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[[File:Lojban_for_Newbies.png|thumb|Book cover]]
<span style="font-size:200%"><center>Lojban for Newbies.</center></span>


==  Aspect ==


<span style="font-size:150%"><center>'''la .lojban. pe lo nintadni'''</center></span>
===  Sections ===


<center>Published 2013</center>
* [[BPFK Section: Aspect as of 24 May 2004|Aspect as of 24 May 2004]] ZAhO (Shepherd: Jorge Llambias)
 
<span id="0"></span>
<span style="font-size:150%"><center>Preface — '''lidne prosa'''</center></span>
 
This tutorial gives a gentle introduction to the structure of Lojban, a logical language. 15 lessons of this course should be sufficient to allow the learner to understand most of the Lojban they are likely to see in the online Lojban discussion groups, or in the publications of the Logical Language Group.
 
Lojban is an international language the grammar of which is based on so called predicate logic which makes it universal. The language fully implements the principle of facultative precision which means that you can freely control the vagueness or on the contrary preciseness of your speech. Also it has unprecedented tools to express human emotions. It is also the best tool for implementing machine automatic translation. So it's a kind of bridge between different languages and cultures. Still it's a speakable language.
 
Lojban is clean, simple, general, and, by the very virtue of all these, powerful language.
Lojban constitutes a strikingly thorough working-out of its creators' goals, and its design is responsive to a rich, subtle understanding of linguistics and philosophical logic.
 
Lojban is going to change the way you look at verbal communication. Learning Lojban is much more than just learning its words and grammar. Learning Lojban is more about understanding it. You will need to understand many things about the way languages work. If you are not a linguist, it will be new to you. If you are a linguist it'll strike you how different ideas and philosophies you familiar with can be directly uttered in the flow of normal speech.
 
Lojban will make you think about the ways you express ideas in words. Something that you learned and used every day but never tried to understand how it works.
 
If you are deciding which language to learn or whether to learn any at all, you need to define your goals. Being able to understand what is spoken/written and/or speak/write so that other speakers understand is a good reason to learn most other languages. Learning new ways of thinking and expression of thoughts is a good reason to learn Lojban.
 
Lojban is likely to be very different to the kinds of languages you are familiar with — which certainly include English. Learning Lojban may be easy or hard, depending on how well you understand the ideas behind it. There are not many words and rules that you need to learn to get into a basic level. You will get there rather quickly if you put a systemic effort. On the other hand, if you fail to understand some basic point, memorizing things will not help you much. You will have to return to it until you get it. If a point of grammar or logic seems inscrutable at first, don't hesitate to move on, and come back to it later. Likewise, some of the exercises are trickier than others (particularly the translation exercises at the end of each lesson.) If you can't work out the answer to a particular question, feel free to skip it — but do look at the answer to the question, as there are often useful hints on Lojban usage in there. The answers to the exercises are at the end of each lesson.
 
The following conventions are used in this book:
*Examples are indented.
:This is an example of case study sentence.
*Side notes and tips are in blue boxes.
{{talkquote|This is an example of note.}}
*Lojbanic text is always in '''bold'''.
*Translations of Lojbanic sentences are in ''italic''.
*Brackets are used to clarify the grammatical structure of Lojban in examples. These brackets are not part of official Lojban orthography<nowiki>[, and are included only for academic purposes]</nowiki>.
 
<center>For more information on Lojban, please contact the Logical Language Group:</center>
<code>
 
lojban@lojban.org
 
thelogicallangugegroup@gmail.com
 
Bob LeChevalier
 
The Logical Language Group, Inc.
 
2904 Beau Lane
 
Fairfax, VA 22031
 
U.S.A.
 
(+1 703) 385-0273
 
http://www.lojban.org
</code>
 
This course is based on the book "Lojban For Beginners" — '''velcli befi la .lojban. bei loi co'a cilre''' that has been first authored by Robin Turner and Nick Nicholas. Robin authored lessons 1–8 and 10–11 in 1999; Nick added to the existing lessons, and authored lessons 9 and 12–15, in 2001. Other improvements have been added by the Lojban community throughout year 2013.
 
