Is "li ala li" grammatically correct?

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janU
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Mar 03, 2018 4:44 pm

Is "li ala li" grammatically correct?

Post by janU »

It looks like the way of asking questions is similar to one way you can in Chinese.
是不是
可不可以

So is li ala li something you could say in toki pona?
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Is "li ala li" grammatically correct?

Post by janKipo »

No. ‘li’ is merely a marker of the boundary between subject and predicate and has no content, so can’t be joined in this way. Further, a second ‘li’ could only appear after a predicate occurred (Well, ‘ala’ is a possible predicate, but not intended as one here.
The short version of the rule about ‘ala’ questions in tp is that ‘ala’ is inserted between the verb (head of a predicate) and a repetition of the same word, ‘x ala x’. There are some deviations from this but all involve the patern ‘x ala x’ and x can't be ‘li’. (The pattern is probably borrowed from Chinese but appears to be the opposite structure, as I understand it: Ch: x (ala x), tp (x ala) x.)
TNTErick
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Jun 26, 2019 9:10 pm

Re: Is "li ala li" grammatically correct?

Post by TNTErick »

janKipo wrote:No. ‘li’ is merely a marker of the boundary between subject and predicate and has no content, so can’t be joined in this way. Further, a second ‘li’ could only appear after a predicate occurred (Well, ‘ala’ is a possible predicate, but not intended as one here.
The short version of the rule about ‘ala’ questions in tp is that ‘ala’ is inserted between the verb (head of a predicate) and a repetition of the same word, ‘x ala x’. There are some deviations from this but all involve the patern ‘x ala x’ and x can't be ‘li’. (The pattern is probably borrowed from Chinese but appears to be the opposite structure, as I understand it: Ch: x (ala x), tp (x ala) x.)
So we can probably say ~ li lon ala lon e ~ ?
janKipo
Posts: 3064
Joined: Fri Oct 09, 2009 2:20 pm

Re: Is "li ala li" grammatically correct?

Post by janKipo »

Yes
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