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These are my notes on BJ Knight's lessons.

Lesson 7

As a verb, lon essentially means "to be in/on/at," and as a preposition, simply "in/on/at."

The li wile e ni: [...] structure helps to fill the role of English's clauses.

As a verb, kepeken means "to use." As a preposition, it means "using."

tawa can be: an action verb ("to move"), a verb of movement ("to go to"), or a preposition ("to" and "for").

When followed by e, kama means "to cause." When preceding another verb, it makes the verb progressive

 

anpa, insa, monsi, and sewi are nouns, not prepositions. They need a verb.

 

poka  can be used as a noun or preposition. If it is used as a noun, it must have a verb with it.

 

Are there just 6 prepositions in tp? If so I need to list them.

lon - in, at on

kepeken - using

tawa - to, for

sama - same

tan - because of, from, by

poka - beside

 

Lesson 10

You can not olin an object; you have to say that is good to me - ni li pona tawa mi

 

seme can mean what, where or which

jan seme means who or whom

tan seme can mean why (because of what)

 

seme li lukin e sina?  What/who is watching you?

 

Word order does not change when making a question with seme

sina lukin e pipi

sina lukin e seme?  What are you watching?

 

Lesson 11

pi  - pi is used to separate a noun from another noun that has an adjective

 

You can say my house tomo mi, but you cannot say Lisa's house. You have to say: house of Lisa - tomo pi jan Lisa -- house of Lisa, Lisa's house

 

If you want to use the plural pronouns mi mute ("we") or ona mute ("they"), you have to use pi:    nimi pi mi mute -- our names

 

pi is also used to mean "about"

mi toki jan. -- I talked about people

mi toki pi jan ike. -- I talked about bad people

 

A pi phrase can be used after li to tell who owns something.

 kili ni li pi mi. -- This fruit is mine.

 

kepeken nasin seme = "how":

sina pali e ni kepeken nasin seme? -- You made this using what method? How did you make this?

 

Lesson 12

anu is used to make questions when there is a choice between two different options.

Did Susan eat the cookies, or was it Lisa? - jan Susan anu jan Lisa li moku e suwi?

Literally: "Susan or Lisa ate the cookies?"

 

Uses of la

La separates temporal (time) clause at beginning of sentence from remainder of sentence

La separates the 2 clauses in an If/Then sentence.

When translating a sentence and I see a 'la' I have to see if what comes before it has to do with time. If not, then I translate the sentence as an If/Then.

The adverbial phrases which begin a sentence and are followed by "la" can indicate the conditions under which the following sentence is true (equivalent to "if") or (perhaps more commonly) the time when its action happens (equivalent to "when").

Toki Pona does not have complex sentences; but the colon ':' is used as inter-sentence punctuation indicating a close relationship between the previous and following sentences, usually that the following sentence expands on the abstract object of the previous sentence.

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TP vocabulary mnemonics for English speakers

TP	English	Meaning
ken	can	can
lili	little	little
lukin	look'in	look , see
mani	money	money
meli	Mary	woman
mi	me	I, me, we, our
musi	amuse	fun, game
mun	moon	lunar, moon
sama	same	same, similar
seli	celsius	warm, hot

 

 

Other

29 March

weka ala = closeby - opposite of far away

ni li pona tawa jan ale anu seme? = It means 'Does everybody like this?' Literally 'This good for all people or what?' (ale = ali)

lipu sina pi toki pona li pona mute! = Your Toki Pona website is very cool!

 

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Lesson summaries

 

Toki Pona lacks the verb "to be," is often ambiguous, and its verbs have no tense.

Any sentence with mi or sina as the subject goes from the subject straight to the verb or adjective.

Any sentence with a subject other than mi or sina has li separating the subject and the rest of the sentence.

 

Direct objects are preceded by e.

English's want to (verb) structure becomes wile (verb).

Stacking li or e phrases within a sentence is allowed.

