toki!

[janKipo]

Well, Lope tends to be very strict in his conservative readings of text. I have trouble reading his grammars and parse trees, but *as far as I can figure it out*, the problem is that the question mark comes after the display, not have the sentence that sets up the display (which is a question all right). That is, he would insist on 'mi ken ala ken toki e ni? tenpo pini lili la mi open kama sona e toki pona.'
The theological ground here is that tp has no subordinate clauses (we skip over 'la', which is strictly coordinate) and so the second sentence is not part of the question, but an add-on, the referent of 'ni'. This isn't strictly a part of grammar (well, it is in Lope's system, which has a lot of punctuation rules built in), but of punctuation conventions. I think that the community would generally do things your way, but there have been a number of complex cases, where the display (what the 'ni' points to) are also long and complex, where disputes have arisen. Another way of putting this is that there is a dispute about just what is a sentence in tp. (I tend to set the 'ni' referents aside for separate analysis and then stick them back into the original sentence after the colon but preserving the original final punctuation. Lope would reject all of this out of hand, but it does cover most community usage pretty well.)

[janKipo]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the name stuff. In my example, the second 'nimi' is unnecessary, as TP38 shows. But the quotes are not (as TP38 and elsewhere regularly gets wrong). In 'nimi mi li Api.', 'Api' is a name, that of the speaker. It is, in particular, not that of the name of the speaker. But, as a proper name in tp, it is an adjective modifying a noun of the genus of its referent. The available noun in this case is 'nimi', so it is presented as the name of a word, in particular the name of the speaker. So, two principles are here in contradiction: It is meant to be the speaker's name but it has to be the name of that name, not of the speaker. The solution is simply that, if we want to talk about a word, we use a name of that word, just as we use a name of a person to talk about that person. Now the easiest name of a word is a word made by enclosing the original word in quotes. So, if I want to say that a certain word is a person's name, I enclose that word in quotes and attach to a phrase meaning "is a name". So, to say your name is 'Jon' in tp, I say 'nimi sina li 'Jon'. Now, the predicate name is a name of a word and so of your name, not of you. And the contradiction disappears.

[jan_Lope]

I don't think I can follow you.

First you say:

But your sentece is not a question

Now, you seem to agree it's a question:

Grammar and meaning is different. You can build sentences with right grammer but without meaning.

Excuse me, but this looks like you were saying my sentence lacks any meaning, which seems like a pretty harsh thing to say.

What would you like to say?

This is what I said before:
http://forums.tokipona.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2648#p15615

"Or, can I (=is it OK to) say this: recently I started to learn toki pona?"

So, I wanted to ask: Can I use open as a pre-verb.

http://forums.tokipona.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2648#p15617

How would you ask "Can you say mi open kama sona e toki pona" in toki pona?

Sorry, but I really don't know how to make this any clearer.

jan Jon o, toki!

Languages, not only Toki Pona, can be ambiguous. I didn't mean your question have no meaning. I mean this in general. Sorry for this.
"open" is a pre-verb (auxiliary verb). I fixed the parser.
Now I understand what you mean - Sorry. Maybe it is better to write it in quotation marks:

mi ken ala ken toki e ni: "tenpo pini lili la mi open kama sona e toki pona."?

At the moment my Toki Pona parser can handle this case. I have to write rules for quotes.
I prefer this:

"tenpo pini lili la mi open kama sona e toki pona." mi ken ala ken toki e ni?

[jan Jon]

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the name stuff. In my example, the second 'nimi' is unnecessary, as TP38 shows. But the quotes are not (as TP38 and elsewhere regularly gets wrong). In 'nimi mi li Api.', 'Api' is a name, that of the speaker. It is, in particular, not that of the name of the speaker. But, as a proper name in tp, it is an adjective modifying a noun of the genus of its referent. [...]

That's interesting. I wasn't aware of the fact, that all unofficial words are treated as adjectives. This makes a lot more sense now. Thanks.

[jan Jon]

Now I understand what you mean - Sorry. Maybe it is better to write it in quotation marks:

mi ken ala ken toki e ni: "tenpo pini lili la mi open kama sona e toki pona."?

At the moment my Toki Pona parser can handle this case. I have to write rules for quotes.
I prefer this:

"tenpo pini lili la mi open kama sona e toki pona." mi ken ala ken toki e ni?

Never mind. If I look at this now, it makes perfect sense: Since I actually use direct speech, there should be quotes. Looks like one needs to be very precise in Toki Pona. Which I think is something I like.

Your second version really took me by surprise, but now it looks very natural and it looks like a nice way to completely avoid the ."? problem.

[jan_Lope]

Now I understand what you mean - Sorry. Maybe it is better to write it in quotation marks:

mi ken ala ken toki e ni: "tenpo pini lili la mi open kama sona e toki pona."?

At the moment my Toki Pona parser can handle this case. I have to write rules for quotes.
I prefer this:

"tenpo pini lili la mi open kama sona e toki pona." mi ken ala ken toki e ni?

Never mind. If I look at this now, it makes perfect sense: Since I actually use direct speech, there should be quotes. Looks like one needs to be very precise in Toki Pona. Which I think is something I like.

