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Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 8:04 am
by janpona120
I suppose you mean 'sijelo' rather than 'soweli'. 'soweli moku'
mi nasa e nimi. sina toki e pona. Totally, I see tp through a matrix (100*100) for doubled words. So, all combinations "sijelo(x)" are related with body:
  • sijelo suno -- heart (sijelo pi telo suno -- organ for blood)
  • sijelo moku -- stomach
  • ... and still 98 combinations... all about body
Similarly, "soweli(x)" are related with animal:
  • soweli moli -- predator (animal for killing, a key question is: for what?), no dead organism
  • soweli noka -- animal for transportation, its mission is relocation of something
  • soweli luka -- animal for hand, domestic one
Also, another subjects apply this function "f a(x)":
  • nanpa(x) -- describes all mathematics
  • ma(x) -- geography
  • many(x) -- finance
  • ... an so on... still 97 areas
Dead critters don't eat people, people eat them (or they are food for people, 'moku tawa jan'
"jan li sama e moku tawa soweli moli" -- that is, a human is a food for predator. How to say "the dead animal"? Good question. We have two variants: an active animal (who makes a dead), and a pasive one (who is dead). In my opinion, "soweli moli" is the predator (active maker) and "soweli lon moli" is an animal in state "dead".
'kin' goes after the word stressed.
Thank you for the remark. I will try to remember this.
I hope working on this project will improve your control of tp
I hope too. Also, I have a hope to make tp as simple as possible by... total unification: universal functions and universal notations. What do you think about "f a(x)" and "f a(lon x)" functions shown above?

And finally, let me ask you again: What is your definition of tpers? How to test his mastery? I am looking for a real tp-master. And I would like to be sure that, at least, only is existing in the world?

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Wed Jul 27, 2016 10:50 am
by janKipo
Well, you seem to be starting from scratch in a language with a history, even if only 15 years. So, for example, blood is 'telo loje', not 'telo suno' (and, in this case, I don't see the source very clearly). Now, 'soweli moli' is admittedly ambiguous (as are most compounds -- hence the often stressed reliance on context), but "dead animal" is the default, since 'moli' is an adjective first and foremost and a verb only derivatively. 'soweli tawa' is the term for horses and transportation animal generally. 'noka' does refer to transportation limbs (as opposed to grasping ones) when that makes sense, but soweli pretty much all have only transportation limbs (though we still distinguish forelegs from hind legs by analogy, even in elephants where the analogy breaks down thoroughly), so almost all soweli are soweli noka, even if not used for (or of any use for) transportation. By parity of reasoning, soweli luka would be those animals that have effective grasping or striking limbs (mostly also used for transportation). Or, working the other way in your list, soweli noka would be the ones we kick and otherwise abuse. (Domestic animals are usually called 'soweli tomo'.) And so on. tp just isn't a philosophical language with semantic primes and rigid rules of combination, but a natural language with a fairly random base vocabulary and room for various displays of ingenuity to express what you want. So, fond as I am but the precision and regularity of philosophical languages, I don't think your pogram has a central role to play in tp (it does have an interesting peripheral role in pointing out other possible readings for even the most established usages, however).
"jan li sama e moku tawa soweli moli" means, literally, "Someone identifies food for/to dead animals" It doesn't say what it identifies the food as, but it may just mean "as food", but that is odd, since it was, presumably food already before the person did something. "identify" here mean "make identical to" and the "to" slot is left open. I suppose you just want to say 'jan li moku tawa soweli (pi moli jan/ pi moku jan)'

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 1:59 pm
by janpona120
blood is 'telo loje', not 'telo suno'
Strongly saying, 'telo loje' is 'a red liquid'. No blood only. No blood by default. The context makes: or blood, or a red wine, or a catchup, or a red paint... or even some portion of water colored in red... or more over the fountain with red illumination. All these cases are 'telo loje'. But, if you use the formula "thing_1 for thing_2", you are getting:
  • blood -- 'telo suno'
As I understand, you are using the formula "noun-adjective". So, your version (and the classic one, too) makes 'soweli moli' -- 'dead animal'. If to use the formula "first-for-second", you receive 'soweli moli' -- 'an animal for killing'.

