whereas in sáate "allowance" it represents a complex vowel of intermediate length. This distinction can probably be resolved by morphological context (i.e. sáa.te is composed of a predicate with a complex vowel followed by a suffix, whereas ta.ahe contains a predicate with two full syllables preceded by a prefix), but I have at times toyed with the idea of introducing a macron to make this absolutely explicit: taahe vs. sāte. As I suspect that my primary motivation here may simply be a love of macrons, I continue to restrain myself.

Back to the plot: where the origin and target differ, the resultant diphthong will be falling if the first member is non-high and the second is high: kai [kɑi̯] "sea," tei [tei̯] "onward," hoi [hɔi̯] "foot"; lau [lɑu̯] "shadow," ceu [ʃɛu̯] "damn," mou [mou̯] "disappear." These combinations have a relatively short duration, only slightly longer than a simple vowel. In all other combinations both vowels share syllabic value, with a transitional space between them; slight priority of duration is given to the first vowel.

I should clarify -- remembering that Koa is nominally intended as an IAL -- that it would not be incorrect to pronounce these complex vowels as sequences of two ordinary full vowels in separate syllables. In colloquial flowing speech, however, this would be unusual and would likely denote either a lack of fluency or some kind of marked pragmatic status (meli liiiiia "waaaaay too sweet").

Before continuing on, we should note one disallowed shape for predicates; these group instead with particles and affectives:

*VV: ae, ei, io, oe, ui, etc.

Now that all of the above has been thoroughly described, we can define the area of interest that originally inspired this post as a different type of predicate root: those of the form VVCV.

Right off the bat we will need to draw a distinction between two sets of what we have been calling complex vowels. This gets complicated very quickly, because vowel combinations with the particular phonetic characteristics discussed earlier do not necessarily pattern together!

On the one hand we have what we might designate as short complex vowels. These contain the true diphthongs ai, au, eu, oi -- diphthongs with one clear syllabic and one clear non-syllabic member. ei and ou, though phonetically members of this same set, pattern instead with long vowels.*

The set of short complex vowels also contains the combinations ia, ie, io, iu, because in initial or postvocalic position -- as distinct from the postconsonantal realization described earlier -- the i becomes fully non-syllabic: [ja, je, jo, ju]. Potentially similar rising dipththongs with u, however (ua, ue, ui, uo), do not pattern this way due to blocking by the phoneme /v/: as [w] is one of its primary allowable realizations, there would be no distinction between e.g. ue and ve in speakers who pronounce /v/ this way.

Our short complex vowels, then, are ai, au; eu; ia, ie, io, iu; oi.

Long complex vowels include everything else: the long vowels aa ii uu, and all remaining dipthongs ae, ao; ea, ei, eo; oa, oe, ou; ua, ue, ui, uo.

With these definitions in hand, we can now say that VVCV roots are allowed only if the initial complex vowel is short:

VVCV: aimo "star," auli "willing, eager," euca "selfish," iapu "spit," iela "whole, unbroken," iolo "jolly," iuna "train," oisa "seed."

*VV:CV: aela, outo, iisi, eoku, etc. (all disallowed)

NB: /v/ is disallowed after au and eu in VVCV roots, as e.g. *euva [ɛu̯wɑ] would be all but indistinguishable from eva [ɛwɑ] for those speakers who pronounce /v/ as [w].

The last allowable predicate shape, and the object of my recent discovery mentioned above, is the sonority festival VVV. This is possible only under very specific conditions: if the initial two vowels constitute a complex vowel, if that complex vowel is short, if the resultant form would have two syllabic nuclei, if the second member of the complex vowel is not u, and if the resultant form would not violate phonological constraints. Thus:

VVV: aia, aie, aio, aiu; oia, oie, oio, oiu

In VVV roots au and eu are not allowable as the initial complex vowel because e.g. *aua would be identical in pronunciation to ava for many speakers; ia, ie, io and iu are not allowable because the resultant forms would have only one syllabic nucleus (*iuu, *iai, *ioe, etc.); the final vowel may not be /i/ because the sequence [ji] violates phonological constraints (*aii [ɑji] etc.); and forms like *eia or *uio are not allowable because the initial complex vowel is not short.

So...after all that, there are only eight! But beautiful words, which I'm very happy to have discovered.

It occurs to me that we're now in a position to define the minimum Koa lexical word as either (A) having two syllabic nuclei, or (B) having a complex syllabic nucleus with onset, in a form that violates no phonological constraints.

The maximal root word, on the other hand, might be described something like this (possibly incomplete):
1. A maximum of two syllables (*keleki)
2. If containing two syllables, neither may satisfy minimum word conditions alone (*keile, *akai)
3. If containing a long complex vowel, a maximum of one syllable (*eile)

I've asked myself about condition 3 quite a lot of times. Whereas conditions 1 and 2 serve to prevent certain and profligate misunderstanding, there's nothing objectively wrong with words like *aela...except that they're just too heavy to be Koa. The language doesn't have Estonian's oomph, and they feel like compounds even though they technically couldn't be.

...and that, ladies and gentlemen, is that! Time to go put some yams in the oven. It's been fascinating to discover how much complexity has emerged here: none of this was anything I would ever have expected in 1999.

* Sequences of identical mid vowels are disallowed within predicates, as the distinction between e.g. /ee/ and /ei/ was deemed likely to be too marginal to bear semantic load for many speakers. One could say, perhaps, that [ei̯] is the surface realization of both /ee/ and /ei/, and that [ou̯] is the surface realization of both /oo/ and /ou/. As such, ei and ou pattern with long complex vowels even though their phonetic realization, short in duration, matches that of other true diphthongs like au and oi.

Happy 26th Koa Day!

Pai le Koa iolo la poka! In honor of Koa's 26th birthday, let's talk briefly about meaning: not meaning as in "significance," but communicative intention as in "meaning to say." It occurred to me the other month that I wasn't sure how to express this idiomatically, and spent some time considering...

Three parallel options rely on verbs of intention or cognition, and as usual in these kinds of expressions, the personal pronoun is optional:

(ni)mana = "I mean," lit. "(I) intend"
(ni)meti = "I mean," lit. "(I'm) thinking"
(ni)lusano = "I mean," lit. "(I) want/intend to say"

In practice I think there would be very little semantic difference between the three. These would also work in other persons, e.g. Kea sa semana / semeti / selusano? "What do you mean?"

Anther possibility in this discourse context would be (au) vitai "(or) may it be," cf. Portuguese ou seja, as long as the discourse rather than semantic function is primary. The usual translation of this expression is "that is," and in this sense it's similar to English's "(or) like..."

The verb of signifying, on the other hand, is of course sema, as in Kea sa toa i sema? "What does that mean?" In a nominal context it can mean "sign" or "symbol" -- i.e. "that which signifies" -- and sema can also be used in discourse to mean "so," "...and that means...," similarly to nii "in that case" and laa "therefore."

Pusheen and friends send their Koa greetings

It's been quite the year for Koa, with some really important work finally coming together both at the syntactic (e.g. subordinate clauses and other complex clausal structures) and discourse ends of the spectrum, as well as a first formal translation of a serious text! ...well, I think that children's literature is serious business.

Coming up in Koa's next year, hopefully, pending my time and resource availability, is some more big business. On the docket I've currently got more about indefinite nominal marking (heaven help us), serial verbs, locators, adverbial clauses, and a bunch of other miscellany. Kito la poka masii ne -- thanks to everyone who's been following along over the years!

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.