toki! mi pini kama sona e toki pona lon tenpo pi pini lili.

[janKipo]

two factors. 1. people have trouble with the 'pi' rule, including noticing that PPs modify nouns rather than sentences and so require 'pi'. 2. without this rule, ambuguity gets even worse than it already is. so, for a long time, people used PPs to modify nouns without 'pi' and either didn't notice or just took it to be inherent in tp. but then folks dod start to notice and it is becoming the norm to use 'pi'. so, yes, there are many contrary examples, but they are simply wrong (conlangs are allowed prescriptive grammars at least for a while.)

[jan Pinsen]

Hmm, okay. I'll fix that in my own grammar too, then, or try to anyway. (I'm usually good at that sort of thing, but in this case it does feel kinda ugly to me now... but I'm sure that'll pass.)

So then I guess the PPs don't have to come at the end of the sentence anymore either... in fact they shouldn't if they modify nouns, or at any rate, phrases, rather than propositions.

Actually, that makes me wonder. How would you say you're performing an action (i.e. by use of a verb) in a certain location ("lon tomo mi" for instance)? Let's say sleeping. "mi lape lon tomo mi"? "mi lape pi lon tomo mi"? "pi" seems wrong even in light of what you said if it's for an action/a verb.

[janKipo]

'mi lape lon tomo mi.' Indeed, even 'mi lape lon supo lape lon tomo mi'
The only "new" thing here is insisting on the 'pi' in noun-modifying PPs; there have been such PPs from the beginning, just unmarked and thus ambiguous as all get-out.

[jan Pinsen]

Alright, understood. That makes sense, then.