Yupela! Gunawa! Let's talk about -pela!

What is -pela?

Rule # 1 DO NOT CONFUSE TOK PISIN WITH ENGLISH

English is an inflecting language while Tok Pisin is an isolating language.

English typically inflects words to create new meaning while Tok Pisin typically use single or isolated words to create meaning.

Since English and Tok Pisin are grammatically different, do not think that -pela will behave in the same way as English inflections.

Isolating languages tend to morph into agglutinating languages where free morpheme words become bound morphemes and lose their meanings.

So the free morpheme word 'fellow' changed into a bound morpheme '-pela' and lost its original meaning.

-pela can be an empty morpheme giving structure in the formation of a grammatical class of adjectives.

For instance, -pela is a mandatory inflection to word structure of numeral adjectives or numbers functioning as adjectives in a sentence, for example, 'I have one phone' 'Mi gat wanpela fon'. Also -pela can be an optional inflection to the word structure of colours when they function as adjectives in a sentence, for example, 'I have black hair' can be 'Mi gat blakpela gras' or 'Mi gat blak gras' . Both are acceptable sentences.

-pela can be an empty morpheme giving structure in the formation of a new word that does not have semantic value or independent meaning or grammatical function. In this case, it is not an inflection, rather an empty bound morpheme glued together to free form words to create new words. Example, in the Tok Pisin Personal Pronouns System -pela is glued to 'mi' to create new word like 'mipela' meaning 'we'

In conclusion, -pela can be a mandatory inflection in word structure of numeral adjectives, an optional inflection in word structure of colour adjectives or an inseparable part of a new word, carrying no independent semantic value or grammatical function.

What do you think? Is this explanation clear?