tp FAQ 4 How do I use 'toki'?

A handy trick with 'toki' as a verb is to think of it as meaning “say” and see what makes sense then. The result of this is that the Direct Object, after the 'e', is what is said, either the quoted exact words (introduced by 'nimi') or a paraphrase (usually spelled out in a sentence after 'ni:') or some other description (“The Gettysburg Address”, say). What doesn't make sense there are references to persons (“I said Tom” – not, note, “I said “Tom””) or topics “I said my sister's troubles with her boyfriend”) or languages “I said Russian”.

But these things that don't fit with “say” are things we do want to say using 'toki', thought of as “speak, talk, communicate” etc. Over the years, the community has worked out more or less acceptable ways to deal with these others.

“talk to/with someone” This is easy, since it is just like English: 'toki tawa jan'. 'toki poka jan'. Thereis prbably some difference between these two, maybe that the latter implies more strongly that jan talks back. (The idea that the other person should be a Direct Object seems rooted in the notion that the DO is what is affected by the action, as a heaer would be. But that notion is not a good guide to what is a DO, since what is seen, the DO of 'lukin', is probably not affected by being seen, while the place arrived, the object, but not the DO, of 'tawa', probably is.)

“talk about something” Here the temptation is to find a preposition for “about”, just like the last case. But there is no obvious candidate, though both 'tawa' and 'tan' have been tried (and maybe 'lon', too). The community solution (not our best effort, admittedly) is 'toki e ijo {x}' for “talk about x” (where “{x}” comes out as x, if x is a single word, but as 'pi x' otherwise). Of course, this gets funny looking when talking about many things, 'toki e ijo pi ijo mute' and the like. And, as has been pointed out, the 'pi' – or the modifier relation – just is a sort of “about”, the whole being literally “say something about x”. So, why not just use 'toki {x}'?

“speak [language]” Like the other two cases so far, this was once treated as a DO (hence the word for “language” is 'toki') but the usual sort of cross-talking problems arose. The community was torn between introducing the language using 'kepeken' and 'lon', but settled on 'kepeken'. Sonja settled on 'lon'. Now both prepositions are used freely, often in the same paragraph. There is also a dialect, preserved in some textbooks, that take the language used as an adverb of manner to the verb and so attach it directly: 'toki pi toki pona' (cf the Esperanto of my youth: “tcu vi parolas esperante”). This was one reason why the direct attachment did not catch on for talking about: we might want to talk about toki pona in English, for example, which would them be indistinguishable from talking about English in toki pona: 'toki pi toki pona, pi toki Inli'.

In the end, both adverbial uses were rejected because they muddled ordinary adverbial uses. I want to be able to talk a lot, 'toki mute', without worrying about whether I am also talking about a lot athings or about magnitude or in many languages.

tp FAQ 3 Doesn't 'kepeken' need an 'e'?

No.

That is, if you mean to introduce the reference to the tool being used. 'kepeken' is a preposition and the characteristic of those words is that they always take their object immediately after them, without an intervening 'e', as verbs require.

That being said, there is a dialect of tp which harks back to a few years ago and which is still around in older textbooks and those derived from them, in which 'kepeken' is a verb or a verb and preposition. So, in this dialect, when 'kepeken' occupies the verb slot (right after 'li', etc.) it is a verb and requires 'e'. If it comes at the end, it is a preposition and doesn't.

But prepositions can go into the verb slot and, once there, still don't need 'e'. And the community came to notice that there was little difference between saying “He uses a tool for some unmentioned activity” and “He does some unmentioned activity using a tool” and so stuck with the simpler, no 'e', version throughout

It should also be noted that prepositions, like all non-verbs, can be used as transitive verbs in a causative sense. In that case, the Direct Object must, as usual, be introduced by 'e'. So, “I use a tool” is 'mi kepeken ilo' but “I make him use a tool” is “mi kepeken ilo e ona'

(Speaking of which, why, with all the drive to trim down the number of words in official tp, does it still have both 'kepeken' and 'ilo'?)

tp FAQ 2 How do I answer 'nimi sina li seme?'

Suppose you are (or plan to be) jan Wasi in the tp community.