Your second version really took me by surprise, but now it looks very natural and it looks like a nice way to completely avoid the ."? problem.

jan Jon o, toki!

sina ' pona! o toki pona!

The golden rule of Toki Pona is: Keep it as simple as possible! If you can't speek without nested sentences use German

."? is of course no good Toki Pona style.

Maybe only one natural language can be compared to Toki Pona. It is the language of the Pirahá. For example this language has no recursion. Please see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZgtDHDHWcs (in German)

BTW: Under Linux you can start the main script of the Toki Pona parser without "swipl":

Code: Select all

./Toki_Pona.pro 


[jan Jon]

Maybe only one natural language can be compared to Toki Pona. It is the language of the Pirahá. For example this language has no recursion. Please see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZgtDHDHWcs (in German)

pona! tenpo lili la mi wile lukin e ni.

BTW: Under Linux you can start the main script of the Toki Pona parser without "swipl":

Code: Select all

./Toki_Pona.pro 


mi ante lili e nasin sina. tenpo ale la mi wile ala sitelen e linja "check_grammar(P)."!
."! a! tenpo sin la mi pali e ni!

nasin ante li pali sama ni:

Code: Select all

$ ./Toki_Pona.pro
%  toki-pona-grammar-rules.pro compiled 0.03 sec, 953 clauses
%  toki-pona-official-words.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 16 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-continents.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-countries.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-cities.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-languages.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-ideologies.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-communities.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-female-prominent-personages.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-male-prominent-personages.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-female-names.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-male-names.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-persons.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-movies.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-unofficial-words-miscellaneous.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 2 clauses
%  toki-pona-io-rules.pro compiled 0.00 sec, 30 clauses
|: toki pona li toki pona.
s(dec(sim(np(sub((noun(toki),adjective(pona))),sep(li)),vp((verb_tra(toki),adverb(pona))))),sep(.))
s(dec(sim(np(sub((noun(toki),adjective(pona))),sep(li)),vp(verb_int(toki),obj_i(noun(pona))))),sep(.))
s(dec(sim(np(sub((noun(toki),adjective(pona))),sep(li)),vp((verb_int(toki),adverb(pona))))),sep(.))
s(dec(sim(np(sub((noun(toki),adjective(pona))),sep(li)),vp(be,obj_be((adjective(toki),adjective(pona)))))),sep(.))
s(dec(sim(np(sub((noun(toki),adjective(pona))),sep(li)),vp(be,obj_be((noun(toki),adjective(pona)))))),sep(.))
|: English is nice, too.
|: mi tawa.
s(dec(sim(np(sub(pronoun(mi))),vp(verb_tra(tawa)))),sep(.))
s(dec(sim(np(sub(pronoun(mi))),vp(verb_int(tawa)))),sep(.))
s(dec(sim(np(sub(pronoun(mi))),vp(be,obj_be(adjective(tawa))))),sep(.))
s(dec(sim(np(sub(pronoun(mi))),vp(be,obj_be(noun(tawa))))),sep(.))
|:
$


jan li sitelen e linja toki la nasin li pana e sona pi linja sama li wile kama jo e linja sin.
jan li sitelen e linja ala la nasin li pini.
sina pilin e seme?

mi ken pana e ijo "o kama jo e ni" tawa lipu "github". sina wile ala wile e ni?
anu mi ken sitelen e ante lili nasin lon ni.

("o kama jo e ni" is my attempt for "pull request"
I'm looking forward to hearing your corrections of my toki pona computer language. )

[janKipo]

Citing Piriha~ for anything is never convincing, especially for (notoriously unprovable) negative claims.

The thing to take away from the discussion of the quoted and unquoted names is that names are not the things they name ("the map is not the territory", etc.). But it also carries over to Lope's solution '... toki e ni: "..."' in that an even more unexceptionable solution would be 'toki e nimi "..."', since quotations are names and so have to have the genus name to attach to. If you jus use the quote it is an improper proper name, if you use 'ni:' before the quote the you cannot put the question mark at the end, since the quote is not strictly in the sentence. (This is mainly fussbudgetry, but so is much of Lope's comments.)

[jan_Lope]

mi ante lili e nasin sina. tenpo ale la mi wile ala sitelen e linja "check_grammar(P)."!
."! a! tenpo sin la mi pali e ni!

mi ken pana e ijo "o kama jo e ni" tawa lipu "github". sina wile ala wile e ni?
anu mi ken sitelen e ante lili nasin lon ni.

jan Jon o, toki!
wile. o kepeken ilo Kitu!
ken la sina lukin e ilo. https://github.com/jan-Lope/Toki_Pona-Parser/issues
pona!

[jan_Lope]

mi ken pana e ijo "o kama jo e ni" tawa lipu "github". sina wile ala wile e ni?
anu mi ken sitelen e ante lili nasin lon ni.

toki!
pona! mi wan e linja tu pi ilo Kitu. ilo Tawi li pali pona e ni. ni li ' pona, tawa mi. taso tenpo kama la mi pona e lipu pi kama sona.

I've merged the branches in Github. The build process by travis was ok. I have to update the README.md ... next week.