Double objects

A theoretical possibility had occurred to me and then an actual case arose.  The theory is this: 'ken' takes whole VPs as complements, that is verb plus object plus prepositional phrases: "He can hunt birds in the forest": 'ona li ken (alasa e waso lon ma pi kasi suli)'.  'ken' is also a transitive verb meaning "enable" with DO for what is enabled and a complement for what it is enabled to do "Bill allowed Joe to hunt on his land" 'jan Pili li ken alasa lon ma sama e jan So' (or is it 'li ken e jan So alasa lon ma sama'?  It certainly is not 'li ken alasa e jan So lon ma sama', which clearly means that Bill can hunt Joe).  Clearly something has happened to the structure here.  In this case, the PP actually helps matters, since, if we drop it we get 'li ken alasa e jan So' immediately, which tends toward the non-transitive 'ken' reading, though keeps the grammar clear -- for both readings.  On the other hand, 'li ken e jan So alasa'  is clear but more difficult to fit into the grammar, where VP ends with the DO in the absence of a PP.

Now, suppose what is allowed involves an object as well, bird hunting again, say.  We end with
jan Pili li ken alasa e waso e jan So (so Joe is still a possible target on one natural reading) or
jan Pili li ken e jan So alasa e waso.

Once actual cases are laid out, the conclusion seems clear: the second option is to be taken.  Thus, the slot "Modal" becomes more complex than it seemed; it is not just the modal word plus possibly modifiers of manner and negation but also a possible direct object.  After all that the VP comes in.  I think that some examples of this use of 'ken' (and I suppose 'wile' and maybe others) have dealt with the situation otherwise, but I can't find any cases to check.

And then, I note that, if the DO of the modal is not a name, we get another structural ambiguity ' ona li ken e waso laso pona e tomo'  "He allows the bird to paint his nest a nice blue"  or "he allows the blue bird to fix his nest".  So, no solution really works and we have to rely on context (as usual).

'sama' as pronoun

 'sama' is listed as both the reflexive and the reciprocal pronoun for toki pona, for "-self" and "each other".  That is, at some deeper level, the 'sama' as object arises from a more complex structure involving the subject as well.  The simplest cases are:

x li V e x  => x li V e sama

x li V e y, y li V e x => x en y li V e sama
(Some verbs are inherently reciprocal, e.g., 'wan', maybe 'unpa', so only one of the pair need be given.)

Similar rules will work for the case of prepositional objects, including the complements of prepositions as verbs and for modifiers.  But the details seem (to me, now) to get a bit messy, so I'll skip over them.

The case for modifiers and prepositions seems to be just what one expects, the same as above with "M (pi)x"  replacing "V e x" etc. through out, where M might be very complex, involving a verb, perhaps, and objects and other prepositions.  So the whole can be summed up as
x G x => x G sama
xG y, y G x => x en y G sama
There are surely some restrictions on these but just what are not yet clear.

Some complications can arise, ambiguities in fact.
given that is is (almost) always possible to drop the object of transitive verbs, with marginal loss of meaning,
x li V e y, y li V e x => x en y li V e sama => x en y li V

x li V e w => x li V  } => x en y li V [taso e sama ala]

y li V e z => y li V

 x li V e w, y li V e w => x en y li V e sama
(This is a more semantic or pragmatic rule, so probably has a lot of conditions on it.)

Some fine points

This is not strictly about words, but about some constructions which have been discussed on various forums lately.  It is not perfectly clear (to me, at least) whether these are changes from earlier situations, e.g., Pije's lessons, or clarifications or extrapolations from them.  Nor is it clear that these are the final answers, but they are the standard for now (I think).

1.  No 'pi' with 'nanpa' followed by a number.  This does go against at least one example in Pije, but agrees with several early texts.  The pattern is to bring ordinal numbers into line with cardinals: we do not use 'pi' with numbers which take more than one word: 'tu wan', 'luka luka' and the like.  (Note, by the way, that 'luka' as "five," while regularly deprecated, is universally used.).  Thus, just as "three men" is 'jan tu wan' and not 'jan pi tu wan', the third man is designated 'jan nanpa tu wan'.  That is, 'nanpa' initiates a right grouped number.

