Toki Pona Forums

Well, the problem is that there is no strict rule. We are told to just add predicates one after the other. But what if the two predicates have the same DO: 'ona li pali e pan’ and ‘ona li moku e pan’ (with the same pan, but even putting it this way is suspicious, since there is never any mention of ...

Right track, just details mainly. Remember that ‘insa’ and ‘poka’ and the like are nouns and so what is attached to them is a modifier, which requires ‘pi’ if it is more than one word. 1. Here we have two predicates, ‘tawa esun’ and ‘tawa tomo mi’ Predicates are joined by putting a ‘li’ in front of ...

tenpo suno tu pini la mi lon tomo lawa. tenpo sike tu en kipisi la mi utala e tomo tawa kepeken tomo tawa mi. kama ni li pakala pi lili mute e tomo tawa mi li pakala ali e tomo tawa pi jan ante. kulupu selo li pana e mani pi tawa pona pi tomo tawa tu en tawa pona e sijelo pi jan lawa ante. tenpo ni ...

Yes, this is my least favorite book. I haven’t gone through it more than I just did, but I fear, from what I have heard, that it contains other howlers as it goes one. And many negative things baout ordinary tp, even including some of Sonja’s and, of course (see Lope’s note on Forums), any of mine.

Adv & adj Lope limits adjective strings to three members, apparently. I don’t know where he got this nor whether he is serious. He does have (but does not develop) the notion of adjective types and “logical” order. I’m not sure tp has this or what it is, if it does. I use English classes and ord...

Chapter 4 or so Here is the usual crap about the direct object standing for the thing that is acted upon, in spite of the many cases where it haas nothing done to it or even does something to the subject. It is just the noun that fills out the verb, in whatever way is allowed (not always obvious). C...

Of course, ‘li’ does not just come between a third person subject and a verb (including, of course, the “missing” “be”); it comes after frst person ‘mi mute’ (and the like) and ‘second ‘sina mute’ (etc.). The way this is presented makes it seem that the subject and the predicate (what ‘li’ comes bef...

Chapt 2. That apostrophe is the oddest thing in Lope’s work. He says (correctly) that there is no verb “to be” in tp, meaning no copula. He then talks about the apostrophe as marking the missing copula. But, of course, it is not missing, since it was never there or even possible there. All he means ...

Working piecemeal, between other tasks. Chapt 1. Lope’s characterization of English vowels is pejorative at best, just muddled generally (they aren’t arbitrary, etc.). Basically, he confuses sounds and spelling (which is closer to his claims). Of course, tp consonants are not open to all (the stops ...

Well, the fact that Lope is involved does guarantee some oddities, though I would have hoped Pije would restrain them somewhat. I will check it out when I get some time.