is the tp word ala productive?

[janMato]

In the sense of being able to create new words (err... noun or verb phrases suggestive of single word), the way un- works in English or mal- Esperanto?

Cause I just drank a lot and now I need to maltrinki.

But when I translate this to toki pona...

tenpo pini lili la mi moku mute e telo. tenpo ni la mi wile moku ala e telo.

Sounds more like just not wanting anymore to drink. The Esperanto sense couldn't be further from my mind.

ona li moku ala. Still sounds like he's not eating. If this meant "un-eat", "un-drink", then it would also mean puke, piss, sweat, excrete. Maybe I need a better example.

ona li pala ala. He's not working. But is he also undoing work?
ona li lete ala. It isn't cold, it's getting warmer. I guess that makes sense. Hot and cold are on a narrow continuum.
ona li sona ala. He doesn't know. But is he unlearning, i.e forgetting?
ona li lape ala. He's not sleeping. He's awake. doesn't seem problematic.
ona li telo ala. He's not washing. But is he actively making something filthy?

Anyone have any more interesting examples to clear up if ala is productive in creating new noun and verb phrases, or does it really just mean "not"?

[janKipo]

Well, 'ala' has scope problems to begin with. Leaving aside its effect on sentences overall, it is used two ways in compound noun phrases. On the one hand, it modifies everything to its left, like a good modifier. On the other, it just modifies the immediately left word, like a "prefix." The first is official; the second is fairly frequent, even among official and quasi-official users. The second use can be formed officially by inserting 'pi' before the left word, but this is often not done, even though the second meaning is clearly intended. The second meaning is generally just the complement of the original meaning -- "anything but" or, even more weakly, just "not" (including nothing at all). In a few cases (mainly with "adjectives"), the aim is clearly the polar opposite: 'mute ala' for "few" (to distinguish that 'lili' from 'suli ala') and for cases where the opposite just isn't available as a single word. Where the opposite is available, 'x ala' tend to be toward the intermediate value, as in English -- 'ike ala' isn't good quite, but not bad enough to be condemned. In no case that I can think of, however, does 'ala' have the reversal sense that English 'un' (and a few other prefixes, e.g., 'de') has (I'm not sure about Eo 'mal-'). So, I think the answer is that 'ala' is not productive in the sense you want. But, as the need for more expressions grows, that may change.

[jan Josan]

Looking at the Sonja’s earlier and draft definitions of ala shows she sees it occupying this "un-" role. ( so "lape ala' un-sleep, "lete ala" un-cold work just fine) But I think it would almost always default to the more natural position of “not” rather than “un-“ if both are possible. (“ona li lon ala.” will read as “he is not dead”, and not “he is undead.” )

I can imagine three ways this “un-“ might be accomplished, one of which uses ala:
1. Allowing use of ala as a transitive verb, meaning un(do)
2. Using weka as a transitive verb. Grammatically possible, but may be misread.
3. Adding the ability to weka to create a compound verb (like kama).

ona li pala ala. He's not working. But is he also undoing work?

1. ona li ala e pali. “He un(does) the work”
2. ona li weka e pali. “He removes the work.”
3. ona li weka pali. “He work-removes”

ona li sona ala. He doesn't know. But is he unlearning, i.e forgetting?

1. ona li ala e sona. “He undoes the knowledge.” seems unclear to me.
2. ona li weka e sona. “he removes the knowledge” could also mean destroying information-- throwing away a piece of paper, or erasing a hard drive.
3. ona li weka sona. “He learn-removes.” Fits as a compliment to “kama sona” and differentiates from “sona ala”

ona li telo ala. He's not washing. But is he actively making something filthy?”

This one is troublesome because it relies on the convention that “ona li telo” means “He indirectly become clean by water use” and not what I think it would most directly mean: “He is (becoming) wet” (or “He is liquid” which would be rejected in most contexts). “ona li jaki” is “He is dirty” and probably “He is becoming dirty” as well. To make something filthy (let’s say clothing) would best be “ona li jaki e len”.

But for the opposite of “he is becoming wet”:
1. ona li ala e telo. “He undoes the water.” strange
2. ona li weka e telo. “He dries” Seems OK, but becomes transitive, so doesn’t works as well for the reflexive “He dries himself.”
3. ona li weka telo. “he water-removes”

It seems to me weka as a compound verb could work without creating confusion. Whether users think it may occupy this position I sure is another matter.

[janMato]

Looking at the Sonja’s earlier and draft definitions of ala shows she sees it occupying this "un-" role. ( so "lape ala' un-sleep, "lete ala" un-cold work just fine)

I'm not surprised, with her Esperanto background. I agree in some cases it works just fine, especially when a word is at one or the other end of a continuum.

But I think it would almost always default to the more natural position of “not” rather than “un-“ if both are possible.

I agree.

1. Allowing use of ala as a transitive verb, meaning un(do)

It would also suggest the Scandinavian or Germanic sense of "to no", to be deny, refuse, be pessimistic.

2. Using weka as a transitive verb. Grammatically possible, but may be misread.

I like this one, plus it seems like a safe community innovation. Makes me wonder what kind of predictable misreads are okay. If two possible reading are complete contradiction, then they might both be plausible in context. mi wile weka e moku/ I want to puke, I want to get a doggie bag for my dinner. I guess it could be "I want to drop my food (on the floor)" but that's easy to ignore because it's implausible. Because one of the possible readings is rather rude, stylistically, a good toki pona rhetorician would avoid those kind of sentences, hard to say what in favor of. mi wile e poki tawa tawa moku mi.

3. Adding the ability to weka to create a compound verb (like kama).

I like this one, but creating new auxiliary verbs seems like the language designers prerogative. Maybe awesome ideas trump the language designer's prerogative.

Maybe the distinction between a community innovation and the designer's prerogative is like if I wanted to add a "recent past" tense to English. I could be meticulous in always saying "I just did this, I just did that", but I'd probably be out of bounds if I said "I donejust this, I atejust that" (i.e. inventing a new past tense suffix).

Good examples and point well taken that often one can avoid the whole question by going into an entirelly different direction (than using an ala construction)

[janKipo]

Y'wanna distinguish tween new uses and realizes old potentials. I say that 'weka' already has the potential to be a modal and we're just realizing it. I say this because I don't want to be accused of innovations when I say that 'pini' 'open' and 'awen' are modals, which I do because they fit a very common pattern with 'kama.' Now, 'weka' is less clearly in a pattern: nothing else is quite parallel to it semantically (and it is semantically not very exactly like what is wanted), but it strikes me as the way to go with the de-/un- line for activities (nasin pi weka tomo being a major philosophical line at the moment - or is it going to be 'tomo weka' as a modifier?). The use of 'ala' in this role does not seem to me to be so useful: transitive 'ala' is probably "destroy. obliterate" and intransitive 'ala' is just -- as with German -- to be negative in various ways (deny, be pessimistic or gloomy). But that does open some other possibilities, mainly looking for other verbs that might have further uses. Sonja has toyed with 'lukin' as a modal for trying, someone else has used 'mu' transitively as "talk gibberish about," and so on. A nice session of winging ideas might do a lot to fill out the lacunae in the word lists in terms of multiple uses of words (actually, wouldn't 'alasa' make sense for 'try' -- see what fun awaits!)

o pilin pona tan tenpo sewi ni (whichever you prefer)