Dependent clauses re-re-reenvisioned

Whenever I hear myself using the phrases "dependent clause" and "final decision" in the same sentence, it really ought to set alarm bells ringing. The last such occasion was about two years ago, in which I said the following:

• Clauses used as predicates are syntactically and morphologically identical to independent clauses
• Clauses used as adjectives are preceded by ve when the head is not the subject of the dependent clause, optionally otherwise
• Clauses used as nouns are preceded by either ko or ve

Over the past several months I've been entertaining a different idea. It initially seemed like a wild flight of fancy, but I've stuck with it and it's been surprising me by feeling more and more legitimate, or maybe even unavoidable. I'm still skeptical, so don't hold me to any of this, but I want to give it a genuine chance.

In this new dependent clause universe, the rules above can still be considered correct regarding clauses with ve. Here the dependent clause is being set off by a subordinating conjunction, and as such remains finite and modular with syntax identical to its use as a main clause. I think I've realized, though, that ko isn't just in free alternation with ve for structures like these as I initially proposed. It seems obvious now -- given the fact that ko is in fact a specifier -- that its function here is that of a nominalizer.

I see the source of my confusion: with clauses with a pronominal subject, subordination with ko and ve does accidentally look the same...

ni-kulu ko-ta-koke poli
1SG-hear NOM-3SG-tall very
"I hear he's very tall"

ni-kulu ve ta-koke poli
1SG-hear CJ 3SG-tall very
"I hear he's very tall"

The apparent parallelism was more striking before I started grouping particles in writing, i.e. previously

ni kulu ko ta koke poli
ni kulu ve ta koke poli

...but however they're spelled, in speech the structures still sound identical. The wild difference appears when the clause has a nominal subject: in this situation, rather than occupying the same clause-initial position as ve, ko replaces the preverbal i that marks finite verbs. I actually identified this possibility in the post referenced above, and initially ten years earlier, but couldn't make sense yet of why this would actually be reasonable beyond an aesthetic inclination for its elegance.

There's a straight line to this new structure from a clause like this:

A. ana ko-ni-lahe
give NOM-1SG-leave
"let me go"

We might translate this literally into English as "allow my going," or "allow that I might go." Another equally valid way of phrasing this in Koa, though, would be

B. ána-ni ko-lahe
give-1SG NOM-leave
"let me go"

Here the literal translation would be more like "allow me [the act of] leaving," just like ánani kovapa "give me liberty." If we replace ni "me" in structure B above with a noun, we end up with this:

ana le Keoni ko-lahe
give NAME John NOM-leave
"let John go"

For contrast, here's the same meaning with ve and a finite clause. Notice that the finite verb marker i is restored in the position previously occupied by ko:

ana ve le Keoni i lahe
give CJ NAME John FIN leave
"let John go"

So it's clear that something pretty different is happening syntactically in subordinate clauses depending on which of these strategies we use. As a further example of how nominalization works, here's the above nikulu kotakoke poli "I hear he's very tall" with a nominal subject in the dependent clause:

ni-kulu le Keoni ko-koke poli
1SG-hear NAME John NOM-tall very
"I hear John is very tall"

For those following the plot exceptionally closely, this does have implications for the vaunted tetai ko structure we've tried so hard to preserve through all these years. Again with a nominal subject, we have two possibilities:

te-tai ve le Keoni i cu-lai he-tana
ABIL-be CJ NAME John FIN IRR-return TIME-today
"John may be coming back today"

te-tai le Keoni ko-cu-lai he-tana
ABIL-be NAME John NOM-IRR-return TIME-today
"John may be coming back today"

I find myself narrowing my eyes as I read this back to myself...I'll sit with it for a while. This is a pretty big change, so I know it make take some time to get used to. I am cheered, I will just say, by some parallels between this new structure with ko and complement clauses in Latin (not to mention English phrasings like "I know him to be trustworthy"):

audiō Ioannem longissimum esse (Latin)
hear-1SG John-ACC tall-SUPER-ACC be.INF
"I hear that John is very tall," lit. "I hear John to be very tall"

