Toki Pona news: new website, upcoming book, announcements from the language's creator
Tokiponaj novaĵoj: nova TTT-ejo, venonta libro, aperonta libro, anoncoj de la kreinto de la lingvo
No, just the two, and they are not exactly sockpuppets (if I understand the dig) but the accidental product of an early version of the underlying program here, which would not accept my sign-in from one computer when made from a second one. So, I just re-upped (and tried -- successfully, it turned out -- to get the bug de'd). I just rarely use the second computer (well, iPad) any more, but needed it for other things and didn't bother to change over to get on the page here. Nothing sinister, despite your paranoia, since everyone who spends any time here knows about it.
Last edited by janKipo on Fri Dec 18, 2015 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jan_Lope wrote:
The official Toki Pona book by Sonja (2014) page 44:
"The particle pi is used to divide a second noun group that describes the first noun group."
(Wer lesen kann, ist klar im Vorteil. Danke nochmal!)
Meanwhile back at the project that started this all off.
Again, about names, 'nimi ijo' was once sorta agreed to for nouns and 'lawa' doesn't add much to it. 'monsi' is only significant if you know that tp is NA, which hasn't been mentioned though probably displayed. And, of course, words behind won't necessarily be adjectives/adverbs (nor adjectives/adverbs be words behind). Modifieres (adv/adj) are often 'nimi ante, though I think that was the most controversial naming.
the 'ijo x' -> 'ijo' derivation of nouns is like part of one good theory about building NPs, but the examples are cass of it, since 'suno' is a noun to begin with (so 'ijo suno' is derivative) and 'ijo moku' is a thing that eats, not food at all ('moku' is food because 'moku' means "eat" and food is the genus of all proper DOs for that verb).
Prepositions are, not surprisingly, 'nimi sinpin' What are they inside of? They can, of course, have adverbs or adjective, certainly 'ala' possibly others. The cases of preps dba verbs are odd. The first is simply wrong, since, when acting as a verb, a prepsoition has all the ptentials of other verbs while keeping the tight object construction (complement immediately after the prep with all its additions) . But the fact that a direct object to the transitivized prep has to go after its complement is right. The shifting of the complement ot a repeated version of the prep at the end is also a common stylistic variant, especially when the decorations get too fulsome: 'mi tawa noka wawa tomo' -> 'mi tawa noka wawa tawa tomo'.
Verbs were called "nimi pali". I am not clear why verbs are important and other words not, although "verb" does mean simply "word" originally and "noun" meant the special sort, names, while the others were just atached to them. I guess I would have (were I to do this division, which I don't see areason to) put nouns and verbs both into the suli class, since you can't have a full sentence without one of each, at least.
Rather to my surprise, I find your explanation of the source of 'mi wile e ni' basically correct.
There are at least four kinds of questions in tp, so calling 'seme' the question word is a bit misleading, even though it is almost the only word that makes questions all by itself. 'anu' needs a question mark or intonation to make a question, and the intonation alone will work with any sentence. The other two kinds of questions are reasonably accurately described but 'pi nimi pi 'lon' anu 'ala'' or something like that (I have no hope tht you will get the point of that). And, of course, prepositions dba verbs fit perfectly well into the basic Y/N form: 'sina kama ala kama musi?' and the second example of 'tawa' is ambiguous and unnecessarily so.
The possibility of subordinate clauses is in the air but not much more than a thought at the moment. I will assume you are opposed to proceeding with the thought. Neither example you give is what is being thought about, however. The first would be (as things go so far) 'mi sona e jan pi li moku e soweli' (though your particular case would not be a problem) and the second seems to be a different beast all together, not a restrictive relative clause but indirect discourse, which hopefully will not get special treatment with the perils of subjunctives and the rest lurking in the ofings for SAE folk.
Your comment on 'lon' and 'la' is correct, but incomplete. The 'lon' is lost with all (?) cases of 'lon tenpo' in the terminal PP position, but not certainly with other core words (some seem to, some seem not to and there doesn't seem to be an obvious pattern). I think making your suggestion the rule for such shifts (which tend, in fact, to be taken as adding a 'lon' when moved from 'la' to the end) would simplify life and not create problems (so far as I can see now).
I emphasize that Toki Pona as the simple language has no recursions. No recursion means:
- no nested subordinate clauses
- no nested li, e, la and pi phrases
Well, at present tp doesn't have subordinate clauses at all, so no nested ones -- or the possibility for such. So this is a plea not to have subordinate clauses and that seems to be the general consensus, despite the clunkiness (as some would say) of the devices for covering the relevant situation.
I am not sure what nested 'li,' and 'e' would be, except With subordinate clauses, so they are not a problem. On the other hand, I don't see how to avoid nested 'la', since S : S la S seems to be a fundamental rule (which we could avoid in various ways, but have not done so). 'pi' is trickier because it enters in so many ways, none of which seems dispensable in a way that does not involve more 'pi's or the creation of something else just like 'pi'.
Sorry Lope won't read this, as I would like to know his solutions -- other than restricting the expressive power of tp.
While I think "no recursion" is too restrictive a definition of simplicity (and, after more than 50years with linguists and Sapir-Whorf, and the resulting doubts about claims about Pirahã, being unconvinced it is even possible), there is lot to be said for Lope-and-Tepan's tea-party position. Every 'pi' is a nexus of ambiguity, of which tp has aplenty already, and nested -- or even sequential -- cases multiply these possibilities. Not a good thing. And almost all cases of 'pi' can be eliminated (probably all if we revive-- or just follow Pije and keep -- 'li pi NP'). But the cost is a Dick-and-Jane prose style that one might find unsuitable to some (most?) topics. Compare 'mi jo e jan pona. ona li jo e soweli. soweli ni li jo e tomo. tomo ni li loje.' with 'tomo pi soweli pi jan pona mi li loje'. In isolation they are reasonably comparable, but consider a whole page of sentences of the first type in comparison with an isosemic paragraph of sentence of the second type, or, typically, a mixture of various levels. It should be noted in passing that the second case does not involve recursion and uses only 'pi's that adhere to the strict rule as given in the standard textbooks. In any case, good style probably recommends against long 'pi' strings of any sort and for a mixture of even reasonably long ones.
jan_Lope wrote:
Looking forward to reading your description sson.
I have some notes about recursions in my lessons already. One of them is in the chapter "Compound Nouns with pi". I hope my notes make clear that nested pi phrases are illogical.
pona!
jan Lope https://jan-lope.github.io
(Lessons and the Toki Pona Parser - A tool for spelling, grammar check and ambiguity check of Toki Pona)
On my foe list are the sockpuppets janKipo and janSilipu because of permanent spamming.