Toki Pona/Printable version

Toki Pona

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Demographic information

Name of Language

In Toki Pona, the language refers to itself as "toki pona" which translates to "The Language of Good." It is abbreviated as tp, and is usually written in lower case according to the conventions of the language.

Ethnology

The people who use Toki Pona are called users, since they generally do not speak it casually. This page focuses on the community of people that speaks the language, whether casually or formally.

Demography

The language is used by constructed language fans, almost entirely in written messages across the internet. These fans are geographically spread across North and South America, Europe, Russia, Australia, Malaysia and Japan. Of these, Canada, the US and East and West Europe are most heavily represented. There is a notable lack of Toki Pona users in China, South East Asia and Africa.

Genetic Affiliation

Toki Pona is a relatively new constructed language created in 2001. Constructed languages by definition do not evolve from an existing natural language, instead being created by an individual or group. As an a posteriori language, it draws vocabulary and grammar from other world languages. Toki Pona's grammatical structure is most similar to that of the Indo-European languages, but it displays some Japonic elements as well.

Previous Research

Toki Pona has been referenced in various journals. Because the language is small and well developed, some researchers opt to use it for linguistic developments in lieu of a custom constructed language for the purpose of experimentation.

The sociolinguistic situation

Toki Pona's main community is online, so it lacks many features one would expect of naturally created creole or pidgin languages (a language based on the mixture of two or more language's speakers). In this community, most speakers do not share common interests, rather having joined the community as language, constructed language, and linguistics enthusiasts. This group contrasts a true pidgin or creole, both of which usually arise from a situation where a group of individuals is forced to quickly learn to communicate with a dominant, linguistically differing group.

Dialects

Toki Pona exhibits no formal or documented dialects apart from the various proposed vocabulary extensions, which receive mixed usage. Individuals who speak the language may have their own idiolect, or personal way of speaking, but these types of dialects do not extend over large groups of speakers.

Morphological typology

Morphological Typology

toki pona is an isolation language. The morphological processes are limited to possible clitics. No content words inflect.

"A bound morpheme is a morpheme that must be attached to some other morpheme to be integrated naturally into a discourse." 1997 Payne

Bound Morphemes

The following words cannot stand alone:

• pi – a variety of meanings, including "of", "has", or a logical grouping operator
• e – accusative clitic
• li – verb phrase marker
• lon, sama, kepeken, tan, tawa – These are the prepositions.

"A clitic is bound morpheme that functions at a phrasal or clausal level, but which binds phonologically to some other word, known as the host." 1997 Payne

More bound clitics

The particles pi, e and the prepositions are clitics that consistently have the same host. The pi always precedes a noun and no other word can go between the pi and the noun without changing the sense of the phrase. This is also true for prepositions. The pi and propositions apply to the entire following phrase.

How bound is pi? One test is to examine how pi reacts to conjunctions.

mi lukin e soweli pi ma Sonko

I saw the Chinese animals.

? mi lukin e soweli pi telo en ma. ? mi lukin e soweli pi ma en telo. I saw the animal of the land and sea.

The specs to date do not make it clear if conjuncted modifiers or pi-complements are legal.

How bound is e? en doesn't move e from its head noun, but anu does. mi lukin e soweli anu waso. mi lukin e waso anu soweli.

Less bound clitics- Grammatical Particles

Auxiliary or serial verbs may go between li and the head verb. li marks the beginning of a verb phrase that continues until the e or first preposition.

Depending on how you parse the phrases with compound prepositions (lon + geographic word), lon can be split from its head noun.

soweli li lape lon anpa supa. The animal sleeps under the bed.

Periphrasal Patterns

Because toki pona is strongly isolating, the equivalent of derivational operations do not involve binding morphemes. This doesn't mean that these processes don't exist, but instead they are clausal or discourse level operations.