Then the safe and adequate answer is 'mi jan Wasi'

But this doesn't seem to answer the question exactly, which calls for a word or expression that fits into the place of 'seme', but you have given a sentence of a different form. We will talk about the problems with this notion of answering questions later, but for now, look at some problems with attempts to meet that requirement,

'(nimi mi li) jan Wasi'. But 'jan Wasi' refers to you, so this literally says “My name is me”. It says that your name is a person and a person is a name, both absurd; names and people are different. Further, it says that 'jan' is part of your name, which it is not. Your name in tp is an adjective which requires to always have a noun to lean on when being used to refer to you and, for people, that noun is usually 'jan'. But your name is the supporting adjective, not the whole expression; that is just how we use the name to refer to you.

So, maybe a better answer is '(nimi mi li) Wasi', which is what pu recommends. But remember that the rule is that a proper adjective (name) has always to have a noun to lean on and there isn't one here, so this is ungrammatical apparently. The immediate rescue is to say that it leans on the 'nimi' subject of the sentence, but that isn't quite right either. Suppose we redundantly repeat that subject in the predicate: '(nimi mi li) nimi Wasi'. Remember that proper adjectives mean “called by this word”, so this means that my name – not me, necessarily – is named 'Wasi'. So, the interesting question now is, what is this name named 'Wasi'?

Incidentally, if the adjective in 'nimi mi li Wasi' actually does modify the subject 'nimi mi' and so does not need a noun directly in front of it, why is the correct answer to 'sina seme?' and the like not just 'mi Wasi.', which would then be grammatical as a sentence and have the adjective modifying the right thing, for a change?  

We need to pause here a moment to think about the names of words. If we want to talk about something, we have to use a name for it (in some broad sense, but in the present case we can stick with the narrow one). We cannot use the thing itself to talk about it; my claim that my cat is cute does not start off with my cat in all her furry glory in the subject place of the sentence. Subjects are words and cats aren't. But names are. So we can put a name in the subject (or object, etc.) place in a sentence about that name and the grammar will be possible, even fine. But we usually end up saying something weird: “Bets is four letters long. Bets is my sister. So my sister is four letters long” Ahah! An ambiguity in the use of the word “Bets”, once as a name for a person and once as a name for that name. But this ambiguity is systemic and should be avoided systematically. Let us have – as we do – a standardized name for words. Let us enclose a word in quotes as a name for the word itself (there are other systematic possibilities, like spelling it out, but this is short and simple), as I have been doing throughout here. If we transfer this pattern to tp, our problems disappear.

But we have to remember that quotation names (and this covers cases of quotations of longer expressions) are names, thus adjectives, thus needing a noun to lean on, typically 'nimi'. So the right way to answer the question at the start, if you insist on, matching 'seme', is '(nimi mi li) nimi 'Wasi''. The other possible unobjectionable approach is '(nimi mi li) ni:' Wasi. Where what follows the colon is not another word in the sentence by a display of a name to which we now point with 'ni'.

After all that, I admit that I have no expectation that anyone will do this right (well, I do hope most people will reply with 'mi jan Wasi') but will continue to use the three muddled forms. And everyone will understand and almost no one will complain. A proof that just because you understand what a person is trying to say, doesn't mean that he has said it correctly or even coherently; it just means you are a cooperative and involved listener.     

tp FAQ 1. What do 'li' and 'e' do?

A bit of back ground first. Both English and tp have a basic Subject-Verb-Object format, a noun-phrase (noun plus maybe some adjectives) describing who does or is what the sentence is about, followed by a verb phrase (verb plus maybe some adverb or a copula --”be” plus a noun or adjective) telling what the subject is or does and then maybe another noun phrase telling what the subject did that to. In English, it is usually pretty easy to tell nouns from verbs from adverbs from adjectives. They are usually different words and they behave differently. Thus, it is pretty easy to tell when the subject (a noun phrase) ends and a verb phrase, the verb, begins, and, similarly, when another noun phrase, the object, starts up. In “The tall man shot the fat duck”, “shot” is pretty clearly a verb, so the noun phrase before it constitute the subject and the noun phrase after it the object.

