JBR''s analysis

Archives from the old Yahoo! group
Arĥivoj de la malnova Yahoo!-grupo
Locked
yerricde

Fw: JBR''s analysis

Post by yerricde »

The following is excerpted from an electronic mail exchangebetween myself and Justin B. Rye, who let me pass it on to thetokipona list. Rye is perhaps best known for his Espe-Ranto(http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/).JBR wrote:<blockquote>Incidentally, I've got another conlanger writing to me with apidginlike language that's trying to make do with a couple ofhundred lexical roots, many of which I've been trying to convincehim are redundant: "http://www.medianet.pl/~andrew/l/ebubo. ... ortunately his word-building scheme is anything but simple.[snip]The phonology looks fun. It makes my name pretty tricky totokiponaise, though: Justin Rye = [dZVstInrAI] = <tejasatenlai>?And the lexicon seems nitpickproof so far, except I suppose thatregardless of whether <kolin> is a proper noun or an adjective, youcan still import a lot of undigested foreign technical terms like<potasiumo> this way. And who needs words for numerals when thereare words for "one" and "and"?! (But what I do want to know is: arethe numbers European-style pseudoadjectival things, or what?)But I'm still waiting to find out how many distinct word classesit's got, or whether its verbs have strict (lexical) valences, orwhat exactly you mean by oligosynthetic (it looks just plainisolating so far) or anything else like that. Ah, there areprepositions... there seems to be an accusative-markingprepositionoid too. It looks like the grammar is making at least acouple of compromises towards familiarity rather than minimalism -the pronouns could all have been replaced by plain nouns meaningthings like "person", the adjectives could all have beensubstantives in apposition, most prepositional functions could havebeen reduced to equivalents of "at the back of"... Oh, and I'msurprised by the reduplication of effort in having bothsentence-initial adverbs and a divider particle before the verb -wouldn't it have been simpler to make <li> the default form of averbal auxiliary, *replaced* by any such adverb?The part I'm really waiting to find out about is what kinds ofphrasal syntax it has - and particularly subordinate clauses. Ormaybe it treats them as too complex and does everythingcoordinately? I could mention that one of my favourite exoticlanguages does just the reverse, eliminating coordinate clauses infavour of subordination. "Colin ate and drank" becomes in effect"(who-)ate, Colin drank", with a "nominative case" marker on the"ate" clause as well as on the noun phrase "Colin", since they bothcontain the same subject... utterly unfamiliar, but beautifullysimple once you get your head round it![snip]This reminds me of something I was thinking of putting on the web: asort of phonemic substitution cipher for French that turns it into atotally unrecognisable language, useful for roleplayers:consonants /m n n^ b d g p t k v z Z f s S l r j/become /n r m S f s H x T t k p d g b Z l v/and vowels /i e E E~ y Y W W~ u o O O~ @ a A A~/become /a A & &? ue uE ui ui? e E i i? o O u u?/...so that, for instance <allons enfants de la patrie> becomes (toimprovise an orthography) <oyi'k u'du' fóyohoxlá> and the nameofthe language is <Dlu'gæ>, or <Dlu'gæk> before a vowel. TokiPonashould be much easier to do that to![later...]>> (But what I do want to know is: are>> the numbers European-style pseudoadjectival things, or what?)>> Apparently so.I've always preferred alternative approaches like "three head-ofbear" - though largely for pedantic reasons: "adult bears" areindividually adult, but "three bears" are each singular.>> It looks like the grammar is making at least a couple of>> compromises towards familiarity rather than minimalism>> "Fun and cute" (for eurolanguage speakers) was one of the designgoals.The nouns-for-pronouns thing could be cute... in fact, abandoningfirst and second person in favour of personal names is _too_ cute.>> The part I'm really waiting to find out about is what kinds of>> phrasal syntax it has - and particularly subordinate clauses.>> Or maybe it treats them as too complex and does everything>> coordinately?