It is principal difference. And here a main question is: which of two formulae can give a good future for tp?
tp just isn't a philosophical language with semantic primes and rigid rules of combination, but a natural language with a fairly random base vocabulary and room for various displays of ingenuity to express what you want.
If I want to express 'what I want', I need: semantic primitives and rigid rules. It gives me a linguistic control. And the control of situation gives a freedom of expression. For example, a painter has a set of colors (semantic primiteves) and a set of brushes (rigid rules). And this doubled hardness gives him a creative freedom. The painter controls every line and every color, which he wants. This is a cause why I am trying to reform tp. Yes, I want to change the tp-rules to gift a freedom for this fairly language. Now tp has no wings, has no freedom.

The classic tp has not a word for freedom (liberty) and even a word to express a choice. Why?

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 6:00 pm
by janKipo
Well, 'suno' isn't "heart" or "life" or any such thing, so 'telo suno' is less clearly "blood" than 'telo loje' is. And 'telo loje' has more than a decade of usage behind it. Sure, it can be used for other things in context, but in a contextless situation, "blood" is the first, best guess.
The modification relations is very vague and can -- in context -- be precided in various ways, "x for y" for one (it's common for 'moku soweli', for example). But there are too many other uses of the relation to fix on just this one (not the most common, probably). We use all and "let context decide" and, if context doesn't decide right, we go back to more basic forms or paraphrase. Note that even the noun +adjective model is not very clear, since 'soweli moli' can mean "lethal animal" as well as "dead one", and the uncertain "animal of death". Putting everything into the thing1-for-thing2 format will remove these useful possibilities and not make for a more useful tool at all.
"Freedom" is 'ken' and "choice" is 'wile'.

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:11 am
by loteni
Whilst telo suno, maybe clearly understood as blood, that is more cultural than anything I think. I would probably understand that as blood because of my background knowledge, others culturally, but most people maybe well be left confused.

telo loje -- literally red liquid, is a bit general, but telo loje pi insa sijelo -- red liquid of inside of body, is probably clear enough.

telo pilin - should also work, but common use wise people often seem to forget pilin is the physical heart.

I do not think toki pona requires any kind of "reform", and I also think it is likely that a pure dictionary of toki pona would not be particularly difficult.

The issue is that common use toki pona is merely a limited subset (with a few errors) of official toki pona. Official toki pona, is expressive and unambiguous enough for purpose(I think).

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:55 am
by loteni
About formulae for understanding what a phrase might mean;

The one that I think gives the best future for tp is the official one, hence;

telo suno -- firstly should be read as water/liquid of sun, which by cultural correspondance is water/liquid of heart. This is because telo and suno are nouns firstly (I think). But both could be verbs, if suno is a verb it means something like illuminate most probably, so water for illumination -- luminescent liquid maybe. The rule is not "for", it is that the noun or object before it, can itself do that action, or is used to help with action in some way.

So anyway "telo pilin" is better officially for liquid of the heart, since that is exactly its primary interpretation. Pilin is first a noun, and secondary it is an adjective, deriviately it can be a verb and other things.

If you want to be clearer with "telo pilin", then it is fine to use "telo pi pilin", in-spite of popular belief there is no official rule that pi needs atleast two words after it, and since the first word after pi is typically a noun, it would help draw attention to that.

There are good ways to express freedom and choice as jan Kipo pointed out. Obviously the notion of what you are after is not solved by that, but I think the official toki pona as presented in the official book by Sonja Lang, will help with the more precise and less ambiguous rules, you seem to be seeking.