The situation is quite different in tp: either it has no nouns, verbs, etc. or almost every word is in several of these categories or there ae many words in different categories that look exactly the same. However you describe the situation, if you just have a string of words that might be nouns or adjectives or verbs or adverbs, it is not clear where the sections are. Consider this:'jan suli utala waso suli'. It turns out that one can divided this into Subject-Verb-Object (or even without the object) almost anywhere and get a grammatical – if sometimes decidedly odd – sentence. “A man aggressively enlarged a large bird” (j/su/ws) “A large man aerially attacked a fatty” (js/uw/s) “And aggressive large man is a fat bird (jsu/ws) and so on, including, of course “A big man attacked a large bird” (js/u/ws). To be sure, context will often eliminate many of these from consideration, but not in all cases and, in some cases, we may want to say one of the less likely things – it would be news, after all, if a big, bellicose man made a large object fly (jsu/w/s). So, to be on the safe side, we need ways to say explicitly in tp what is done covertly in English by the shifting between nouns and verbs.

'li' goes at the break between the Subject noun phrase and the Verb verb phrase, where in English there is the shift from noun to verb.

'e' goes in the break between the Verb verb phrase and the Object noun phrase, where in English there is the shift from verb to noun.

So, when you have finished saying who is doing the doing but before you say what is done, drop in 'li'. And when you are done with the doing and before you get to whom it is done to, drop in 'e'.

The sentnces above look like this then:

jan li suli utala e waso suli

jan suli li utala waso e suli

jan suli utala li waso suli

jan suli li utala e waso suli

jan suli utala li waso e suli

There will be some complication – but very minor ones – when we get to compound sentences, but that is later.

There are, however, three complications which arise immediately and need to be dealt with now.

1. When the whole of the subject is 'mi' or 'sina', 'li' is NOT inserted before the verb. Note that this does no affect subjects of more than one word that involve 'mi' or 'sina', like 'mi mute' or 'sina ali', or 'tomo mi', all of which require 'li'. This exclusion also does not extend to other pronouns, 'ona' and 'ni' both of which always require 'li'.

2. the verb place in a sentence is sometimes occupied by a preposition (a small class of words which are set aside just for the following reason). Prepositions take objects, but they are not the Direct Objects of the Subject-Verb-Object pattern. In particular, they attach to the preposition directly with out an intervening 'e'. So, “I am going home” is 'mi tawa tomo', NOT 'mi tawa e tomo'. To make matters slightly worse, 'mi tawa e tomo' is a good sentence but with a different meaning, “I move my house”, where the preposition behaves like an ordinary verb (as most non-verbs can). So, in applying the 'e' rule, you need to be aware when you are using a preposition and when you are using it AS a preposition.

3. Strictly speaking, the pattern of tp sentences is more completely given as Subject-Verb-Object-Prepositional Phrase. There is no marker like 'li' and 'e' to indicate the beginning of a propositional phrase at the end of a sentence, but the same sort of problems can arise here as those met by 'li' and 'e':

'ona li pana e tomo tawa mi' may mean either “He gave me a house” or “He gave my car”, depending on how 'tawa mi' fits in. I get a car if it is 'ona li pana e tomo/tawa mi' with 'tawa mi' a prepositional phrase. I lose a car, if it is just part of the modifier string to 'tomo'. As a kindness, some people have taken to putting a comma before final prepositional strings. These are always optional but often appreciated by readers (and the corresponding voice changes by listeners).

toki unpa *184*

jan Oliwa en jan Malija li uta e sama li pilin suwi e sijelo sama la jan Oliwa li toki e ni:"mi pilin e ni:  tenpo ni li tenpo tawa .." jan Malija li toki kin: "mi tu li unpa.  a! lon! mi tu o kama tawa tomo mi."

ona tu li kama.