There isn't any bound infixation, but at the phrasal level, plural markers can be inserted in the middle of the phrase.

tomo pi telo nasa / tomo mute pi telo nasa: house(s) of strange water/houses of strange water

jan pona / jan pona mute ? jan mute pona: good person(s)/good people

Stems or base words are never modified. Reduplication has no special meaning.

Note that singularity or plurality is not the default. "tomo" can both mean one building or multiple buildings.

Head/Dependent Marking

It isn't clear if the head or the dependents are being marked.

lipu jan The man's book.

lipu mute jan The man's books.

lipu mute pi jan mute The people's books.

Grammatical categories

Nouns

Nouns are nouns primarily on account of where they appear in a sentence. Almost any content word can be used as a noun.

Individual nouns exhibit no internal structure. All noun operations with analogies in other languages are done at the noun phrase level.

The noun phrases has the following basic structure.

noun modifier possessor pi noun phrase

The following words are the pronouns

mi, sina These pronouns are worth considering separately because their meaning is resolved by context and doesn't refer to anything mentioned earlier. Both of these nouns at times take modifiers, usually mute, tu, or rarely suli.

ona This pronoun can be anaphora for anything mentioned, to be mentioned or in context. Unlike languages like Chinese, which use a similar pronoun, this word can't be dropped entirely. In Chinese, when the subject of the anaphora is clear, not only does the gender and number not need to be mentioned, the pronoun doesn't need to be mentioned. In toki pona, subject can never be dropped and objects usually are not dropped.

ona sometimes takes modifiers, usually mije, meli, mute

ni This is usually translated as "this" and is supposed to indicate the anaphora used when pointing, say with a finger. Because toki pona is almost never used in face to face situations, the word is used much the same as ona, except that ni can refer to an entire sentence, where as ona can't and primarily refers to a noun phrase.

• * li lukin. It is always wrong to drop a subject.
• ? jan li lukin. The man sees (something). This may be wrong if the speaker meant a transitive sense of the word.
• jan li lukin e ijo. The man sees something. This is always correct.

Repeated Head Nouns When a head noun is repeated, it refers back to an earlier mention. These anaphora strategy can create ambiguity if it isn't clear that the repeated head noun is the same or a new player on the stage.

waso pi tawa wawa li lon ma Oselija. waso li suli li ken tawa ala kon. The emu is in Australia. It is large and flightless.

Verbs

The verb phrase appears immediately after the li in a sentence.

Verbs have no internal structure. All verb processes are dealt with at the phrase level.

Verbs are intransitive, transitive, prepositional, and those that take unmarked complements. All verbs can increase their valence by adding prepositional phrases.

Intransitive. jan li suli. The man is making things big. | The man is big.

Transitive. jan li suli e kasi. The man is making plants big.

Predicative Prepositions of Motion. Most predicate constructions convey a static situation. The tawa prepositional phrase conveys a sense of motion.

• jan li tawa ma ante. The man went to another country.

Prepositional. When prepositional phrases are used with a direct object complement, usually with tawa or lon, their meaning changes to mean move and place/affix respectively.

• jan li tawa e soweli tawa ma ante. The man moves the animal to a different country.
  
• jan li lon e ilo musi lon kasi kiwen anpa. The man places toys under the tree.

Verbs Taking Unmarked Complements The verb of talking are the most likely to be used this way, although it is more common that the complement be treated as a direct object.

• mi toki pi pali mi. I speak about my work.
• (more commonly) mi toki e pali mi

Serial/Auxiliary Verbs jan li ken pali. The man can work.

• see mood for more on this

Serial verbs go between li and the head verb.

Verb Operations

Verb operations are entirely done at the lexical or periphrastic level.

verb agreement/concord. The verb phrase does not change to agree with the subject.

• jan li pali. The man works.
• jan mute li pali. The men work.
• jan mute li pali mute. The men work a lot.
• jan mute li pali mute e tomo. The men work on the houses a lot.

semantic role markers/applicatives. N/A ?

valence increasing devices. Valence can be increase by complementing a verb phrase with an unmarked noun phrase, a direct object or a prepositional phrase. The only thing barring a verb from taking a direct object or any of the prepositional phrases is deciding what those sentences might mean. Unmarked noun phrases are rare.

valence decreasing devices. Subjects are always obligatory. The direct object might be obligatory, it isn't clear yet.