 

Adjectives always follow the nouns that they modify.

Toki Pona strings words together into phrases to make more complex meanings. These strings often act as nouns.

Possessives with pronouns involved are made by placing the pronoun after the noun.

Adverbs are similar to adjectives and follow the verb.

 

As a verb, lon essentially means "to be in/on/at," and as a preposition, simply "in/on/at."

The li wile e ni: [...] structure helps to fill the role of English's clauses.

As a verb, kepeken means "to use." As a preposition, it means "using."

tawa can be: an action verb ("to move"), a verb of movement ("to go to"), or a preposition ("to" and "for").

When followed by e, kama means "to cause." When preceding another verb, it makes the verb progressive.

 

The concepts of below, inside, behind, and above are made by using lon with particular nouns.

tan, sama, and poka can be prepositions in addition to their other roles.

 

ala immediately follows whatever word it negates.

Yes/no questions are formed by changing the sentence's verb to (verb) ala (repeat the verb).

To answer yes/no questions: (verb) means yes, (verb) ala means no.

 

Toki Pona does not have grammatical gender. Gender can be ascribed by attaching mije or meli as adjectives.

Religions, countries, languages, names, etc. are unofficial words. They are treated like adjectives and must be attached to a noun.

To get someone's attention, you say jan (person's name) o.

Commands are made with the o (verb) structure.

      For friendly command-like salutations, drop the o.

Addressing someone and also giving them a command uses the jan (person's name) o (verb) structure.

 

For questions that can not be answered with "yes" or "no," write the sentence like normal and then replace the word in question with seme.

seme can also be used as an adjective to make other question words.

 

pi is used to separate a noun from a modifying noun which has an adjective attached to it.

The modiying noun must have an adjective attached to it. Otherwise, pi must be dropped.

 

anu means "or" and can imply a question. You can also form a yes/no question by attaching anu seme? to the end of the sentence.

en means "and." For the vast majority of cases, it can be used only in the sentence's subject.

When at the beginning of a sentence, taso means "but." Within sentences it can be an adjective or adverb.

kin is an intensifier and is used like normal adjectives/adverbs.

To describe the temperature outside, use (temperature) li lon.

To describe the temperature of specific objects, use (object) li (temperature) pilin.

 

Elementary colors can be strung together to describe more colors.

To describe objects with multiple distinct colors, use (object) pi (color 1) en (color 2).

 

Organisms are classified into six broad categories. Naming organisms within each category is very ambiguous.

 

Toki Pona has words for "one" and "two." These words also have a few other meanings besides numbers.

Although discouraged, these words can be stacked to make higher numbers.

      mute is preferred.

Ordinal numbers are made by inserting pi nanpa between the noun and the number.

 

ken la (sentence) means "Maybe (sentence)."

(time) la (sentence) can tell when something occurred.

(sentence 1) la (sentence 2) means "If (sentence 1), then (sentence 2)."

Comparatives and superlatives are made by saying: (thing that is more of something) li (adjective) mute. (thing that is less) li (adjective) lili.

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The following is a nice summary of TP by Henrik Theiling:

 

Grammar

First off, Toki Pona is pretty simplistic. It has no inflectional or derivational morphology, no definite or indefinite articles, and not much syntax. It doesn't even have relative clauses! This means that sometimes things can be a bit long-winded or repetitive; do not feel compelled to match the style of this text when you translate into a language with a bit more syntax.

Toki Pona has a base vocabulary of 118 words. With such a small number, each word tends to have a range of loosely-related meanings rather than one precise meaning, so the same word may have to be translated differently in different parts of the text. I'll sometimes include all the translations given in the official word list, to give you an idea of the vague area each word indicates; pick what seems appropriate.