Also contrary to popular belief you cannot actually use any word as any POS, this helps immensely with ambiguity reduction. Alas it takes a little longer to learn the correct use of words, than to just a) assume you can collapse them into a singular gooey meaning, and b)assume you can just use them anywhere.

a) -- words have specific meanings, within specific senses. Sure they cover a lot of scope, but they do it in a particularly precise and unambiguous way.
b) using words properly in their correct positions, and orders. Sure, you might feel restricted at certain times, but it allows you to express things less ambiguously.

Whilst you can learn a fuzzy, ambiguous sub-set of toki pona, in a relatively short time, it lacks precision and expressibility. Your desire for more precision and expressibility is already provided for in the official language.

[additionally]

To take a gander at the "soweli moli", this should be read first, given no context, as either "a dying animal" or "a dead animal".
This is because soweli is the head, typically a noun, and soweli is itself only defined as a noun in the official dictionary. It has one sense of meaning, and the first precision point of that sense is "animal". Moli is being used in an adjective slot, and it is defined in the official dictionary as uniquely an adjective, it has one sense of meaning; "dead, dying". Hence a proper context free reading of that phrase is "dead animal".

To use a short phrase to mean predator, something like this is good;
soweli alasa -- animal that hunts.

Again we have the primary use of soweli in the typically noun head position, following we have a word, alasa - which has only one definition in the official dictionary, which is a verb, meaning; "to hunt, forage", since the singular sense of the word, has the first precision point of "to hunt", this should be context free - interpreted as "animal that does the action of hunting", aka a predator.



It is important to note that "context free", is not completely "context free", since this is in the context of a dictionary, something wanting "singular(maybe)" precision.
At the other extreme, if the "context free" was in something like a list or book of proverbs, then likely what you would want to do to get the complete meaning of phrases, would be to expand all possible meanings, only removing those that directly contradict.

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 5:31 am
by janpona120
Reply to janKipo:
'suno' isn't "heart" or "life" or any such thing
Before, I had wrote that my start point of view is... astrology. Its logic define "sun" as: light, glory, heart, center... From this point of view "suno" means "heart". The world has a few million of those who knows the astrological symbolism.
Note that even the noun +adjective model is not very clear, since 'soweli moli' can mean "lethal animal" as well as "dead one", and the uncertain "animal of death"
Yes, I note this. tp uses "noun+adjective" model, and it makes semantic vagueness. But, there is a good solution:
  • "soweli moli" -- clearly an animal for killing
  • "soweli pi moli" -- an animal from dead stuff
  • "soweli lon moli" -- dead animal
Analogically:
  • "jan pona" (who makes goodness)
  • "jan pi pona" (who has an origing of goodness land
  • "jan lon pona" (who is in state of goodness)
Or:
  • "tomo many"
  • "tomo pi many"
  • "tomo lon many" -- golden house (a house is built with money as a material)
Remark: I remember a rule that after "pi" goes two words. But, in my opinion, this rule restricts tp. Such a vagueness has correlation with English "glass of water". First meaning: a glass filled with water. Second one: a glass made of water (frozen water). Third meaning: a glass for water. This is the glass no filled, no made. This is the glass for some mission. So, I propose to fix tp semantic by three rigid models:
  • nimi nimi -- "thing_1-for-thing_2" to express an active mission
  • nimi pi nimi -- "thing_1-from-thing_2" to express an origin (from London, from parents...)
  • nimi lon nimi -- "thing_1-of-thing_2" to express a state of thing (stuff, material)
These formulae allow to make a narrow meaning.

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 6:31 am
by loteni
Toki pona, does not use the "noun+adjective" model. I am not sure where you got that idea from, but really that is very wrong.

(maybe you mean to say; noun + "adjective slot")

it actually uses these three ;

1. noun + adjective; soweli moli - read as dead animal.
2. noun + noun; soweli moli - read as animal of death.
3. noun + verb; soweli moli - read as animal that kills.

The issue I think you are referring to is how do you know which out of them three are being used... typically its based on the default word type. So for soweli moli, its 1. dead animal.

For something like soweli moku; this is 3, since moku is a verb, so an animal that eats. etc..