tomo lape la jan Oliwa li open weka e len pi jan Malija.  taso meli  li toki e ni.  "o pini.  o mi tu li kepeken tenpo suli  tawa open musi.  open la mi weka e len sina.  ni pini la sina pali e mi."  meli li open weka e len mije. nanpa wan la meli  li weka e len noka anpa pi tu en tu, mije.  meli li uta e noka mije li pilin suwi e ona.  nanpa tu la meli li weka e len pi sijelo sewi kepeken nasin ni: meli li open e nena len li uta e selo pi lukin sin. meli li pali e ni tawa nena ali. taso meli li lukin e sike pi loje walo la meli li awen li uta suwi e ona li kama e ni: ona li kama nena. ni pini la meli li awen open sin.  jan Malija li pini weka e len pi sijelo sewi la ona li open weka e len pi noka sewi.  kin la ona li pali ni la palisa mije pi jan Oliwa li kama suli li kama kiwen.  tan ni la meli li open e len sijelo sewi la len walo li nena wawa.  meli li pilin suwi e ona li a li awen weka e len.  meli li pini weka e len mije la jan Oliwa li toki e ni: "tenpo ni la mi ken weka e len sina.  mi musi mute ni."  taso ona sewi e len meli la jan Malija li len e ala kin e len insa anpa ala. e poki pi nena meli ala.  jan Maliaja li lon wawa e selo unpa lon palisa pi jan Oliwa li anpa wawa lon supa lape.

jan Oliwa li lon e noka sama lon insa pi noka meli.  mije li open uta e sike pi loje walo li kama e ni: ona li nena.  palisa luka mije li pilin suwi e nena unpa li kama e ni: jan Malija li a li a e kalama ni:"jan Oliwa o, o, o. Oli o unpa e mi, unpa, unpa". tenpo ni la meli li jo e palisa mije li lawa e ona tawa lupa meli.  palisa pi jan Oliwa li tawa insa,  mije li tawa en tan li tawa en tan.  tenpo tawa ali la meli li sewi e nena monsi sama li utala e palisa tawa.  ona tu li kalama wawa.  jan Oliwa li a e ni: "jan Malija o, o, Mali o, ma, o, mama o"  jan Malija li a wawa li anpa wawa sama lape.  tenpo sama la jan Oliwa li a wawa li pana e linja suli pi telo walo mije li anpa wawa tawa sewi meli.  tenpo lili pini la jan Malija li weka e selo jo pi telo walo li kama jo e len telo seli.  meli li pona e sama kepeken len ni.  ni pini la meli li open pona e palisa mije. tenpo ni la ona li suli ala li kiwen ala.

taso meli li pona e ona la meli li wile pilin suwi e ona.  tan ni la palisa li kama suli li kama kiwen..  jan Malija li lon e ona lon uta sama li pilin suwi e lawa ona kepeken  loje uta sama.  meli li tawa en tan lon palisa kepeken uta en luka.  jan Oliwa li a wawa li sewi e nena monsi mije.  jan Malija li kon kepeken uta li tawa en tan wawa mute.  jan Oliwa li a wawa mute li pana e linja suli pi telo walo tawa nena meli. meli li pilin sike e telo sama pona selo. meli li anpa lon supa li anpa e noka sama tawa supa anpa.

jan Oliwa li anpa e sama lon insa pi noka sama li lon e sinpin lawa ona lon insa pi noka meli.  mije li open pilin suwi e nene unpa meli kepeken loje uta sama.  meli li open a li sewi e nena monsi li tawa en tan wawa.  taso a pini meli kama la meli li kama jo e mije li lon e ona lon monsi mije li kama lon sewi mije li kama jo palisa mije li lawa e ona tawa lupa sama.  meli li awen linja e monsi sama li tawa en tan wawa.  nena meli kin li tawa en tan, li kama nena pi suli en kiwen.  tenpo ni la jan Malija kama tawa a pini.  jan Oliwa kin li a li pana e wan pi telo walo. jan Malija li kama jo sin e len telo seli li pona e sama en mije.   tenpo lili pini la jan Oliwa en jan Malija li kulupu kepeken luka en noka li kama lape.  taso ni kama la ona tu li toki e ni tawa sama:  "mi olin e sina"

