Triforce of Truth
Now, it might be going a bit too far to say the purple element is supposed to be a forth triforce to balance out the other 3. The games have always made it very clear that the triforce was left by the 3 goddesses who created the world, and adding a 4th one to the mix this late in the series would just be horrible writing. I definitely think Nintendo was making a point of these four colors/elements being important throughout the games...
I don't think this purple element represents truth, but something else... The element of balance is represented by the the color gold, as in the gold power of the complete triforce, the golden land... The key to getting the golden power is having the elements represted by red, blue, and green in balance.
So the purple element has nothing at all to do with the triforce, it's not balance, it's not truth... What it DOES have a lot to do with, though, is the world of Termina.
Majora's Mask takes place in another dimension, which again has absolutely nothing to do with the triforce, and the color purple is as prominent in this game as the color gold is in games involving the triforce. Even the logo itself is purple, instead of the usual red/sometimes green or yellow.
Majora himself is a very colorful being. He's mostly purple, with a bunch of pink, green, blue, and yellow patterns mixed in. And his moon playground is as colorful as he is.
The Happy Mask Salesman plays a large role in the story, he knows the most about Majora's Mask, wants to get it back from the Skull Kid, and can seem to bend time to his will and travel between Termina and Hyrule freely. He is dressed in purple.
The last weapon in the game, the Great Fairy Sword, is a purple/pinkish blade with colorful patterns on it.
The story of Majora's Mask is a story of friendship. Skull Kid thought he lost his friends, Link was on a journey to search for his friends, the people of Termina learn to trust in their friends... I think the color purple represents the element of friendship.
The four poe sisters in OoT's Forest Temple... the purple Magic Armor in WW being the 4th spell after the Din, Farore, and Nayru spells in OoT... and those same four colors being the colors of the tunics in the Four Swords games... These four colors/elements are used a lot throughout the series... Majora's Mask and its four levels correlate with the 4 elements pretty well.
Purple: Friendship, Betrayal, Trust
The first level, woodfall, is a purple poisonous swamp, where the Skull Kid found his new friends Tatl and Tael. When Link saves the swamp, he restores the friendship between the monkeys and the Deku tribe. This correlates with the main theme of friendship in Majora's Mask.
Swamp = Purple = Skull Kid's Friendship
Green: Life, Nature, Courage
The 2nd level, Snowhead, is a windy, snowy village that turns green after you restore it. Its temple is blocked by a fierce wind (caused by a giant invisible Goron with a cold). When link saves the Mountain Village, he brings warm weather back to the village and prevents it from going into a lifeless ice age. This correlates with:
Farore... With her rich soul, produced all life forms who would uphold the law.
Snowhead = Green Spring = Farore's Wind
Blue: Love, Order, Wisdom
The 3rd level, Great Bay, is a blue ocean brimming with life (like-likes, eels, fish, seahorses, zoras, beavers, and pirates), and love (seahorse couple, Mikau and Lulu, zora eggs). The pirates try to steal the Zora eggs before they hatch, but Link recovers them. The Great Bay Temple itself is a mechanical structure that uses water physics... Link defeats the curse in the temple that was the cause of the ocean becoming murky and makes the ocean clear and blue again. This correlates with:
Nayru... Poured her wisdom onto the earth and gave the spirit of law to the world.
Great Bay = Blue Clarity = Nayru's Love
Red: Creation, Descruction, Power
The 4th level, Ikana, is a haunted canyon of dry earth, filled with the stench of death and decay, a land destroyed by the flames of war. Link restores Ikana by shining the light of gold on the Stone Tower Temple, and becoming a giant to gain the power needed to defeat the source of the temple's evil curse. Playing music to make the dead mummies fall back into the ground, flipping the temple upside down, as if flipping the earth itself around, correlates with:
Din... With her strong flaming arms, she cultivated the land and created the red earth.
Ikana = Destruction and recreation of the Red Earth = Din's Fire
Colorless: Regret, Forgiveness, Hope
Despite all the colorful themes of Majora's Mask, whenever you defeat a temple you end up in the colorless, white void of the giants realm. There seems to be white slime oozing down from the ceiling, and pinkish bubbles floating around...
The lack of color in this world represents the sadness of the giants, and their regret for making their friend the Skull Kid feel sad. The little bits of color in the floating bubbles represent hope. Once you defeat all the temples and play the Oath to Order, the giants are able emerge from their colorless world and reunite with the Skull Kid, their friendship is restored, and Termina is saved.
The Significance of the 4th Element
I'm not sure how the timeline split, and the fate of Termina affects the history of Hyrule, but it seems like it could be a major factor in the split.
Majora's Mask only happens on the child timeline, where Ganondorf never enters the Sacred Realm. Link goes to Termina and saves it from destruction, and what follows then is Ganondorf's execution. The gods play a divine prank which gives the triforce of power to Ganondorf anyway to keep the world in balance, and Ganondorf gets sent to the Twilight Realm, and later gets defeated before he can do any damage to the main world.
On the adult timeline, however, Termina was not saved, and instead Link pulled out the Master Sword and let Ganondorf into the Sacred Realm to become the King of Evil. Ganon ruled over Hyrule for 7 years, before being sealed away in the now-dark realm. Zelda feels bad for Link having missed his childhood, and she then sends Link back to his own time. But eventually Ganon escaped that seal anyway and Hyrule was flooded because Link's ancestor wasn't around to save it. Ultimately, Zelda's friendship for Link caused the destruction of Hyrule on the same timeline where Majora's Mask never took place, and the Skull Kid's friendship caused the descruction of Termina.
In both timelines, the goddesses created the world with the elements of power, wisdom, and courage. But the element of friendship affects the world differently in the 2 timelines. In one timeline, the element of friendship brings people together and creates peace and harmony in Termina and Hyrule. While in the other timeline, the element of friendship tears people apart and brings destruction to both worlds.
I don't recall any evidence supporting how this element fits into the older pre-OoT games. I'm guessing they added this 4th element starting with OoT, and Majora's Mask was used as a way of giving it a significant meaning without being related to the triforce.
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