=Chapter 1. Letters and sounds<span id="1"></span>=
 
The first thing you need to do when you learn a foreign language is to become familiar with the sounds of the language and how they are written, and the same goes for Lojban. Fortunately, Lojban sounds (''phonemes'') are fairly straightforward.
 
==Vowels<span id="1.1"></span>==
 
There are six vowels in Lojban.
{| class="wikitable"
|| '''a'''
|| as in ''f<u>a</u>ther'' (not as in ''h<u>a</u>t'')
 
|-
|| '''e'''
|| as in ''g<u>e</u>t''
 
|-
|| '''i'''
|| as in ''mach<u>i</u>ne'' or (Italian) ''v<u>i</u>no'' (not as in ''h<u>i</u>t'')
 
|-
|| '''o'''
|| as in ''b<u>o</u>ld ''or ''m<u>o</u>re'' — not as in ''s<u>o</u>'' (this should be a ‘pure’ sound).
 
|-
|| '''u'''
|| as in ''c<u>oo</u>l'' (not as in ''b<u>u</u>t'')
 
|}
 
These are pretty much the same as vowels in Italian or Spanish. The sixth vowel, <b>y</b>, is called a ''schwa'' in the language trade, and is pronounced like the first and last ''A'''s in ''America'' (that's English ''America'', not Spanish.) It's the sound that comes out when the mouth is completely relaxed.
 
Two vowels together are pronounced as one sound (<u>diphthong</u>). Some examples are:
{| class="wikitable"
|| '''ai'''
|| as in ''h<u>igh</u>''
 
|-
|| '''au'''
|| as in ''h<u>ow</u>''
 
|-
|| '''ei'''
|| as in ''h<u>ey</u>''
 
|-
|| '''oi'''
|| as in ''b<u>oy</u>''
 
|-
|| '''ia'''
|| like German <u>''Ja</u>''
 
|-
|| '''ie'''
|| like <u>''yeah</u>''
 
|-
|| '''iu'''
|| like <u>''you</u>''
 
|-
|| '''ua'''
|| as in <u>''waah!</u>'', or French ''q<u>uoi</u>''
 
|-
|| '''ue'''
|| as in ''q<u>ue</u>stion''
 
|-
|| '''uo'''
|| as in ''q<u>uo</u>te''
 
|-
|| '''ui'''
|| like <u>''we</u>'', or French <u>''oui</u>''
 
|}
 
Double vowels are rare. The only examples are '''ii''', which is pronounced like English ''ye'' (as in “Oh come all ye faithful”) or Chinese ''yi'', and '''uu''', pronounced like ''woo''.
 
==Consonants<span id="1.2"></span>==
 
Most Lojban consonants are the same as English, but there are some exceptions:
{| class="wikitable"
|| '''g'''
|| always ''g'' as in ''<u>g</u>um'', never ''g'' as in ''<u>g</u>em''
 
|-
|| '''c'''
|| ''sh'', as in ''<u>sh</u>ip''
 
|-
|| '''j'''
|| as in ''mea<u>s</u>ure'' or French ''bon<u>j</u>our''
 
|-
|| '''x'''
|| as in German ''Ba<u>ch</u>'', Spanish ''<u>J</u>ose'' or Arabic ''<u>Kh</u>aled''
 
|}
 
The English sounds ''ch'' and ''j'' are written as tc and dj.
 
Lojban doesn't use the letters ''H'', ''Q'' or ''W''.
 
==Special Characters<span id="1.3"></span>==
 
Lojban does not require any punctuation, but some special characters (normally used in punctuation in other languages) affect the way Lojban is pronounced.
 
The only one of these characters which is obligatory in Lojban is the apostrophe; in fact the apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter of Lojban. An apostrophe separates two vowels, preventing them from being pronounced together (as a '''diphthong'''); it is itself pronounced like an ''h''. For example, ui is normally pronounced ''we'', but '''u'i''' is ''oohee''.
 
A full stop (period) is a short pause to stop words running into each other. The rules of Lojban make it easier for one word to run into another when the second word begins with a vowel; so any word starting with a vowel conventionally has a full stop placed in front of it.
 