Try first without looking here.  Let me know if you find other, better, meanings or other problems.
uta v "apply mouth to, kiss"
pilin suwi "touch sweetly, caress"
ni pini la "after that"
len noka anpa  apparently "shoes and socks"
len sijelo sewi "shirt" apparently: the lack of body parts and clothing names gets fuddling here
nena len "button"
selo pi lukin sin "newly exposed skin"
sike pi loje walo "pink circles" (the proverbial tits on a boar-hog)
awen  here apparently "pause, linger"
len walo "tighty whities"
nena wawa "popped up, became a hill rapidly"
awen weka  here apparently :kept on taking off"
len noka sewi "pants"
len insa anpa "panties"
poki pi nena meli "brassiere"
selo unpa "condom'  [Pedantic note: these were originally made out of selo insa pi mani len, sheep guts]
anpa wawa "fell back" or something like that.
nena unpa "clitoris"
a v "cry out, moan" something like that
tawa en tan "to-and-fro-ing" mixed action.
tenpo tawa ni la  "on the instrokes"
nena monsi "buttocks"  a lot of nena here
tawa sewi meli "on top of her"
tenpo lili pini "after a little while"
loje uta "tongue" or "lips"
kon kepeken uta  "suck"  I think
pilin sike "rubbed in circles"?
pona selo "lotion"? maybe "soap"
Last sentence of this section seems to work out to "Sat on the edge of the bed with her legs hanging over"
insa pi noka this has to be "knees"
sinpin lawa "face"
insa noka here must be "between the legs"
a pini meli kama  "before her last cry"
kulupu kepeken luka en noka  "Cuddled up intertwined together"
ni kama la "before this"

Note on temporal relations

Part of working on prepositions and on 'la'

Known:

Vector tense/implicit particular quantifiers over occasions.

X la = lon X

tenpo pini (P)/ tenpo ni ()/tenpo kama (F)

(fussinesses: 1) the scope of CP (condition phrases, 'la' phrases) are not defined, so subsequent unmarked sentences might be narratively continuing these times or revert to the moment of speech or some other contextually defined time. Similarly, subordinate sentences with these marks might be secondary tenses off the implicit axis or redefined from the absolute base: 'tenpo pini la jan li toki e ni: tenpo pini la meli li kama', her coming before person speech or just before utterance of this complex? I am inclined to think that a temporal in a CP would restrict one in a PP in the sentnece to which the CP was attrached or in a CP that followed it attached to the same sentence, but I can imagine a case being made for the opposite positions.

2) Strictly, 'tenpo ni' can mean “then, at the time of the just mentioned event” as well as “now” and so be a temporal connective. To avoid confusion – and because having a way to get back to the now is always handy – I recommend using 'tenpo sama' for the relative meaning.)

Extended vector tense (relative tensors)
Same pattern (?)
tenpo pini/kama lili/suli  "a little/long time ago, in a little while, a long time hence"
     
      (fussiness:  not sure how apt 'lon' is here. since it is not in the stretch of time put rather at the end of it --
      which is, admittedly probably 'lon' as well. The pattern 'tenpo lili pini' makes as much sense, apparently,
      but this one is established.)

Other quantifier cases

(universal)

presumably also X la = lon X

tenpo ala/ ali “never/always”

(fussiness: I suppose this are usually in fact only about past occasions (and the present?) but that is only implied. The explicit cases do not seem to have occurred (and are rare in English, too) but would presumably be formed just by adding 'pini' or 'kama' to the end of the forms just given to make G and H:”has never/always” and “will never/always”. It is arguable that the forms should be with the opposite arrangement of quantifier and direction, e.g. 'tenpo pini ali' for G. Since there are no occasions, it is hard to figure out which is right or even what principle to use to decide. But see later. At least it is clear that dividing the quantifier and the vector into two phrases does not help: 'tenpo pini la tenpo ali la' and 'tenpo ali la tenpo pini la' bear undetermined relations to one another, some bound up in the metaphysics of time but also in the issue of the scope of 'la' phrases, but none of them giving the equivalent of what is intended here. And they raise issues about the scope of PPs which we really don't want to mess with now.))

(numerical) iterations

Still the same pattern, I suppose

tenpo N/mute/lili “N/many/(a) few times” (maybe also 'mute lili' and 'lili mute' ""several times”/”occasionally” and “rarely” - not, apparently set off with 'pi').

