a #7
Comments
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Discussion starters from me:
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I think it's NOT better than listing those! I think we should make the definition funny too like |
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the funny is funny but i support something boring also for translators we're definitely gonna need an explanation of what vibe each of those interjections has |
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for translators they should probably end up choosing a bunch of similar noises in their language. it's not going to be 1-1. Hell, most english speakers wouldn't've put "oy" on there but I think it fits and I want there to be a slight jewish touch in here. you can't exactly ... translate paralinguistic noises |
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It's worth pointing out to translators that the same noise in English doesn't necessarily carry the same connotation in the target language e.g., english "oi!" as in "what the fuck are you doing" is best translated to russian as [ɛː] |
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precisely. awesome! I will draft a finished a thing when I get my energy back |
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i think the list trick actually works really well here, since we can never make a fully exhaustive or even satisfying list
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that works! but it makes me consider if we should self-impose a character limit on these so we can more comfortably make them longer without worrying about that |
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descriptively, i've heard some of these uses but not all of them. i've definitely heard these: |
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i think we should also note that it's a particle that emphasizes what it comes after |
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I don't think it's a particle, it's paralinguistic. it's just a noise you make to express emotion. it can emphasize what it comes after but it can also just emphasize the whole sentence. I think just listing the things it can mean is more effective. also I've seen too many beginners get confused by the "particle" under a. Unlike every other word that I might describe as a particle, it doesn't mark anything in syntax. As for your examples, I think you might be overthinking it. toki pona doesn't fit these into the same categories english does. a can express all of these sentiments and still sound like [a] with different inflection and context. if something disappointing or annoying happens, you might respond with "a." in english I'd respond with "oy" or "ugh." So including as much of these little sounds people make in english gives people the idea that a is used to fulfill all of those sentiments. That being said I'm struggling to word one that I like so perhaps you should try? |
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seem to conflict. I think a is an emotion word AND a particle because of these two things. Considering that Mandarin 啊 (as a sentence final sound) exists and is linguistically classified as an emphasis particle AND as a paralinguistic sound, I don't think this is true, especially with how many people use it as a particle for emphasis in the same way as 啊. |
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Yeah maybe but saying it's a particle I think might still be misleading to beginners, and the reason why I think that is because I've seen beginners get confused by that terminology for a before |
Introducing the concept of particles is something that's necessary, since li, e, and so on are literally particles, and that's eventually unavoidable to learn. Lying to beginners by omission about what toki pona words actually are for the sake of making it "simpler" is pretty bad in my opinion. It's like introducing content words as filling in the role as different parts of speech, like saying "soweli li toki pona" is a noun followed by a verb and an adjective modifying that verb, which gets even more confusing in the long run. If you really want to never say the word "particle", my suggestion is something like this:
But then you would have to explain what a function word is if someone doesn't get it, which in this case is just a particle, and that's not solving the issue, is it? |
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I don't really know how to respond to .. that. I feel like I wasn't saying any of that and I feel like we're arguing now? I am not okay with that. |
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If you think disagreements or even misunderstanding what someone said is arguing and therefore doesn't have to be engaged with, then I don't want to participate in this project, sorry. Having a committee to discuss these changes for the purpose of making the semantic spaces of words clearer for the purposes of teaching and then shutting down a disagreement about pedagogy is weird. If I was misunderstanding you, you should clarify that and tell me what I misunderstood to move along the conversation. I'm not interacting in bad faith and you know that. |
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I said that including the word "particle" in the word a was confusing for beginners. You said that a can be both a particle and paralinguistic like mandarin 啊 I said that "saying it's a particle I think might still be misleading to beginners" You told me that I was "lying to beginners by omission about what toki pona words actually are for the sake of making it 'simpler'" and "never want to say the word particle" I said "I feel like I wasn't saying any of that" and raised concerns about the tone of this issue And then you said "I don't want to participate in this project, sorry" and cited the things I said as why That's my understanding of what happened. correct me if I'm wrong. |
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I don't see the problem with the content of the discussion then since we have the same understanding. I do see a problem with the issue you seem have with my tone. This is just how I talk... |
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This probably doesn't add much to the conversation, but here I go
These are good, but I'm definitely missing the emphasises-previous-words-phrases-or-even-sentences part - whatever we want to call it (nasin toki pona describes it as an "emoticle" hehe, next to "pure particles" and "pseudoparticles"). Hm, oh, I don't know how uncontroversial it is that "a" applies specifically to the sentence as a whole, that doesn't really have to be part of the dictionary entry |
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In a Discord conversation at the start, we had agreed to mark parts of speech:
So, unless a is a content word, which it isn't, it's receiving a As we can see from the conversation above, calling it a "particle" does not go down well with everyone and seems to require more explanation when teaching. Decent option but not perfect. jan Ke Tami has pointed out that some grammars already put it down as something-other-than-a-particle, which in nasin toki pona's case is called an "emoticle". This works fine for nasin toki pona, but our dictionary will end up translated to multiple languages, each of which would have to coin a word for "emoticle". Problematic. I propose simply putting it down as "interjection". That's separates "a" from particles without requiring an ad hoc name, is linguistically accurate, and I hope still readable for laymen. (👍 / 👎?) |
