'long': The All-Purpose Preposition — Tok Pisin Grammar

Tok Pisin has two prepositions. handles possession and purpose; handles everything else. It is one of the most frequent words in the language, and it stands where English would pick among at, to, in, on, from, for, about, with and by.

English prepositions are notoriously arbitrary - we arrive at a station but in a city, are on a bus but in a car, and no rule predicts it. Tok Pisin sidesteps the whole problem.

Place

Mi stap long maket.
I am at the market.
Pik i stap long haus tasol.
The pig stays in the house only.
Em i stap long Saut Amerika.
He is in South America.

Direction

Mi go long haus.
I'm going home.
Mi go long stua.
I'm going to the shop.
Mi go long supamaket.
I'm going to the supermarket.
Yumi go long haus.
Let's go home.
Tanim long han rait long sios.
Turn right at the church.

The Direction Is in the Verb

by itself means neither "at the house" nor "to the house" - it just links the house to the predicate. Whether motion is involved is decided by the verb in front of it.

- is static, so: at the house
- is motion, so: to the house

English forces the preposition to match the verb - "go to" but "stay at". In Tok Pisin the verb carries that information and simply attaches the place.

Time

Long nait mi no save slip.
At night I don't sleep.
Bai pis i kaikai long nait.
The fish will eat at night.
Na long moning yu kam bek.
And in the morning you come back.
Yu wokim wanem long aste?
What did you do yesterday?
Lukim yu long tumora.
See you tomorrow.

The Person Receiving

Tok Pisin has no indirect-object slot. Where English can say "give me a kiss", putting the recipient straight after the verb, Tok Pisin always marks the recipient with .

Yu no givim kis long mi.
You didn't give me a kiss.
Pren bilong mi i kam long mi.
My friend came to me.

The Thing Talked or Known About

Where English uses "about" or nothing at all, Tok Pisin uses . Note that takes it too, so "know someone" is literally "know about someone".

Em i tok long yumi tu.
He spoke about us too.
Na em i toktok long mi.
And he talked to me.
Mi save long meri ya.
I know that woman.
Ol i no save long mi.
They don't know me.

The Thing Used

The instrument - English "with" or "by" - is marked the same way.

Ol i brukim plang long naip.
They break the plank with a knife.
Man i save tanim long han.
A man turns it by hand.

After Certain Words

Some words simply require before what follows them, much as English verbs demand particular prepositions.

Mi no inap long wet moa.
I can't wait any longer.
Em pen long wanem hap?
Where does it hurt?
Ol i kam long wanem hap?
Which place do they come from?

A Form You Will Meet: 'en'

After a preposition, often appears as instead. It is the same pronoun, and it turns up only in this position - never as a subject and never as an object of a verb. is every bit as common as .

Em i gat taim bilong en.
He has time for it.
Putim kala antap long en.
Put colour on top of it.

Both forms are correct, and is always available in its place.

Where It Comes From

is English "along", worn down to a general-purpose link. Its partner is English "belong". Knowing this helps with neither meaning - "along" tells you nothing about "at night" - but it explains why the two look so similar, and it is a good reminder that a Tok Pisin word's English ancestor is a clue to its shape, not to its sense.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Tok Pisin course

213 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 4. A few of them, with the words “'long': The All-Purpose Preposition” is about in bold:

Dispela wara i kol. Wara long hap i hat.
This water is cold. That water is hot.
Lesson 68
Mi laik go long haus nau.
I want to go home now.
Lesson 71
Mi go long bikpela stua.
I went to the shopping mall.
Lesson 172

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