>> Apparently so. Ever heard of "serial verb construction"?Well, except that that's (trivially) nesting, isn't it? Anyway,how does TP do stuff like the following?+ Colin said that he was happy (ah, here's the en-tp entry on "that"... fair enough)+ I want Colin to be happy (maybe "wile e" can take a whole clause as object?)+ Colin likes his dog as much as I like my cat (maybe "and I like my cat the same amount"?)+ I like the present which Colin gave me (I hope it doesn't reuse the question-word "which?")[snip]>> and it *still* hasn't reached the answers to any of>> my questions! Why do people build these hyperTOCified labyrinths>> when all the data would fit perfectly neatly on a single page?>> Because nobody complains. Unlike the UK, Canada and the US do> not meter local calls; thus, Internet users in Canada and the US> tend to browse online rather than offline.Well, the Toki Pona pages aren't all that bad, I just took a longtime finding the contents-list page. But even during officelunchbreak surfing expeditions on umpteen-megabit connections I'vefound the one-paragraph-per-page format irritating for anything thatnaturally forms one long text; I'd almost always rather hit the"Page Down" key than click the "next page" link, if only becausethere's no need to hunt around for it![snip]> May I forward your response to the tokipona@yahoogroups.com list?Feel free... though I really ought to start from scratch withcomments on "http://www.tokipona.org" itself...[later...]> *** Why Toki Pona? ***> [...]>> By being so general and vague, Toki Pona often lacks the ability to> distinguish finer shades of meaning. For example, by lumping every> possible bird species into one lexeme <waso>, we eliminate the need> to learn hundreds of vocabulary items, however we are also left> incapable of distinguishing between eagles and chickens. The closest> translation might be an expression like <waso wawa> strong bird or> <waso nasa> stupid bird.This is a solved problem: conlangs don't need to think up a milliondifferent words for beetle, just a word for bug and a quotingconvention for anybody straying so far from the path of simplicitythat they insist on specifying _Periplaneta_americana_!> *** Alphabet and Sounds ***> [...]>> Every letter is always pronounced the same, regardless of what> comes before or after it.Er, except for the exceptions. Still, I suppose monoglotanglophones are going to find this concept of a biuniquegrapheme/phoneme mapping amazing enough that you're entitled toleave the concept of allophony until later.> p t k p as in pit, spit, or bit> s t as in too, stew, or doWatch out, "stew" is a bad example-word, since some people pronounceit with lip-rounding and some with palatalisation ([stu]/[stju])...> The first syllable of a word can begin without a consonant.But otherwise vowel sequences aren't allowed? Are there everarguments like the ones I've seen in Esperantoland about whetherinter-word glottal stops are compulsory/optional/prohibited?> *** Lesson One ***> [...]>> <jan li moku> the person eatsPresumably it's only in the subterranean dialects that this evermeans "the Eloi are food".> <sina suli> you are big/tallHow about "Oh dear, you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well,are you alright?"> Note that verbs in Toki Pona do not distinguish between past,> present and future.Thus preventing an awful lot of pointless confusion in timetravelplots - "http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/chrono.html"...> <moku li pona> the food was good> eating rocksOoh, eating rocks, youch. What's the TP for "root canal job"?> *** Lesson Two ***> [...]> <jan suli ni> this big person, this adultOf course it's slightly cheaty that "ni!" is more of a determinerthan an adjective (in fact if it means both "this" and "that" it'smore or less a generic determiner), and determiners naturally tackon to complete noun phrases. What would <jan ni suli> mean?> <tenpo suno pona> a good dayBetter. And contrariwise <tenpo pona suno>, summer holiday.> *** Lesson Three ***> [...]> In a sentence like "I have water", we have added a direct object,> i.e. a word that receives the action of the verb have. In Toki Pona,> the direct object is preceded by the word <e>."Have" and "see" strike me as poor examples of transitivity - unlessof course TP-speakers have relapsed to an Aristotelean model ofvision and really imagine their eyes projecting perception-beams atthings (I'm not even going to start on the "having twins" bit).