Dilbert en tenpo suno pi kama sin pi jan Kolisu

Creativity: Poetry, music, comics, etc.
Kreado: Poezio, muziko, bildrakontoj, ktp.
User avatar
jan Ote
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:15 am
Location: ma Posuka
Contact:

Re: Dilbert en tenpo suno pi kama sin pi jan Kolisu

Post by jan Ote »

I stay with
jan sewi Jawe li toki e ni: "mi wile e ni: suno li lon." suno li kama lon.
janKipo wrote:the Greek of LXX is clearly optative (subjunctive in Latin "fiat lux"). This is somewhat stronger (rhetorically, at least) than saying "I wish that..." and avoids the possibility of a truth-value issue, that is, it is performative not informative. It also requires no further agent, as an imperative does
There are many grammatical means absent in toki pona. Is there any good reason to consider 'o suno li lon' a proper sentence?
Let's see:
  • What would be the difference between 'o sina pali! ' and 'o pali!'?
    Between 'o mi mute li pali! ' and 'mi mute o pali!'?
    What do the firsts sentences in these pairs mean? Are they useful for anyone for anything (except God, maybe)?
  • How do we make performative speech acts in our natural languages?
    EN: I, Eve, take you Adam to be my husband [...] I now pronounce you husband and wife
    PL: Ja, Ewa, biorę sobie ciebie, Adamie, za męża [...] Ogłaszam was mężem i żoną
    Is there any specific grammar construction for performative, for declaration? No. Do we use "Let it be so and so" as an performative act? No. We just announce our will and describe our actions, changing relations persons or objects. But this is not the case for God creating real, ontological things ex nihilo by his words.
We do not need 'o suno li pali' nor 'o jan lili li pali' not anything except... describing God's actions. We do not need this.
janKipo wrote:So, theologically (for that sort of theology), optative is best.
I wouldn't mess up with toki pona for theological reasons.
janMato
Posts: 1545
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:21 pm
Location: Takoma Park, MD
Contact:

Re: Dilbert en tenpo suno pi kama sin pi jan Kolisu

Post by janMato »

jan Ote wrote:I wouldn't mess up with toki pona for theological reasons.
It wouldn't be without precedent, such as English's capitalization of pronouns only for God. Apparently some languages have special pronouns for dieties and religious agents.

If the pronouns encode deity status, it seems the grammaticalizations, (verb inflections and the like), could also be so, but I can't find an example.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Dilbert en tenpo suno pi kama sin pi jan Kolisu

Post by janKipo »

Your choice, but the other is closer to the original (and so will get into the anthology, I expect).
'o suno li lon' is a grammatical sentence of tp because it is derived from the accepted grammar, which was built upon existing usage. So, to put it another way, it is a grammatical sentence because it is just like a number of other sentences already accepted (and, in this case, approved by Sonja, which still counts for quite a bit).

Well, the o sbj pred sentences express a wish about something/someone; the noun o pred issue a command to/ make a request of someone, so they have different illocutionary force and direction. The latter require a response from the addressee, the former doesn't (indeed, doesn't have an addressee -- but requires no response from sbj either). To be sure, the purpose for expressing the wish may be to get a response from someone, as may be the purpose for stating some claim ("The window is open", "That is annoying," say). But it need not be, whereas an imperative seems always to require a response (indeed, a non-response is taken as a response -- a refusal to comply). The odd thing about God's wishes in this theology is that they do require a response or, more accurately, a fulfillment; God's expressions ofwilll are, amazingly, performatiive. This is an unusual situation (I suppose it works temporarily for those given the genie's gift and the like).

There is no specific grammar in tp (or English, for that matter -- I pass on other languages for the moment) for performative acts. They usually involve a specific context (like the wedding, as noted --when are the two actually married, btw?) and a fairly set form of words, but nothing grammatically special: they look like declaratives or, occasionally, imperatives, or optatives. And among the things declared may be our desires (though that is rarely a performative in English -- I can't think of a good case off hand, another reason for preferrring the optative in Gen1). Grammatical optatives are not infrequently performative "Let the party begin" officially begins the party, for example. Of course, that arguably may not express an actual wish, but disingenuity is not a flaw in performatives.

Well, we do express our desires as well as announce them. And the announcements may be questioned as to whether they are true or false {"Oh, you don't really want that"). This question may not be relevant to the purpose of the announcement, but is always possible. It is not possible for expressions, however, although they may be accused of disingenuity (as noted) and that may be relevant to the purpose again. So, yes, we do uses for optatives separate from imperatives and declaratives and for uses other than performatives.

Since tp doesn't even have a word for gods, having special pronouns or special verb forms doesn't seem likely.
User avatar
jan Ote
Posts: 424
Joined: Thu Oct 08, 2009 1:15 am
Location: ma Posuka
Contact:

Re: Dilbert en tenpo suno pi kama sin pi jan Kolisu

Post by jan Ote »

janKipo wrote:'o suno li lon' is a grammatical sentence of tp because it is derived from the accepted grammar
The only grammar instructions about use of 'o' I know are in the old manual:
http://bknight0.myweb.uga.edu/toki/lesson/lesson9.html
but it doesn't seem the rules in the Lesson 9 describe (then: allow) this usage.
janKipo wrote:So, to put it another way, it is a grammatical sentence because it is just like a number of other sentences already accepted (and, in this case, approved by Sonja, which still counts for quite a bit).
I haven't noticed this. Could you give ma a link?
janKipo wrote:Grammatical optatives are not infrequently performative "Let the party begin" officially begins the party, for example.[...] So, yes, we do uses for optatives separate from imperatives and declaratives and for uses other than performatives.
Good point. But should we implement the same in tp? Does it keep the language simple or complicates it without the real need?
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Dilbert en tenpo suno pi kama sin pi jan Kolisu

Post by janKipo »

I haven't had much luck finding things in the archives since they shifted to the categorical mode, so I can't pull up references right away. I'll root around for them (and they may be in other files, since I chatted with Sonja on some other matters along with tp on another line). In any case, at some point, someone (jan Setepo, alias Stevo?) did a short phrase-structure grammar of tp. It was then revised (and probably needs yet another revision now) and included the o subj pred form, based on some cases, mainly the Bible ones, I suspect. And Sonja said somewhere I think that she thought it was all basically correct (there were more problems with omissions than inclusions -- no nominal complements, for example).

On the particular issue, I remember noting a similar odd form in someone's Esperanto (a -u verb with a subject) and here explaining its optative use and noting the similarity (maybe even the connection) to tp.

As for the "should," and simplicity and all, I am inclined to think (but I may be influenced by James Cooke Brown and Loglan/Lojban on this) that expressions of desires are more basic and natural than reports of them, their often rather complex structure notwithstanding. We could, of course, find other ways to express these desires: with 'la' prefixes, say, or even your declarative forms (which we do use in English, after all), but this minor, essentially of a blank vocative (as it turns out in the grammar, as I recall), seems a natural means. Of course, you don't have to use it, and, if enough people don't, it will disappear, except,, perhaps, in some antiquated and special contexts like Genesis (like the "Oh may ...." in English).
Post Reply