(fussiness: All the problems about past and future cases apply here, though the implication that this is about the past is even sharper. But the two prenex solution, assuming 'tenpo pini/kama la' subordinate 'tenpo N la', works better here. 'tenpo lili' can also mean “a short time” and so belongs in the duration section as well as here. Perhaps the PP form is distinctive.

Iteration needs to be distinguished from repetition, the same action done repeatedly on a single occasion. Contrast: “The officer has shot suspects on three occasions” with “The officer shot the suspect three times” It is not clear just how to do repetitions but apparently either an adverbial phrase 'pana pi tenpo tu wan' or even just 'pana tu wan' or some modification in the various nominal complements, 'pana e sike kiwen tu wan' or 'utala e ona kepeken sike pana tu wan' are adequate.)

Unitized occasions

presumably same pattern

tenpo suno/pimeja/esun/mun pini/ni/kama “yesterday, today, tomorrow, last night, tonight, tomorrow night, last week, this week, next week, last month, this month, next month”

sike suno pini/ni/kama “last year, this year, next year”

(fussiness: All non-ni strictly mean “some past/future day/week/month/year” but are used for the

proximal one by convention/implication. The more general understanding adds to the simple 'tenpo' only a sense of the length of the displacement from the present, which is not strictly relevant here. 'ni' again has the possible sense of “the same as that containing the latest mentioned event” and the 'sama' solution is recommended again.

Known phrase in 'la', preposition unknown

Duration

tenpo suli/lili “for a long/short time”

tenpo suno/esun/mun N (including 'mute', lili' and compounds) “for n days/weeks/months”

sike suno N “for n years”

The issue of the correct PP gets into the whole matter of prepositions in tp, which is the subject of another study under way. The “for” in the English for this notion means that the event referred to occupies the whole of that time and no tp preposition is obviously telic in this way ('tawa', for example, does not assert that goal is actually reached, so is “toward” as much as “to”). Parallels in other languages (“por” or “para” in Spanish, in particular, but also similar patterns in German and French and Latin) give varying suggestions for use in tp, based on equally dubious associations. Personally, I feel like promoting 'awen' to prepositional status for the occasion, but that is a bit radical until other options have played out. Even the use of 'lon' is not automatically excluded, since it is areal as well as punctal (“in” as well as “at”) and so is at least a partial fit (and as good as other obvious choices).

My attention has been called to the use of 'kepeken tenpo mute' as part of the expression for "slow" 'tawa ma lili kepeken tenpo mute'  Whether this can be generalized (maybe with 'mute' changed to suli') offers a way out of the usual preposition debate (and a nice counter to the arguments about how to indicate the language used).

Tp doesn't have words for hours, minutes and second, but, if it did, presumably this pattern would apply with them as well.

(fussiness: the numerical cases could also be read as iterations of specified periods. The difference seems to be mainly that duration has the event taking place throughout consecutive stretches of the sort mentioned, N weeks but attached end to end, where as iteration assumes some gaps between the weeks involved (and that the whole event is repeated, not part in one week and a further part in the next, although all of this is open to context. It might take me three months to walk the Appalachian Trail, even though the months were in fact divided into several disjoint stretches of a week or so each, so 'tenpo esun mute la mi tawa noka lon nasin Apalasi' is true in both senses.) Again, the PP might be different, but I am not sure.)

Temporal overlap

S1 la S2 “When/while/if S1, then S2”

Presumably the PP format is 'S2 Prep ni: S1'

This relation is so weak that it is enough for it to be true that there is one instant during S1 holding that S2 hold as well (and, of course, there can be true cases where even this does not apply). We usually (I think) have something more explicit in mind. And it may be that sorting these out is a necessary step before doing much more about the PP. We can clearly separate out the general claims as being 'tempo ali/mute' (and maybe a few non-temporal factors) with scope over the whole complex (which means we have some clues about scope!). What we seem to be left with are that either S2 holds at some point during S1 or that it follows “immediately” on S1. The first gets subdivided among cases where S2 and S1 coincide exactly or one falls wholly within the other or they overlap with a bit of one preceding the other and a bit of the other following the one. But this expressions does not indicate any of these differences, so we need just the minimal claim of a relationship and so are back to just what the prepositions say. It may be, of course, that the prepositions are all more explicit than 'la' and that this is a 'la' expression which does not have a prepositional analog.

