New idea for <wan> "one"

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jan Misite
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New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by jan Misite »

I was reading a paper the other day and I remembered that tp has a corresponding word for "one" so this could work.
Sina wile e wan?
Sina wile ala wile e wan?
Do you want one (or not)?

jan moli jan. tenpo pimeja pini la mi kama sona ni. mi lukin e wan.

'mute' can probably do the same, but it's even more ambiguous.
mi jo telo soda.
-mi jo moku e mute!
janMato
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by janMato »

jan moli jan.
Missing some particles here. Probably, "jan li moli e jan" or "jan li kama jan moli" or something like that depending what you want to mean.

Sounds like indefinite pronoun, which jan Sonja somewhere wrote is "jan", e.g. jan li toki e ni. "Some people say..."

But wan, tu, mute work okay as pronouns, they already are used as modifiers to pronouns & adjectives seem to change part of speech easily (say adjective to pronoun)
janKipo
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by janKipo »

also 'kama sona e ni' 'jo e telo soda' (not a tp word, probably 'telo kon', "sparkling beverage") Not sure what 'jo moku' is meant to mean, "eatingly possess" maybe "already have for drinking"
But the suggested uses of 'wan' and 'mute' etc. are fine.
Kuti
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by Kuti »

Obviously jan Misite use toki pona words with English grammar. Like calque.
"Do you want one" is really English, it is not universal, and could be not undestood by somone from other language.
«Es-ce que t'en veux?», if calqued from French would made something odd like "sina wile ala wile e ijo tan ni?"
This sound as odd to you that the "Sina wile ala wile e wan?" sounds odd to me

tokiponishly it could be "sina wile ala wile e ni?" or something alongside

The "-mi jo moku e mute!" should be "mi moku mute e ona"
janKipo
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by janKipo »

Nice point; we do tend to keep a large part of our L1 when we start (and often when we finish) with a new language. In the case of conlangs, the temptation (or just the doing, without thought) is even easier as there is no existing culture to counteract the tendency. Misite's sentence is perfectly legitimate syntactically, but just what it means in tp is not clear, since 'wan' is not generally a pronoun and the noun that it would modify is not obvious from context. 'sina wile ala wile e ijo tan ni" is clearer, but incomplete; one expects a colon and a following sentence, the reason one might want the thing. I suppose that what is aimed at is '... ijo pi tan ni', "a thing from here" or, more likely,"some of this" -- except 'ijo' doesn't mean "some" except in special contexts and 'tan' doesn't appear to be partitive. So, in conclusion (finally) the 'e ni' seems best.
I'm not at all sure what 'mi jo moku e mute' means, though I suspect the 'jo' here is a calqued perfect marker (as if tp had such a notion) "I have already drunk several", probably just 'mi moku e mute' with some way of saying "already, just now". "I repeatedly drink it" doesn't seem likely in context (such as I understand it).
jan Misite
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by jan Misite »

@jan Kute:
I don't usually think "one" is doing anything all that special but I noticed that it happens in Danish too. Of course, the mechanism is dropping the noun that's supposed to be reduplicated - hence just 'one' from "one [whatever was just mentioned]."

I think "ijo sama [ona] [modifiers] [ni]" could work pretty well too come to think of it - or maybe "ijo lukin sama ona" - but you could hardly call it a pronoun then. I see "Mi wile moku mute e ona" but suppose you just want to drink one? "Mi wile moku lili e ona" I guess?

Think of two kids in a store with their dad.
1: Mi wile e ni.
2: Mi wile e ijo sama ni kin.
Contrast with:
2: Mi wile e ona kin!
The noun (whatever is pointed at) is implied, but it should still work e.g. the first child is is talking about a doll.

@jan Kipo:
I was thinking 'soda' could be a proper modifier. Maybe 'Koka'? :) Probably should've capitalized it but it slipped my mind.

And I think I meant "Mi wile moku e mute!" oops :P

@jan Mato:
Thanks, I meant "Jan li moli e jan" indeed.

It's not exactly esoterica: You can use it say things like: "tenpo pini la jan George li lon. Ona li moli e akesi waso suli. tenpo ni la akesi waso suli li lon. Mi olin e wan."
janMato
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by janMato »

soda as a modifier:
No official or commonly followed manner for mixing foreign text and toki pona text. Sometimes, I wrap untranslated in double quotes.

telo "Coca Cola" li ike tawa walo uta sina.
janKipo
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by janKipo »

'telo soda' Nope; "soda" is not a proper name nohow -- nor a tp word. 'telo Koka' or 'telo "Coke"' are OK (the latter unofficial but necessary). But the generic is 'telo kon' or some such thing.
'mi kin li wile e ijo sama ni' or 'mi kin li wile e ona' both work (as does 'mi kin li wile e wan') Note that 'kin' goes with the added thing, not roaming as freely as in English.
Loving dragons is dangerous.
Kuti
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by Kuti »

telo wawa pimeja suwi
janSilipu
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Re: New idea for <wan> "one"

Post by janSilipu »

That's Vietnamese coffee for me.
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