To use the some phrases as both a subject or an object, you have to reshuffle things, not unlike declining nouns. I'm not sure what the process is called for isolating languages with almost only free morphemes. Let's try examine the canonical word phrase kule lon palisa luka - finger nail polish. Ref toki pona wiki.
[Btw, has anyone put any thought into how intra-linear glosses should be done in TP? And pakala! I can't get fixed width spacing and a color other than green.]
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meli li kepeken e kule lon palisa luka.
NOM-woman VT-use ACC-color PREP-on N-stick MOD-hand.
The woman uses finger nail polish.
or the woman (siting on her hands) uses color
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* kule lon palisa luka li pona tawa meli.
NOM-color PREP-on N-stick MOD-hand PRED N-good PREP-to N-woman
The finger nail polish is good to the woman.
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kule pi palisa luka li pona tawa meli.
NOM-color ISA-HASA N-stick MOD-hand PRED N-good PREP-to N-woman
The color somehow-related-to hand sticks are good to the woman.
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kule li pona tawa meli lon palisa luka.
NOM-color PRED N-good PREP-to N-woman PREP-On N-stick MOD-hand
The color is good to the woman on the fingers.
Moving the "lon palisa luka" to the sentence end also conjures an image of a woman who is on the fingers. Maybe she's sitting on her hands, she likes colors in general.
Community Proposal
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? kule pi lon palisa luka li pona tawa meli.
ACC-color REL PREP-on N-sticks MOD-hand PRED N-Good PREP-tp NOM-woman
The color of on the fingers is good to the woman.
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? meli li kepeken e kule pi lon palisa luka.
NOM-woman vT-uses ACC-color REL PREP-on N-sticks MOD-hand
The woman uses by means of her fingers the color
or The woman uses color (of the sort that) is on the fingers.
Corpus Statistics
If an innovation is obvious and necesssary enough, we should find people using it 'accidentally', there should be examples of community sentence of the form "pi+prep"
Now for corpus statistics using the google custom search engine
Ref: lukin
- "pi kepeken" - 8 pages
- "pi tawa" - 12
- "pi tan" - 4
- "pi supa" - 5
- "pi insa" - 12
- "pi poka" -9
- "pi lon" - 9
Not really a preposition
"...ijo pi lon ala.."
...thing that doesn't exist...
"mi pilin e ni : nasin pi toki pona en nasin pi lon pona li sama mute" jan Kanso (2007)
I think this, way of toki pona and way of good existance are very similar.
Not really "pi"
"...kepeken e nimi "pi" lon sinpin pi nimi tu."
using the word "pi" in front of 2nd word."
Close
"...kulupu pi jan lili pi toki Epelanto pi/lon ma Sumi" li pona mute"
Would sound the same spoken, but trying to convey here that the writer isn't sure which word works better.
Defective sentence, but seems to be using the "pi lon" construction
"jan pi lon tan suno li pali e ma tomo pi [ma] Kadi"
person of at sunny goal work the land of Cadiz.. Wikia.
I think this example is bad tp. I think it was aiming at "Cadiz is a place for people with the goal of a sunny place to work."
Jan Kipo
"ko suwi pi lon telo seli kili li pona tawa mi" jan Kipo on toki lili
I like coffee with sugar.
"tomo pi lon tenpo e ona li pali tawa ona." jan Kipo (2007)
"The house of ? employed her"
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=822
Conclusion
Too early to say, not enough data at least for "pi lon". Come on people, get writing! It takes a lot of accidental usages to establish a community convention.