View source for Vagueness vs. ambiguity

{{Essay}}
[[Toki Pona]] is often called '''ambiguous''', especially in comparison to other languages. While Toki Pona [[grammar]] allows some ambiguity, [[Tokiponist]]s such as {{tok|[[jan Misali]]}} argue that the property usually being described is actually '''vagueness'''.<ref>{{cite YouTube|id=2EZihKCB9iw|title=what is toki pona? (toki pona lesson one)|author={{tok|[[jan Misali]]}}|channel={{tok|jan Misali}}|handle=HBMmaster|date=Dec 16, 2021|access-date=2024-01-21}}</ref>

Something ''ambiguous'' could mean multiple separate things, whereas something ''vague'' can only mean one thing&mdash;it is just a very broad, but continuous, range of possibilities.

==Vagueness==

===Grammatical categories===
Out of [[context]], many Toki Pona sentences have no singular translation into English, because English requires speakers to always specify extra information such as [[number]] and [[tense]]. Therefore:

{{Example
|mi toki.
|2=I talk. / We are talking. / I talked. / We will talk. / I will have talked. / We used to talk. / &hellip;
}}

In Toki Pona, these are not separate concepts. It is one broad concept, of any number of people including the speaker, talking at any point in time.

[[Toki Pona is not exceptional]] in this regard. Many natural languages do not require these features to be marked, and it would be provincial to call them ambiguous because of it.

===Semantic spaces===
[[File:Blackberryraspberrystrawberry.jpg|thumb|180x180px|A plate of fruit. Is this description ambiguous, or just vague?]]
Another feature of Toki Pona is that words tend to have broad [[semantic space]]s.

A good comparison is the English word "fruit". It does not refer to any specific fruit, but it is not ambiguous. It does not potentially refer to apples <em>or</em> oranges <em>or</em> other fruits as separate, mutually exclusive concepts. Rather, the semantic space of "fruit" is broad and covers all of these concepts, and can even refer to a collection of apples <em>and</em> oranges <em>and</em> so on.

As a direct comparison, the Toki Pona word {{tp|[[kili]]}} encompasses fruits <em>and</em> vegetables, viewed as separate shades of the same thing: edible parts of {{tp|[[kasi]]}}. The main difference is that more specific words for apples, oranges, etc. do not exist.

Again, Toki Pona is not exceptional in this regard. Different natural languages have different words that cover different semantic spaces. You cannot reliably translate something by translating each word one-to-one. Sometimes, the target language has no equivalent to a term in the source language. At other times, there is a close match, but its semantic space is significantly broader or narrower than the original term.

==Ambiguity==

===Syntactic ambiguity===
{{Wikipedia|syntactic ambiguity}}
Syntactic ambiguity occurs when a [[sentence]] has multiple possible [[sentence structure]]s, allowing the sentence to be interpreted in multiple discrete ways. In Toki Pona, syntactic ambiguity often (if not always) stems from the [[parts of speech]].

Certain [[content word]]s double as [[preposition]]s, [[preverb]]s, or [[number]]s. Which sense is being used is entirely unmarked in standard Toki Pona, leading to multiple possible sentence structures.

{{Example
|mi pana e tomo <mark>tawa</mark> sina.
|(Preposition sense of {{tp|[[tawa]]}}:) I give shelter <mark>to</mark> you. <br />
([[Modifier]] sense of {{tp|tawa}}:) I gave away your <mark>moving</mark> room.
|mi pana e tomo <mark>tawa </mark>sina
}}

{{Example
|ona li jo e len <mark>luka</mark> tu.
|(Number sense of {{tp|[[luka]]}}:) They have seven (<mark>five</mark> and two) pieces of cloth.<br />(Non-numeric sense of {{tp|luka}}:) They have two <mark>hand</mark> cloths<!--(e.g. gloves, napkins&hellip;)-->.
|ona li jo e len <mark>luka </mark>tu
}}

There are also arguably discontinuities between senses in some of these words' semantic spaces, such as {{tp|[[lukin]]}} as a preverb ("to try") and a normal content word ("look").

==={{tp|monsutatesu}}===
Ambiguities may also arise from the inconsistent or circular derivation of content word meanings between noun, verb, and modifier positions. The {{tp|[[monsutatesu]]}} occurs when this results in a word having conflicting meanings as a verb.

For a popular example, {{tp|[[lipu pu]]}} defines {{tp|[[moku]]}} as a verb meaning "to eat". When used as a noun, it is interpreted as something that is eaten: "food". If this noun sense is used as a verb, it means "to be food". Therefore:

{{Example
|mi moku.
|I eat.<br />I am food.
}}

However, at least in this case, the intended meaning is usually clear from [[context]]; and Toki Pona is again not exceptional here, as several natural languages have an "eat&ndash;food" ambiguity (such as {{bor|tpi|kaikai|nocat=-}}) or an "eats&ndash;eaten" ambiguity.{{wh|which?}}

==References==
<references />

[[Category:Grammar]]