Unknown

Displacement (tensored vectors)

So, an event is in the past/future, but how far specifically? The answer is, presumably, in terms of some unit and some number of that unit, combined with the direction in time. We have the pattern already of unit + direction = displacement by one unit in that direction: 'tenpo suno pini', say. The only apparent question is where does the N, in this case the implicit one, go? That is, is “three days ago” 'tenpo suno tu wan pini' or 'tenpo suno pini tu wan'? And, of course, does it make a difference? It would, certainly, if there were another notion around that would take up the other form. In this case, the possible other notions seem to be directional duration, which seems highly unlikely (“for three past days”) or iteration with specified periods, which seems somewhat more likely (“in three separate past days”) but allows of a two-prenex solution. S, it seems just a matter of making a choice (and maybe coming up with a principle afterwords to justify it – no prior principle is obvious). The earlier case of relative displacement suggests puttting the number last, but it is itself open to question. Once the phrase is set, the X la = lon X patterns seems appropriate.

Relative position.

How are two event related in time, more precisely than the S la S pattern and, particular, relative to one another. The English patterns to be dealt with are

After S1, S2

Before S2, S1

While S1, S2 (with some of the subdivision mentioned under 'la' spelled out here)

Put this way, this appears to be about conjunctions, but, given the short supply of those in tp (and the unclarity about how to extend the list without creating more problems than it is worth), it is easier to think of the problem as being about PP, on the model of “because”, 'tan ni', or as introducing a new category of CP.

On the preposition side, for the first two cases, a single pattern presents itself, since 'tan' is pretty clearly retrospective, looking backward toward the beginning, That means that “after that” could be just 'tan ni', but, to keep our “post hoc” separated from our”propter hoc”, we would go for 'tan tempo ni'. By parity of reasoning (or parody), “before this” would be 'tawa tenpo ni' Thus we get the four patterns for the order S1 S2

S1. tan tenpo ni la S2

S 1 tawa tenpo ni: S2

S2. tawa tenpo ni la S1

S2 tan tenpo ni: S1

The other possible pattern takes up the general notion of a condition. To say that S2 is later than S1 is to say that S2 occurs in a condition in which S1 is done or that S1 occurs in a condition in which S2 is yet to come. Alternatively, we can say that S1 is in S2's past and S2 is in S1's future. This gives the following patterns

S1. ni pini la S2

S2. pini ni la S1

S1. kama ni la S2

S2. ni kama la S1

It must be said that the reading of 'ni pini' as “this being over” and “pini ni' as “in the past of this” is open to challenge with exactly the opposite readings. This is a reason to prefer the prepositional solution, although the fact that the PP with opposite results occur at virtually the same place (the difference between ':' and '.' being not very great and the 'la' coming late) makes it tricky as well (but the same situation has not caused obvious problems with 'tan ni').

The simple 'ni' and 'kama/pini' phrases could obviously be moved to PP, presumably with 'lon', but then the temptation might be to make that, like 'tan ni', into version which picks up the next sentence, reversing the order meaning yet again. That is, S1 lon pini ni: S2 = S1. kama ni S2 and so on.

The final, “while” case raises a number of problems, some already mentioned, others involving things like the aspect modals ('open, awen, pini, kama'), that lie outside this paper. The solutions are more or less the same as the other two. In the second version, for example, 'awen' can fill in for 'pini/kama'. The prepositional form is less obvious, but 'lon', being areal and also the only spatial preposition left, might work. But many questions seem to remain (mostly probably pure fussiness, the Lojban syndrome).

It would be nice if we had a firm grasp on sentential nominalization so that we could extend this discussion from the case of two sentences to to a sentence and a noun "after his coming" "before the battle" (don't even mention the "just" -- 'taso' just doesn't work).  I suppose the second could be 'utala kama' or 'pini utala' and the former similar things with 'kama ona', but problems seem sure to arise (as here already) and we don't know how to handle most sentences, "John hunted deer on Thursday," for example.