Commas are rare in Lojban, but can be used to stop two vowels blurring together when you don't want to use an apostrophe (which would put a ''h'' between them). No Lojban words have commas, but they're sometimes used in writing non-Lojban names, for example '''.pi,ER.''' (''Pierre''), as opposed to '''.pier.''' (''P-yerr''), '''.pi.ER.''' (''Pee; Ehr''), or '''.pi'ER.''' (''Piherr'').
 
Capital letters are not normally used in Lojban. We use them in non-Lojban words (like ''Pierre'') when the stress of a word is different from the Lojban norm. The norm is to put the stress on the last-but-one syllable; so, for example, '''kujmikce''' - ‘nurse’ is '''kuj<u>MIK</u>ce''', not '''<u>KUJ</u>mikce'''. The name ''Juliette'' would be written '''.DJUli,et.''' if pronounced in an English way, but '''.juLIET.''' if pronounced as in French.
 
==Alphabet<span id="1.4"></span>==
 
In most language textbooks, you get the alphabet of the language together with its sounds. Letters (lerfu) turn out to be even more important than usual in Lojban, so we might as well go through their names quickly.
 
Consonants are straightforward: the name of a consonant letter is that letter, plus y. So the consonant letters of Lojban, ''b, c, d, f, g ...'', are called '''by., cy., dy., fy., gy.'''... in Lojban (using the full stop as we've just described).
 
As fror vowels they are handled by following the vowel sound with the word bu, which basically means 'letter'. So the vowels of Lojban are: '''.abu, .ebu, .ibu, .obu, .ubu, ybu'''.
 
The apostrophe is regarded as a proper letter in Lojban, and is called .y'y.. To some people, this sounds like a cough; to other, like ''uh-huh'' (when it means ‘Yes’ rather than ‘No’).
 
Lojban has ways of refering to most letters you can think of; see ''The Complete Lojban Language''{{^|What??? may be remove references to CLL?}}, Chapter 17 for details. If you have the urge to spell out your name in Lojban and have an ''H'', ''Q'', or ''W'' to deal with, you can use .y'y.bu, ky.bu and vy.bu. So ''Schwarzenegger'' is spelt in Lojban as:
 
:'''sy. cy. .y'ybu vybu. .abu ry. zy. .ebu ny. .ebu gy. gy. .ebu ry.'''
 
And spelling ''that'' is a task the equal of anything the Terminator ever did!
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Spell your name in Lojban (or at least something close enough to it to use the twenty-six letters of English we have learned, and the apostrophe.) No peeking at the back — we don't have the answer to this exercise there!
 
=='Correct' pronunciation<span id="1.5"></span>==
 
You don't have to be very precise about Lojban pronunciation, because the phonemes are distributed so that it is hard to mistake one sound for another. This means that rather than one ‘correct’ pronunciation, there is a range of acceptable pronunciation — the general principle is that anything is OK so long as it doesn't sound too much like something else. For example, Lojban '''r''' can be pronounced like the ''r'' in English, Scottish or French.
 
Two things to be careful of, though, are pronouncing Lojban '''i''' and '''u''' like Standard British English ''hit'' and ''but'' (Northern English ''but'' is fine!). This is because non-Lojban vowels, particularly these two, are used to separate consonants by people who find them hard to say. For example, if you have problems spitting out the '''zd''' in '''zdani''' (house), you can say ''zɪdani'' — where the ''ɪ'' is very short, but the final ''i'' has to be long.
 
=Chapter 2. Relationships and Places<span id="2"></span>=
 
==Relationships<span id="2.1"></span>==
 
Now let's turn to constructing our first sentences in Lojban.
 
Of course one of your first thoughts might be "Where are nouns and verbs in Lojban?"
 
Let's start from verbs. Those words that are called '''brivla''' in Lojban grammar can be safely called verbs.
 
Let’s take some '''brivla'''.
The word
:'''mlatu'''
is roughly translated as “cat” but it’s more correctly to say that it means
:''to be a cat''
It’s a '''brivla''', or in other words, a verb.
 
:'''pinxe'''
:''to drink''
And
:'''ladru'''
is roughly translated as “milk”. But it’s rather
:''to be a quantity of milk''
 
It might sound strange how ''milk'' can be a verb but in fact this makes Lojban very simple.
 
