jan toki sin

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jan_Sanke
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Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2011 4:34 am

jan toki sin

Post by jan_Sanke »

toki!
mi jan San Kepasi. mi lon ma tomo Kenewi ma lili Wasinten pi ma Mewika. mi toki pona ala e toki pona tan ni: tenpo suno pini tu wan la mi kama sona e toki pona. mi ken toki e toki pona. taso mi wile kama sona e mute.

mi wile kama sona e jan ante. toki ante li pona mute tawa mi. toki ante li pona mute tawa sina kin la mi wile e ni: sina toki e mi. toki mi pi nanpa wan li lon e toki Inli. mi ken toki kin e toki Epanja e toki Epelanto. mi toki pona mute e toki Epanja. mi toke pona mute ala e toki Epelanto. mi ken sitelen e toki sitelen Alapi e toki sitelen Elena e toki sitelen Iwisi e mute.

mi wile e ni: mi kepeken ike e toki pona la sina o toki e ni tawa mi.

:D
janMato
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Re: jan toki sin

Post by janMato »

o kama pona! Welcome to the board. Since we don't have any particular business to transact here, we mostly write silly or creative things and then correct each other. I think elsewhere I've said, it is as if everything you post here is wrapped in "Is it correct to say...?" Reading toki pona is 100x harder than writing it, so for my own practice I'm going to gloss your text , corrections in bold.
toki!
mi jan San Kepasi. mi lon ma tomo Kenewi pi ma lili Wasinten pi ma Mewika. mi toki pona ala kepeken toki pona tan ni: tenpo suno pini tu wan la mi kama sona e toki pona. mi ken toki e toki pona. taso mi wile kama sona e mute.
Hello!, I am San Kepasi. I am at the city of Kenewi, state Washington, the US. I don't speak well toki pona because: two days ago I (started) learn(ing) toki pona. I can speak toki pona (now). But I want to learn a lot.
mi wile kama sona e jan ante. toki ante li pona mute tawa mi. toki ante li pona mute tawa sina kin la mi wile e ni: sina toki e mi. toki mi pi nanpa wan li lon e toki Inli. (mi sin la mi toki kepeken Inli) mi ken toki kin e toki Epanja e toki Epelanto. mi toki pona mute e toki Epanja. mi toke pona mute ala e toki Epelanto. mi ken sitelen e toki sitelen Alapi e toki sitelen Elena e toki sitelen Iwisi e mute.
I want to learn (about) other people. I like foreign languages. If you in particular (kin probably should have followed the adjective pona) like foreign languages then you (should) speak to me. My first language is causing to exist the English language. (When I was brand new, I spoke English, i.e. its my first language) I can really speak Spanish and Esperanto. I speak Spanish really well. I don't speak Esperanto very well. I can write [these 3 languages-- shoot, I'm too lazy too look these up. Greek and something- arabic?]
mi wile e ni: mi kepeken ike e toki pona la sina o toki e ni tawa mi.
I want that if I use toki pona poorly you tell this to me.

predicates (in the sense of sentence that say "This is that") use the invariate particle "li" and nothing else (except for when the subject is a bare mi/sina). Predicates are never translated with li lon or li lon e

x li lon y - means x is geographically placed at y.
x li lon z e y - means something like x places y at z. It is a valid construction but it will make your head ache initially.
? x li lon e y - means x causes y to exist-- This is not a normal sentence, I would use pali for a less strained way to express the causing something to come into being, except maybe if you are talking about philosophy, the beginning of time, or the big bang.
jan_Sanke
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Joined: Sat Nov 12, 2011 4:34 am

Re: jan toki sin

Post by jan_Sanke »

Thank you for the warm welcome, that was a really fast response! Thank you very much for the corrections too. I'm still very clumsy with this, but I must admit it made me feel pretty good about myself because I expected a lot more. This is such an interesting language, I learned the vocabulary and now I have to perfect the usage which is totally the opposite direction of when I study anything else, so it's been really fun and a bit challenging, especially reading it. I suspect that with more practice though it gets easier getting used to the Toki Pona mindset.

The first "pi" I'm missing was a typo, I knew that went there and must've left it out when I retyped it. But thank you very much for pointing me in the right direction with "lon", that one was still a little confusing to me.
Also I was wondering about "kepeken", is that used instead of the particle "e" before a language because you're saying that you talk using that language as opposed to talking at it? It makes sense to me but I wanted to make sure that that was the grammatical reason before I start using it like that.

Thanks again!
Kuti
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Re: jan toki sin

Post by Kuti »

kama pona
janMato
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Re: jan toki sin

Post by janMato »

Also I was wondering about "kepeken", is that used instead of the particle "e" before a language because you're saying that you talk using that language as opposed to talking at it? It makes sense to me but I wanted to make sure that that was the grammatical reason before I start using it like that.
There are only about 7 places to put a word that goes with a verb, DO and the 6 prepositional phrases (maybe subject, see below). In a natural language, there is enough corpus that people can get used to instrumental or direct object syntax being used interchangably- in a conlang, especially one that isn't supposed to be a relex of English, we have to rely on the specification and be wary of the community corpus, especially if people are just doing what they do in their mother tongue.

I speak French. (Direct object-- we've just gotten used to this in English.)
I speak in French. (locative, but a language is only metaphorically a place)
I speak with French words. (awkward, but clearly instrumental)

So typically this is explained as words having a semantic role (subject is doing the action, a sort of agent, instrumental answers to what tool was used-- direct object answers to what was on the receiving end of an action-- a sort of patient) and a syntactic role and they don't necessarily match up.

When a prepositional phrase exists to make clear the semantic role, it's good style to use it and make every effort to keep the semantic roles matched up with the syntactic ones.

And it occurs to me that sometimes the word that goes with the verb can/could go in the subject.

I don't think the grammar of tp is nailed down enough to decide which of the following is better.
1) mi pakala e ilo. I broke the machine.
2) ? ilo li pakala. The machine broke-- something broke it, but what is was isn't so important. This means pakala works like English and has a middle voice!
3) ? mi tawa wawa e ilo. ilo li pakala. The machine was clearly broken my actions, but it is the subject slot, where normally we see agents!
4) ? ijo li pakala e ilo. Something broke the machine.
5) ? ilo li pakala sama. The machine broke itself. Seems to overemphasize the agency of the machine.
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iulius
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Re: jan toki sin

Post by iulius »

jan Sanke o, kama pona :)
janKipo
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Re: jan toki sin

Post by janKipo »

jan Sanke o. kama pona kin.
What Mato said. except for the part about various subjects for 'pakala' All of the sentences are correct (except 5 needs an 'e' before 'sama'), they just say slightly (or vastly, if punishment follows agency) different things. Subjects are agents. as 'mi jan' shows (and, of course, in 'ilo li pakala' the subject may be an agent with a suppressed DO, "The machine destroys" "This is a killing machine" and so on.
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