2.  Still on 'pi', prepositional phrases that are meant to modify nouns (are adjectival) require 'pi' before them. This is just a clarification of a rule in Pije that right grouped strings of two or more terms require 'pi' (though there are some early examples of violations in both directions even without prepositions). This is particularly important toward the end of the sentence, where the adjective PP might be confused with the terminal adverbial PP, the classic "I saw the man with the telescope"  (mi lukin e jan (pi) kepeken ilo lukin).
But the rule applies in all positions: "The man with the telescope saw me too" (jan pi kepeken ilo lukin li lukin e mi kin).

3.  Contrary to what Pije says, but in keeping with some examples, 'en' can occur in verb and DO position.  But only for the mixed-lot case, not for the separable ("logical") "and".  'ni li loje en laso' is for something that is partly red and partly blue, but if there are more than one thing and some are red (totallty. for practical purposes, and others blue (ditto), the form is 'ni li loje li laso' and this is equivalent, as the first is not, to two separate sentences.  Similarly, 'mi lukin e soweli en waso' is legal to describe a chimera of some sort (half beast, half fowl), but not two separate animals. each totally of its proper kind (mi lukin e soweli e waso').

4.  Tying these together, compound modifiers -- which do take 'en' everywhere, whether mixed or logical -- require 'pi'.  Thus, 'mi lukin e waso pi pimeja en walo'; again, a result of the general rule about modifiers of more than one word.  This would apply equally to a particolored bird (or birds) and to several birds of one color each, though some different from others.

5.  The issue of proper of various sorts involving 'toki' has come back into play, after lying dormant for several years with a satisfactory set of solutions -- though ones not natural to English (and, apparently at least Spanish, German, and French) speakers.  The basic principle used earlier was that the DO of a verb had to be something that would also be referred to by that verb used as a noun (the moku e moku principle).  Thus, the DO of 'toki' had to have a message ('toki' again) as its referent.  So, the DO could not be a language or a topic talked about.
a. But the first of these, for which 'kepeken toki ...' was devised, came under attack, because a language is, of course, also a toki, so the standard argument falls through.  Yet the 'toki e toki pona' expressions always feels like a mere carry over of L1 habits and does not have a separate justification within tp.  One can, of course, be found easily by taking the expression as short for (a antidittophatic collapse of)  'toke e toki pi toki pona', which collapse seems likely to have occurred, given the opportunity.  The compromise, which avoids the supposed unnatural 'kepeken' construction and also puts the the language in a modifier role, is to make the verb 'toki pi toki pona', for which there are some early examples.  On the whole, my preference remains with 'kepeken' and the verb modifier as a legitimate alternative (but see below) and shun the DO form.  But the question is again open.
b. The "about" question is not so clearly opened as that of the language used.  It is opened, if at all, by the apparent expansion of the DO of 'toki', even though the cases are not really parallel -- the topic is not a toki, even if the general term for "topic" were 'toki' (which I am not sure it is; it seems more like 'sona' to me -- or 'pilin' or 'nasin').  On the other hand 'e ijo [(pi) topic]' does seem artificial, though literally accurate (it seems a Lojbanic solution, if you will).  The alternatives proposed  to the 'ijo' construction are to use the topic as a modifier to 'toki' or to invent a preposition with the meaning "about".  The first of these introduces another ambiguity: both with the above "in language" construction (for languages might be topics of discussion, as tp often is) and with the usual adverbs of manner: is 'toki wawa' shouting or talking quietly about force?  On the other hand, no preposition leaps to mind as the right one for "about." 'lon' has some history in other languages: "on", for example, but that is clearly just L1 relexing and the same applies to creating new prepositions like 'sike'  (though the process of making a word a preposition is not a problem per se).  On the whole, this issue seems the least in need of revision, but the possibility has arisen,