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I don't mind, but if we care about this, wouldn't the term "interjection" be inaccurate when it comes to mid-sentence, modifier-like, "a"? |
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I get your point and I feel like it's not precisely accurate, but it can be commented on during teaching instead, methinks |
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yeah it'd be nice to have it say somewhere in linku "remember, a proficient speaker will be able to elaborate more on these definitions!" so if someone's like "but linku doesn't say that!" we can point to it and be like "linku says listen to me" |
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sounds like a good about page to write |
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i could do that! it'd
or something |
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im open to that but would prefer it if this gets postponed until after the definitions rework |
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I don't see the problem with calling "a" a particle. Aside from coining new words, how is it not? I think a might be a rare word where we do have two somewhat distinct definitions because the use as a particle-ish modifier don't behave quite the same as when used as an interjection |
Would anyone like to try phrase the definition in terms of that, then? |
With this definition, we have two things to consider:
I'm kinda wondering then, how much responsibility do we have to label word functions? As I recall, we were looking at delineating only these categories:
And a doesn't really suit "thing with grammatical function". If anything, the grammar acts on it, limiting where it can go. |
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I like that. now the REAL question: do we want the oxford comma or not?? vote on your phones!!! |
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In English yes. In translation, depends entirely on their most accepted punctuation principles |
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well people don't like the oxford comma or something idk it could be debatable (i'm in favor) |
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the lipu-linku org description hasn't an oxford comma
so teeechnically the precedent (kala Asi's idiolect) is against |
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Bump. Let's not let this issue become stale. |
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we've got five rockets on #7 (comment) above. any concerns about it? |
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I think we can do a pull request now! six 🚀s now |
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I would like the "spoken exclamation mark" included but I would accept it as written above if people prefer |
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i think "spoken exclamation mark" captures the way that a can follow a sentence, but not the way it can follow a word or phrase. i like the current definition because it includes all three |
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I think "a is like a spoken exclamation mark" can be a useful way to teach it, but IMO it doesn't vibe as accurate enough to include in a definition. It's similar to an exclamation mark, but definitely not directly equivalent.
I feel like "emotion" is lacking from that definition. I'd prefer this, which was mentioned here in the particles masterpost:
A bit on the long side, but clear and accurate. |
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hm, what's an example of an "a" suffix that puts emotion but not emphasis on what it follows? |
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Well... yeah, it's hard to find examples that add emotion but not any emphasis. But I think that there are definitely cases where "a" adds more emotion than emphasis. Most often in cases where "a" modifies the entire sentence instead of just one word or phrase. For example, I feel that in most cases "ike a!" is closer to "I have a strong emotional response to the fact that this is bad" than "this is super bad" or "I want you to pay extra attention to the badness". I guess I feel that emotion is very important to "a" because I originally learned Toki Pona from the jan Pije course, which was written before the a/kin merger. So "a" was taught exclusively as a word you put at the end of a sentence to express emotion, and as an interjection / for laughter. (Emphasis was originally kin's job, before pu stole it and gave it to "a". That broader meaning of "kin" wasn't very common compared to the "also" usage, but I used to be pretty strongly in favor of re-broadening the meaning of "kin" to include emphasis. And using "a" for that, while an interesting idea in theory, felt very weird to me in practice.) |
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i feel weird listing out "sentence or phrase" without also including "word" |
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listing out all three feels a little unwieldy, since this is already a pretty complex definition. maybe group them all as "idea"? |
IMO "idea" is so vague that it becomes more useful to just say "something". But I guess we could also rely on commentary to explain that, if we want to be economical with the definition. Something like:
A phrase can also just be one word, though. Right? Let me check. Hmm... seems like it depends on who you ask. Traditionally a phrase is considered two or more words, but many modern schools of thought don't make that distinction. But now that I think of it, technically it's probably more correct to say that "a" is part of the phrase or sentence instead of that is follows one. And when modifying a single word, it forms a phrase. So we could go with
or something like that. |
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i'd like to be inclusive of the fact that it can go after a word, within a phrase |
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i like "something" |
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so then
That's actually probably more practical than "sentence or phrase (or word)", yeah. People can learn the specifics from other places. I'm convinced. |
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funny enough, i sat here wondering why it wasn't "word/phrase", then "word/phrase/sentence", and managed to dig my way through most of the suggestions made in the discussion then read the discussion anyway, ilo a |
janPensa
added
final comment period
and removed
discussion ongoing
awaiting committee input
not sure if this is the most appropirate place to ask, but for the translators, may you clarify what each interjection expresses?
for most other languages, I also suggest substituting 'oy' for 'oi', as in a shout to get someone's attention, just because this interjection doesn't exist universally |
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imo for other languages the translator should choose good examples of a-like words in their language. not even the english examples are universal. like in spanish "oye" might be a better fit than "oi," and in portuguese "oi" means "hi" |
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I still mean translating the vibes of them, so for example, 'oi' becomes 'ei' in Portuguese |
a
sona pu
PARTICLE (emphasis, emotion or confirmation)
sona Linku pi toki Inli
(emphasis, emotion or confirmation)
sona Linku pi toki pona
nimi a li suli e toki e nimi lon poka
sona ku
ah⁵, oh⁵, ha⁵, ooh⁴, uh⁴, gosh⁴, whoa⁴, wow⁴, um³, huh³, uh-huh², quite², gasp², really², mm-hmm², hmm², sigh²
sona sin
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