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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
==Transitivity==
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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In this sentence, we can discern an actor (soweli), an acted-upon (waso), and some action or process that connects them (alasa). The particles [[li]] and [[e]] indicate which words play which roles in the sentence, along with toki pona's [[word order]].
In a sentence the
{{Example
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}}
In a sentence where the ordinary sense of the
{{Example
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|They're eating like animals.}}
Like the particle [[e]], [[prepositions]] are followed by a [[noun phrase]]. A prepositional phrase can also be the
{{Example
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|The children go to school.}}
The word [[kepeken]], when at the head of a predicate, is variously treated as a [[transitive verb]] or as a [[preposition]]. In terms of
{{Example
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However, using prepositions as content words makes certain sentences ambiguous. A classic example, coined on 2002-05-28 by [[Nikita Ayzikovsy]] on the [[
{{Example
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|I use the tool so the tool is in use.<br>I make the tool use [something] so the tool uses it.}}
These two interpretations interrogate our intuitions about the word "kepeken": ultimately, is it a content word that acts transitively to produce a
{{Example
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