> *** Lesson Four ***> [...]>> Actions> <kama> to come, appear, arrive,> happenAh, there it is. The exercises have been assuming I knew the word"appear" right from lesson one.> <tawa> also means towards, to, for:>> <jan li jo e kili sin tawa sina>> Somebody has fresh veggies for you.Unfortunately TP's sloppy categories make this structurally ambiguous-<kili sin tawa sina> could be "your mobile fresh vegetables". Partof the problem is that <tawa> takes an object as a verb but not as apreposition - <jo tawa> is really a compound verb with two objects.> *** Lesson Five ***> [...]>> <ilo> tool, device, machineIs this allowed to be a verb? (I always love confusing Esperantistswith the infinitive <ili>...)> en can also be used to combine multiple one-word nouns:What about multiple multi-word subjects? I see an example inthe en-tp lexicon (under "and") where they're split up by <la>,but that only works if there's an adverbial phrase at the start!> *** Lesson Six ***> [...]>> <sina wile ala kama> You don't want to come.How about "must not come" (and "needn't come")?> <mije nasa ni li pali pona ala e ijo>> That crazy guy doesn't do things well.But he does do things - note that the negation is localised to the"well", not applied to the entire phrase.> *** Lesson Seven ***> [...]>> <ale> they, all, everything, everybody, complete, wholeI note that as a pronoun it means "everybody individually" ratherthan "the entire thing"...> <mama> father, mother, parentHurrah for sanity and down with Zamenhof.> <mi lon ala> I am not present.Much less silly when you remember it's non-tense-specific.> Note that jo to have, contain can also express location.This wide range from abstract ownership to physical containment(<iki li jo e tomo> and <tomo li jo e iki>) seems risky...> <soweli suli li ken lon tomo sina>> Large mammals are allowed in your house.The same "can/can" as in English?> *** Lesson Eight ***> [...]>> <iki li suli ala suli?> It is not-big / big? Is it big?Well, it makes me squirm, but it's nicely in character.Oh, I've run out.JBRAnkh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)</blockquote>
Sonja Elen Kisa

RE: Fw: JBR''s analysis

Post by Sonja Elen Kisa »

Very intelligent comments.sina toki sona.> The phonology looks fun. It makes my name pretty tricky totokiponaise,> though: Justin Rye = [dZVstInrAI] = <tejasatenlai>?I would suggest: Satenwa or Satenwawi(See my comments below on how to handle vowel sequences like "ai".)The r in most languages becomes l in TP, but I generally convert theEnglish approximant r to TP w.> And who needs words for numerals when there are words for "one" and"and"?!> (But what I do want to know is: are the numbers European-stylepseudoadjectival> things, or what?)The standard numerals are:wan = 1tu = 2mute = 2 or moreThe "advanced" numerals, used when it is absolutely necessary to addspecifics, are additive:wan = 1tu = 2tu wan = 3tu tu = 4luka = 5luka wan = 6luka tu = 7luka tu wan = 8luka tu tu = 9luka luka = 10luka luka luka luka luka luka tu = 32And so on...Here is how to use them in sentences:I have two kids.mi jo e jan lili tu.The first house is black.tomo nanpa wan li pimeja.November is beautiful (good-feeling).tenpo mun nanpa luka luka wan li pona pilin.(Note that "pi" is not necessary with the compound numbers.)> Oh, and I'm surprised by the reduplication of effort in having both> sentence-initial adverbs and a divider particle before the verb -wouldn't it> have been simpler to make <li> the default form of a verbal auxiliary,> *replaced* by any such adverb?That's a really great idea. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work in practise.tenpo nanpa wan la jan utala lawa li moku lili e kili jelo.First, the general (lead warrior) nibbled on a banana.If we were to replace "li" by "tenpo nanpa wan", everything would becomequite confusing, and where the subject, verb, etc begin and end wouldbecome blurred.> The part I'm really waiting to find out about is what kinds of phrasal> syntax it has - and particularly subordinate clauses. Or maybe ittreats> them as too complex and does everything coordinately?You guessed right. Subordinate clauses are broken into a separatesentence.I saw the man whom you love.mi lukin e mije. sina olin e iki.