DO incorporation

Tinkerers Anonymous: Some people can't help making changes to "fix" Toki Pona. This is a playground for their ideas.
Tokiponidistoj: Iuj homoj nepre volas fari ŝanĝojn por "ripari" Tokiponon. Jen ludejo por iliaj ideoj.
janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: DO incorporation

Post by janKipo »

Thanks for the catch; correction made.
Yeah, ambiguity is not such a great problem unless you are talking to machine. Still, it is nice to avoid unnecessary sources when they are easy to fix at the beginning. So far as I can tell, jan Setepo (morpheme addict, I think) hasn't done anything much on the grammar in over a year, maybe hoping for things to settle down, maybe just swamped by the details that are emerging and jan Mimoku (la pingvino, I think, but things got really confused as far as names go there for a while) less. My grammar-writing days are so far behind me (and dealt with such relatively simple grammar types) that I can no longer remember what constitutes a BNF grammar or a phrase-structure one, for that matter. I get by for illustrative purposes with crude G&T and for an occasional snow job a piece of Montague.
Sure, short sentences and lots of them are just stylistic choices, but the tp philosophy is said to favor them over deep structures, so normative. And it does dodge a lot of problems, including many ambiguities. It is also boringly long and repetitive, of course.
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jan Josan
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Re: DO incorporation

Post by jan Josan »

janMato wrote: And it is on my wish list to figure out how to turn this into a BNF notation and find a utility to validate sentences the same way a computer program compiler validates C# or Pascal or what have you.
forgive my ignorance, but is BNF notation the way is described in the old yahoo message, the way (I think) it was on wikipedia at one time?
Here is the PS grammar again (also message 2313):

Phrase Structure rules
P1 <Sentence> ::= <Interjection>
| <Verb> ["ala"]
| [<PreSentence>] [<Vocative>] <Subject> <Predicate>
P2 <PreSentence> ::= ["taso"] <Sentence> "la"
| ["taso"] <Nominal> "la"
P3 <Vocative> ::= [<Nominal>] "o"
P4 <Subject> ::= "o"
| <Nominal>
| "o" <Nominal>
P5 <Predicate> ::= "li" <Phrase> [<Prep-Phrase>*]
| "li" <Predicate> <Predicate-Conjunction> <Predicate>
P6 <Phrase> ::= <Noun-Phrase> (1)
| <Modifier>* (1)
| <Verb-Phrase>
(1) = ["ala" + repeat of the entity immediately before it], and may be applied only once.
P7 <Nominal> ::= <Noun-Phrase>
| <Nominal> <Nominal-Conjunction> <Nominal>
P8 <Verb-Phrase> ::= <Verb>
| <Modal> (1) <Verb>
(The verb or modal after "ala" is the same as the one before "ala".)
P9 <Prep-Phrase> ::= <Preposition> <Nominal>
P10 <Verb> ::= <Vi> (1) [<Modifier>]*
| <Vt> (1) [<Modifier>]* + <Direct-Object>*
| <Vx> (1) + <Noun-Phrase>
| "li" <Predicate> <Predicate-Conjunction> <Predicate>
P11 <Direct-Object> ::= "e" <Noun-Phrase>
P12 <Noun-Phrase> ::= <Noun> [<Modifier>*]

| <Noun-Phrase> "pi" <Nominal>
P13 <Modal> ::= {"kama", "ken", "wile"}
P14 <Vi> ::= see list.
P15 <Vt> ::= see list.
P16 <Vx> ::= {"lon", "tawa"}
P17 <Interjection> ::= see list.
P18 <Predicate-Conjunction> ::= see list.
P19 <Nominal-Conjunction> ::= see list.
P20 <Noun> ::= see list.
P21 <Modifier> ::= <Name>
| see list.
P22 <Preposition> ::= see list.
P23 <Name> ::= [C] V ["n"] + [ CV ["n"] ]*
P24 <V> ::= {"a" | "e" | "i" | "o" | "u"}
P25 <C> ::= {"j" | "k" | "l" | "m" | "n" | "p" | "s" | "t" | "w"}
The combinations "ji", "ti", "wo", "wu", and "nn" do not occur.

TRANSFORMATIONAL RULES
T1: If subject is "mi" or "sina" then delete immediately following "li".
T2: "o o" ::= "o" (Two "o" are reduced to one; see P3 and P4.)


Rule 5 says "li" is followed by a phrase (i.e., a noun phrase or modifier or verb phrase) or a sequence of predicates separated by conjunctions. This is to accommodate sentences like "mi jan" ('I'm a person'. Without an object "jan" is apparently not a verb here.)

P5 <Predicate> ::= "li" <Phrase> [<Prep-Phrase>*]
| "li" <Predicate> <Predicate-Conjunction> <Predicate>
P6 <Phrase> ::= <Noun-Phrase> (1)
| <Modifier>* (1)
| <Verb-Phrase>
(1) = ["ala" + repeat of the entity immediately before it], and may be applied only once.

Both of your suggestions are good. I didn't think of a null copula. What would the rule look like?

I did think of a transformation for reducing "tawa tawa" and "lon lon", but decided against it. I'm not sure why.

jan Setepo / stevo
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