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Lexicalization: Difference between revisions
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Many concepts also come with cultural baggage, not fitting into Toki Pona's perspective. Any such lexicalization would lose a lot of nuance or import meaning dependent on a language not spoken by all listeners. It would also defeat the insight that Toki Pona is meant to provide.
For example, friendship means different things in different cultures. But what if {{tp|jan pona}} ("good person") were lexicalized and always meant "friend"? Even if you think dogs aren't {{tp|jan}}, you would call "man's best friend" {{tp|jan pona}} instead of {{tp|soweli pona}} ("good animal"). You would also lose the insight that a bad friend, {{tp|jan pona ike}}, is a contradiction. This is because {{tp|jan pona}} would be read as a unit, without thinking about what the individual words mean. Lexicalisation also makes it harder to refer to more specific things, making it counterintuitive. As an example, a gondola. That is a {{tp|tomo tawa}} (“moving room”), but that might be tied to a car. {{tp|tomo tawa kon}} would be tied to a plane. The ultimate phrase would have to be {{tp|tomo tawa kon pi sewi lili}} (“moving room of little height”).
==Size constraints==
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Let's estimate that there are about 120 [[content word]]s<ref group="lower-alpha">[[How many words does toki pona have?|The exact number of content words would vary.]]</ref>. The amount of 2-word phrases would be about 120<sup>2</sup> = 14 400. That might sound like a lot, but many of these would be for single words from other languages, like {{tp|tomo tawa}} for "car" or {{tp|jan pona}} for "friend". English alone has over ten times as many words in current use, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.
If enough head–[[modifier]] phrases were reserved in this way, modifiers would become much less useful. For example, you could not translate "red ball" as {{tp|sike loje}}, because that would refer to a fixed, more specific concept.
Considering the millions of concepts and phrases from all cultures, languages, and fields and subcultures with dedicated jargon, all 1 728 000 of the 3-word phrases could conceivably be filled up. Modifiers and simple [[preposition]]al phrases would become nearly useless—you could not translate "big car" as {{tp|tomo tawa suli}}, because it would mean something else like "truck" instead.
==Learning==
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