• 1) mi moli. I die.
• 2) mi moli e jan. I kill someone.

It isn't clear if sentence 1) can mean "I kill someone"

Reflexive and reciprocals can't dispense with the direct object. It can be replaced with "sama" as anaphora.

• jan li lukin e sama. The man saw himself.
• meli en mije li lukin e sama. The man and the women saw each other.

tense/aspect/mode Tense is handled with la fragments, which are noun phrases followed by la, using the words pini, kama, ni for past, future and now respectively. The la fragment can also use a characteristic activity or quality of such a time to mark the time or tense.

tenpo ni la jan li pali. Now the men are working. tenpo pali la jan li pali ala. The men weren't working during their normal hours of work.

aspect is sometimes expressed through modifiers to the main verb.

? jan li pali pini e pali ona. The man completed his work.

mood is usually expressed through auxiliary verbs which precede the main verb.

• jan li ken pali. The man can work.
• jan li wile pali. The man wants to work.
• jan li lukin pali. The man tries to work.

mood, in some cases, can be expressed with adverbs which go after the verb.

• jan li lape ken. The man might sleep.

subordination/nominalization By placing a prototypical verb in a noun phrase, it means "such activity." or the English "ing." There are some set phrases with the prototypical object as a modifier compliment. There are also set phrases with a noun and a prototypical verb in modifier position.

• pana sona - teaching "giving knowledge"
• pana pi sona nasa - teaching weird stuff "giving weird knowledge"
• in a full sentence: olin soweli li pona - loving animals is good.

verb negation Verbs are negated by placing ala after the verb.

Amounts and Numbers

There are many competing number systems, none of which are in wide usage. There are a few official ones The most common is 0/1/2/5/20/100:

• ala - 0
• wan - 1
• tu - 2
• luka - 5
• mute - 20
• ale | ali - 100

There are also a couple of approximant amounts. These are extremely common and appear more often than specific numbers.

• lili - few, little, not many
• mute - many, multiple, several
• ale | ali - all, every, whole; bountiful, plentiful

Adverbs

Adverbs are rarely used. The most common are suli, lili, wawa, mute, ken, and ala. Adverbs go directly after the verb.

jan li pali wawa. The man built fast. jan li pali wawa e tomo. The man built the house fast.

Instead of putting the adverb right after the verb. You can put it at the beginning followed by the word, "la."

wawa la mi tawa. quickly, I moved. ken la mi lape. possibly, I will sleep.

Constituent order typology

Toki Pona is an SVO, nominative-accusative language. There are no signs of ergativity of any sort. It is a rigid constituent order language that leaves very few phrases free with respect to word order.

Noun Phrase

Modifiers can be arranged in any order, but the order is significant. Later modifiers affect the whole preceding phrase.

Modifier Order sometimes doesn't significantly affect meaning.

• 1) soweli suli wawa - a powerful large animal (a large animal that is also powerful)
• 2) soweli wawa suli - a large powerful animal (a powerful animal that is also large)

Adpositional Phrases

Toki Pona has prepositions. They are closer to clitics or cases because they attach before the head noun and nothing else can go between the preposition and the head noun.

Comparatives

Toki Pona uses discourse to express comparatives. It doesn't have a construction that easily matches the standard-marker-quality pattern found in some languages.

soweli li suli mute. waso li suli lili. The animal is very large. The bird is 'small-ly' large. I.e., The animal is larger than the bird.

Question particles and question words

Yes/no questions can be asked either by using the V-ala-V pattern:

• jan li moli ala moli e jan utala? Did the man kill the soldier?

• jan li suli ala suli? Is the man great?

