la
la is a grammatical “context-marking” particle. But context includes a lot of different things!
Nouns as context
A noun placed before la indicates that that noun is somehow involved in the sentence. It could describe a location, a topic, or just serve to change the word order.
tomo suli la jan li toki open.
mi la waso sina li suwi nanpa wan.
kili loje la jan Sopi li moku e ona ale.
Notice that the first two situations, saying lon tomo suli and tawa mi at the end of the sentence would mean the same thing. Placing something before la is very generic and may encompass the meaning of all prepositions.
Descriptive adjectives
An adjective placed before la describes the whole sentence.
ken la nasin ni li pona ala.
pona la mi sona e ni lon tenpo pini.
Time and cause
A complete clause can be placed before la as a reference to the time or cause of the main clause.
mi wawa lili tan pali la mi lape.
sina weka la mi pilin ike.
Multiple la
Multiple la may be used in sequence. In these situations, it functions like ‘then’ in English.
mi seli e telo
la ona li kama kon li tawa lon lupa
la ona li kama lete
la sin la kon li kama telo li tawa anpa lon poki ante
la telo sin la jaki ala li lon.
it becomes a gas and travels through a tube,
then it cools down,
and then it becomes liquid again and falls into another container,
and then in the new liquid, there are no impurities.
Because of this, many speakers will use la at the beginning of a sentence as a “continuation” of a previous speaker’s sentence.
mi wile lape a… / la o lape!