Some generalities in derivational semantics

Although toki pona has no syntactic parts of speech in the usual way, the vocabulary here is divided into various traditional classes: nouns, (transitive) verbs, modifiers (adjective and adverbs), prepositions and modals.  Except for prepositions and modals, which have some syntactic peculiarities (taking complements in all positions), the motivation for these categories is primarily semantic.  If using a word in the slots suggested by its category is taken to give the basic meaning of the word, then its meaning in other slots can generally be inferred more or less accurately.

Verbs:  The generic type of the DO of a verb has the same name as the verb (or a verb used as a noun is likely the sort of thing that gets verbed by this verb).  The paradigm is moku, v "to eat", n "food", but most other verbs will do as well.  Of course, as a noun, a verb may also just stand for the activity of the verb, "eating" in the paradigm case, a probably other things as the need arises.  As a modifier, the characteristic meaning of a verb x is "suitable for xing", "edible" in the case of moku.   Of course, more complicated notions, derivative from deep sentences, typically, may also apply, the most common being "given to/liable to x" "gluttonous" in the case of moku.  The first guess about a verb without a DO is simply that the DO is omitted for rhetorical reasons.

Nouns.  Using a noun.n as a verb takes on one of two meanings,  1 "cause DO to become an n" or 2 "apply n to DO".  Thus x li telo e y means either "x melts y" or "x waters/washes y".  Clearly, the specifics of these are context dependent: we don't ordinary wash plants for example, nor water a room.  And similar remarks apply to "cause to become water(liquid)", which might be condensation, for example, rather than melting. Not surprisingly, ilo seem to have only the second meaning here, the first being taken by (surprise!) kepeken.  So,  x ilo e y means "x uses tools on y", the specifics coming from context.  As a modifier, a noun n stands for the characteristic of this thing n stands for, though the details may be filled by either context or convention.  Modifier jan means either "human" or "humane" and then others that follow.  By convention, akesi means "ugly" and pipi means "tiny".  Soweli is supposed to mean "cute" but is rarely so used and the other conventions are a not uniformly recognized.

Prepositions.  The object of the preposition (complement) functions like the DO of verbs derivationally, that is their genera are called by the preposition.  The clear case is tan "from", "source".  But the rule applies equally to lon "at", "place, address" and tawa "to", "goal, purpose".  As verbs, prepositions take the causative sense like nouns: x li lon e y is "x places y".  Of course, without the object of the preposition, the meanings of some of these causings is open to either context or convention (placing y might mean either bringing y into existence or to life or ...).  Similar liberty applies to prepositions as modifiers, taking on all the possibilities from their use as nouns and verbs (tawa is particularly productive in this area, getting into motion generally).

Modifiers.  As nouns these fluctuate between the abstraction of their property (most common) and concrete instances (usually contextually suggested).  loje li kule, "red is a color," on the one hand,  and  loje pi ma Pomelan li unpa, "di royte Pomerantsin trent (or yentst, depending on how you were brought up) " on the other.  As verbs, they take the causative sense again, always with the result  DO li kama m, whatever the modifier m was,

Modals are a kind of verb which take verb phrases as complements (much a prepositions take noun phrases).  Some also function as verbs, e.g. wile, "want", probably as special reductions of their modal function (? wile e DO = wile jo e DO ?).  They can be made transitive with a causative sense, but there are problems about where to put the two DOs, one from the causative verb and one from the complementary verb phrase. As nouns, they tend to be the the abstraction of the modality, e.g., ken "possibility, permission", and as modifiers the corresponding property, "possible, permitted"
s
These are the basics; what happens after these is what makes each word unique and special (and harder to get a grip on).

Toward some transformation rules.