Or by adding "anu seme?" ("Or what?") at the end:

• jan li moli e jan utala anu seme? Did the man kill the soldier?
• jan li suli anu seme? Is the man great?

seme is the question word and it appears where the unknown piece of information would appear.

• 1) seme li moli e jan? Who killed the man?
• 2) jan li moli e seme? The man killed who?
• 3) jan li moli seme e jan? How did the man kill the other?
• 4) ? jan li seme e jan? What did he do to the other man?
• 5) tenpo seme la jan li moli e jan? When did the man kill the other?
• 6) jan li moli e jan kepeken seme? What did the man kill the other with?

There is no obvious pattern in predicate sentences.

• 1) jan li seme?
• 2) seme li jan?

Greenberg's Parameters

1. Main clause V-O
2. adpositions prepositions
3. genitive and head noun - N-G
4. head noun and modifier N-M
5. relative clauses and head noun- Not entirely applicable, but the sentence with the head noun is first and is followed by the sentence that describes the other noun. jan li lukin e ni: jan li pali.
6. comparatives- Not applicable
7. Inflected Auxiliary- not entirely applicable, but Aux-V
8. Question particles- No question particle.
9. Question words- Not sure.
10. affixes - Not entirely applicable, but clitics precede their phrases.

So with few exceptions in the cases where Toki Pona doesn't have the exact same sort of construction, Toki Pona fits the patterns of Greenburg's parameters.

ModOne

Phonology

Toki Pona is a language of very minimal sounds, in order to be easily pronounced by the greatest number of people. Its consonants lack voicing, gemination, and clusters, while vowels are only monophthongs and do not register length.

Vowels

In Toki Pona, you use the same five vowels, but they have only one strict pronunciation, similar to Spanish or Japanese vowels.

Vowel	Pronounced Like...
a	father
e	met
i	peel
o	bond
u	mood

Consonants

Excluding j, the phonetic sounds of the nine consonants used in Toki Pona are the same as English, and there is flexibility in how one can pronounce it.

Consonant	Pronounced like...
k	kill or gills
l	let
m	man
n	near
p	poke or boat
s	salt or zoo
t	talk or dog
w	water
*j	yet

WordTpEn

Official Word List

Total 123 words from the official word list in the book at [1].

a

interj ah, ha, uh, oh, ooh, aw, well (emotion word)

akesi

n reptile, amphibian

ala

mod no, not, none, un-

n nothing, negation, zero

interj no!

alasa

vt gather, hunt, forage

ale, ali

n everything, anything, life, universe

mod all, every, complete, whole

anpa

n bottom, lower part, under, below, floor, beneath

mod low, lower, bottom, down, lowly, humble, dependant

ante

n difference

mod different

conj otherwise, or else

vt change, alter, modify

anu

conj or

awen

vi stay, wait, remain, stop

vt keep

mod remaining, stationary, permanent, sedentary

e

sep (introduces a direct object)

en

conj and (used to coordinate head nouns)

esun

n market, shop, business, trading, selling, buying

ijo

n thing, something, stuff, anything, object

mod of something

vt objectify

ike

mod bad, negative, wrong, evil, overly complex, (figuratively) unhealthy

interj oh dear! woe! alas!

n negativity, badness, evil

vt to make bad, to worsen, to have a negative effect upon

vi to be bad, to suck

[sounds like icky]

ilo

n tool, device, machine, thing used for a specific purpose

insa

n inside, inner world, centre, stomach

mod inner, internal

[inside]

jaki

mod dirty, gross, filthy

n dirt, pollution, garbage, filth

vt pollute, dirty

interj ew! yuck!

