musi pi nanpa luka pi jan Katulu

[Mako]

musi pi nanpa luka pi jan Katulu

jan Lepi mi o!
o mi sina lon!
o mi sina olin!
o mi sina pilin lili
e toki lili pi mije pi sin ala poka pilin ike!
tenpo mute la
suno li ken anpa en sewi.
tenpo taso la
suno li anpa tawa mi sina.
tenpo ni la
mi sina li lape lon pimeja awen.
o pana e pilin uta ali tawa mi!
o pana e pilin uta mute!
o pana e pilin uta pi ante ali!
o pana e pilin uta pi mute pona!
o pana e pilin uta pi ante ali!
o pana e pilin uta mute!
tenpo la
mi sina pini e pilin uta pi mute ali la
mi sina pana e ona tawa sona ala tawa ni:
mi sina ken ala sona e ni:
jan ike li ken ala lukin ike tawa mi sina.
jan ike li ken ala sona e nanpa pi pilin uta.


Translation from Toki Pona
O my Lesbia!
Let us be present!
Let us love!
Let us care little about the gossip of bitter old men
Often the sun sets and rises;
but once the sun sets for us,
Then we sleep in one eternal night.
Give me a thousand kisses!
Give me a hundred kisses!
Give me another thousand kisses!
Give me a pleasing hundred!
Give me a another thousand kisses!
Give me a hundred!
When we have completed a thousand hundred kisses,
we give them to ignorance for this:
We cannot know this.
The evil men cannot look askance at us.
The evil men cannot know the number of kisses.

[janKipo]

nanpa luka the fifth, not five of 'em
I'm not sure of the construction here: it is a vocative to the first person, followed by an imperative. I guess you can command yourself and someone else you are speaking for. I probably would have gone with 'o mi tu li lon'
[time!]

[Mako]

nanpa luka the fifth, not five of 'em
I'm not sure of the construction here: it is a vocative to the first person, followed by an imperative. I guess you can command yourself and someone else you are speaking for. I probably would have gone with 'o mi tu li lon'
[time!]

I meant 'fifth', not 'five'.

mi tu o lon:
1. There is no such thing as a 1st person imperative (some languages have 3rd person imperatives). I've read grammars of dozens of languages and have yet to see an example. What the 1st person has is a hortatory subjunctive.
2. The hortatory subjunctive and the imperative are shades of grammar which could easily be lost in TP. Even American English and British English vary on the line between the two.
3. The hortatory subjunctive in the original Latin context is very strong, and could easily slip into an imperative were it not 1st person.
4. I can't move 'mi' to the other side of the verb phrase, since togetherness is the point of the statement.
5. I could have said 'mi tu li wile lon', where 'wile' means 'should', but then I would lose the sense of exhortation. As for the other meanings of 'wile', 'want' is indeed implied in the Latin subjunctive, but 'must' would be a gross mistranslation. (Incidentally, 'wile' is a good example of a nimi where necessity and suggestion are treated the same way.)
6. 'o mi tu li lon' doesn't look right to me because 'mi' doesn't have any obvious verbal sense, even though it is the nimi after 'o', and 'lon' can't be the principal nimi because it is at the end of the chain. Since the 'o' is the first nimi rather than the last, the phrase 'o mi tu li lon' must be interpreted verbally rather than nominally.

In conclusion, it's the best I could do with a blunt instrument.

[janMato]

Sorry I haven't been commenting on your translations-- your beyond making beginner's mistakes where I usually like to jump in and add my two cents. (That's a good thing!)

1. There is no such thing as a 1st person imperative (some languages have 3rd person imperatives). I've read grammars of dozens of languages and have yet to see an example. What the 1st person has is a hortatory subjunctive.

I don't have a strong opinion about this particular grammar issue, but the argument is interesting. I find the converse argument persuasive, but not this one, i.e. if an attested natural language has a pattern, then it demonstrate such a pattern could work in toki pona. But not having an attested pattern in a natural language may just mean the world is either impoverished in reference grammars or impoverished in its variety of languages. My favorite unattested grammatical pattern is to require the speaker to calculate the square root of the words spoken as a checksum. Unlikely to be attested, but I'm not sure if it is because it violates linguistic universals, or because no one was crazy enough to try.