But notice this is where it gets interesting, since an animal that eats, its irrelevant; all animals eat. Hence convert the verb of moku to a noun, animal of food... ie we are going to eat this animal... ok that is reasonable.

[added]

Oh and jan Kipo, has a really good proposition for doing what you are also presenting, ie making sure to select one of those three unambiguously. It is something like appending t, k, p at the end of words to signify how they are to be interpreted.

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:42 am
by janKipo
It doesn't use any particular model at all, but rather is open to several possibilities -- semantically. Grammatically, as a first approximation, what model is used depends upon the nature of the word in the "adjective slot" (modifier). I am working on getting all this sorted out into a triple parts of speech diagram: home POS, positional POS, and functional POS. 'soweli moli (noun + adjective in the home POS and in the positional one as well) in the functional system has three possibilities (at least), leaving 'soweli' out of it for the moment: functional adjective "dead animal", functional verb "killer animal" or functional (your "for") "animal for dead things/death" (not sure what that means, but context will no doubt help). Unfortunately, tp doesn't distinguish these in any overt way (though does at deep levels, of course).
So, by various paths, we come to the same place.

'suno' means all sorts of things in all sorts of astrologies, but in tp it means "sun, light". And we are trying to do things in tp.
Introducing yet another use for 'pi' -- and one that goes against a decade of use -- is probably not a good idea (similarly for free-floating 'lon'). There are ways of making these points in current tp, which, while somewhat long winded, are at least still in the same language. I do notice that you have expanded on the list of possible reading here, beyond what can be covered by just the noun/verb/adjective distinction, so I suspect we have to go to using actual prepositional phrases in modifier slots to satisfy all this with precision, though the simple expression will continue to be used ambiguously: 'poki telo' for all the various water glasses and glasses of water.
There is no official rule against 'pi' followed by only one word, but that is because there is no official anything in tp. Even Sonja's book is labelled as a description of her idiolect of tp and nothing more. But there is a uniform refusal to use 'pi' and a single word and universal disapprobation of anyone who does. Sonja's book, by the way, is particularly annoying by not giving rule (nor sufficient examples) to explain many usages, so it is not a guide to precision at all.

Re: Who of us is really a toki pona master?

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2016 10:45 am
by janpona120
Reply to loteni:
Official toki pona, is expressive and unambiguous enough for purpose
expressive -- yes, unambiguous -- unlikely. For example, see "ali" on http://tokipona.net/tp/classicwordlist.aspx
ale, ali, 全 (jp), 全 (zh) quan2: n everything, anything, life, the universe // mod all, every, complete, whole.
Only this word gives a lot of different meanings. Compare "jan ali":
  • alive human
  • universal human
  • every human
Try translate "jan ali pi jan ali li jan ali" -- each human of all of alive humans is a universal human. May be so, may be not. The situation with this only word is totally ambiguos. Can you show an individual correct record for each of these variants of the human: alive, universal, all, any and every?
To use a short phrase to mean predator, something like this is good;
soweli alasa -- animal that hunts.
Let us investigate this example, using http://tokipona.net/tp/classicwordlist.aspx again:

alasa 探 (jp)
* This wasn't on the classic list.
...
current jan Sonja, drafts
transitive verb to gather, to collect food, resources or material needed for daily life and survival; to gather, harvest
transitive verb to hunt, to pursue and kill animals to use as food and clothing; to hunt

So, "soweli alasa" can mean also -- an animal to harvest (cereal). This combination has no place to express a meaning "predator", I think.
... alasa - which has only one definition in the official dictionary, which is a verb, meaning; "to hunt, forage"
The word "forage" has a semantic contact with a word "cereal" more than with a word "predator".

In my opinion, "mama pu" (author of tp) created a draft list. A painter also begins to draw a picture with scatch. And our mission (of tp-fans, followers) is to colorize the opera of the Master. I think that jan Sonja has created the language with great potential. The classic version of tp is a grain. And now modification of tp is needed. The grain should be planted, watered and grown.