Can we add to the ambiguitiy here?

[janMato]

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2244
I think we can...

wan la jan li wile e ni tawa weka pi ma "Afganistan": ma lawa li pali. jan sona pi ma "Germany" li toki e ni: jan utala lawa li ijo pakala. ona mute li toki e ni: jan lawa pi mute ike li ken ala lukin e nimi sitelin anu sitelen e nimi anu weka e kiwen lili kepeken palisa moli anu kama jo e mani namako tan jan pi lawa pakala.

"A functioning police force is seen as a prerequisite for a Western withdrawal from Afghanistan. German trainers, however, paint a disastrous picture of the quality of Afghan security forces. Too many police, they say, can't read or write, can't shoot straight or take bribes."

[jan-ante]

a!a!a! jan pi kulupu NATO o tawa ala tan ma Afgan, o awen lon ma Afgan, o moli lon ma Afgan

wan la jan li wile e ni tawa weka pi ma "Afganistan":

jan (ike) li wile weka tan ma Afgan. taso nanpa wan la ona li wile e ni

ma lawa li pali.

may be jan lawa?

jan utala lawa li ijo pakala.

jan is not an ijo. this is the main error of jan NATO

jan lawa pi mute ike li ken ala lukin e nimi sitelin anu sitelen e nimi anu weka e kiwen lili kepeken palisa moli anu kama jo e mani namako tan jan pi lawa pakala.

no anu here. use li: li ken ala kk e ilo moli lon nasin pona. also namako is unnecessary here

[janKipo]

Tricky DeMorgan problem. If you use repeated 'li', the 'ala' gets lost in the first predication, so you need to drop 'ken' and repeat 'ala' every time, except the last, of course. On the other hand, if you use 'anu' it is not perfectly clear that the 'ala' carries over -- and the last case has to be separated off (now by 'li').
'namako' is a nice touch, though.

[janMato]

I'll take the devil's advocate position here. Pidgins should be neutral-- (as in neutral morphosyntactic alignment http://wiki.frath.net/Morphosyntactic_alignment). Co-ordination should not have to happen unless the ambiguity leaves equally likely choices. In a long series of criticism of negative qualities, we should expect that the last item is a negative evaluation, even if it can be interpreted as criticism of a positive quality. In tp where we have no choice but to suffer ambiguity, it should be distressing in the worst of the worst cases.

[janKipo]

I don't doubt the item is a negative criticism, but syntactically it is still in the scope of 'ken ala' and the point is not that they can't take bribes but rather that they actually do take bribes.

[janMato]

good point, triple ambiguity

- they do take bribes
- they don't take bribes
- they do an ineffective job at taking bribes.

[janKipo]

Well, only the second is clearly there, though the third is a nice reading of 'ken ala. The first does require a rewrite, unless you think the force of the ken ala might deteriorate over the space,

[jan Kanso]

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2244
I think we can...

wan la jan li wile e ni tawa weka pi ma "Afganistan": ma lawa li pali. jan sona pi ma "Germany" li toki e ni: jan utala lawa li ijo pakala. ona mute li toki e ni: jan lawa pi mute ike li ken ala lukin e nimi sitelin anu sitelen e nimi anu weka e kiwen lili kepeken palisa moli anu kama jo e mani namako tan jan pi lawa pakala.

"A functioning police force is seen as a prerequisite for a Western withdrawal from Afghanistan. German trainers, however, paint a disastrous picture of the quality of Afghan security forces. Too many police, they say, can't read or write, can't shoot straight or take bribes."

Eventually :

jan lawa pi ma mani li toki e ni :

mi mute li wile weka e jan utala pi mi mute tan ma Akanisa. taso ma Akanisa li jo ala e kulupu pona pi jan utala pi nasin ma. jan utala mute pi nasin ma li sona ala e sitelen toki li ken ala sitelen li sona ala kepeken e ilo utala ona li kama jo ike e mani pi jan Akanisa. tan ni la mi mute li ken ala weka tan ma Akanisa.

Retro-translation :

The governments of the rich coutries say this :

we want to take our soldiers out of Afganistan. But Afganistan has no good police. Many police officers don't know the letters and cannot write and don't know how to use their weapons and take money in a bad manner from Afgan people. That's why we cannot leave Afganistan.

jan Kanso