Combining Characters

sitelen pona has a little trick up its sleeve! Under the right conditions, 2 characters can occupy the same space.

The head of a phrase can be combined with one(!) modifier. (In English terms, this can mean that a noun can be combined with one adjective, or a verb can be combined with one adverb.)

This also means that grammatical particles ("en", "li", "e", "pi", "o") don't get combined. Preverbs do not get combined with the verb, and prepositions don't get combined with the prepositional phrase. If these get negated with "ala," preverbs and prepositions might get combined with "ala."

Combinations can happen in one of two ways:

The modifier can go inside the head of the phrase. For example, in "toki pona," "toki" is the head and "pona" is the modifier:

toki pona

toki-pona

The modifier can go on top of the head of the phrase. For example, in "kala lili," "kala" is the head and "lili" is the modifier:

kala lili

kala+lili

So character combinations are read outside-to-inside and bottom-to-top.

Character combinations will only be used occasionally in this course.