Also, most words fall into several of what we'd call "parts of speech"; this concept is, perhaps, not entirely appropriate to Toki Pona as the boundary between noun, adjective, adverb, verb, preposition, and conjunction is often fuzzy. There are a few categories that one can assign words or meanings, to, such as {tawa} meaning "towards" or "for" when used as a "preposition", "motion, transportation" when used as a "noun", "moving, mobile" when used as a "modifier", and "go, walk, travel" when used as an "intransitive verb". Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell at a glance which function a word fulfils in a given sentence, so a sentence can have multiple interpretations -- for example, {mi pana e tomo tawa sina} could be either

    mi    pana e     tomo tawa  sina
    pron. v.   part. n.   prep. pron.
    "I give the house to you"
or
    mi    pana e     tomo tawa sina
    pron. v.   part. n.   mod. mod.
    "I give your car"

with the first interpretation treating {tomo tawa sina} as noun, preposition, pronoun ("structure", "towards, for", "you") and the second treating it as noun plus two modifiers ("structure", "moving", "your"). You may have to try several interpretations, especially for sentences containing words such as {kama, lon, tawa}, and see which one fits best.

Copula

There is no copula. Adjectives or nouns are simply used as predicates. For example, {mi pona} is "I am good", and {mi moku} could mean "I am food" (though the more likely meaning is "I eat").

Compounds

Because of the small vocabulary, Toki Pona makes quite a bit of use of multi-word compounds or phrases.

These typically fall into the following uses:

Noun-noun compounds

Two nouns standing side by side: the second noun modifies the first. It may be helpful to insert an "of" mentally, or to switch the two around. For example, {tomo mani} (tomo = structure/"house", mani = money) is a "house of money" or a "money house" -- that is, a bank.

Noun-modifier compounds

The second component might be what the official word list classes as a "modifier"; this is most often something adjective-like.

For example, {jan pona} (jan = person, pona = good) means "a good person" or, idiomatically, "a friend". (Or, since Toki Pona has no articles or plural markers, it could also be "the friend", "friends", or "the friends".)

The use of "pi"

If I've got my terminology straight, Toki Pona is left-branching; this means that a phrase "A B C D" would group as "((A B) C) D".

If you want to change this grouping, you can use {pi}. Roughly speaking, it applies not just the next word as modifier to what came before, but several following words (often all following words).

For example, compare {tomo telo nasa} with {tomo pi telo nasa} (tomo = structure/"house", telo = water, nasa = crazy).

The first is "(house of water) crazy" or "crazy water-house" or, since "water-house" is used to mean "toilet", "crazy toilet".

The second is "house of (water crazy)" or, since "crazy water" is used to mean "alcohol", "house of alcohol" or "bar" or "pub".

The meaning of phrases containing multiple occurrences of {pi} is not defined, as far as I know; I've used it in this text in a sequence of "A B pi C D pi E F" to mean "((A B) of (C D)) of (E F)". (Rather than, say, "(A B) of ((C D) of (E F))".)

Verb-modifier compounds

In phrases where the first component is verb-like, the second and any subsequent components tend to be adverb-like.

Unofficial words

All official Toki Pona words are lower-case, even at the beginning of a sentence.

Unofficial words have an upper-case first letter, and cannot stand alone, but act like adjectives or modifiers to an official word.

In this text, this occurs only with {jan} "person" as the official word, to designate someone's name. The name has to be mangled into Toki Pona phonotactics, though (basically CV, with a fairly small set of possible C, though a word-initial V syllable is allowed and syllables can also end in "n"). For example, {jan Susan} would be "(the person named) Susan".

The use of {e} and {li}

These two grammatical particles help to figure out the syntax of sentences.

Transitive verbs take {e} before their direct object; this serves to separate the verb-like portion of such a sentence from the following noun-like portion.

The particle {li} occurs before the predicate of a sentence; it serves to separate the verb-like portion of such a sentence from a preceding noun-like portion.

As an exception, {li} is not used when the subject of a sentence is {mi} "I" or {sina} "you". Anything else, including other "pronouns" such as {ona} "he/she/it/they" or {mi mute} "we", must have {li} between it and the predicate.

