NP Modifiers

Though we have not yet RIGOROUSLY defined the semantics of this operation, we've determined that when two nouns stand in the relationship X Y, X is interpreted as the head and Y as the adjectival modifier. What if Y is not a noun, though?

Turkish, for instance, has a special marker that ties locative phrases to NPs. So

resim masa-da-Ø
picture table-LOC-3sg
"the picture is on the table"

But if we want to say "The picture on the table is pretty," we can't just say

*resim masa-da güzel-Ø
picture table-LOC pretty-3sg

...despite the fact that it makes perfect sense in direct translation. Instead, we see the following:

masa-da-ki resim güzel-Ø
table-LOC-ADJ picture pretty-3sg
"the picture on the table is pretty"

For this reason I was nervous about making any unresearched decisions about similar PPs in Koa. The sentence "the man in the house is bad" (and yes, I know I desperately need to expand my lexicon), for instance, in literal translation would run ka mehe ne ka talo i pua. But is

mehe ne ka talo
man LOC=DEF=house
"man in the house"

okay? Usually I asked this question and then pondered whether it ought to be mehe o ne ka talo, with this o showing that the preceding lexeme is about to be modified by something (I believe o is going to figure in my possessives -- maybe I'll explore this next time). I think, though, that I may be able finally to answer this one satisfactorily. Let's compare the following parallel structures:

As a predicate:

ka talo i iso
DEF=house 3P=big
"the house is large"

ka mehe i ne ka talo
DEF=man 3P=LOC=DEF=house
"the man is in the house"

As an instantiated adjectival:

ka iso
DEF=big
"the big one"

ka ne ka talo
DEF=LOC=DEF=house
"the one in the house"

Therefore, directly modifying a noun, and voilà:

ka talo iso
DEF=house big
"the big house"

ka mehe ne ka talo
DEF=man LOC=DEF=house
"the man in the house"

Considering that these phrases are parallel in the top two cases, I don't see why they would need to be differentiated in the final one. One less thing to worry about.