title_body: Do toki pona speakers, in practice, permit compounding more than three words?
upvoted_answer: In general, we don't want to make descriptions so long and complicated as to be difficult to follow. That is more important than exact word count, in my experience (as an admin of the "toki pona taso" group on Facebook). For example, if someone mentioned a "poki kala suli pi telo ala", I wouldn't find that at all strange as a description of an empty aquarium. However, if someone spoke of an "ilo sona lili pakala laso", I'd probably have to read it a few times to figure out what they're talking about (in this case I'm thinking of a dysfunctional blue laptop). So compounds with "pi" tend to have a bit more leeway because that groups the words together somewhat, making it easier to decipher. But shorter, simpler descriptions are generally preferred, and in practice this usually does turn out to be three words or less.