Both {e} and {li} can occur multiple times in a sentence.

If there are multiple {e}, then this means that the verb has two or more objects. For example, {mi moku e kili e soweli} means "I eat fruit and meat" (moku = eat, kili = fruit or pulpy vegetable, soweli = animal or meat).

If there are multiple {li}, then this means that the subject performs two or more actions. For example, {jan li toki li utala} means "The person talks and fights" (jan = person, toki = talk, utala = fight).

Again, {li} is omitted immediately after a subject of {mi} or {sina}, so "I talk and fight" would be {mi toki li utala}.

The use of {la}

The particle {la} is about as close as Toki Pona gets to multi-clause sentences.

It has two basic uses in this text.

Temporal {la}

When the phrase before {la} is a time expression, it says when the action expressed in the main clause takes place. For example, {tenpo suno ni la, mi toki} means "I talk today" (more literally: "this sun-time la, I talk").

Conditional {la}

When the phrase before {la} is *not* a time expression, it expresses a kind of condition under which the action in the main clause takes place -- if/when in English. For example, {mi lape la, ale li pona} "When I sleep, everything is good" (lape = sleep, ale = everything, pona = good; more literally, "I sleep la, everything is good").

The use of {kama} as an "auxiliary verb"

When {kama} is used before another predicate, it means something like "start to (do/be X), begin to (do/be X), become (X)".

The use of {o}: imperatives and vocatives

Both imperatives and vocatives (addressing someone directly) use the particle {o}.

There are three cases:

Vocative

The name, or other designation, is followed by {o}, a comma, and the main sentence you want the person to hear. For example, {jan Ken o, mi pali} would mean "Ken, I'm working."

Imperative

The sentence starts off with {o} and the verb. For example, {o pali} would mean "Work!"

Vocative and imperative

If a sentence is a command addressed to a specific person, then there is only one {o} (not one for the vocative and one for the imperative), and there is *no* comma. For example, {jan Ken o pali} would mean "Ken, work!".

Numbers

Numbers are treated as modifiers, and therefore follow the noun or pronoun they modify. For example, {mi tu} "the two of us"; {sijelo wan} "one body, a body".

Similarly with {nanpa}, which forms ordinal expressions; for example, {tomo pi nanpa tu} is "house of number-two", or "the second house". (Note that this needs {pi} since {nanpa tu} is more than one word, and the entire phrase is supposed to modify {tomo}.)