2. The hortatory subjunctive and the imperative are shades of grammar which could easily be lost in TP. Even American English and British English vary on the line between the two.

I agree, toki pona is all about failing to make distinctions. Deciding when too few distinctions have been made is a style call, imho.

(Incidentally, 'wile' is a good example of a nimi where necessity and suggestion are treated the same way.)

For some reason when I read tp, I feel like I have a list of probabilities of what is probably meant. When I read wile, I tend to read just "want". It takes special circumstances to trigger the idea of necessity. Maybe a bad metaphor, but it's like "I walked to the store" covers walking to the store with a flower covered hat, wearing a raincoat, and walking backwards, but as a reader, I will never suspect that unless there is something else going on in the sentence. But I would guess that the dictionary meaning of walked doesn't rule out the possibility of being in a raincoat, walking backwards and wearing a flower covered hat. And again, I guess this back to deciding when a few distinctions is too few.

6. 'o mi tu li lon' doesn't look right to me because 'mi' doesn't have any obvious verbal sense, even though it is the nimi after 'o', and 'lon' can't be the principal nimi because it is at the end of the chain. Since the 'o' is the first nimi rather than the last, the phrase 'o mi tu li lon' must be interpreted verbally rather than nominally.

It's jan Sonja canon, I think, it's in the babel text or genesis. If I wasn't lazy I'd track down the quote. Challenging (what little) canon text is harder because one has to say the language designer made a fundamental mistake, that they put tuna fish in the ice cream, or motor oil in the beer.

I internalized the rule as this:

o S. I want the world to be characterized by S.
P o S. I'm telling P I want the world to be characterized by S.
P o. I'm talking to P.
P o VP. I'm telling P to do VP.

I've no idea if this is reflected in the wikipedia rule set (I can't figure out who authored it, !#@$ wikimedia logs), jan Kipo's rules or the much, much older Morpheme Addict rule set. In any case, I don't think jan Sonja or jan Pije ever wrote a formal grammar (BNF or the like), so the rule sets are *not* as canon as they could be, even though for the most part I think they are right.

[janKipo]

Just so. I was talking about what you presented in tp. I assumed there was exhortation in the original, so 'o mi tu li lon. o mi tu li olin.' This may be weaker than you want, since it can mean just "Let's", but then the tp imperative is not very imperious -- it can be used for pleas, begging, and the like as well as commands. The text books are a little unclear on the matter of 'o'. It helps, apparently, to know Esperanto. where the -us verb forms (I think it is) behave in a similar fashion: imperative without a subject, hortatory/optative with one. So, 'o mi tu li lon' might just "Oh, that we two might exist!" A fairly blunt instrument indeed. 'wile' is one , too, although I don't think it can mean "suggest", since, by its nature, it always points to a strong force driving the subject to the goal. As for your final objection, it is just a misreading of the grammar, as noted above -- although it is a possible reading of the grammar. And, of course, at the end 'mi tu o lon' is also perfectly grammatical and probably intelligible. especially in the context of poetry or British comedy "My boy, keep a stiff upper lip" said in soliloquy before entering the danger zone. But again, it may not be as strong as you want, just the best you can hope for in tp (so far).

In other news. "think about" is still up for grabs (I've three different solutions this week) 'pilin e' is one, which, though not my favorite, seems to be in the lead over 'pilin pi' and 'pilin tawa' (unofficial count)
kiss tends to be very physical" 'pilin e uta' or 'pilin e loje uta', so 'pilin uta' or 'pilin pi loje uta' for the noun.
I would have said 'uta ante ali' 'uta pona mute', though I would be hard pressed to say why.
On the other hand, on the "apply N to" reading of the conversion of a noun to a transitive verb, why can't 'uta' mean "kiss"; indeed; oughtn't it do? Of course, it might also mean "suck," but that seems less useful generally.
Oh (I should always check the trat) You are using the mute and ali in numerical senses according to some cockamammy scheme. Yuck, ptui!
But if 'uta' means "kiss", the the object is the kissee, not the kisses themselves.
What is 'tenpo la' "sometime(s)" doing after 'pini la'?
Back to line six: 'tenpo wan la' means "at one time", neither before nor since, whereas your trat suggests rather "as soon as", so the whole seems to be just a S la S construction, as you ultimately have it. Leaving the 'tenpo wan la' in sounds like you enter this blissful realm only once, rather than (if I am following the plot here) nightly.

