Toki Pona Forums

re: parts of speech
Maybe it would be less controversial if we had a toki pona name for them, the same way that Lojban has names for parts of speech brivla, cmene, cmavo

re: what kind of clauses I think I'm seeing
Yeah, I'm not sure what clauses I think I'm seeing, in the english or tp. I think the verbs and the clause structure of any langauge will be the hardest to define and unlike gender or modifer agreement, getting rid of verbs and phrase co-ordinating strategies wouldn't simplify a language. (Riding a bicycle is simple until you need to explain how the physics works.) I think if I was defining a language, the language definition would probably be a bit incomplete in the area of verbs and phrase syntax-- those areas are just complicated, in tp or any language. Even piraha has a bazillion forms of each verb (because it has agglutinating verbs). And I would be so brave to say isolating languages that don't inflect, like tp, are doomed to have more complex word order rules.

re: necessity of clauses at all
I agree writing could be done without any "[prep] ni : [sentence]" phrases, I agree. We probably could still write usable tp without he canonical "li X e ni: Y" phrase, too. But, I think it is arguable if the alternatives are easier, clearer or equivallent.

re: is "tan ni + sentence" legit (or anything like that)
Is
"tan ni : " + sentence
canonical or defacto acceptable?

Personally, I favor all prepositions *should* be able to introduce clauses. [np] + li + [vp] + e ni + [setentence] + [lon/tan/anpa/poki/insa/kepeken/...] ni + [sentence]
I'm under the impression that all sentences of the above type are not canonical right now. If they are, then the thesis of my post is moot.

I like this pattern because it seems like it has parallels to a canonical pattern, so if is tinkering with the artist's prerogatives, it's a pretty conservative change, but with dramatic impact.

re: the Santa clause?
ni li toki a a a nasa. tenpo ni li poki tenpo pi jan Kurisuto.

re: [np] + pi + [n] + ni + [sentence] e.g. jan pi ilo ni: ilo li pakala e tomo
Is that canonical or defacto?
To follow the "[np] li [vp] e ni : [sentence]" pattern, it would be "jan pi ni: ilo li pakala e tomo", which would be useful for embedding setences into noun phrases-- but it would mean pi was departing from it's role as a mere noun phrase building tool. I see why you added the "pi ilo ni" though, it was so there would be 2 words after pi.

re: ni + [sentence fragment/noun phrase]
If someone says..
*? mi lukin kepeken ni ilo pi oko tu. / I see therewith my eyeglasses

Either it's bad tp, or they are trying to introducing a clause with a noun phrase because "ni" should modify "ilo", e.g.
mi lukin kepeken ilo pi oko tu ni. / I see with my glasses (better tp, but doesn't look like a "[prep] ni : X" phrase anymore)

mi lukin kepeken ni: mi kama jo lon esun ilo pi oko tu. / I see with that which I bought at the opticians.

re: 'jan Mato li sina li jan pi sona toki ala. sina kam sona e toki pali' ... study constructed languages'
mi jan Mato li jan pi sona toki ala. mi kama sona e ni: toki li toki ale.
I'm Matt the non-linguist. I study the languages that people don't speak. (now it's funnier again.

Is anyone familiar with the Topic-Comment structure of Chinese (a non-inflecting language, like Toki Pona)? I wonder if the whole "[prep] + ni: [sentence]" construction could be avoided if we used Topic-Comment. It requires saying things in the reverse order of English, but it works in Chinese.

Instead of saying "I want to give money to the man with the machine that is demolishing houses", you say "Machine that is demolishing houses, a man uses it, I want to give money to him". ilo li pakala e tomo, jan li kepeken e ilo ni, mi wile pana e mani tawa jan ni.

Instead of "He told me Mary loved him to make me mad", you'd say "Me mad, he wants. So Mary loves him, he tells me." mi pilin ike, ona li wile. Tan ni la, meli Meli li olin e ona, ona li toki tawa mi.

I wonder if this could still be considered proper Toki Pona.