Grouping with te
Modifiers group to the right by default. On the rare occasion that gives the wrong reading, the te particle is used to change the grouping, as shown here:
| Pikotika | Groups as | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| meka aku peste | big [water animal] | a big fish |
| meka aku te peste | [big water] animal | a sea creature |
Without te, meka reaches all the way to peste. With it, it can't — the particle is in the way — so it settles on aku instead, and meka aku as a unit modifies the animal.
She's a business owner who is small.
Tisomo ri piko komparmen teneomo.She's a small-business owner.
Tisomo ri piko komparmen te teneomo.When you need it
Almost never. Three conditions have to hold at once: two or more modifiers in a row, and the grouping you want is the left one, and no standing compound already says it.
te does nothing with a single modifier. If you find yourself putting te between a single modifier and the word it modifies, take it out.
It reaches back to the last particle before it — ri, a, rite, or another te — and everything from there to the particle acts as a single grouped modifier.
In English, when we face the same ambiguity, we often resolve it by putting in a hyphen between the words we want to act as a group. In Pikotika, we use te.| Pikotika | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Tis ri verte arpoaku komparroko. | It's a green tea-shop (i.e. a tea shop that's green). |
| Tis ri verte arpoaku te komparroko. | It's a green-tea shop. |
| Tisomo ri verte arpoaku te komparroko te teneomo. | She's the owner of a green-tea shop. |
Or don't say it that way at all
You can usually get the left grouping by making a compound instead: pikokomparmen ‘small business’, then pikokomparmen teneomo ‘smal- business owner’. That is a legitimate option in Pikotika, and sometimes the better one. The example at the top of this page, meka aku te peste, is a bit contrived because mekaaku is a standard word; in practice you would almost always say mekaaku peste.
But if the compound you'd need would be uncomfortably long — remember that only the next-to-last syllable in any word should be stressed — then te gets the job done with separate words.
Compounds never include te
However long a compound is, it is a single word, not a phrase you are building as you speak — so no te goes inside it. mekaakurante ‘seashore’, as three words, would be meka aku te rante; but as a compound word, te disappears, and the intended meaning is agreed upon by convention.
Try it yourself
- Which of these means a shop selling black tea?
- nero arpoaku komparroko, or
- nero arpoaku te komparroko?
Show answer
The second. Without te, nero reaches the shop and colors the shop rather than the tea.
- Is meka te aku good Pikotika?
Show answer
It parses, but the particle is doing nothing: with a single modifier there is only one grouping. Say just meka aku instead.
- Translate Tisomo ri arpoaku komparroko te teneomo.
Show answer
‘She's a tea-shop owner.’ te reaches back to ri, so the whole phrase arpoaku komparroko modifies the owner.