If toki pona was spoken by an algonquinist

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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If toki pona was spoken by an algonquinist

Post by janMato »

While writing a page about how Algonquian langauges work in general... http://wapanakamik.wingapo.com/wiki/ind ... le=Lessons

I started thinking about how the people of toki pona often seem to be using their L1 to influence what of the available patterns they use, and what possibilities they don't bother with.

An Algonquinist would focus on putting rich (i.e. modified) pronouns in subject and object place, filling all the possible slots for the verb, and hacking a nominalizer out of "e ni", and maybe deconfigurationalizing things.

ona soweli li moku pi sowli lili. It (of an animal sort) eats mice.

soweli mi li ni: ona soweli li moku pi soweli lili. ni li moku e ni: soweli sina li moku pi soweli lili. This is still configurational though, following strict SVO.

soweli mi kin en soweli sina li ni: ona soweli li moku pi soweli lili. ona kin li moku e ona. This is less configurational and, and obviates the confusion about S and O by marking with kin, which shows that my cat bit your cat.

This looks much longer than the alternative, but I suppose it would be extra & unnecessary overhead for an algonquinist to so carefully mark the difference between S & O, or to describe things staticly (as nouns and adjectives) instead of dynamically (as being essentially things doing something, somehow).
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