The Salishan languages have similar structures as well:

d-s-x̆aƛ' kwi s-tə̀xʷ-s tsulč (Lushootseed)
1SG.POSS-NOM-desire ART NOM-buy-3.POSS drum
"I want him to buy a drum"

...cf Koa's

ni-halu ko-ta-kou toe
1SG-want NOM-3SG-buy drum
"I want him to buy a drum"

One last example of a more complex sentence, from actual usage:

Ni-io-te-nae kemo ko-te-tai u-tie neva
1SG-TRANS-ABIL-see manner NOM-ABIL-be DEF.PL-road unstraight
"I can already see how the winding roads...

ne-múnu-nu ko-na-cu-luta a-cólute.
LOC-middle-1PL NOM-NEG-IRR-find INDEF-connection
...between us might not find a connection."

Let's see how this goes! It's a bit of a brazen move in a long history of syntactical conservatism, but I'm excited about it.

Color terms

Despite boundless enthusiasm for color as a topic in itself, I've dragged my feet on this for a long time, for reasons I'll get to in a moment. The progression of color term assignment in Koa has been interesting, reminiscent of Berlin and Kay's study: initially red and blue, then later green, then later yellow, then much later orange and purple.

It has been a very difficult decision which color terms to classify as basic, and I've been extremely cautious to move forward because of a sharp awareness that my English-based instincts were certain to influence my judgment. In the end, realizing that to some extent any choice will have arbitrary components, I decided on a base favoring symmetry on the color wheel from the standpoint of a classical RYB paint-based model. A couple hopefully justifiable additions at the end round things out. Here's the system as it currently stands.

kona "black"
liko "white"

puna "red"
kinu "orange"
mele "yellow"
vihe "green"
sini "blue"
lie "purple"

teta "brown"
lusu "gray"

I dithered on orange and purple for ages -- ten years longer than the others -- and still feel uncomfortable with them knowing just how many languages they're not basic in. Nonetheless I really can't see a way forward without them, so I'll deal with it!

For the rest, despite technically being a kind of dark orange I considered brown to be reasonable given its cross-linguistic distribution, and gray for its usefulness in describing other intermediate colors. In a way I wish that the system looked less like English, but on the other hand at least I didn't include pink, and as a language for the modern world I feel like it'll be capable of handling color theory without a lot of excesses.

Blends between primary and secondary colors are formed as compounds. Theoretically the head might be the base color, with the modifying predicate indicating a small amount of an additional color:

mélevihe "yellow-green" (a hue of green with a little yellow added)
víhemele "green-yellow" (a hue of yellow with a little green added)

In practice, though, it may be more reasonable to conceive of a single tertiary color between each primary and secondary, permitting either root ordering but preferring primary-secondary, thus

púnakinu "vermillion"
mélekinu "amber/marigold"
mélevihe "chartreuse"
sínivihe "teal/aqua"
sínilie "violet"
púnalie "magenta"

A wild impulse is urging me to create single roots for these, which would allow delicious quaternary color compounds like scarlet (red-vermillion) and indigo (blue-violet). I'll hold off for the moment (sigh) but this whole area is difficult because of how accustomed I've become to beautiful single-word descriptions of so very many colors these days. How will we express sage? Olive? Taupe? Most likely it'll be necessary to come up with more or less standardized forms based on mia "color" and a noun: mialumo "sand," maybe? And additions of nominal descriptors to the colors themselves: híkivihe "grass green."

Moving on to modifications of a starting hue, we can express saturation and tint/tone/shade as follows:

válosini "bright blue (high saturation of blue)"
kícasini "light blue (low saturation of blue, or blue mixed with white)"
pímesini "dark blue (blue mixed with black)"
lúsusini "gray blue (blue mixed with gray)"

There's also a possibility of compounds with lahu "murky, obscure, overcast" to denote, probably, combinations with brown (or with an opposing primary color, if you prefer).

Lastly, a small amount of pigmentation added to something else can be expressed with -si meaning "-ish":

púnasi "reddish"

There's clearly a lot more to come in this area, as usual no doubt to be determined (or at least necessitated) by actual usage. Hopefully this will at least be a solid starting point.