Very nice, even if I do make some mainly stylistic comments (my taste).

[janKipo]

Babel text portion -- from memory, admittedly -- is 'o mi mute li tomo e tomo palisa suli' -- maybe 'pali' for the first 'tomo'. "Let us build a great tower" The LXX has the Greek equivalent of a hortatory subjunctive; I don't know what the Hebrew is.

[Mako]

Sorry I haven't been commenting on your translations-- your beyond making beginner's mistakes where I usually like to jump in and add my two cents. (That's a good thing!)

1. There is no such thing as a 1st person imperative (some languages have 3rd person imperatives). I've read grammars of dozens of languages and have yet to see an example. What the 1st person has is a hortatory subjunctive.

My favorite unattested grammatical pattern is to require the speaker to calculate the square root of the words spoken as a checksum.

toki ni li toki Olapuki tawa mi!

2. The hortatory subjunctive and the imperative are shades of grammar which could easily be lost in TP. Even American English and British English vary on the line between the two.

I agree, toki pona is all about failing to make distinctions. Deciding when too few distinctions have been made is a style call, imho.

(Incidentally, 'wile' is a good example of a nimi where necessity and suggestion are treated the same way.)

For some reason when I read tp, I feel like I have a list of probabilities of what is probably meant. When I read wile, I tend to read just "want". It takes special circumstances to trigger the idea of necessity. [/quote]
In prose, your argument is valid; poetry allows a greater degree of polyvalency.

It's jan Sonja canon, I think, it's in the babel text or genesis. If I wasn't lazy I'd track down the quote. Challenging (what little) canon text is harder because one has to say the language designer made a fundamental mistake, that they put tuna fish in the ice cream, or motor oil in the beer.

I internalized the rule as this:

o S. I want the world to be characterized by S.
P o S. I'm telling P I want the world to be characterized by S.
P o. I'm talking to P.
P o VP. I'm telling P to do VP.

I've no idea if this is reflected in the wikipedia rule set (I can't figure out who authored it, !#@$ wikimedia logs), jan Kipo's rules or the much, much older Morpheme Addict rule set. In any case, I don't think jan Sonja or jan Pije ever wrote a formal grammar (BNF or the like), so the rule sets are *not* as canon as they could be, even though for the most part I think they are right.

What does S stand for?

[Mako]

Just so. I was talking about what you presented in tp. I assumed there was exhortation in the original, so 'o mi tu li lon. o mi tu li olin.' This may be weaker than you want, since it can mean just "Let's", but then the tp imperative is not very imperious -- it can be used for pleas, begging, and the like as well as commands. The text books are a little unclear on the matter of 'o'. It helps, apparently, to know Esperanto. where the -us verb forms (I think it is) behave in a similar fashion: imperative without a subject, hortatory/optative with one. So, 'o mi tu li lon' might just "Oh, that we two might exist!" A fairly blunt instrument indeed. 'wile' is one , too, although I don't think it can mean "suggest", since, by its nature, it always points to a strong force driving the subject to the goal. As for your final objection, it is just a misreading of the grammar, as noted above -- although it is a possible reading of the grammar. And, of course, at the end 'mi tu o lon' is also perfectly grammatical and probably intelligible. especially in the context of poetry or British comedy "My boy, keep a stiff upper lip" said in soliloquy before entering the danger zone. But again, it may not be as strong as you want, just the best you can hope for in tp (so far).

I don't know enough Esperanto to comment. If 'o mi mute li pakala e jan ike' means 'Let us kill the enemy' and 'mi mute li pakala e jan ike la' means 'if we kill the enemy', what does 'o mi mute li pakala e jan ike la' mean?

