Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

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janKipo
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by janKipo »

KIPISI NANPA LUKA TU WAN

jan Kasa suli li tawa kepeken wawa ali pi ken jan pi soweli lon monsi ona. tenpo lawa pi jan Kasa lili li ken toki e nimi la, jan Kasa suli toki tawa ona e ijo mije pi mani mute e ijo meli.
That long string is untpish but I don't see a way to change it naturally. 'ken pi jan ...soweli pi lon ...' Doesn't quite work for "before" but I don't see a good work-around:"When Little Gus's head time can say a word". 'jan Kasa suli li toki e ijo pi mije ... e ijo meli tawa ona.'
ona li wile e ni: sina kama awen poka lon ni kin. mi mute li wile seme?'
'sina kin li kama ... ni.'
jan Kasa lili toki e, 'aaa. ken la, ona li ken kepeken e jan pi sama mi tawa ni: nasin e ijo ona e pali ona.'
no 'e' with 'kepeken'. 'mi (or maybe 'ona') nasin ...'
kama la, ona li sewi wawa tan supa len li tawa tomo mije pi mani mute. ona li tawa wawa kin tawa ni: jan Kasa suli li ken ike tawa wawa sama.
'tenpo ni' or 'ni pini' or some such, 'kama' doesn't do anything here. 'supa len'? 'lape'? 'tomo pi mije...' here 'tan' seems more likely than 'tawa'. as far as I understand the story. "Big Gus can be bad for his (BG's) strength" He ruins his strength? I suppose this is that he is disproportionately bad, but that doesn't seem to fit either. His strength makes him bad would be 'tan wawa sina'.
tenpo suno kama la, ona mute li kama awen. tenpo la, jan Kasa suli en meli pi mama mani li kama pilin pona kin li wan.
Prob 'tenpo kama la'.
kama la, sike suno mute la, jan Kasa lili li pali awen e nasin ona la, ona mute li pilin pona li lon sama -- mije pi mani mute, en jan Kasa lili, en jan Kasa suli, en meli pi jan Kasa suli, en kama ni: jan Kasa lili sin.
Prob 'tenpo kama kin la' or so. 'li awen nasin' "continued to plan" The last bit is off the grammar, but probably realistic.
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by janKipo »

'tenpo ijo la' means "at thing time", whatever that means" "at some time" would be just 'tenpo la' since "some" is implicit in all nouns as needed. "Once upon a time" is probably 'tenpo wan la', though that stresses the uniquess of the event.

"long ago" is ''tenpo pini suli' or something like that (disputed question)

"One day, Little Gus persuaded his friend to set out with him to seek their fortunes." tenpo suno wan la jan Kasa lili li kama pilin e ni e jan pona ona: ona tu li open kama jo e mani' or so.

"he loses the money" 'ona li ken weka e mani' maybe
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jan Pinsen
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by jan Pinsen »

Well, I got "tenpo ijo la" from a Memrise course and figured it was kind of a lexicalized idiomatic expression. Indeed, if you were to translate it directly, it wouldn't work as "once upon a time".

As for "[...] li kama pilin e ni e jan pona ona [...]", would it be possible to interpret the two "e"s differently, as intended? I would be inclined to read that as "come to feel/think (of) this and his friend". Maybe the second "e" could be "tawa" or some such. Still doesn't entirely work out. Perhaps something like,

"tenpo wan la, jan Kasa lili li pana e pilin ni tawa jan pona ona: ona tu li tawa li kama jo e mani mute."
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by janKipo »

I remember the source of that 'tenpo ijo' line, where somehow 'ijo', which in certain circumstances would be translated as "something", got generalized to mean "some" in general. But, in fact, of course, the "some" is implicit in the bare word itself in contexts where a quantifier is called for, an 'a(n)' as needed for English (though not, e.g., Russian or Chinese).
The double DO is tricky (and not used much, if at all, but clearly in the grammar). The causative form of 'kama' takes a direct object and a VP complement. But the VP complement can be a transitive verb with its DO, so there are two DOs to two different verb and no very good way to sort them out. You have to chose between 'kama e jan pona pilin e ni' or the form given. (Now that I look at it, this version looks better than the one I gave earlier, but both are confusing -- a comma would help.) The trick here is to get the "persuade" in.
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by jan Pinsen »

Fair enough about the "tenpo ijo la" phrase :)

"kama e jan pona pilin e ni" confuses me as well, though. I'd be inclined to interpret "jan pona pilin" as something like 'a feeling friend' or some such rather than a friend's feelings (which I might say as "pilin pi jan pona" to get the grouping right). I guess your example could then still work as "kama e pilin pi jan pona e ni", although then the ni doesn't properly follow the "pilin" and so might be confusing, if it works at all. While I see your point about a DO inside a VP, I still think using "tawa" in there somewhere might make it clearer/less indicative of an unintended reading. "Persuade" could then work with "pana" like I suggested... maybe.
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by janKipo »

Yes, the double DO problem is a mess. We need something like it ('pana e pilin' doesn't quite make "persuade"; it is "suggest", at best), but either way of doing it is misleading: 'kama e jan pona pilin e ni' makes it look like 'pilin' is grammatically connected to 'jan pona', which it is not (the desirable comma would go between them) and 'kama pilin e ni e jan pona' looks like both DOs belong to 'pilin' or to 'kama' rather than one apiece (the coma goes between them). So, the general solution when a tp construction gets too mess is to divide it into two or more sentences (I can't wait to work on the AA entry in the wiki). This gives something like this here: 'ona li kama ni e jan pona ona: jan pona li kama pilin e ni: ona tu li alasa e mani sama'. Wordy, but accurate and (relatively) unambiguous.
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jan Pinsen
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by jan Pinsen »

Well, "pana" is not just "give" but also something along the lines of "cause" (source), which is why I thought it would work, and it would take solve the double DO issue here. Failing that, I agree that the dividing the sentence up is the best option.
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by janKipo »

Dang, I had forgotten that 'pana' can mean "cause" as part of its outward motion; I just never use it, preferring 'kama' and 'tan'. But even so, we end up with a something like ''li pan e ni: jan pona ona li kama pilin e ni: ona tu li alasa e mani ni'
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jan Pinsen
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by jan Pinsen »

But if you take "pilin" as a noun, then "pana e pilin" can be like "cause a feeling/thought", right? Which sounds pretty close to "persuade" to me. That would save us from having to embed one extra proposition. I still like my original example,

"tenpo wan la, jan Kasa lili li pana e pilin ni tawa jan pona ona: ona tu li tawa li kama jo e mani mute."

The only possible problem, there, is that the "ni" is separated from the final proposition (which it refers to) by the PP "tawa jan pona ona".

Your last sentence I think works as well (I kinda like the use of "alasa" here). I guess it's a matter of whether we think the extra nested proposition is more or less of a bother than the separating PP mentioned above. (Or, alternatively, is it possible to have the PP before the direct object ("pana tawa jan pona ona e pilin ni: [...]")?)
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Re: Big Gus and Little Gus / jan Kasa suli en jan Kasa lili

Post by janKipo »

Too many years of Philosophy! I can'r help but note that "persuade" means "get to agree to" whereas "cause to think" merely requires consideration, not agreement. But maybe it doesn't matter; after all, Big Gus always agoes along with what Little Gus says.
The early 'ni' is not a problem; this pattern recurs so often as to be automatic. Moving the PP forward, however, is ungrammatical, though I am not sure why without working through a lot of examples.
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