> The nouns-for-pronouns thing could be cute... in fact, abandoningfirst> and second person in favour of personal names is _too_ cute.Very cute and Tarzanesque. But maybe not so practical. :)I'm here.Jan Sasenla li lon.mi lon.Words like "mi" and "sina" are universal and useful.> Well, except that that's (trivially) nesting, isn't it? Anyway,> how does TP do stuff like the following?Colin said that he was happy.jan Kolin li toki e ni: li pilin pona.Colin person said this: he feels good.(It is not necessary to repeat the subject, because it is still thesame. As long as "li" is there.)I want Colin to be happymi wile e ni: jan Kolin li pilin pona.I like the present which Colin gave me.I like the present. = ijo pana li pona tawa miPresent from Colin is good for me.ijo pana tan jan Kolin li pona (tawa mi).Or, much better, you could say:jan Kolin li pana e ijo pona tawa mi.Colin gave something good to me.The "pona" with "tawa mi" properly translates the "liking", and the"pana e ijo" properly translates the gift (giving).ComparisonsComparisons are difficult to pull off in Toki Pona. And not withoutreason: TP is a "percieving" language, not a "judging" one. (Hey, I'm anENFP!) Comparing people and criticizing are very un-pona. :)Toki Pona focuses on what "is", not on what things "should be" or howthey are better or worse than something else somewhere else.But here is indeed a way to say something is better:Joe is taller than Mary.jan So li suli mute. jan Mewi li suli lili. = Joe is more tall. Mary isless tall.Or if Mary is short, then simplify to:jan So li suli. jan Mewi li lili. = Joe is tall. Mary is short.Colin likes his dog as much as I like my cat.soweli pi jan Kolin li pona tawa iki. sama la soweli mi li pona tawa mi.Colin's animal is good for him. Samely my animal is good for me.> Well, the Toki Pona pages aren't all that bad, I just took a long time> finding the contents-list page. But even during office lunchbreaksurfing> expeditions on umpteen-megabit connections I've found theone-paragraph-per-page> format irritating for anything that naturally forms one long text; I'dalmost> always rather hit the "Page Down" key than click the "next page" link,if only> because there's no need to hunt around for it!Thanks for the design feedback! Are you suggesting I reduce the fontsize on tokipona.org?>> Every letter is always pronounced the same, regardless of what comes>> before or after it.> Er, except for the exceptions. Still, I suppose monoglot anglophonesare> going to find this concept of a biunique grapheme/phoneme mappingamazing> enough that you're entitled to leave the concept of allophony untillater.Yes, like in any natural language, there are allophones. For example,syllable final n can be assimilated to any nasal consonant (m or ng),but pronouncing it as n is just as fine (only maybe not so easy). Soreally there is no harm either way.> Watch out, "stew" is a bad example-word, since some people pronounceit with> lip-rounding and some with palatalisation ([stu]/[stju])...That's a good point.>> The first syllable of a word can begin without a consonant.> But otherwise vowel sequences aren't allowed?That's right.The reason I wanted to avoid Toki Pona words like "tei" is becausespeakers of some of Earth's languages (Anglophones are a good example)tend to diphthongize many of the basic vowels.Thus somebody may accidentally say "kutej" or "kutei" instead of "kute".I didn't want this to impact the universal intelligibility of mylanguage. I didn't want "kute" and "kutei" to be minimal pairs.Therefore, when Tokiponizing a word with a vowel sequence such as "sue",we have two options:1) insert a euphonic glide (suwe)2) drop one vowel (su)> Are there ever arguments like the ones I've seen in Esperantoland> about whether inter-word glottal stops arecompulsory/optional/prohibited?The glottal stop is not a phoneme in TP. Whether you want to add thembetween words beginning with a vowel (such as "wile e") is totallyirrelevant. Just like with plosive voicing/unvoicing, neither way isincorrect. ale li pona!