[yucky]

jan

n person, people, human, being, somebody, anybody

mod human, somebody's, personal, of people

vt personify, humanize, personalize

jelo

mod yellow, light green

[yellow]

jo

vt have, contain

n having

kama receive, get, take, obtain

kala

n fish, sea creature

kalama

n sound, noise, voice

vi make noise

vt sound, ring, play (an instrument)

kama

vi come, become, arrive, happen, pursue actions to arrive to (a certain state), manage to, start to

n event, happening, chance, arrival, beginning

mod coming, future

vt bring about, summon

[come up]

kasi

n plant, leaf, herb, tree, wood

ken

vi can, is able to, is allowed to, may, is possible

n possibility, ability, power to do things, permission

vt make possible, enable, allow, permit

cont it is possible that

kepeken

vt use

prep with

kili

n fruit, vegetable, mushroom

kin

mod also, too, even, indeed (emphasizes the word(s) before it)

kipisi

n part, partition

vt split, cut, divide

kiwen

mod hard, solid, stone-like, made of stone or metal

n hard thing, rock, stone, metal, mineral, clay

ko

n semi-solid or squishy substance, e.g. paste, powder, gum

kon

n air, wind, smell, soul

mod air-like, ethereal, gaseous

kule

n colour, paint

mod colourful

vt colour, paint

kulupu

n group, community, society, company, people

mod communal, shared, public, of the society

[group]

kute

vt listen, hear

mod auditory, hearing

la

sep (between adverb or phrase of context and sentence)

lape

n, vi sleep, rest

mod sleeping, of sleep

laso

mod blue, blue-green

lawa

n head, mind

mod main, leading, in charge

vt lead, control, rule, steer

len

n clothing, cloth, fabric

lete

n cold

mod cold, uncooked

vt cool down, chill

li

sep "(between any subject except mi and sina and its verb; also used to introduce a new verb for the same subject)"

lili

mod small, little, young, a bit, short, few, less

vt reduce, shorten, shrink, lessen

linja

n long, very thin, floppy thing, e.g. string, rope, hair, thread, cord, chain

lipu

n flat and bendable thing, written text or information

loje

mod red

lon

prep be (located) in/at/on

vi be there, be present, be real/true, exist, be awake

luka

n hand, arm

lukin

vt see, look at, watch, read

vi look, watch out, pay attention

mod visual(ly)

[looking]

lupa

n hole, orifice, window, door

[sounds like loop]

ma

n land, earth, country, (outdoor) area

mama

n parent, mother, father

mod of the parent, parental, maternal, fatherly

[sounds like momma]

mani

n money, material wealth, currency, dollar, capital

[money]

meli

n woman, female, girl, wife, girlfriend

mod female, feminine, womanly

[Mary]

mi

n I, we

mod my, our

[me]

mije

n man, male, boy, husband, boyfriend

mod male, masculine, manly

moku

n food, meal

vt eat, drink, swallow, ingest, consume

moli

n death

vi die, be dead

vt kill

mod dead, deadly, fatal

monsi

n back, rear end, butt, behind

mod back, rear

mu

interj woof! meow! moo! etc. (animal noise)

[moo]

mun

n moon

mod lunar

[moon]

musi

n fun, playing, game, recreation, art, entertainment

mod artful, fun, recreational

vi play, have fun

vt amuse, entertain

mute

mod many, very, much, several, a lot, abundant, numerous, more

n amount, quantity

vt make many or much

[multi]

namako

n food additive, accessory, something extra

vt season, embellish, stimulate

nanpa

n number

oth -th (ordinal numbers)

[number]

nasa

mod silly, crazy, foolish, drunk, strange, stupid, weird

vt drive crazy, make weird

nasin

n way, manner, custom, road, path, doctrine, system, method

nena

n bump, nose, hill, mountain, button

ni

mod this, that

nimi

n word, name

noka

n leg, foot

o

sep O (vocative or imperative)

interj hey! (calling somebody's attention)

oko

n eye

[similar to oculist]

olin

n love

mod love

vt to love (a person)

ona

n she, he, it, they

mod her, his, its, their

open

vt open, turn on

pakala

n blunder, accident, mistake, destruction, damage, breaking

vt screw up, fuck up, botch, ruin, break, hurt, injure, damage, spoil, ruin

vi screw up, fall apart, break

interj damn! fuck!

