Koa Update 3: The Nucleus

Our summer update marches on! Though I had promised clauses in this one, I realized subsequently that I'm really going to need to leave this for a later section like a proper reference grammar. There's a lot that still needs to be introduced and discussed before talking about it in the context of clauses will make sense.

3. The Nucleus

A predicate in nuclear function, as discussed previously, is the semantic and syntactic center of a clause. It licenses the core arguments and specifies their frame roles.

Before we get into syntax, a moment of nomenclature angst: despite my best hopes, "nucleus" persists in feeling very odd as a term for this expression function. I was hoping it might add a bit of whimsy to the new metalanguage, but instead I keep feeling like I've wandered into LeConte instead of Dwinelle. We'll try it for one more post! "Predicator" does at least feel like it derives from the right discipline, despite the real risk of confusion with "predicate."

Predicates are licensed for nuclear function in one of three ways: via an overt nucleus marker; via a pronominal particle; or by independent use in some situationally anchored contexts. The constituent containing the nucleus, along with any inflectional or derivational particles, suffixes or modifiers, is called the nuclear complex.

3.1. Nucleus Markers

Nucleus markers occur on the leftmost edge of the nuclear complex, immediately after the clause's first argument, if present. The most common, neutral nucleus marker is i:

i loe "it's cold"
i me vua "it's raining," lit. "it's with rain"
le Síliki i sene "Circe is a cat"
po sene i na si va te láe-va luto he to pai "cats were not able to play the guitar in those days"

Note that, despite last year's hopeful fanfare, i is no longer classified as a clause marker; instead, it marks nuclei in all types of clauses even when these are in argumental, modificational, adjunctive, etc. distribution.

Koa has three other nucleus markers which differ from i in specifying the referent of the first argument slot, disallowing an initial clausal argument.

- ao precative
- ea hortative
- oe admonitive

Of these, ea is long-standing but the other two are new additions. Ea addresses a first-person audience in the sense of English "let's," e.g. ea mene "let's go." Ao issues a polite request to a second-person listener (ao suo "please eat") and oe admonishes a second-person listener to do something that they are not doing, but ought to be (oe suo aha "come on, now, you really need to eat something").

These exist alongside the imperative-optative vi and other modal expressions: nu vi mene "we should go, let's go"; vi suo "eat!"; suo, noia "eat, please"; pono ko se suo "you ought to eat."

3.2. Pronominal Particles

Nuclei may also be marked by pronominal particles, and it remains an open question whether these replace i and therefore should be considered nucleus markers in their own right, or simply suppress its appearance (i.e. is ni loha se "I love you" really Ø ni loha se?). As I have not yet determined a creative way to test this, I'll remain agnostic and maintain a distinction.

Regardless of deep structure, pronominal particles occur in the same apparent position in which we find i, and simultaneously fill the argument 1 slot:

ni mae loe "I feel cold"
se sene "you are a cat"
vo tu mutelo ka iosi tiki o le Patakónia "behold they have tamed the wild hedgehogs of Patagonia"

3.3. Unmarked Nuclei

In situations in which the intended predicational structure is directly recoverable from the discourse or shared perceptual experience, a nuclear expression may appear without overt nucleus marking or initial argument:

loe ne pole "it's cold outside"
talo cuti "what a lovely house"

These types of situationally anchored predications are commonly introduced by the ostensive vo: vo loe ne pole "say, it's cold outside."

3.4. Serial Nuclei

Additional semantics may be added to a predication via the inclusion of more than one nucleus in a single clause. This is referred to as a serial nucleus construction (SNC), and may be used for many purposes; in this construction, subsequent nuclei are marked with i regardless of the type of marking on the initial nucleus:

nu tule la koto i lai "we came back home" lit. "we came home return"
le Ana i ama i lalu i aki "Anna started singing suddenly" lit. "Anna started sing sudden"
ea luke ta i tasi "let's read it again" lit. "let's read it repeat"

A more in-depth discussion of the SNC in Koa is available here (with old terminology), although as usual quite a bit more still needs to be said.

And that wraps it up for this evening. We'll be back tomorrow (or so) with Section 4 on modifiers!