A question about 'pi'

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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janAetherStar
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A question about 'pi'

Post by janAetherStar »

Is there absolutely any time when it'd be neccessary/you can use 'pi' with one word following it - and then that word gets modified by another 'pi' phrase with 2 or more words after it? (e.g. a pi b pi c d) Or, this?: a b pi c pi d e. Like maybe, jan pi ma pi kasi ali? My reasoning: {[(jan pi ((ma pi (kasi ali)]}. Not sure I illustrated that so well.

Thank you all,
janAetherStar
ale li pona. :)
sina o sona e ni.
oleso
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Joined: Sun Feb 02, 2014 12:11 pm

Re: A question about 'pi'

Post by oleso »

pona!

If you're using "person from the land of all the plants" though, maybe "jan tan ma pi kasi ali" would be better in this case?

"loje pi tomo pi sitelen tawa li suno kin! aaa! ni li pakala e oko mi!"
"The red on the house in the movie is hella bright! Aargh! It's messing up my eyes!"
janKipo
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Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: A question about 'pi'

Post by janKipo »

In the example, 'pi' is not followed by one word but by four, 'b pi cd', an inherent unit. In no case is 'pi' to be followed by only one word as the whole following unit (because a one-word unit is already covered adequately by just concatenation). (By the way, 'jan pi tan ma pi kasi ali' if this is in a noun position.)
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