lipu-sona/pages/tokipona/9.md

% toki pona page 9 - complex adjectives and contexts
% /dev/urandom
% march 2020

The vocabulary for this page:

| word  | meaning                          | derived from                     |
|-------|----------------------------------|----------------------------------|
| pi    | "of" (groups adjectives)         | Tok Pisin "bilong" (of)          |
| la    | "if/when" (introduces context)   | Esperanto "la" (definite article)|
| luka  | hand, arm                        | Serbo-Croatian "ruka" (arm)      |
| linja | long flexible object, hair       | Finnish "linja" (line)           |
| palisa| long solid object, branch, stick | Serbo-Croatian "palica" (rod)    |
| selo  | outer form, shell, skin, boundary| Esperanto "ŝelo" (skin)          |
| sijelo| body, physical state, torso      | Serbo-Croatian "tijelo" (body)   |
| len   | cloth, clothes, layer of privacy | Acadian French "linge" (clothing)|
| lete  | cold, raw                        | Acadian French "frette" (cold)   |
| musi  | entertaining, artistic, fun, game| Esperanto "amuzi" (have fun)     |

Time to introduce two another particles in this language: "pi" and "la".

## pi

The word "pi" works by grouping several adjectives together. Normally, all
adjectives in a phrase apply to the first word.

For example:

> jan wawa -- strong person

> jan wawa ala -- no strong people

If you need to say "weak people", you need to negate "wawa", but not "jan".
That's where "pi" comes in handy:

> jan pi wawa ala -- weak person/people ("of no strength")

It is also useful for phrases that use unofficial words.

> ma tomo Wasintan li ma tomo lawa pi ma Mewika. -- (the city of) Washington is
> the capital ("main city") of the United States.

## la

The word "la" allows to combine two sentences to form conditions and introduce
context.

> [sentence A] la [sentence B].

This translates to something like:

> If/when [sentence A], then [sentence B].

For example:

> moku ni li pona la mi pana e ona tawa sina. -- If this food is good, I'll give
> it to you.

> ona li moli la ni li ike tawa jan ale. -- If they die, it will be bad for
> everybody.

## Dialectal differences

> %info%
> This part of the document describes how certain toki pona courses differ in
> explaining certain ideas.

The official book, the "o kama sona e toki pona!" course and my personal style
differ on how to place punctuation in sentences that use "la".

The official book sometimes uses a comma before "la" and sometimes uses no
punctuation.

The online course doesn't use any punctuation.

I personally prefer using the comma after "la", but for the sake of
compatibility with other courses, no punctuation will be used. Since commas are
not used as actual grammatical features in written toki pona, it is possible to
vary their usage.

## Exercises

Now, try to figure out the meaning of these sentences.

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And try to translate the following sentences into toki pona.

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<a name="answers" href="#answers" onclick="revealSpoilers();">Reveal answers</a>

> %spoiler%
> * 
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> %spoiler%
> * 
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