POS - first pass

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jan-ante
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan-ante »

jan Ote wrote:
jan Pije, lesson 11 wrote: Another use
pi has one other use. I have decided to describe this use in a separate section because it somewhat breaks the rules that you learned above. Consider the following sentences:
 kili ni li pi mi. -- This fruit is mine.
 tomo ni li pi jan Tami. -- That house is Tommy's.
Although it may look a little odd, a pi phrase can be used after li to tell who owns something. Here are some more examples if you need to look at them:
 ilo ni li pi sina. -- This tool is yours.
 ma ni li pi jan Tosi. -- This land is the Germans'.
 toki ni li pi mi mute. -- This language is ours.
very interesting. remarkable, it is not in the russian translation of his book. i suggest he added this innovation after the translation was completed. so it seems he is (in fact) the only person capable to change tp. i wonder, does he discuss such innovations with Sonja, does she approve this? but to me this ides is not really good, somehow contrary to tp phisosofy
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

I think it more likely that he dropped this before the book was translated (possibly a mistake -- the dropping, not the translation). This seems a very old usage, in keeping with the original 'pi' being only for possessives not general right grouping. And I actually like it better than the form we have now "ni li ilo mi' or so. The problem comes if someone tries to expand on this in some way (to transitive verbs, say)
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

Mato, this is not ditransitive, in 'mi ken pali e ilo e jan', 'ilo' is DO of pali and 'jan' is DO of 'ken' s[subj[mi] [vp[modal [ken vp[vt[pali] e do[ilo]] e do[jan]]] 'pu' might mark the end of the enclosed VP and maybe also troublesome other things that turn up at the ends of sentences.
jan-ante
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan-ante »

janKipo wrote:Meaning is given in the general rule for prepositions. It is always possible, of course, to double up 'mi lon e ilo suno lon kasi' But there is no problem with the intransitive form:'mi lon tomo mi', where it is both (or a verb that takes NP complements). Why get twitchy with the transitive form?
just to avoid the confusion. whenever the reader see jan lon kasi e ilo suno he will try to decrypt a complex transitive verb lon kasi because the (first) separator e appears right after the transitive verb. so he will decrypt: "guy created herbally a lamp", i.e. he grew it on a tree, while 'mi lon e ilo suno lon kasi' means clearly "i created a lamp in/on tree"
jan-ante
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan-ante »

janKipo wrote:I think it more likely that he dropped this before the book was translated (possibly a mistake -- the dropping, not the translation).
to me such a mistake is really unlikely. but we dont know for sure
And I actually like it better than the form we have now "ni li ilo mi' or so. The problem comes if someone tries to expand on this in some way (to transitive verbs, say)
well, it resembles many natural languages. but it is a sort of exception in tp, while the strong point of any conlang is minimal (or even 0) number of exceptions. also it is contraty to tp philosophy: the object should be directly named (to prevent jan Sonja's depression).
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jan Ote
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan Ote »

jan-ante wrote:the confusion. whenever the reader see jan lon kasi e ilo suno he will try to decrypt a complex transitive verb lon kasi because the (first) separator e appears right after the transitive verb. so he will decrypt: "guy created herbally a lamp"
True. The "standard" word order is: subject, action, object, place.
ona li pana e ijo tawa mi. - She gave a thing to me.
ona li pali e ijo lon tomo. - He made a thing at house.
ona li tawa e ijo lon insa poki. - He moved a thing into a container.
So I would expect:
ona li X e ilo suno lon kasi. - He X a light-thing on the tree.
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

As noted, the long form is always possible, though less compact, since it usually requires a repetition. I suspect the short form is mainly for hideous examples and showing off -- and maybe some forms of poetry or oratory (which probably come under showing off).
"move into" is probably 'tawa insa' since the moving isn't inside.
tp, as a conlang, has built in its schematics something about being more like a natural language than a logical code, so a few oddities are to be expected. I'm not sure 'ni pi mi' really is that odd, and certainly wasn't back when 'pi' always meant possession.
Of course, as a transitive verb, 'lon kasi' means "put in a tree" as much as "created herbally" (more so, I would think, since the latter does not make a lot of sense).
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jan Ote
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan Ote »

I dare to disagree. Yes, we use contraction for doubled "lon" or "tawa":
 He is in/at house:
ona li lon lon tomo -> ona li lon tomo.
 He goes towards house:
ona li tawa tawa tomo -> ona li tawa tomo.
But it doesn't mean it's the same case when we put anything between these two repeated words:
 He moved a stick towards a house:
ona li tawa e palisa tawa tomo -/-> *ona li tawa tawa tomo e palisa -> *ona li tawa tomo e palisa
But this is exactly the case of "lon kasi" used for "put in a tree":
 He placed a thing at/in a tree:
ona li lon e ijo lon kasi -/-> *ona li lon kasi e ijo.
As I said, we use a sequence: subject, action, object, place, so we expect that direct object, "e ijo", will be used before the place:
ona li X e ilo suno lon kasi. = He X a lamp on the tree.
ona li pakala e ilo suno lon kasi. = He damaged a lamp on the tree.
ona li lon e ilo suno lon kasi. = He placed a lamp on the tree.
janKipo
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by janKipo »

But your objection assumes that 'ona li lon tomo' is short for 'ona li lon lon tomo' and I don't see any reason to think that, since it is inherently self-contradictory: 'lon' does/doesn't take a noun complement. If 'lon tomo' is OK in one place, why not in the other, since all the P words behave the same in this. And thus there is no repeated word to put something between (none of these has been used as a noun enough to see whetherthis complement works there as well -- but I expect it is permissible, if not often desirable).
The place after the DO is for a preposition, but need not always be a place although the most usual prepositions are P words, which all do refer to place in some uses, but at least 'tan' and 'tawa' are at least as frequent in other meanings, and 'poka' and 'sama' are not placements at all.
jan-ante
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Re: POS - first pass

Post by jan-ante »

janKipo wrote: Of course, as a transitive verb, 'lon kasi' means "put in a tree" as much as "created herbally" (more so, I would think, since the latter does not make a lot of sense).
as a transitive verb it mean "create hrerbally" only, it mean "on tree" as a (quasi)preposition and it cannot mean "put in a tree".
to be honest, i dont believe you didnt get the point after all this discussion, but if you insist, then consider the following:
1. jan li lon telo e kiwen
2. jan li lon e kiwen lon telo
3. jan li pana e kiwen lon telo

you see that your innovations make a confusion. it cannot be solved by means an extra comma as a confusion between modifier and (quasi)preposition. the latter was you best innovation in tp (imo), but this new one is not good, dont you think so?
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