Questions using seme

seme
seme
question mark
question mark

grammar review

The grammar in this lesson is covered in chapter 7 in pu, lesson 10 in Pije, and page 7 in Lentan.

Questions using seme follow a simple pattern. Imagine the question as a statement with one possibly answer, and replace the information you want to know with seme.

sina moku e [kili]. -> sina moku e seme? - What are you eating?

If you are confirming what you think is true, add anu seme to the end of the sentence.

sina moku e kili anu seme? - Are you eating a fruit?

Questions using seme

There isn’t anything really difficult to learn about forming questions. As long as you learned what the question mark looks like in the last lesson, and you know how to use seme in toki pona grammar, you only need to learn the glyph for seme and you are set to go:

seme?
seme?

The important thing to remember is that seme often takes the place of the part of the sentence in question. If you are asking who or what did something, seme will probably take place of the subject:

seme li lape lon supa?
seme li lape lon supa?

When asking what was done, seme takes the place of the verb

sina seme e ona?
sina seme e ona?
ona li seme e sina?
ona li seme e sina?

When you are asking what something is, seme will be infixed in li:

pipi suwi li seme?
pipi suwi li seme?

And when asking who or what was acted upon, seme will most likely take the place of the direct object, infixed in e:

ona li olin e seme?
ona li olin e seme?
sina lukin e seme?
sina lukin e seme?
jan nasa li pali e seme?
jan nasa li pali e seme?

Additionally, seme can take the place of an adjective when asking which one(s)

kili seme li suwi?
kili seme li suwi?
mi mute li wile tawa tomo seme?
mi mute li wile tawa tomo seme?

asking why with tan seme

To ask why in toki pona, we use tan seme. Remember from lesson 6 that tan is a preposition, and thus a container, so seme naturally sits inside. One further simplification however is allowed:

tan seme tan seme
tan seme

There is nothing grammatically wrong when we surround seme within tan, but sometimes the double line draws too much unnecessary attention. By enlarging seme slightly we fill the entirety of tan , effectively combine the two glyphs.

sina olin e ona tan seme?
sina olin e ona tan seme?

questions with other prepositions

This simplification carries over to our other prepositions as well. To be sure there is no requirement seme be combined when surrounded by a preposition. But if you compare the two glyph blocks below, you can see in the second one, when we join tawa and seme, it aids in readability:

tomo tawa li tawa seme? tomo tawa li tawa seme?
tomo tawa li tawa seme?

Here are two further examples with lon, kepeken, and sama:

sina li lon seme?
sina li lon seme?
mi pakala kepeken seme?
mi pakala kepeken seme?
jan ni li sama seme?
jan ni li sama seme?

When seme is modifying something else within a preposition, we follow normal block order rules:

jan utala li tan ma seme?
jan utala li tan ma seme?

test your comprehension

seme li sin?
seme li sin?
seme li lon insa poki sin?
seme li lon insa poki sin?
jan sin li seme?
jan sin li seme?