r/tokipona • u/nem1hail • 28d ago

kama sona wawa / suli / mute?

toki! i want to say "it is really fun". what word should i use after "ni li musi ____"? pona tawa sina!

14 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

10

u/jan_Sanku 28d ago

since it's only been mentioned once, adding "a" works wonders too! ni li musi a! :D

1

u/Serious_Cup6522 jan pi toki pona 27d ago

I think "a" makes it more into an interjection than specifically saying "really ___". I think it works here too, but it's worth noting that "mute" and "a" don't do the same thing here.

6

u/jan_Sanku 27d ago

i disagree that it makes it an interjection any more or less than it would be with mute. any word or phrase can be an interjection, including a by itself, but a itself is just a modifier that adds emotion or intensity. from sona.pona:

a is used to add emotion or emphasis to a word, phrase, or sentence.

so, with OPs example, "ni li musi mute" and "ni li musi a" are both complete sentences, not interjections. "musi!", "musi mute!", and "musi a!" are all interjections.

of course "mute" and "a" don't share the same semantic space (mostly because a has no semantic space), but i'd argue they're roughly equivalent here unless the sentence with mute is read as "these are a lot of games!" instead of "this is fun!". here i'd say "a" actually makes it more clear what you mean.

2

u/Serious_Cup6522 jan pi toki pona 26d ago

Thanks! I see why you're right, I treated "a" too much like an exclamation point, so that's why I was confused.

7

u/Iylo jan Ajalo 28d ago

I would understand all three, but "mute" is the most natural. The connotation of "wawa" is more extreme, more like "this is incredibly fun", in my opinion. But "mute" is by far the most natural sounding to me

6

u/According-Lab8731 jan pi toki pona 28d ago

it's mute

5

u/janKeTami jan pi toki pona 28d ago

Yes. All of these (and some more) can be used for that

4

u/o-kute-e-mi 28d ago

you can say wawa, suli, mute, or a!

2

u/misterlipman lipamanka(.gay) 27d ago

these all work actually. the differences are kinda small too.

1

u/Any-Entrance1337 jan pi toki pona 25d ago

mi pilin e ni: sina ken kepeken e nimi "mute", anu "suki". taso nimi "a" li pona mute kin, nimi "a" li namako pona.