Displacement again

So, one event comes after the other; how soon after? Both parts of this issue have been dealt with (more or less), so the question here is how to combine them. They do appear to be independent in the sense that displacement does not depend upon whether we are talking about S1 before S2 or S2 after S1. The only significant fact is that the earlier discussion of displacement was in terms of past and future relative to the present (or whatever the axis is) and that factor drops out. But, on the other hand, we cannot, apparently use just the numbered units (or 'tenpo suli/lili'), since that is duration of the event, not of the gap between events. Using some preposition raises the question of which one again. Using the desperation 'pi' raises the question of what to attach it to. This seems the most open question.

esun and commerce

The basic meaning of 'esun' is "swap, barter", the exchange of one object for another.  So it involves two people and two things.  Each person brings a thing to the exchange and leaves with what the other brought.  So a full description of a transaction is, in English, Person 1 exchanged object 1 for object 2 with person 2. In tp, the corresponding description starts 'jan nanpa wan li esun e ijo nanpa wan tawa ijo nanpa tu ... jan napa tu'. It is not clear what goes into the gap.  English suggests 'poka', but 'tan' (as the source of thing 2 and a natural for later "buy") and 'tawa' (as the final place of thing 1 and a natural for later "sell") also have merit; let's leave it as X for the moment.  What is central here is the symmetry of the situation: if we exchange one person or object for the other, we can get back to the same fact by also exchanging the object or person: jan nanpa tu li esun e ijo nanpa tu tawa ijor nanpa wan X jan nanpa wan.

Let us consider some reductions of the full form.  We might consider the case where the objects involved are ignored, for example, to talk about habitual activities: Bob trades with Bill, first 'jan Babi li esun X jan Bili' and then 'jan Babi en jan Bili li esun (X sama)'. Similarly, we can ignore the people (somewhat) and simply describe the exchange of thing 1 and thing 2: jan li esun e ijo nanpa wan e ijo nanpa tu (it might be argued that a "mixed" 'en' is appropriate here).  Putting these together, we get 'jan Babi en jan Bili li esun e ijo nanpa wan e ijo nanpa tu' (with the loss of the information of who brought what to the swap -- except by unreliable implication).  Or one person might be ignored and maybe even one of the objects.  So Bob, a collector of kiwen, might satisfy 'jan Babi li esun tawa kiwen', while Bill, a distributor of ko, might regularly fulfill 'jan Bili li esun e ko'.  Notice that here the connection between participant and what they bring o take away is maintained, so that we cannot say (with the same meaning) 'jan Babi li esun e kiwen', though 'jan Babi en jan Bili li esun e ko e kiwen' seems proper from ;jan Bobi li esun e ko tawa kiwen X jan Bili'

But we don't barter much anymore, but rather buy and sell.  This is a form or barter, of course, but one of the items is always money, which is always the "for" position in English, regardless of from whose point of view the transaction is viewed  The person who bring money to the swap is the buyer, the person who takes it away the seller,  So "Bob buys thing 1 from Bill" comes over as 'jan Babi li esun e mani tawa ijo nanpa wan X jan Bili', which, by a familiar transformation become 'jan Bili li esun e ijo nanpa wan tawa mani X jan Bobi', i.e., "Bill sells thing 1 to Bob",  Reducing to "Bill sells thing 1" gets 'jan Bili li esun e ijo nanpa wan'  and "Bob buys thing 1" is 'jan Babi li esun tawa ijo tu' (notably NOT 'jan Babi li esun e ijo nanpa wan').  Thus, the glosses that give both "buy" and "sell" for 'esun' need to be modified to make it clear that these are not simply to be used interchangeably: the DO is what you bring, what you go away with is a 'tawa' phrase' A better gloss than "buy" would be "pay ..." (with the 'tawa' to express "for" and the price as DO).  "Sell" actually works correctly, which suggests something about barter, perhaps.  This tends to increase the strength of the use of 'tawa' for X, but the difficulties with the two implicit 'tawa's works against it.