POS - first pass

Language learning: How to speak Toki Pona, translation problems, advice, memory aids, tools and methods to learn Toki Pona and other languages faster
Lingva lernado: Kiel paroli Tokiponon, tradukproblemoj, konsiloj, memoraj helpiloj, iloj kaj metodoj por pli rapide lerni Tokiponon kaj aliajn lingvojn
janMato
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janMato »

Intransitive verbs and verbs without e, do they have an oblique more often than not? In otherwords, do they act like the English "to speak of something," or the various IE languages that don't characteristically take the accusative, but instead take a genitive, dative or the corresponding prepositional phrase. My search probably discarded a lot of valid verbs that use obliques, but I think the pattern remains. There are probably a lot of verbs that take both an accusative and an oblique (mi pana e moku tawa jan), but that would be a harder set of searches.

kepeken, lon tawa are common obliques for many verbs. weka seems to have an affinity for tan.

The most common oblique constructions are:
li toki kepeken
li toki tawa
li pana tawa
li weka tan
li lukin tawa

sama doesn't really seem to fit the whole pattern. No verb has a strong affinity for poka, lon insa/anpa/sewi/sike. Lots of verbs occur with lon, but there doesn't seem to be any particular affinity between them.
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janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

janMato wrote:Usual (to me) transitives
unusual?
kasi li pana e kon pona tawa tomo mi.
mi mute li lon kasi e ilo suno.
mi mute li lon kasi e ijo musi pona. (aikidave)
This looks bass-ackwards: we expect to put the plant in the lamp (well not exactly, but in the light -- maybe 'suno ilo' artificial light? though I suppose we could put a plant in a lamp or a good instrument or vive versa but both are a bit bizarre to contemplate)
telo li kama la telo li kama lon sinpin.
mi toki e jan pi sona tomo.
jan pi sona tomo li pona e sinpin.
jan li lon lupa e ko wawa.
ko wawa li pini e telo.
jan li kalama.
jan li telo e sinpin kepeken ilo wawa.(aikidave)
This one I remember: plugging a leak in the front of the foundation. The 'toki e jan; is simply a (common) error for 'toki tawa jan'. "put the strong goo in the hole" seems exactly right (unless you want to insist on 'insa' in there too. 'kalama' needs looking at apparently.
a! mi kama sona. mi sona e kasi loje sama ni. ona li soweli tomo e mi. (little prince)
Oof! maybe 'soweli tomo mi' but I basically don't get it.
jan Majumi: mi mute li sona ale e ni: sike kon, tomo tawa, li tawa sewi mute tan seme? ona li wile awen lon sewi lili. mi mute li pilin a a! jan Wiko en mi li toki utala e ni: mi awen ala awen pona e sike kon? mi mute li lon toki li sona weka e tomo tawa. tenpo ni la jan Patosa li toki e "jan Palakon li lon insa, jan Palakon li lon insa". mi mute li ken kute ala. taso mi kama sona e seme? tenpo ni la mi mute li kama sona e seme li lon.(sitelen sitelen)
prob 'sona ala' 'sike kon pi tawa tomo' 'sewi' seems odd, if I understand the situation(I'd expect 'suli' and 'kama', for that matter) I don't get 'lon' unless the thing is actually floating upward (not what I understand to be going on). 'lon toki' sounds like an Irish calque for (I think) 'awen toki' 'sona' appears to be used as a modal "know to/ think about getting rid of the car" 'toki e toki "' (or something to support the quote as a modifier) 'ken ala kute' is better. The second 'sona e seme' still creates a question: I think it is prob just 'sona e lon' (a shot at "what is true" using the interrogative for the relative).
aikidave
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by aikidave »

kasi li pana e kon pona tawa tomo mi.
mi mute li lon kasi e ilo suno.
mi mute li lon kasi e ijo musi pona. (aikidave)
My family was decorating the Xmas tree at the time.

'We put lights on the tree.
We put ornaments on the tree.'

Context really is important. (I had to go back and figure out what I was trying to say!)
I was working on learning the concept of "put/place A in/at B" is 'lon B e A'
Maybe I should have used 'kasi suli' for tree.
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

Thanks! Yes, context is vital here.
janMato
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janMato »

li lon X e Y is still a bugger to parse.

it behaves a bit like prepositional predicates of motion (metaphorical and otherwise), like mi kama jan lawa, mi tawa tomo mi

it is a bit like
* I fasten to this location

But it requires one more arugement. "e" is the case of last resort, it appears, so the 2nd argument takes "e"

? mi lon len noka jan e supa anpa.
I glued the man's shoes to the floor.
jan-ante
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan-ante »

aikidave wrote: 'We put lights on the tree.
We put ornaments on the tree.'
mi pana e ilo suno tawa kasi suli
mi pana e sitelen musi tawa ona
I was working on learning the concept of "put/place A in/at B" is 'lon B e A'
2 questions: (1) where did you get this concept form? (2) what does the verb lon modified with kasi mean to you?
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

See list.
'lon' is P, a preposition "at". As a transitive verb is means "cause the DO to be at [complement]" just like 'tawa' as a vt means "cause DO to be toward [complement]" i.e. "move DO to" and so on.
'lon kasi' means (almost anywhere)"at/in the/a plant"; context makes this a Christmas tree. ("modified" may not be the best word here)
It's in the book (see also the original dictionary sheets, which are rather more complex)
The interesting thing with 'lon' is what happens without the NP complement, where it implies "existence" or "truth" as complement.
Mato -- argument talk gets confusing in tp (nice as it may be in Lojban -- though it gets to be a bugger there, too). 'lon' here is a transitive verb, so, ipso facto, it takes a direct object (or maybe conversely). It is also a preposition, so, ipso facto, it takes a NP complement. Parsing is a snap: subj li vt(prep) NPcomp e DO
Your example is pretty much bass ackwards: it says "I put the floor on the man's shoes.", no glue implied.
Last edited by janKipo on Wed Jul 28, 2010 11:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

Thought, confirmed by the stats, suggest that 'tomo' should be A or V, probably A, "built, constructed, fabricated"
jan-ante
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan-ante »

janKipo wrote:See list.
what?
'lon' is P, a preposition "at". As a transitive verb is means "cause the DO to be at [complement]" just like 'tawa' as a vt means "cause DO to be toward [complement]" i.e. "move DO to" and so on.
'lon kasi' means (almost anywhere)"at/in the/a plant"; context makes this a Christmas tree. ("modified" may not be the best word here)
no, lon is either (quasi)preposition or transitive verb, but not both at the same time. you can say mi lon kasi or mi lon e ilo suno, but not combination of them, it makes nonsence.
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

Sorry, but that is the way the grammar crumbles. 'lon' is basically a preposition, and, as such, can have a noun complement in context (I haven't seen it tried in modifier slots, but, then ....) Like most tp words, it can be used as a noun ("placing, presence, address" "existence, truth, reality"). a verb ("place, put, insert", "create, verify"), and a modifier (so far without complements , so "real, existent, true"). With a small vocabulary, words have to do extra work (and they don't get paid extra).
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