many little stones? how to say it right?

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
Lingva lernado: Kiel paroli Tokiponon, tradukproblemoj, konsiloj, memoraj helpiloj, iloj kaj metodoj por pli rapide lerni Tokiponon kaj aliajn lingvojn
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janKalepa
Posts: 92
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2013 2:53 am

many little stones? how to say it right?

Post by janKalepa »

I want to say: many little stones. It comes to:

kiwen lili mute

Sounds strange for me. I have to distinquish between quality of stone and number of them somehow? Or it's normal?
Kuti
Posts: 358
Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:48 pm

Re: many little stones? how to say it right?

Post by Kuti »

kiwen lili pi nanpa mute :?:
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janKalepa
Posts: 92
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2013 2:53 am

Re: many little stones? how to say it right?

Post by janKalepa »

Kuti wrote:kiwen lili pi nanpa mute :?:
I see two possibilities:

kiwen lili li mute (does it sounds like small stone multiplicates itself?)

kiwen lili pi mute
janSilipu
Posts: 288
Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 9:21 am

Re: many little stones? how to say it right?

Post by janSilipu »

Last is out, 'pi' needs two words after
I think Ther is not (much of) a problem with the original. "many few-stones" doesn'tnmake much sense, so the'lili gets read as quantity. Note "very small" or "very few" would be 'pi lili mute', so that is not a possible reading here.
The sentential version is ambiguous in just the way you suggest and, of course, is not a noun phrase to be used like the original.
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