> How about "Oh dear, you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well,are you alright?"ike a! sina tawa anpa pi lupa suli! sina pilin pona ala pona?Oh bad! You went to the bottom of a deep hole! Are you feeling OK?>> <moku li pona> the food was good>> eating rocks> Ooh, eating rocks, youch.Eating rocks is just colloquial for "eating is great".> What's the TP for "root canal job"?jan li pona e walo uta.Somebody is fixing (making better) the teeth (white of the mouth).> Of course it's slightly cheaty that "ni!" is more of a determiner> than an adjective (in fact if it means both "this" and "that" it's> more or less a generic determiner), and determiners naturally tack> on to complete noun phrases. What would <jan ni suli> mean?"jan ni suli" sounds ungrammatical to me. If you wanted to say "this bigperson", I'd say "jan suli ni".> Ah, there it is. The exercises have been assuming I knew the word"appear"> right from lesson one.Yes, and I apologize for this. I am in the process of rewriting thelessons. As a result, there are currently certain gaps where certainwords are used before they are properly introduced. This will eventuallybe fixed.>> jan li jo e kili sin tawa sina>> Somebody has fresh veggies for you.> Unfortunately TP's sloppy categories make this structurally ambiguous> <kili sin tawa sina> could be "your mobile fresh vegetables".You are right that "tawa" can create the syntactical ambiguity of"going" (verb) or "moving" (adjective), but in practise this neverhappens. In complex contexts, "tawa" is almost always a verb.Although gramatically possible, the idea of "mobile vegetables" is justillogical in real usage. A TP speaker would naturally simplify such anidea to just "vegetables", since vegetables are always assumed to bemobile.> Part of the problem is that <tawa> takes an object as a verb but notas a preposition.Because "tawa" is above all a preposition, even when it is used as averb, no "e" is used with the object.>> <ilo> tool, device, machine> Is this allowed to be a verb?Yes. Although it has never come up yet in usage, it could transitivelymean "to use as a tool" or "to make a tool".mi ilo e palisa sina.I tooled your stick.I turned your stick into a tool.Intransitively, of course it means "to be a tool".ni li ilo.This is a tool.>> en can also be used to combine multiple one-word nouns:> What about multiple multi-word subjects? I see an example in theen-tp> lexicon (under "and") where they're split up by <la>, but that onlyworks> if there's an adverbial phrase at the start!Another way to unambiguously combine multi-word subjects is with "en"markers:en tenpo suno en tenpo pimejaand sun-time and dark-timeday and night> How about "must not come" (and "needn't come")?wile ala = don't want to, don't have to, don't need token ala = cannot, not allowed to, must not>> <mije nasa ni li pali pona ala e ijo>>> That crazy guy doesn't do things well.> But he does do things - note that the negation is localised to the"well",> not applied to the entire phrase.The negation in this case is applied to the whole verbal element "palipona".>> Note that jo to have, contain can also express location.> This wide range from abstract ownership to physical containment> (<iki li jo e tomo> and <tomo li jo e iki>) seems risky...I don't think so.mi jo e tomo. I have a house. I own a house.tomo li jo e mi. The house has me. The house contains me. I'm in thehouse.It throws Western concepts of possession out the window. If I think Iown something, I should also remember that it also owns me.The idea is parallel:If I "have" a book, it is in my hands at the moment.If a house "has" a person, he or she is in its rooms at the moment.The truth is there is no real "abstract ownership" in TP mentality.Everything is shared. Maybe it's my book at the moment, but in a fewdays you will bring it to your house and it's now your book.That is also why there are no words for buy, sell, steal in TP:pana = give, sellkama jo = come to have, obtain, get, take, buy, stealNote that there is no single root for "take". You only "come to have"things in life. It is encouraged to give and share.The "come" is the random flow of life. If I happen to come across abook, then it is mine at the moment. Or I can go out of my way to obtainone, which is still "kama jo" (succeed in having), but I must rememberthat it is ultimately fate or Tao that dictates what is given to me inlife.>> <soweli suli li ken lon tomo sina>>> Large mammals are allowed in your house.> The same "can/can" as in English?What do you mean by can/can?There is already a section for "can" in http://tokipona.org/en-tp.php#cI hope it will answer your question.Best regards,pona tawa sinaSonja/Marraskuu(Language Designer)