Vocabulary

ala	(mod) no, not, none
ale	(mod) all, every, complete
anpa	(n) bottom, lower part; (mod) low, lower, bottom, down
anpa lawa	(n) "bottom of head": neck
kama anpa	(vi) "come to be low/bottom": fall, come down
anu	(conj) or
awen	(mod) stationary, permanent, firm
e	(part) [introduces a direct object; see Grammar]
ike	(mod) bad, negative, wrong
insa	(n) inside
jan	(n) person, people
jan Mako	(proper n) Marco [arbitrary male name; replace as appropriate]
jan Malija	(proper n) Maria [arbitrary female name; replace as appropriate]
jan sewi	(n) "religious person": god; priest; Note: several "jan sewi X" are mentioned in the text; feel free to replace those descriptions "god/priest of X" with appropriate proper names, if you have corresponding figures in your conworld/mythology.
jelo	(mod) yellow
jo	(vt) have, possess
kalama	(vi) make noise
kalama musi	(vi) "make artful noise": sing
kama	(aux) begin to (do/be X), start to (do/be X), become (X) [see also Grammar]; (vi) come, occur, happen
kama anpa	(see "anpa")
kasi	(n) plant, leaf, herb, tree, wood
kili	(n) fruit, pulpy vegetable
kin	(mod) also, too
kiwen	(n) hard thing, rock, stone, metal, mineral
kon	(n) air, wind, soul
la	(part) [used for temporal or conditional phrases; see Grammar]
lawa	(n) head; (mod) main, leading, in charge; (vt) lead, control, guide, rule, steer
len	(n) clothing, cloth, fabric
lete	(vt) cool, cool down, chill
li	(part) [separates subject from predicate; see Grammar]
lili	(mod) small, little, short, few
linja	(n) long, very thin, floppy thing, e.g. string, rope, hair, thread, cord, chain
lon	(prep) be (located) in/at/on [generic locative preposition]; (vi) be real/true, exist; (n) life, existence
lukin	(mod) visual(ly); see also "pona"
mani	(n) money
meli	(n) woman, female, girl, wife, girlfriend
mi	(pron) I, me; we, us; (mod) my, our
mi mute	(pron) we, us; (mod) our
mi tu	(pron) we (two), the two of us; (mod) our, belonging to us two
mije	(n) man, male, boy, husband, boyfriend
mun	(n) moon
musi	(mod) artful, fun, recreational; see also "kalama"
mute	(mod) many, very, much, several; see also "mi"
nanpa	(mod) -th [ordinal numbers]
nanpa wan	(mod) "1-th": first
nanpa tu	(mod) "2-th": second
nasin	(n) way, road, path
ni	(mod) this, that
o	(part) [used for vocatives and imperatives; see Grammar]
olin	(vt) love (a person)
ona	(pron) she, he, it, they
ona tu	(pron) they, these two, those two
pakala	(vt) mess up, break, ruin, hurt, injure, damage, spoil; (vi) be messed up, broken, sick
pali	(vi) act, work
pana	(vt) give, put, place, send
pana e X tawa Y	(often translatable as) give X to Y
pana e kon	(vi) "send air": blow, breathe (out)
pana e pona	(idiom) "give goodness": help, bless
pi	(part) [used for grouping of multi-word phrases; see Grammar]
pilin	(vi) feel
pilin ike	(vi) "feel bad-ly": feel bad, feel unhappy
pilin pona	(vi) "feel good-ly": feel good, feel happy
pimeja	(mod) dark, black (see also "tenpo"); (n) darkness, shadow, shade
poka	(prep) (together) with, in the accompaniment of
pona	(n) good, goodness; (mod) good, well, positive(ly); (vi) be good
pona lukin	(n) "visual goodness": beauty; (mod) "good visually": beautiful
sama	(mod) same, similar(ly)
seli	(n) fire; (vi) be hot, warm
sewi	(n) high, up, top; (mod) superior, religious, formal; see also "jan" and "toki"
sijelo	(n) body
sike	(n) circle, wheel, sphere, ball; (mod) round
sina	(pron) you; (mod) your
sinpin	(n) front, face, wall
sinpin len	(n) "wall of cloth": sail
suli	(vi) be big, tall, long, adult, important
suno	(n) sun, light; see also "tenpo"; (vi) shine
supa	(n) horizontal surface
tan	(prep) because of
taso	(mod) only, sole
tawa	(vi) go, walk, travel, move; (prep) to, towards, for, on behalf of; see also "pana"
telo	(n) water
tenpo	(n) time, period of time
tenpo ni	(n) "this time": now
tenpo suno	(n) "sun-time": day
tenpo suno ni	(n) "this sun-time": today
toki	(vt) say
toki awen	(vt) "say permanently": promise, swear, vow
toki sewi	(vi) "say religiously": pray
tu	(mod) two; see also "mi", "nanpa"
wan	(mod) one; (n) unit, element, part; (vi) unite, be united, be one, marry; (vt) unite, make one, marry
wawa	(n) energy, strength, power; (vi) be energetic, strong, fierce, intense

Abbreviations

conj	conjunction
mod	modifier (often adverb-y or adjective-y)
n	noun
part	grammatical particle
prep	preposition
vi	intransitive verb
vt	transitive verb (usually takes a direct object with {e})