Obligation and necessity

Koa has developed quite a bit of nuance this year in its ability to express shadings of force acting on the will. Much of this started coming together just a few months ago as I suddenly became aware of just how much linguistic machinery we have at our disposal in natural languages for making fine distinctions in this area, and for veiling (or not) the context of force or control behind a communication. Unsurprisingly given the brain of its creator, Koa is rather more transparent than English in its basic structures.

Starting out with morphological strategies (if indeed Koa has inflectional morphology, on which utterly undecided question see here), we can get at an initial simple range of semantics using modal particles, with evidentials and viridicals adding subtlety:

nitelahe "I can go"
nilulahe "I want to go"

nikilahe "I have to go, I must go"

nivukilahe "I guess I should go"
nilikilahe "Seems like I should probably go"

nipukilahe "Apparently I've gotta go (based on what I hear/perceive)"

Note that ki is neutral as to the source of the necessity: nikilahe implies nothing about whether I have to go for internal or external reasons, or what those reasons might be -- see below for greater specificity here.

The particle vi, formally an imperative or optative marker, can have volitive force particularly in the 1st person. Here it's largely synonymous with the hortative ea: ea lahe "let's get going" can be regarded as semantically equivalent to nuvilahe.

nivilahe "I'd better go, I've gotta get going"

Deserving of mention at this point is the particle oe which has existed in something of an alpha version since 2003. Theoretically it might mean "should," as in "I should go, I ought to go," but though I adore that word for that meaning I've never managed to decide definitively whether it in fact really should exist and if so how it would be used. Nioelahe? Oe nilahe? Oe konilahe? Bookmark for sometime in the next decade...

Moving on to more complex structures, we can describe internal volition or need with the referent in question as the subject of a main clause:

nivoi kolahe "I can go, I'm capable of going"
nilahi kolahe "I know how to go'"
nihalu kolahe "I want to go" (equivalent to nilulahe above)
nisaa kolahe "I get to go, I'm allowed to go"
nitau kolahe "I need to go, I have a need to go (internal necessity)"

nivati kolahe "I demand/insist on going (internal requirement)"

To express external will or control, the referent becomes the subject of a nominalized subordinate clause governed by a predicate explaining the relevant semantics:

tau konilahe "I have to go (external necessity), there's a need for me to go"
pono konilahe "I should go, it's fitting/proper that I go"
halu konilahe "there's a desire for me to go (external volition)"

vati konilahe "I'm required to go (external requirement)"

noi konilahe "I've been asked to go, I have to go (external request)"

milo konilahe "I have to go (according to the rules/law)"
kase konilahe "I'm ordered to go"
pako konilahe "I'm forced/compelled to go"
i ana konilahe "I'm allowed to go, they're letting me go"

...and one with negative force:

levi konilahe "I'm not to go, I'm forbidden to go"

A few notes here:

* In this syntactic context, as is usual with predicates with presentative force, all the above forms can optionally be preceded by i -- i tau konilahe, etc. With ana it's required, as ana konilahe alone sounds like "let me go!"
* The expressions with tau and pono above are pretty common, neutral ways to translate "have to" and "should" respectively when the deontic source is external. The others are less frequent and/or have more marked or complex semantics.

* Evidentials and viridicals can of course combine with these structures as well for additional nuance: puvati konilahe "I'm required to go, so I'm informed," and so on.

These presentative forms downplay the actual agents of control: we may be talking about actual, specific people, or institutions, or just cultural forces. If we want to bring the presence of those agents further onto the stage, we can use hi- with the predicates that have transitive verbal valence (i.e. not pono, milo or levi):

hivati konilahe "'someone' is insisting that I go...(as in, we all know that 'someone' is my wife)"

Finally, just to spell this out, with a non-pronominal subject in those subordinate clauses, we'd have the usual syntax like the following:

pono ko/ve le Keoni i lahe "John should go"

...or maybe pono le Keoni kolahe? It will surprise no one that I've quietly replanted the nominalized clause briar patch in the past several months. A controversial proposal is currently in formulation for an upcoming post...