Discuss kin

Vive la résistance or something

others resist the use of kin without la as a conjunction

Sure, I resist it, let's go with that. =D

Ok, so, this is probably a bigger topic that doesn't just concern "kin". But to start with, this makes it look like speakers just use "kin la" out of habit, as a learned phrase maybe, rather than doing it for simply different reasons. Keeping in mind that grammar, as a model to describe the inner workings of the language, is not something that necessarily exists as a formula in people's minds, there might be many different reasons for why "kin la" is used.

New paragraph because this is describing my nasin and my nasin alone: The things that come before "la" are either full sentences or interjections. kin is an interjection. As a comparison, I don't use taso as an interjection, which is why "taso la" is not something I'd use. Using kin in front of a sentence without la would still make it a interjection in my ears, working similar to "a" in front of a sentence, making it actually separate from the sentence blah blah blah, not important here, that's a tangent.

The other issue I have is with the word "conjunction"... Personally, I wouldn't say that toki pona has conjunctions at all with certainty (yes, even when it comes to taso). But saying "la" is a conjunction seems... off? Reading "kin" or "kin la" as a conjunction also doesn't align with how I think of it, or of conjunctions. I should say, though, that how linguists think about things and how I think about things don't always agree.

Hmmm there's a lot of this that we don't have good data for.

Although... I once made a poll (a rare cross-platform poll across Discord, Reddit and Facebook) at the start of the year (2023-02-08): http://www.polljunkie.com/poll/gcataw/nimi-kin-en-nimi-a/view Back then, "kin la" outperformed sentence-initial "kin". Jan Ke Tami (talk) 13:00, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

I tweaked that section from the one in the taso article since the words seem in a similar situation grammatically. No objection to adding more nuance, will try to integrate your arguments but feel free to edit if it doesn't end up presented or worded properly.

"Conjunction" was supposed to refer to the use without la; Wiktionary describes "also" and "however" as conjunctive, so maybe that's slightly more accurate? Or maybe the heading should just be "Sentence-initial use" or "At the start of a sentence". Menasewi (talk) 13:17, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

sina pali wawa. Jan Ke Tami (talk) 14:04, 4 December 2023 (UTC)