things that have surprised me when learning TP

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.
leoboiko
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:02 pm

things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by leoboiko »

I don’t have a place to post this so might as well do it here.

• No green

I find it strange that a language so focused on nature doesn’t have a word for “green” as primary. I mean, plants and all. As people who are into color theory will know, what color is “primary” is determined culturally.

According to the Berlin-Kay hypothesis on color names in languages (a problematic theory; see http://j.mp/dHQsAd , p. 87–94), languages first develop black & white (or rather, “dark” and “light”); then red; then either yellow or green; then yellow and green; and only then blue, brown & others. So the lack of green is where TP breaks the pattern.

I think a simple way of changing this would be to expand “laso” to cover both green and blue, like in Japanese and Korean and other Asian languages. Just like in Japanese “ao” can be used both for the color of sky and of leaves and you use “midori” if you want to refer specifically to that of leaves, TP could let “laso” be a generic term for green and blue and cyan, with “laso jelo” specifically green.

• No null subject

I understand TP is especially indebted to English through Tok Pisin, but still I was surprised that a minimalist language would opt for no-null subject, like English and unlike Spanish, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, Russian &c. &c. (Is Tok Pisin no-null?)
tenpo pini la mi lape. mi kama lape ala. mi telo e mi kepeken telo lete. tenpo ni la mi moku e kili. mi pilin pona.
ni li ike tawa mi! It might be because my native language is null-subj, but I keep wanting to just let it implicit:
tenpo pini la mi lape. kama lape ala. telo e mi kepeken telo lete. tenpo ni la moku e kili. pilin pona.
• No reduplication

I really expected toki pona to have plurals and intensifiers through reduplication instead of a grammar word like “mute”. Ok, it puts new phonological complications in the game (to minimize ambiguity no words should be half of another word like “ma” and “mama”); but it’s, like, the cutest thing ever.
jan jan li kama.

ona li tawa ma ma.

waso li tawa sewi sewi lon kon.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by janKipo »

FWIW both 'laso' and 'jelo' cover parts of the green range and 'loje' and 'pimeja' pick up bits of the purples and browns.

In a language necessarily full of ambiguities, null subject presents problems in figuring out what the subject is. If it merely repeats the previous subject, one could get the effect by added VPs. If it can change under some rule, then the rules need to be explicit (as they often are not in null-subject languages, to the dismay -- even embarrassment -- of learners). I don't know about Tok Pisin (since I don't know about the underlying Melanesians). It is ultimately more surprising (to me, anyhow) that tp has marked imperatives (pollution from Logjam?).

Reduplication is cute and does seem natural (there are so many uses for 'mute' and 'kin') and it might be that we will yet find some thing for it (comparatives and superlatives are very awkward now, for example). 'mama' and 'lili' are firm parts of the vocabulary, however, and unlikely to be changed and I am not sure that stress difference will be enough to make the situation clear (people report trouble with 'ma mama' and 'mama ma', for example).

We aren't very strict about what goes where here, as you may have noted. I probably would have put this in the learning or the personal section, as a report of your experiences. Putting it here suggest that you want to change tp along the lines of your expectations.
leoboiko
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:02 pm

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by leoboiko »

janKipo wrote: In a language necessarily full of ambiguities, null subject presents problems in figuring out what the subject is.
Not sure if I entirely agree with that. It’s the same argument that English speakers keep saying about Portuguese and Japanese &c., but we speakers seem to be able to do just fine.

I guess I’m just being mother-language–centric.
If it merely repeats the previous subject, one could get the effect by added VPs.
Well, a large composite sentence is not the same as several comment-sentences on the same topic.

>jan Konan li kama li lukin li anpa e jan ike li jo e meli.

I read TP with the same intonation pattern of languages I know, marking a sentence end with a descending, concluding intonation. So the “hanging” intonation I leave here makes me kind of eager for the end.

> jan Konan li kama.  li lukin.  li anpa e jan ike.  li jo e meli.

Each utterance is nicely self-contained. It’s a different effect.

(I’m somewhat cheating here by separating sentences with larger spaces. This is something I do routinely in written TP, as compensation for the lack of capitals.)