Let’s imagine we want to say ''A cat drinks milk.''
 
In order to convert a verb into a noun we put the short word '''lo''' in front of it. And in order to show a verb we put the word cu in front of the verb.
:'''lo mlatu cu pinxe lo ladru'''
:''A cat drinks milk.''
Remember that '''c''' is pronounced as ''sh''.
 
So we turned '''mlatu''' and '''ladru''' into nouns. We can also say that '''lo''' creates a noun from a verb with roughly the meaning of “one who does the action of the verb”.
 
And using '''cu''' we show that the next word, i.e. '''pinxe''' will still be a verb.
 
 
Now let’s talk about pronouns like “I” and “you”.
Like their English name suggests, they are much like nouns.
:'''mi'''
:''I''
 
:'''do'''
:''you''
 
:'''ti'''
:''this one, this object near me.''
 
:'''tu'''
:''that one, that object over there.''
 
Pronouns work like nouns by default. They don’t require '''lo''' in front of them.
:'''mi pinxe'''
:''I drink.''
 
:'''do pinxe'''
:''You drink.''
 
:'''ti ladru'''
:''This is milk.''
 
:'''tu mlatu'''
:''That is a cat.''
 
We can even omit '''cu''' as we can clearly see the pronoun and the verb being separated. '''cu''' is not necessary after '''mi''' (I/me/we), '''do''' (you, the person(s) I'm talking to) or any words like this (‘pronouns’, in Lojban jargon), because they can't run over into anything else.
 
In such simple sentences '''brivla''' (verbs) express relationship between objects.
Relationships are the key to Lojban, and words describing a relationship are said to act as predicates or '''selbri''' in Lojban terminology.
 
And nouns and pronouns are those objects, arguments. They are called '''sumti''' in Lojban.
 
For now we should just remember that only '''brivla''' (verbs) can act as '''selbri''' (predicates,relationships).
 
What types of '''brivla''' there are?
 
There are four of them:
#'''gismu'''.
#:'''gismu'', or '''root-words'' are main building blocks of Lojban vocabulary. '''gismu''' are easy to recognise, because they always have five letters, in the form
#::CVCCV — e.g. '''ladru, gismu, sumti'''
#:or
#::CCVCV — e.g. '''mlatu, cmene, bridi, klama'''
#:where C=consonant and V=vowel.
#'''cmevla'''.
#:They are mostly used to build personal names. You can easily recognise them in a flow of text as being wrapped by one dot from both sides. Besides, if not count dots they always end in a consonant.
#:{{talkquote|In Lojban only '''cmevla''' end in a consonant. All other words end in a vowel. This is how we can easily distinguish between them.}}
#'''lujvo'''
#:or ''compound words''. They are created from short building blocks ''rafsi'' used for mnemonic purposes. Usually lujvo are created when gismu are not enough.
#'''zi'evla'''
#:or ''free words'' are usually created for specific concepts and things like ''igloo'', ''spaghetti''.
 
We'll talk about '''lujvo''' and '''zi'evla''' later.
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Which of the following Lojban words are:
 
a. '''gismu'''
 
b. '''cmevla''' (remember, they always end in a consonant)
 
c. neither?
 
Note: I've left out the full stops in the '''cmevla''' — that would make it too easy!
 
#lojban
#dunda
#praxas
#mi
#cukta
#prenu
#blanu
#ka'e
#dublin
#selbri
 
== Interjections<span id="1.6"></span> ==
If you tried pronouncing the vowel combinations above, you've already said some Lojban words. Lojban has a class of words called ''interjections'' or ''attitudinal indicators'', which express how the speaker feels about something. The most basic ones consist of two vowels, sometimes with an apostrophe in the middle. Here are some of the most useful ones.{{^| a dot in front of }}
{| class="wikitable"
|| '''.a'o'''
|| ''hope''
 
|-
|| '''.au'''
|| ''desire''
 
|-
|| '''.a'u'''
|| ''interest''
 
|-
|| '''.ie'''
|| ''agreement''
 
|-
|| '''.i'e'''
|| ''approval''
 
|-
|| '''.ii'''
|| ''fear'' (think of “Eeek!”)
 
