Grammar

Toki Pona grammar is the set of structural rules of Toki Pona. This includes the structure of phrases, clauses, sentences, and whole texts. This article describes a generalized view of a diversity of styles of speech or varieties of Toki Pona, over a wide span of time from the two decades since its creation in 2001.

Toki Pona is an analytic language, meaning that it conveys meaning through combination of words and particles as opposed to inflection, such as with affixes. Grammatical categories such as number, gender, tense, aspect, and mood are not obligatorily marked and are instead expressed through different means. The basic word order is subject–verb–object (SVO), as in English. Toki Pona is mostly a head-initial language, meaning that modifiers follow the words that they modify.

Word classes

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Content words

Main article: Content words

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Pronouns

Main article: Pronouns

Toki Pona has three personal pronouns and one demonstrative. None of the pronouns specify gender nor number, that is up for interpretation.

Numbers

Main article: Numbers

Names

Main article: Names

Prepositions

Main article: Prepositions

Preverbs

Main article: Preverbs

Particles

Main article: Particles

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Interjections

Main article: Interjections

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Syntax

Main article: Word order

The basic word order of Toki Pona is strictly subject–verb–object (SVO). These arguments are introduced or separated using particles, namely the particle li introduces the predicate (an action or state of the sentence), and the particle e introduces the direct object (that which the action is affecting). The particle li is used with any subject, apart from the words mi or sina alone, that is any third-person subject, as well as complex subjects (those composed of more than one word) with the words mi or sina.

There may be more complements, such as prepositional phrases and context phrases. Prepositional phrases are introduced with any preposition and normally go after the predicate and direct object, if any. Context phrases are introduced at the start of the phrase and are separated from the main sentence with la.

Context	la	SUBJECT	(li)	VERB	e	OBJECT	+	Prepositional Phrase

Context phrases

Context phrases or context clauses is a grammatical unit that adds contextual information and separated from the rest of the sentence by the particle la. It may be composed of a either a content phrase, a prepositional phrase, or an entire sentence.