Intuitively I don’t think of this as repeating the last subject, but as not specifying a subject when it’s obvious by context. In fact I think it’s the opposite thought-pattern—a subject is something I want to specify only when it’s not obvious by context.
I probably would have put this in the learning or the personal section, as a report of your experiences. Putting it here suggest that you want to change tp along the lines of your expectations.
I considered that, but thought that readers of this forum would be more likely to want to read this. Though I guess it’s the same kulupu lili reading both forums, right? ;) I’m not really suggesting changing TP, it’s already well established & I wouldn’t feel knowledgeable enough to conlang anyway. The worst I’ll do is perhaps start calling greenery laso.
Last edited by leoboiko on Sat Mar 05, 2011 7:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jan Misite
Posts: 42
Joined: Tue Dec 28, 2010 6:42 pm

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by jan Misite »

I would think that there would several ways of saying 'green' i.e. 'kule pi kasi (X)' or 'Y (li) kule sama kasi (X)'; you need a modifier because you could be talking about wood or trees. Maybe you could say 'kule pi lipu kasi' to mean leaf-green which would work in most cases because I think no-one would say 'lipu kasi' to mean '(natural) wood paper' because that would be redundant, I don't think they make paper any other way. Maybe you could even reverse and use ' kasi lipu', but that might mean the whole plant is flat and bendable. jan Kipo o, ni li pona tawa sina? I think we could even leave off the 'pi's if we like.

I suppose if you know what both of you are talking about you could probably say 'kule pi ona kasi' = 'color of it(tree)' ie 'ni li kasi Sewito. kule pi ona kasi li pona tawa mi.'

As far as null-subjects in a small language, well, I'd learn it. :D I like Japanese but have not learned it for several reasons. There's a really awesome book on ellipsis in Japanese that I skimmed which, though dense, makes it seem like a pretty regular system. It doesn't seem like its description would be as succinct as tp's though imo.

When I learned tp I was surprised there weren't an even number of sensory words, i.e. kule can mean color but kute can't be a noun meaning sound or noise.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by janKipo »

@leoboiko It's been a long time since I last studied Spanish or Greek (or Latin), but my memory of how these were taught then (Latin as a Modern Language, of course) was that every third person verb had to have an explicit subject -- in class work, though the texts we read seemed to do otherwise and we got a lot of 'scilicet?' on our translations. Now I've started on Basque and the instructions there are exactly as you gave them. I intended the repeated VPs only as giving the same effect, but your are right, they really don't. I guess that is just one of the characteristics of tp. I wonder what the situation is in other conlangs; the ones I know best are all subject-required.

@Misite 'kule kasi' ('pi' has to have two words after it, since it is a right grouping marker) but the other work out all right.
Paper is also made out of cloth, but I am sure 'lipu kasi' is going to come up "leaf" just about every time. 'kasi lipu', on the other hand, would indeed be a broad, flat flexible plant, seaweed being the best I can think of right now.

You don't have to use the markers on 'ona'; that is Mato's style and occasionally useful, but not required.

Sensory words: 'kule' and 'kalama' for 'lukin' and 'kute' but nothing for taste, smell, touch. 'lukin' and 'kute' can mean "what is seen/heard" but almost entirely about the content, the message or the picture, not about the medium.
janMato
Posts: 1545
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:21 pm
Location: Takoma Park, MD
Contact:

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by janMato »

leoboiko wrote: • No green
I think a simple way of changing this would be to expand “laso” to cover both green and blue, like in Japanese and Korean and other Asian languages. Just like in Japanese “ao” can be used both for the color of sky and of leaves and you use “midori” if you want to refer specifically to that of leaves, TP could let “laso” be a generic term for green and blue and cyan, with “laso jelo” specifically green.
I haven't read everyone elses resp, so I'm probably repeating. laso is grue (blue-green) and has been a long time.
And the color-color scheme to represent mid points has been official since about 2008 or so, and also is an important example of either significant modifier order or a canonical usage of a color as a noun.
I think that toki pona really only has 8 toes in the "primitive" language camp. A language this small shouldn't have anything beyond black and white. It's strange to have such a primative language, yet it has more than 2 colors/shades and it has an exact counting system (even before the mute-20 ale-100 system), when it is more common for a hunter-gatherer society to have no exact counting at all. (And yeah, I know, one could quibble if it's possible to be imprecise with numbers as small as 2)
leoboiko wrote: • No null subject
I agree. I think this will drive people to do something useful with the pronouns in the subject, like modify them with all sorts of things.

mi lukin e soweli e waso e akesi. ona li musi.
vs
mi lukin e soweli e waso e akesi. ona soweli li musi.

And maybe other things. Good tp, imho, is tp that makes the most of all slots available, especially the ones that are obligatory anyhow. As a matter of "primitive" or simple language design, I'm also surprised to see obligatory subjects. Optional subject would be a good feature for a future small conlang.

From what little I know, the best comparison would be Chinese, which also has a word like "ona", which is omitted entirely as much as possible.