|-
|| '''.iu'''
|| ''love''
 
|-
|| '''.oi'''
|| ''complaint''
 
|-
|| '''.o'u'''
|| ''relaxation''
 
|-
|| '''.ua'''
|| ''discovery, “Ah, I get it!”''
 
|-
|| '''.ue'''
|| ''surprise''
 
|-
|| '''.u'e'''
|| ''wonder, “Wow!”''
 
|-
|| '''.ui'''
|| ''happiness''
 
|-
|| '''.u'i'''
|| ''amusement''
 
|-
|| '''.u'u'''
|| ''repentance, “I'm sorry!”''
 
|-
|| '''.uu'''
|| ''pity, sympathy''
{{talkquote|Note: In English, people have started to avoid the word ''pity'', because it has come to have associations of superiority. '''.uu''' is just the raw emotion: if you wanted to express pity in this rather condescending way, you'd probably say '''.uuga'i''' — “pity combined with a sense of superiority,” or '''.uuvu'e''' — “pity combined with a sense of virtue.” Then again, you would probably just keep your mouth shut.}}
 
|}
 
You can make any of these into its opposite by adding '''nai''', so '''.uinai''' means “I'm unhappy”, '''.aunai''' is reluctance, '''.uanai''' is confusion (“I don't get it”,“Duh...”) and so on. You can also combine them. For example, '''.iu.uinai''' would mean “I am unhappily in love.” In this way you can even create words to express emotions which your native language doesn't have.
 
Attitudinal indicators are extremely useful, and it is well worth making an effort to learn the most common ones. One of the biggest problems people have when trying to speak in a foreign language is that, while they've learnt how to buy a kilo of olives or ask the way to the post office, they can't express feelings, because many languages do this in a round-about way (outside group therapy, very few British people would say outright that they were sad, for example!) In Lojban you can be very direct, very briefly (there are ways of ‘softening’ these emotions, which we'll get to in a later lesson). In fact, these attitudinals are so useful that some Lojbanists use them even when they're writing in English, rather like smileys, emoticons (those e-mail symbols like <nowiki>;-) :-(</nowiki> etc.).
 
Another great thing about interjections is that you can attach them next to any sumti thus expressing your attitude towards that part of the sentence.
:lo mlatu .ue cu pinxe lo ladru
:A cat (surprise!) is drinking milk.
:A cat (wow, how unexpected!) is drinking milk
You can as well attach interjections to the right of any selbri. Or put it in the beginning of any sentence thus changing your attitude to the whole sentence.
:.o'u tu mlatu
:(relaxation!) that is a cat.
:Oh, that's only a cat.
In this case you probably thought that was something dangerous but it's only a cat so you are saying '''.o'u'''.
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Using the attitudinal indicators above (including negatives), what might you say in the following situations?
 
#You've just realised where you left your keys.
#Someone treads on your toes.
#You're watching a boring film.
#Someone's just told you a funny story.
#You disagree with someone.
#Someone's just taken the last cookie in the jar.
#You really don't like someone.
#You are served a cold, greasy meal.
#Your friend has just failed a test.
#There is a large green beetle crawling towards you.
 
==Names. Introducing yourself<span id="1.7"></span>==
Another type of interjections are vocatives. They function exactly the same as emotional indicators we just discussed but they can have one sumti attached to them.
 
For example,
:'''mi'e'''
:self-introduction; identifies speaker.
 
When do we use it? Watch any film where people don't know each other's language. They start off saying things like "Me Tarzan," which is as good a place to start learning Lojban as any. So here we go.
:'''mi'e la .robin.'''
:I-am-named Robin
:''I'm Robin.''
 
'''la''' is similar to '''lo''' but it converts '''brivla''' not to a simple noun but to a name ('''cmene''' in Lojban). Again '''cu''' does <u>not</u> mean ‘is’ . It's there just to indicate that there's a verb '''cmene''' coming up.
 
'''mi'e''' is a good example of the apostrophe separating two vowels, and sounds a bit like ''me heh''.
 