yerricde

Re: Fw: JBR''s analysis

Post by yerricde »

The following is Justin B. Rye's response tohttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/tokipona/message/43Damian Yerrick wrote:> Sonja Elen Kisa wrote a response to the comments I forwarded.> I'd recommend that you join the list.Sorry, my reply lag limits my ability to take part in groupdiscussions at the best of times (and I've never been keen onweb-based mailsystems like Yahoo's).Sonja Elen Kisa wrote:>>>>Justin B Rye wrote:>>> And who needs words for numerals when there are words for "one">>> and "and"?! (But what I do want to know is: are the numbers>>> European-style pseudoadjectival things, or what?)>>>> The standard numerals are:>>>> <wan> = 1>> <tu> = 2>> <mute> = 2 or moreWow, that's even more "simple and cute" than Watership Down Lapine!>>> Oh, and I'm surprised by the reduplication of effort in having>>> both sentence-initial adverbs and a divider particle before the>>> verb - wouldn't it have been simpler to make <li> the default>>> form of a verbal auxiliary, *replaced* by any such adverb?>>>> That's a really great idea. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work>> in practise.No, you're right, I wasn't thinking of this kind of majorcontentful adverbial phrase (I was assuming it was justsome kind of tense/mode/aspect marker).>> I saw the man whom you love.>> <mi lukin e mije. sina olin e iki.>A bit limiting, but plenty of real languages get by with somethingsimilar.>> I want Colin to be happy. <mi wile e ni: jan Kolin li pilin pona.>For some reason this obvious answer hadn't occurred to me.>> Or, much better, you could say:>> <jan Kolin li pana e ijo pona tawa mi.>>> Colin gave something good to me.>>>> The "pona" with "tawa mi" properly translates the "liking", and the>> "pana e ijo" properly translates the gift (giving).Pretty neat, but can it be switched round the other way so that theliking is the main verb and the given-by-Colin is a modifier?<ijo pana tan jan Kolin li pona tawa mi>, maybe?>> Comparisons>>>> Comparisons are difficult to pull off in Toki Pona. And not without>> reason: TP is a "percieving" language, not a "judging" one.All language works by making distinctions - between "true" and"false", between "dog" and "person", between <e> and <i> - and onceyou've got that, the only choice a designer's got is whether thelanguage allows for fine distinctions or whether speakers are goingto be forced into absolutism. After all, "Colin likes his dog asmuch as I like my cat" is hardly an invidious value-judgement.>> (Hey, I'm an ENFP!)That would be a new word for "Californian", right?>>> Well, the Toki Pona pages aren't all that bad, I just took a long>>> time finding the contents-list page. But even during office>>> lunchbreak surfing expeditions on umpteen-megabit connections>>> I've found the one-paragraph-per-page format irritating for>>> anything that naturally forms one long text; I'd almost always>>> rather hit the "Page Down" key than click the "next page" link,>>> if only because there's no need to hunt around for it!>>>> Thanks for the design feedback! Are you suggesting I reduce the>> font size on tokipona.org?Oh, no - if that had bothered me I could just have wound down thedisplay scale. The issue is where the happy medium lies between1) the "war_and_peace.html" approach to site design (lots of text on one page which takes forever to load) and2) the "click here for next paragraph" approach (a lot of mousework if you're going to read the whole thing).I've always preferred something a lot closer to (1) than seems to bethe fashion among web designers, since (as I said) I find scrollingdown a lot handier than clicking "next". My habits are also partlya result of my tenuous web access - my ideal would be for"war_and_peace.html" to be divided into fairly large chunks,starting with a full contents list, so I can get "chapter9.html"downloaded before I reach the end of "chapter8.html" (and thusneedn't do all my reading online).