Could have anu and en been collapsed into one word?

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.
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janMato
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Could have anu and en been collapsed into one word?

Post by janMato »

In a Cherokee dictionary I was checking out, it listed a word as meaning
1. and
2. or
In English we don't distinguish between the 2 forms of then (iff vs if) and we don't distinguish between the two forms of or (or and xor) so why wouldn't drop the distinction in toki pona as well? Actually, now that I think about it, toki pona has really good support for logic as compared to support for arithmetic.

Cherokee might not be a best comparison though, it has so much going on that other mechanisms might resolve confusion about and/or.
jan Akesimun
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Re: Could have anu and en been collapsed into one word?

Post by jan Akesimun »

Hm.. That would get kind of vague, though. mije mute en meli mute li toki sama en seme? could mean "Are the guys talking to each other?", "Are the girls talking to each other?" or "Are the guys and girls talking to each other?"
Yo estuve aquí.
janKipo
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Re: Could have anu and en been collapsed into one word?

Post by janKipo »

My Cherokee is a little weak, so I don't quite know how this plays out in that language (or how accurate the translation is), but I don't see the point of introducing yet another source of ambiguity into tp. 'en' already has two meanings, as does 'anu', so the one form would have four meanings (at least, in all cases) and some with some practical significance ('anu' is a question word, among other things, for example). and I don't see any obvious way around these difficulties (especially without a word for either choices or mixtures).
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