pali

n activity, work, deed, project

mod active, work-related, operating, working

vt do, make, build, create

vi act, work, function

palisa

n long, mostly hard object, e.g. rod, stick, branch

pan

n grain, cereal

pana

vt give, put, send, place, release, emit, cause

n giving, transfer, exchange

pi

sep of, belonging to

pilin

n feelings, emotion, heart

vi feel

vt feel, think, sense, touch

[feeling]

pimeja

mod black, dark

n darkness, shadows

vt darken

pini

n end, tip

mod completed, finished, past, done, ago

vt finish, close, end, turn off

pipi

n bug, insect, spider

poka

n side, hip, next to

prep in the accompaniment of, with

mod neighbouring

poki

n container, box, bowl, cup, glass

[box]

pona

n good, simplicity, positivity

mod good, simple, positive, nice, correct, right

interj great! good! thanks! OK! cool! yay!

vt improve, fix, repair, make good

[bonam]

pu

vi interact with the official toki pona book

sama

mod same, similar, equal, of equal status or position

prep like, as, seem

seli

n fire, warmth, heat

mod hot, warm, cooked

vt heat, warm up, cook

selo

n outside, surface, skin, shell, bark, shape, peel

seme

oth what, which, wh- (question word)

sewi

n high, up, above, top, over, on

mod superior, elevated, religious, formal

sijelo

n body, physical state

sike

n circle, wheel, sphere, ball, cycle

mod round, cyclical

sin

mod new, fresh, another, more

vt renew, renovate, freshen

sina

n you

mod your

sinpin

n front, chest, torso, face, wall

sitelen

n picture, image

vt draw, write

sona

n knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, understanding

vt know, understand, know how to

vi know, understand

kama learn, study

soweli

n animal, especially land mammal, lovable animal

suli

mod big, tall, long, adult, important

vt enlarge, lengthen

n size

suno

n sun, light

supa

n horizontal surface, e.g furniture, table, chair, pillow, floor

suwi

n candy, sweet food

mod sweet, cute

vt sweeten

[sweet]

tan

prep from, by, because of, since

n origin, cause

taso

mod only, sole

conj but

[that's all]

tawa

prep to, in order to, towards, for, until

vi go to, walk, travel, move, leave

n movement, transportation

mod moving, mobile

vt move, displace

[towards]

telo

n water, liquid, juice, sauce

vt water, wash with water

tenpo

n time, period of time, moment, duration, situation

toki

n language, talking, speech, communication

mod talking, verbal

vt say

vi talk, chat, communicate

interj hello! hi!

tomo

n indoor constructed space, e.g. house, home, room, building

mod urban, domestic, household

tonsi

n non-binary, transgender, non-conforming

tu

mod two

n duo, pair

vt double, separate/cut/divide in two

[two]

unpa

n sex, sexuality

mod erotic, sexual

vt have sex with, sleep with, fuck

vi have sex

uta

n mouth

mod oral

utala

n conflict, disharmony, competition, fight, war, battle, attack, blow, argument, physical or verbal violence

vt hit, strike, attack, compete against

walo

mod white, light (colour)

n white thing or part, whiteness, lightness

[sounds like wall, which is often white]

wan

mod one, a

n unit, element, particle, part, piece

vt unite, make one

[one]

waso

n bird, winged animal

wawa

n energy, strength, power

mod energetic, strong, fierce, intense, sure, confident

vt strengthen, energize, empower

weka

mod away, absent, missing

n absence

vt throw away, remove, get rid of

wile

vt to want, need, wish, have to, must, will, should

n desire, need, will

mod necessary

Parts of Speech

• n head noun
• mod modifier (adjective or adverb)
• sep separator
• vt verb, transitive (normally used with e)
• vi verb, intransitive
• interj interjection
• prep quasi-preposition
• conj conjunction
• kama compound verb preceded by kama
• cont context word used before la
• oth special, other word