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la is a particle of toki pona used to separate a sentence from its context.

Functions of la

la is a context particle. Anything that comes before la in a sentence is taken as context for the rest of the sentence. "X la Y" –> "in the context of X, Y."

ma mi la kon li lete.: In the context of my land, the air is cold.; The air in my country is cold.

It can be used to convey the same information as lon. Anything that you would say after a prepositional lon, you could put before a la and it would mean the same thing.

mi pilin pona lon tenpo ni.: tenpo ni la mi pilin pona.

jan mute li lon ma ni.: ma ni la jan mute li lon.

It can also move other prepositional phrases to the front, often negating the need for the preposition (but not always).

ni li pona tawa mi.: mi la ni li pona.; tawa mi la ni li pona.

sina pali e ni tan seme: tan seme la sina pali e ni.

A la-phrase can even take entire sentences under it, making a conditional phrase

suno li loje la tenpo li pona.: When the sun is red, the time is right.

sina weka la mi pilin ike.: If you leave, I'll feel sad.; When you leave, I feel sad.

Idioms

Certain la phrases are used with particular meanings.

ni la: so/then
ante la: in any case/anyway

External resources

@@ Line 42: / Line 42: @@
 * [https://sowelitesa.kittycat.homes/lipu-sona/15 soweli Tesa]
 * [https://htmlpreview.github.io/?https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jan-Lope/Toki_Pona_lessons_English/gh-pages/toki-pona-lessons_en/index.html#SECTION002200000000000000000 jan Lope Conditional Sentences]
-*[https://github.com/kilipan/nasin-toki#the-particle-la nasin toki pona]
+* [https://github.com/kilipan/nasin-toki#the-particle-la nasin toki pona]
+* [https://mun.la/sona/la.html jan Kekan San Context and la]
 [[Category:Particles]]