You can get some of what your're looking for with li chains.

mi telo e soweli li pali e moku mi li pana e toki li lape lon supa mi.
Well, a large composite sentence is not the same as several comment-sentences on the same topic.
Why not? The tonal contours and sandhi of toki pona are sadly undefined. We really have no ground to imagine that toki pona speech falls at the end of sentences or who knows? maybe the fluent speakers in toki pona land use a fire-truck wee-ooo-wee-ooo intonation all the time.
• No reduplication
I miss reduplication too. It's an opportunity to create 125 easy to recognize compound phrases.

People are giving reduplication the English meaning, which I think is dangerous. e.g.

? mi wile mute mute e moku.
I *really* want to eat.

Just because reduplication in English either means a tautology (the beastly animal, soweli soweli) or intenstification (lili lili) doesn't mean that tp automatically works that way.

AFAIK, jan Sonja has never said anything about reduplication's potential meaning. So I feel like I have to avoid it altogether.
janMato
Posts: 1545
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:21 pm
Location: Takoma Park, MD
Contact:

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by janMato »

jan Misite wrote:I would think that there would several ways of saying 'green' i.e. 'kule pi kasi (X)' or 'Y (li) kule sama kasi (X)';
Exactly! Just for me, on an aesthetic level, leaf color is more concrete and sounds prettier than the abstract "green".
jan Misite wrote:kule pi ona kasi
As I understand it, ona has to refer back to something previously spoken or in the environment. It co-ordinates with everything except "me" and "you". It makes my head ache to think of a situation where the modifier is referring back to something said earlier.

mi pana e kule tawa lipu pi tomo mi. kasi suli li suli lon ma lete. kule ni li kule pi ona kasi.
I'm painting my house. There is a tree that grows in the north lands. This color is the color of the previously mentioned plant.

Indeed all modifiers to mi, sina, ona are optional, but modifiers for number and gender are fairly common. Since all modifiers in toki pona are moral equals, there's no reason why mi, sina, ona couldn't take any modifier that seems useful. And sometimes it's even better to not use the ona (and ni) altogether, when possible.

I got two hits on usages of kute as a direct object:

http://tokipona.net/tp/CorpusSearch.aspx?word=e%20kute meaning recording and ear

I'm sure there are more, but searching for nouns in direct object slot is easier than search for nouns elsewhere.
leoboiko
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Jun 29, 2010 2:02 pm

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by leoboiko »

janMato wrote: laso is grue (blue-green) and has been a long time.
I learned TP with jan Pije lessons, with simply state laso is blue and laso jelo (or jelo laso) is green. I should have checked the wiki—you’re right, it says laso is blue, green, cyan.
A language this small shouldn't have anything beyond black and white.
The way “primitive” peoples deal with color is fascinating; at some point you’re forced to admit our undesrtanding of the “color” concept, while widespread, is not universal. The book I cited above mentions, as a counter-example to Berlin-Kay, the case of Hanunó’o, which has four terms: black/dark, white/light, red, and green. Except red and green aren’t really red and green as it was initially thought; they’re more like wet vs. dry, or fresh vs. dessicated (think shiny vs. matte, or ripe vs. “green”). Hue, texture, reflectiveness are not necessarily made distinct in all languages.
Why not? The tonal contours and sandhi of toki pona are sadly undefined. We really have no ground to imagine that toki pona speech falls at the end of sentences or who knows? maybe the fluent speakers in toki pona land use a fire-truck wee-ooo-wee-ooo intonation all the time.
Ok, so let’s rewrite that more cautiously: assuming TP has intonation patterns similar to those most common in today’s most popular languages, they’re not the same.

I want to say there’s a cognitive difference between holding a sentence in your mind and holding a topic in the background, but the more I think about it the less sure I am.
janMato
Posts: 1545
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:21 pm
Location: Takoma Park, MD
Contact:

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by janMato »

leoboiko wrote:I want to say there’s a cognitive difference between holding a sentence in your mind and holding a topic in the background, but the more I think about it the less sure I am.
I think (might have) just written an example of of that:

mi pana e kule tawa lipu pi tomo mi. kasi suli li suli lon ma lete. kule ni li kule pi ona kasi.

The topic is "I'm painting my house". The comment is "The paint is green". But because I lack subordinate clauses, I can't easily introduce my discussion of evergreen trees without it seeming like I've gone off on a tangent. I can't say I have nailed down what stylistic or grammatical technique is called for to be richly descriptive (tree that grows in the north vs tree of north land) and prevent peripheral things from assuming center stage.
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: things that have surprised me when learning TP

Post by janKipo »

I note in passing that the green example is very like the "definitions" in NSM and so may be a step toward another kind of idiom structure.
Post Reply