>> Yes, like in any natural language, there are allophones.Yup; the sign of a well-designed "easy" conlang is that it has*more* allophony than a natlang.>>> Of course it's slightly cheaty that "ni!" is more of a determiner>>> than an adjective (in fact if it means both "this" and "that" it's>>> more or less a generic determiner), and determiners naturally tack>>> on to complete noun phrases. What would <jan ni suli> mean?>>>> <jan ni suli> sounds ungrammatical to me.Well, English certainly has equivalent ordering restrictions, and<jan ni suli> wouldn't mean anything usefully different from<jan suli ni>, but in principle you could declare that as faras TP is concerned "this big black dog", "this black big dog"and "black big this dog" are in free variation.>>>> jan li jo e kili sin tawa sina>>>> Somebody has fresh veggies for you.>>>>>> Unfortunately TP's sloppy categories make this structurally>>> ambiguous <kili sin tawa sina> could be "your mobile fresh>>> vegetables".>>>> You are right that <tawa> can create the syntactical ambiguity of>> "going" (verb) or "moving" (adjective), but in practise this never>> happens. In complex contexts, <tawa> is almost always a verb.>>>> Although gramatically possible, the idea of "mobile vegetables">> is just illogical in real usage. A TP speaker would naturally>> simplify such an idea to just "vegetables", since vegetables>> are always assumed to be mobile.I think "mobile domicile" for "car/automobile" is riskier, but thenagain when is a house going to be followed by the preposition"towards"?>> Another way to unambiguously combine multi-word subjects iswith "en">> markers:>>>> <en tenpo suno en tenpo pimeja>>> and sun-time and dark-time>> day and nightThat introductory <en> sidesteps the problems I was expecting.>>> This wide range from abstract ownership to physical containment>>> (<iki li jo e tomo> and <tomo li jo e iki>) seems risky...>>>> I don't think so.>>>> <mi jo e tomo.>>> I have a house. I own a house.>> <tomo li jo e mi.>>> The house has me. The house contains me. I'm in the house.>>>> It throws Western concepts of possession out the window. If I think>> I own something, I should also remember that it also owns me.(We happen to have an overlap of belief systems there - I hateowning things.)>> The idea is parallel:>> If I "have" a book, it is in my hands at the moment.This hardly applies to "having" a house, though, even whenthe deeds to the property are on your person!>> If a house "has" a person, he or she is in its rooms at the moment.>>>> The truth is there is no real "abstract ownership" in TP mentality.This is why I find it a bit hard to believe that they'd translateour unfamiliar concept of permanent exclusive ownership into theseterms! If they're accustomed to wandering in and out of sharedtemporary domiciles, surely they *wouldn't* see a connection between<tomo li jo e mi> "I'm in the house" and <mi jo e telo> "I havewater"? Unless I've drunk the water, that is. I was expectingpossessives to have some connection with the preposition "of", orperhaps a Latin-style "est mihi" (there-is to-me).And secondarily, it seems odd that you're so thoroughly associating"having" property with "having" legs or a mother or a nationality -many of the languages TP most resembles split it up into twodifferent kinds of "possessive". That's not necessarily worthemulating, but I'm surprised that TP doesn't at least stick withthe western European standard model, where "having" is a generalconcept of association, with ownership as one specialised sense.>> >> <soweli suli li ken lon tomo sina>>> >> Large mammals are allowed in your house.>> > The same "can/can" as in English?>>>> What do you mean by can/can?"Can" as in have-the-power-to ("rhinos can walk straight throughlocked doors") and "can" as in be-permitted-to ("you can't comein!"). It's a perfectly reasonable merger, of course, they bothimply an absence of restrictions.>> There is already a section for "can" in>> http://tokipona.org/en-tp.php#c>> I hope it will answer your question.I'll admit I hadn't read that page very thoroughly.JBRAnkh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
Locked