Given, for the moment that the basic tp sentence has the form (ignoring conditions)
Subj li Verb (e DO) (PP)
we can reach a few familiar sentences by known transformations:
{o,mi,sina} li A => {o,mi,sina} A  (obligatory)
A li B, A li C => A li B li C
A li B e C, A li B e D => A li B e C e D

(this one is ambiguous, since it might be taken to mean that, if C is a DO followed by a PP, and D is another DO followed by another PP, both of the PP would be copied as well,  We may want this or we may not; at present it seems we do.)
What about PPs?  A li B PP1 A li B PP2 => ?  A li B PP1 PP2?  A li B PP1 en PP2? A li B PP1 li PP2?
A li B, C li B => A en C li B (and similar rules for NP in PP, including complements to Prep verbs)
 A li Mod e ni: A li B => A li Mod B  (???  because of the -- to us -- ambiguity of the modals, this often doesn't seem to work out right and the A li Mod B may just be a construction rule)
Name o o Sent/VP => Name o Sent/VP
A li Prep NP e DO => A li Prep e DO Prep NP  (but 'lon' seems to go over to 'tawa'?)  This may be reversible.


on the noun/verb level
AB, AC => A pi B en C

Revisions

I am starting today to revise the entries in the glossary.  In particular, in keeping with my note about metaphors, I am commenting on the metaphors involved in the diverse meanings of each word.  In addition, I adding -- mainly in the bracketed sections -- comments about what I take to be usage suggestions or trends.  I do hope someday to get all the combinations that people have used for various notions added in as well, but that requires a search of the corpus and I have not kept up with that.  Meanwhile, keep an eye on me that I do not wander too far into my own ideas but report accurately what is going on (outside the bracketed sections clearly, inside, too, though).

jan Pili lon tomo mani (a lesson on 'esun') draft, of course *185*

P: toki, jan Tan o.  mi ken pali e seme tawa sina?
T: jan Pili o, toki.  sina ken pana e mani tawa mi.

P: a a a! mi pana kin ala e mani.  mi esun e mani lili pi tenpo ni tawa mani mute kama.
T: lon!  o weka e toki ike mi.  mi wile e ni: sina esun e mani ni tawa mi tawa mani kama.

P: sina wile e mani tawa seme?
T: mi wile e ni: mi esun e tomo kepeken ona.

P: tomo ni li seme?
T: jan Jan li tawa weka tawa ma pi poka pi telo suli pi anpa suno li wile esun e tomo ona tawa jan.  mi wile esun e ona tan jan Jan.

P:  tomo ni li seme li jo e tomo pi mute seme?
T: ona li jo e tomo lape tu wan e tomo telo tu wan e tomo pali tu e tomo moku e tomo pi seli moku e tomo kulupu e tomo musi pi lon anpa..

P: ma poka ona li seme?
T: tenpo suli la tomo pi ma poka li lon.  taso ona li awen pona tan ni: jan jo ona li pona pona e ona. jan mute pi mani pona li awen lon poka ni.

P: jan Jan li wile esun e ona tawa mani pi nanpa seme
T: ona wile kin esun e ona tawa mani pi nanpa ni.  taso mi pilin e ni: ona li kama esun e ona tawa mani pi nanpa ni taso. kin la mi jo e mani pi nanpa ni.  tan ni la mi wile esun e mani pi nanpa ni taso tan sina.

P: pona.  mi esun e mani pi mute ni tawa mani kama pi nanpa ni.  pnin kama la tenpo mun ali la sina pana e mani pi nanpa ni tawa mi.  tenpo pi mun li mute lili la sina pana ala e mani ni la mi weka e tomo tan sina.
T:  pona. tenpo suna pi nanpa seme la mi ken jo e mani.

P: nanpa wan la mi tu li wile sitelen e lipu mute.  ni pini la mi pana e lipu ni tawa kulupu lawa pi tomo mani ni.  lipu li pona tawa ona la mi tu li sitelen e lipu pi mute lili.  pini la mi esun e mani tawa sina tawa lipu pi jo tomo. sina pini pana e mani la mi pana e lipu ni tawa sina.
T: pona.  open la mi tu li sitelen e lipu seme?

