Toki Pona with Inflections?!
Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 10:27 pm
So, I've been having trouble with tp poetry of the late. I dislike the fact that it is so very difficult to write poetry in tp simply because words that should be very, very short are very, very long. Like tawa. And kepeken. I mean, seriously! In most languages, they are either a case ending or a monosyllabic word.
Taking this into consideration, I decided to make tp inflected! Wootness! Here are my basic outlined thoughts. They mostly revolve around nouns, but they dabble with adjectives and verbs too.
-make uniform endings for the four basic parts of speech
-take each of the prepositions/modifers and make it so that there are endings that go onto nouns that take the prepositions'/modifiers' spots
-internally modify roots upon declension, i.e.: consonant gradation, vowel change, all those fun things
Let's get started, shall we?
To begin with, I decided to go with the basic -a for nouns. I'll figure out the other parts of speech endings later. So, we have a basic word, lawa.
e, the accusative case, should end the word in an -e. lawe, or e lawa.
pi, the genitive, should be -i. lawi, or tawa lawa.
li, the li-case, should be -o. lano (oops! lawo doesn't work if we stay close to the phonetics of tp, so we put n in place of w), or lawa li.
o, the vocative, should be -u. lanu (wu doesn't work, so nu), or o lawa.
Now, obviously this is where the basic available endings stop being available. And this is where vowel harmony or consonant gradation comes into play. In lawa's case, consonant gradation and in a word like uta, vowel harmony/change.
lawa changes to la because the w grades down, and the double a merges.
Continuing on...
tawa is -a in the second form. la, or tawa lawa.
tan is -e in the second form. le, or tan lawa.
kepeken is -i in the second form. li, or kepeken lawa.
lon is -o in the second form. lo, or lon lawa.
I haven't thought of the best preposition for -u yet.
Looking at the vowel change type of word, uta, it declines in the following way:
uta changes to ita because the linguistic opposite of u is i.
ita, tawa uta.
ite, tan uta.
isi, kepeken uta. (as we all know, ti is not a valid syllable. It should be)
ito, lon uta.
I'm finished for now. I realize that what I have posted above may not make sense to all ( I don't expect people to understand the logic of a crazy pers-cough, genius), and that some may consider it to be blasphemy against tp, but I love complicating things. It makes them work more beautifully than they already do.
And by no means am I already done. I'm still going to develop this and use it in my numerous works of literature whether you like it or not. ... That was slightly rude. I apologize. Please leave your comments, and I'll always be happy to reply to them.
Taking this into consideration, I decided to make tp inflected! Wootness! Here are my basic outlined thoughts. They mostly revolve around nouns, but they dabble with adjectives and verbs too.
-make uniform endings for the four basic parts of speech
-take each of the prepositions/modifers and make it so that there are endings that go onto nouns that take the prepositions'/modifiers' spots
-internally modify roots upon declension, i.e.: consonant gradation, vowel change, all those fun things
Let's get started, shall we?
To begin with, I decided to go with the basic -a for nouns. I'll figure out the other parts of speech endings later. So, we have a basic word, lawa.
e, the accusative case, should end the word in an -e. lawe, or e lawa.
pi, the genitive, should be -i. lawi, or tawa lawa.
li, the li-case, should be -o. lano (oops! lawo doesn't work if we stay close to the phonetics of tp, so we put n in place of w), or lawa li.
o, the vocative, should be -u. lanu (wu doesn't work, so nu), or o lawa.
Now, obviously this is where the basic available endings stop being available. And this is where vowel harmony or consonant gradation comes into play. In lawa's case, consonant gradation and in a word like uta, vowel harmony/change.
lawa changes to la because the w grades down, and the double a merges.
Continuing on...
tawa is -a in the second form. la, or tawa lawa.
tan is -e in the second form. le, or tan lawa.
kepeken is -i in the second form. li, or kepeken lawa.
lon is -o in the second form. lo, or lon lawa.
I haven't thought of the best preposition for -u yet.
Looking at the vowel change type of word, uta, it declines in the following way:
uta changes to ita because the linguistic opposite of u is i.
ita, tawa uta.
ite, tan uta.
isi, kepeken uta. (as we all know, ti is not a valid syllable. It should be)
ito, lon uta.
I'm finished for now. I realize that what I have posted above may not make sense to all ( I don't expect people to understand the logic of a crazy pers-cough, genius), and that some may consider it to be blasphemy against tp, but I love complicating things. It makes them work more beautifully than they already do.
And by no means am I already done. I'm still going to develop this and use it in my numerous works of literature whether you like it or not. ... That was slightly rude. I apologize. Please leave your comments, and I'll always be happy to reply to them.