Syntactic disambiguation

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toki pi li ki jo e the of logical[edit | edit source]

a bunch of nimisin for syntactical disambiguation, use or be disgusted by as many as you wish click the pencil at the top to edit

unambiguous toki pona kit:

  • lo before preps (maybe split preps into 2 words, one prep-only one content-only, for efficiency), lo is used post-ku to avoid collision with the word reserved by Sonja. Previously 'lu' was used
  • ja after preverbs/preps
  • mi li/sina li is allowed, and in fact required when there are more than 2 clauses
  • mi li tawa "i am movement", mi li tawa e "i move something", mi li tawa se "i move (myself)" *{not the se listed here}*
  • A li B li C e D only C applies to D
  • te/to of course very good yes, i suggest so (from lojban «zo») for quoting single words (and maybe a «zoi»-type quote for things that contain te/to)
  • also names are to be quoted now
  • we if you want i guess
  • pi and la nesting done by having more of the them
  • maybe actually keep compounds sorta vague because even lojban does that

~jan Kita

mi li/sina li[edit | edit source]

either always or just when there's another li later on, as in mi kama li tawa

lo[edit | edit source]

probably the most well-known one, marks the next word as a preposition usually doesn't imply that non-lo'd words aren't preps but in a loglang context it probably should. lo is not required when the word after is in the prepositional class (e.g. tawa, kepeken, lon, sama, tan), but it can be used to disambiguate. For example..

mi pana e tomo tawa sina - i give your car

mi pana e tomo lo tawa sina - i give you a house

lo can also make non prepositional class words prepositions. For example..

mi pali e ijo ni lo utala sina - I make this object in opposition to you.

mi pana e ijo mi tawa sina lo esun ijo sina - I give this thing to you in exchange for your thing.

probably also to be used for nanpa lo is used post-ku to avoid collision with the word reserved by Sonja. Previously, 'lu' was used.

ja[edit | edit source]

lo but for preverbs also marks the end of a compound prep

mi tawa ja pali e sitelen - i'm going (in order) to make some drawings

mi open ja olin ja telo e kasi - i'm starting to love watering the plants

mi wile mute ja sona e ni - i really want to know this

mi pali e ni lo kepeken wawa ja luka mi - i made this by vigorously using my hands

made by heav, jan Pensa, oni Tewi, jan Kita, and such (thread on ma pona)

stacked pi/la[edit | edit source]

te/to[edit | edit source]

we[edit | edit source]

redefined anu[edit | edit source]

works like lojban «sa» in that it takes the following word and backtracks to the previous instance thereof

sina li wile tawa tomo anu tawa telo anu tawa esun anu wile awen lon ni anu li ken ala tawa?

sina li wile tawa tomo
      |    \ tawa telo
      |    \ tawa esun
      \ wile awen lon ni
   \ li ken ala tawa

if not using sina li you might wanna use anu sina for the last one instead, or keep using anu li and say it's attaching to the shadow li

optional: if there's no match then it can fall back to replacing the current noun phrase

sina wile tawa tomo anu telo anu esun?

sina wile tawa tomo
             \ telo
             \ esun

but beware when using that, as one would have to beware of accidentally backtracking to the wrong thing

sina wile toki e lon sina anu wile sina?

sina wile toki e lon sina
   \ wile sina

for accessing previous instances maybe like, anu anu li for the second-to-last li? or if you have foresight you can add a near-meaningless word like a and attach to that ~~:nimisin: a countably infinite set of meaningless particles used for attaching anu to arbitrary places in arbitrarily complex sentences~~

a concept by jan Kita

sen[edit | edit source]

(the exact word may change) anti-lo, marks the next word as a regular content word

mi pana e tomo tawa sina - i give your car / ↓

mi pana e tomo sen tawa sina - i give you a house


ona li sona lili e ni - they know how to shrink that / ↓

ona li sen sona lili e ni - they know that a bit


o anu e jan sina - (some very odd grammar) / ↓

o sen anu e jan sina - choose your character


mi a nasa tan ni - the weird me(!) from this / ↓

mi sen a nasa tan ni - i aaa weirdly due to this


nimi sen sen li pona lili tawa mi - (idk honestly)

or should it be the previous word in which case what would lo sen be

by jan Kita