Contionary:Toki Pona/ala
Toki Pona
Glyph origin
Etymology
Template:Etymon From Georgian არა (ara, “no”). Could also be influenced by Finnish älä, meaning "do not."
Pronunciation
Adjective
Usage notes
ala has special precedence where it is treated as a negation modifier even after prepositions and preverbs (e.g. tawa ala ma; kama ala pali). Most content words that follow a preposition are instead treated as the head of the prepositional phrase, and most that follow a preverb are treated as the subsequent verb. Some speakers extend this property of ala to a small class of words such as tok ("kin") → [[Contionary:{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]] ("{{{4}}}"), tok ("lili") → [[Contionary:{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]] ("{{{4}}}"), tok ("mute") → [[Contionary:{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]] ("{{{4}}}"), and tok ("taso") → [[Contionary:{{{3}}}|{{{3}}}]] ("{{{4}}}").
Numeral
Noun
Verb
- (transitive, intransitive) to do nothing (to)
- (transitive, intransitive) to be or cause to be nothing; to nullify, annihilate, erase, or delete