Page:Notes on lipu pu.pdf/4

 speakers prefer this way. I also personally use lon when talking ‘about’ something: mi toki lon kili. I'm talking about turnips.

For ‘Chinese lady’ (meli Sonko), many people find it clearer to say meli pi ma Sonko or meli tan ma Sonko or meli pi kulupu Sonko. This avoids misunderstanding it as ‘a woman named Sonko’, because the primary interpretation of ‘[noun] [Name]’ is ‘a [noun] named [Name]’.

Correction: jan Epawan Linkan li tan ma Mewika.

Although the particle pi is glossed as ‘of’, it is more accurate to say that pi regroups modifiers. As the examples in lipu pu show, it does not behave exactly the same way as the English word ‘of’. It may be helpful to compare the function of pi to the hyphen in English. For example, compare:

Also, a completely different way to use pi exists in the structure A pi B en C. This is a very old way to use pi, which 8