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kepeken e: Difference between revisions
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'''{{tp|kepeken e}}''' is the site of contention in a debate about toki pona grammar. It is a "corner case" whose interpretation is uncertain: everyone agrees that it is ''possible'' to follow the [[preposition]] [[kepeken]] with the [[transitivizing]] [[particle]] [[e]], but it is not clear what such a construction means, nor whether it should be used. By 2017, the possibility of transitive [[prepositional phrases]] (that is, prepositional phrases that act as the [[predicate]] of a sentence and that take an [[object]] introduced by [[e]]) made this problem more complex.<ref>jan Pensa, sona pona commit record (2023-07-30) https://sona.pona.la/w/index.php?title=kepeken_e&oldid=1570</ref> However, as of 2023 these constructions are still relatively uncommon, and the whole problem of whether [[e]] should follow [[kepeken]] remains of minor interest for those who are not specialists in the study of [[toki pona]] grammar.
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Recall that toki pona [[verbs]] take a [[direct object]] introduced by the [[particle]] [[e]]. It is expected that the reader understand this point before they attempt what follows.
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jan Lentan and jan Pije teach the latter style, and soweli Tesa and [[pu]] teach the former. [[ku]] gives official sanctions to both variants.
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One part of the differing interpretations is about what counts as being transitive: the verb or the predicate. Verbs are phrases consisting of content words, whereas predicates can be broader and include prepositions.
(Sidenote: The term "predicate" gets described differently across different sources. While according to some descriptions, "predicate" could mean anything after the subject, or anything after "li", or anything after a preverb - all of which would include "e" phrases - this article uses it to refer to any phrase within the main clause in a verb position. For toki pona, this means any phrase immediately following "li" - or "mi" or "sina" or "o" - ignoring preverbs, and excludes any subsequent part of the sentence beginning with "e" or a prepositional phrase. A second "li" phrase would be a second, separate predicate.)
===Preposition words as content words===
Any word that is used as a preposition may also be used as a content word. While prepositions have a more grammatical function, they carry with them semantic information, which informs what the word could mean as a non-preposition. [[pu]] is explicit only about two of the prepositions, noting ''tawa'' as an adjective meaning "moving", and ''sama'' as an adjective meaning "similar". It additionally uses ''lon'' in examples to mean "to be present". [[ku]] also notes: "Many people also use prepositions as nouns."
As a consequence, all preposition words as content words might not be completely universal. Derived meanings from prepositions mostly seem to be widely understood, with only some exceptions for edge cases such as the topic of this article. The meaning for kepeken as a transitive verb breaks down into:
====Conclusion====▼
{{Example
|mi kepeken e ilo la ilo li kepeken.
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This sort of sentence is necessarily ambiguous. Since ''tawa'' could be either a modifier or a preposition, and no feature of the language enables the speaker to distinguish the possibilities, both glosses above are equally plausible interpretations. The difference between them is usually described by saying that ''tawa'' is acting as a preposition in the former interpretation, and as a content word in the latter.
Generally, when a preposition heads a predicate it does not take the particle [[e]] with its object. However, since it is also possible to use the prepositions as content words, some interpretations of toki pona use follow ''kepeken'' by [[e]] when it heads a predicate, as though it were a transitive verb. The following examples are from [[jan Pije]]'s lessons and represent [[Toki Pona]] as it was spoken circa 2004.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20041217044933/http://tokipona.nytka.org/lesson/lesson6.html]jan Pije Lesson 6, circa 2004</ref>
{{Example
|mi kepeken e ilo.
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{{Example
|mi kepeken e poki ni.
|I'm using that cup.}}
This style is not universally accepted as of 2023: [[pu]] does not use the particle [[e]] in this context, and some even argue that it is erroneous.<ref>[https://mun.la/sona/kepeken.html jan Kekan San kepeken vs kepeken e]</ref> Others continue to teach and use it.<ref>[https://lipu-sona.pona.la/personal_style.html jan Lentan toki pona personal style]</ref>
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Some speakers hold that prepositions are never used as content words, and that when followed by [[e]] they apply the preposition to the object. For example, jan Juli argues that
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Seems to set a precedent for a prepositional interpretation, unless the latter is also interpreted as a transitive and intransitive verb. Since not all verbs are easily made one or the other, it is often more comfortable to analyze both cases as prepositional.
Unfortunately, there is no correct answer: the ambiguity in latent in toki pona itself. However, a few lines of flight appear. First: must we cling to the notion of "prepositions"? These words do generally act strangely, in that they can introduce sub-sections of a sentence; this seems to be a property restricted to the five "prepositions". On the other hand, it is not clear that this would change their meaning when made transitive: though the possibility of transitive prepositional ''phrases'' remains, the interpretation of the words ''alone'' as heads of a predicate is unclear. Perhaps in circumstances like these, the "prepositions" are all content words:
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