Using la in poetic structures

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
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janEwiku
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Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2013 6:08 pm

Using la in poetic structures

Post by janEwiku »

For example, it is grammatically correct to say 'mi pona e tomo tawa, kepeken ijo mute' (comma is there just to avoid confusion in meaning of tawa here)
What I wanted to ask is, is it correct to say then 'kepeken ijo mute la mi pona e tomo tawa' ?
janSilipu
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Joined: Tue Aug 09, 2011 9:21 am

Re: Using la in poetic structures

Post by janSilipu »

Nothing clearly says it's wrong. No examples (though maybe some analogies) say it's OK. Go ahead!
Kuti
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Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2010 3:48 pm

Re: Using la in poetic structures

Post by Kuti »

I tend to use this form too, it seems understandable.
janEwiku
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Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2013 6:08 pm

Re: Using la in poetic structures

Post by janEwiku »

Hmm... another thing came into my mind yesterday. Can the sentence 'I don't know where it is' be translated both as 'mi sona ala e ni: ni li lon seme' and 'ni li lon seme la mi sona ala' ?
janKipo
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Re: Using la in poetic structures

Post by janKipo »

For some reason, this doesn't feel as good. I suspect that is because of the difficulty in understanding "If where is it?, ..." But, if you read 'la' as "under the circumstance" and the question as simply putting the problem at hand, "as to where it is ", then it seems to work. But can one do that? I'm not sure; the whole 'la' thing is opening up in ways that the early lessons don't really prepare for. Of course, poetry can get away with a lot that prose can't.
janEwiku
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Joined: Sun Apr 28, 2013 6:08 pm

Re: Using la in poetic structures

Post by janEwiku »

That was the whole point of starting this theme. It seemed that even though Toki Pona is on the one hand very easy and straight forward, that the word la opened a lot of space for all kinds of beautiful sentence structures.
janMato
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Re: Using la in poetic structures

Post by janMato »

If this was in a lyric poem and the fronted phrase made sure the sylables fell in the right place, it probably doesn't change the meaning.

Elsewhere, I would read a fronted phrase as topicalization, giving extra importance to the topic and dividing the sentence into old info and new info (the new info being after the la)
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