You have to imagine that each time someone says 'mani pi nanpa ni' he holds up a paper that has a money amount written on it.  This is because toki pona does not have a facility for large numbers (starting somewhere around 3)  toki pona has only two number words, 'wan' and 'tu' (three, if you count 'ala' as 0) and these are to be combined only additively: tu wan = 3, tu tu = 4, and so on.  The use of 'luka', "hand", for 5 is widespread, though not officially condoned and several other words have been pressed into service for larger basic numbers (20, 100, 1000) within this system, but none of these are adequate for use in the modern world.  The additive principle alone is enough to defeat them.  Many suggestions have been made. of course, about how to break out of this mold most simply: introducing multiplication with 'pi', say, or using tresimal (base 3) notation, and so on.  But none has caught on -- though someone uses each of them sometimes.

The source of this problem (if it is one for you -- as it clearly is for Bill and Tom and John) is the ideal toki pona community, which has a basic barter economy and no stratification by wealth, so generally very little need for numbers.  The participants can tell whether a swap is fair (we assume)  and almost anything else for which we might use numbers can be handled by tallies or whatever 1-1 matching devices are to hand. And there are, of course, no street numbers nor telephones nor radio dials nor ... nor any other thing that uses numbers (and letters -- there are none of those in toki pona either) in what is practically an address sort of way (where the pointer is or goes). 

But we don't live in that community and in the one we do live in, numbers -- big numbers -- are ubiquitous.  There is little we can do without them in some form or other.  With a few specialized exceptions, the numbers we run into are the decimal in left-to-right place notation (where that is relevant) and the letters are in some form related more or less directly to the Latin alphabet.  To meet these problems in toki pona writing, of course, we can just use the numerals or letters themeselves.  But how do we pronounce these marks?  As a practical matter, most people I know, on the rare occasions when the need arises, just pronounce them as in their native languages.  That interferes somewhat with intelligibility, if the people in the conversation come from diffeent native languages.  So, a uniform device is needed.  What that device would be is not clear beyond the following:
     it is not a part of toki pona per se but is rather like the proper adjectives for names (indeed making these items adjective modifying 'nanpa' and the like seems the easiest way to introduce them)
     it contains names for all the digits 0-9 and all the letters of the Latin alphabet and for the decimal point
Beyond these minima, one might want order-of-magnitude words up and down and devices for non-Latin letters or altered ones -- as the need arose.  But no accepted system of this sort has yet been found, though several have been proposed.

But, as noted, none of this is needed in the toki pona world, where all commecial transactions are carried out by 'esun' "swap, barter, exchange." 'mi wile esun e ni poka tawa ni weka'  is the basic offer to start a deal and then the haggling can begin.  In a typical swap, the direct object is what the subject brings to the exchange and the other parties item is introduced by 'tawa' "for".  Just what is the best way to refer to the other party (if at all) is open: some say 'tawa' to indicate the direction of the trade, from the subjects point of view; others say 'poka' to indicate the mutuality of the proceedings.  If we don't mention a DO, we get "doing business," which may be more specific than "working" or may be as vague as "shopping".  When money comes into the trade -- and maybe even before -- matters get somewhat more complicated, since 'esun' means both "buy" and "sell" and so the DO is sometimes what the subject brings to the exchange and sometimes what he takes away. Were we consistent, of course, the object to be purchased would be after 'tawa' and the DO would be the price, rather than the other way around as we have it. But then 'tawa' doesn't seem right for the other party, since the flow (from the subject's point of view) goes the other way, and so 'tan' seems to work better.  Even 'tawa' for the price seems not quite right and so some folk use 'kepeken' instead.  The dialog above, for the most part, treats this all as an exchange, even though what is being exchanged is money, and then a striightforward payback without anything coming to the payer.