In other news. "think about" is still up for grabs (I've three different solutions this week) 'pilin e' is one, which, though not my favorite, seems to be in the lead over 'pilin pi' and 'pilin tawa' (unofficial count)
kiss tends to be very physical" 'pilin e uta' or 'pilin e loje uta', so 'pilin uta' or 'pilin pi loje uta' for the noun.
I would have said 'uta ante ali' 'uta pona mute', though I would be hard pressed to say why.
On the other hand, on the "apply N to" reading of the conversion of a noun to a transitive verb, why can't 'uta' mean "kiss"; indeed; oughtn't it do? Of course, it might also mean "suck," but that seems less useful generally.

I used 'pilin lili e' here because it reduces the number of 'pi's from three to two.

Oh (I should always check the trat) You are using the mute and ali in numerical senses according to some cockamammy scheme. Yuck, ptui!

No, I'm using an approximate scheme, in which 'mute' = many, 'ali' = many*many, 'mute ali' = many*many*many

But if 'uta' means "kiss", the the object is the kissee, not the kisses themselves.

A poor attempt at a cognate accusative. Could 'e pilin uta' meaned '(the/a) kissed (one)'?

Back to line six: 'tenpo wan la' means "at one time", neither before nor since, whereas your trat suggests rather "as soon as", so the whole seems to be just a S la S construction, as you ultimately have it. Leaving the 'tenpo wan la' in sounds like you enter this blissful realm only once, rather than (if I am following the plot here) nightly.

I changed it to 'tenpo taso la', since it does mean a unique occasion _and_ serves as contrast - and 'tenpo taso' alliterates!

[janMato]

For some reason when I read tp, I feel like I have a list of probabilities of what is probably meant. When I read wile, I tend to read just "want". It takes special circumstances to trigger the idea of necessity.

In prose, your argument is valid; poetry allows a greater degree of polyvalency.

Dunno. I guess this now gets into artistic interpretation. When I do an interpretive dance that expresses my opinions about the ups and downs of mixing chocolate and peanut butter-- it's a good dance, amusing and holds the audiences attention, but no one is going to guess that the meaning until the choreographer gets on the stage and says in English, "This dance represents the eternal struggle between candy eaters who prefer to eat chocolate or peanut butter alone and those who prefer to eat chocolate & peanut butter mixed" And the interpretation is part of the performance, too. When I read e e cummings, for example, I generally have no idea what the heck he had in mind, I can't tell if he had in mind anything and maybe was just laying down words with a novel sound or typographical feel. These things just don't warrant a translation into English. In writing basic tp, it's easy to wonder over into the interpretive dance spectrum, even when think the audience should still be getting the message.

I internalized the rule as this:

o S. I want the world to be characterized by S.
P o S. I'm telling P I want the world to be characterized by S.
P o. I'm talking to P.
P o VP. I'm telling P to do VP.

I've no idea if this is reflected in the wikipedia rule set (I can't figure out who authored it, !#@$ wikimedia logs), jan Kipo's rules or the much, much older Morpheme Addict rule set. In any case, I don't think jan Sonja or jan Pije ever wrote a formal grammar (BNF or the like), so the rule sets are *not* as canon as they could be, even though for the most part I think they are right.

What does S stand for?

S is sentence. P is person (which I now notice isn't really a common abbrev.) VP is verb phrase.

[janKipo]

On some thread or other, someone suggested that all 'wile' are about someone's wants and the trick is to find out whose, then use that for subject and original subject's action for object. I don't know how practical this is, but it ties in with the principle of holding the responsible responsible that led to dropping passive voice.

'o S la', while grammatical, does not have an interpretation, or, rather, would be taken as a desired condition: 'o S1 la S2' = o(S1 la S2) "Would that, if S1, S2". I'm not sure whether any grammar actually can generate that form, but I have seen 'o tenpo kama la S', which didn't give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

No bahuvrihi (exocentric compounds) in tp. That is to say, every noun phrase refers to the sort of thing its head noun says it is, not to some related thing. So Red Caps (len lawa loje) are caps, not the people who wear them. Thus, 'pilin uta' refers to a pilin, not a person who pils.

OK. I suppose 'tenpo taso' does mean that, though 'tenpo wan taso' is safer and 'tenpo wan' actually works as well.