"subliminal" prepositions with toki, tawa... (Re: dubo pri "toki (+pi)")

[Marcos CRUZ]

> If it is true that "toki X" means (inter alia, of course) "talksabout X," then, on the analogy> with "tawa X" meaning "goes to", a right groups starts after "toki"on the analogy with "tawa tomo> ona" "goes to his home" (and so like a preposition). Similarly,apparently, "speaks in toki> pona" is "toki toki pona," not "toki pi toki pona" (of courase,while this is the logical way to> say this, it may not be correct -- I sure hope the "lon" versionisn't right, but there is always> "kepeken").Right. IMHO, those official "assumed" "subliminal" prepositionsinside some verbs seems to make things easier at first, but makethings much more difficult at last.>As for the official line on when to use "e," the usual story is that"e" is not used> if the referent is not affected by the action of the verb: thesubject of a talk is not affected> by being talked about; indeed, on the words spoken are affected(brought into being in this case)> by the speaking (cf. the home is not affected by being gone to, butsomething picked and moved> there obviously is). I'm not sure that this distinction is in factuased consistently or whether> it ultimately makes any sense.I never read that distinction... Is it a convention or a rule? Ithink it's dangerous because it is not objective, e.g.: does"lukin" "affect" its object? What really "affect" means? Why not "milukin sina" whenever "sina" doesn't realise it's being looked at?! Infact, we should always say "mi lukin pipi" instead of "mi lukin epipi"... I'm sure no pipi will feel "affected" at all :-DIMHO, that distinction is unnecesary and make many things moredifficult. *Meaning* ambiguity is one thing you can let (trusting onthe context) or avoid to some degree (using modifiers), but when youare not sure what is the role of a word (verb, object, modifier,preposition...), well, ni li pona ala kin!jan Mako--http://alinome.net