Robin is lucky because his name goes directly into Lojban without any changes. However, there are some rules for Lojban names which mean that some names have to be ‘Lojbanised’. This may sound strange — after all, a name is a name — but in fact all languages do this to some extent. For example, English speakers tend to pronounce ''Jose'' something like ''Hozay'', and ''Margaret'' in Chinese is ''Magelita''. Some sounds just don't exist in some languages, so the first thing you need to do is rewrite the name so that it only contains Lojban sounds, and is spelt in a Lojban way.
 
{{talkquote|Note: The catch here is, what version of the sounds will you be using? For English in particular, British and American vowels can be quite different. The British version of ''Robin'' is reasonably approximated by '''.robin.''' but the American version is closer to '''.rabyn.''' or '''.rab,n.'''. And within America and Britain, there is also a good deal of variation. So you should take the transliterations given below with a grain of salt.}}
 
Let's take the English name ''Susan''. The two ''s'''s are pronounced differently — the second one is actually a ''z'' — and the ''a'' is not really an ''a'' sound, it's the ‘schwa’ we just mentioned. So ''Susan'' comes out in Lojban as '''.suzyn.'''.
 
You may have noticed two extra full stops (periods) there. This is necessary because if you didn't pause, you might not know where the name started and ended, or in other words where the previous word ended and the next word began. For example:
{| class="wikitable"
|| '''.an.'''
|| ''Anne''
 
|-
|| '''.axmet.'''
|| ''Ahmet''
 
|-
|| '''.eduard.'''
|| ''Edward''
 
|-
|| '''.IBraxim.''' or '''.IBra'im.'''
|| ''Ibrahim''
 
|-
|| '''.odin.'''
|| ''Odin''
 
|}
 
You can also put a full stop in between a person's first and last names (though it's not compulsory), so ''Jim Jones'' becomes '''.djim.djonz.'''.
 
An important rule for Lojbanising names is that the last letter of a cmevla must be a consonant. Again, this is to prevent confusion as to where a name ends, and what is and is not a name (all other Lojban words end in a vowel). We usually use ''s'' for this; so in Lojban, ''Mary'' becomes '''.meris.''', ''Joe'' becomes '''.djos.''' and so on. An alternative is to leave out the last vowel, so ''Mary'' would become '''.mer.''' or '''.meir.'''.
 
The final point is stress. As we've seen, Lojban words are stressed on the penultimate syllable, and if a name has different stress, we use capital letters. This means that the English and French names ''Robert'' come out differently in Lojban: the English name is '''.robyt.''' in UK English, or '''.rab,rt.''' in some American dialects, but the French is '''.roBER.''' .
 
To give an idea of how all this works, here are some names of famous people in their own language and in Lojban.
{| class="wikitable"
! colspan="2" | '''English'''
|-
| ''Margaret Thatcher''
| '''.magryt.tatcys.'''
 
(no ''th'' in Lojban because most people around the world can't say it!)
|-
| ''Mick Jagger''
| '''.mik.djagys.'''
|-
! colspan="2" | '''French'''
|-
| ''Napoleon Bonaparte''
| '''.napole,ON.bonaPART.'''
|-
| ''Juliette Binoche''
| '''.juLIET.binOC.'''
|-
! colspan="2" | '''Chinese'''
|-
| ''Laozi''
| '''.laudz.'''
|-
| ''Mao Zedong''
| '''.maudzyDYNG.'''
|-
! colspan="2" | '''Turkish'''
|-
| ''Mustafa Kemal''
| '''.MUStafas.keMAL.'''
|-
| ''Erkin Koray''
| '''.erkin.korais.'''
|-
! colspan="2" | '''German'''
|-
|| ''Friedrich Nietzsche''
|| '''.fridrix.nitcys.'''
|-
| ''Clara Schumann''
| '''.klaras.cuman.'''
|-
! colspan="2" | '''Spanish'''
|-
| ''Isabel Allende''
| '''.izaBEL.aiendes.'''
|-
| ''Che Guevara''
| '''.tcegevaras.'''
|}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Where are these places?
 
#'''.nu,IORK.'''
#'''.romas.'''
#'''.xavanas.'''
#'''.kardif.'''
#'''.beidjin.'''
#'''.ANkaras.'''
#'''.ALbekerkis.'''
#'''.vankuver.'''
#'''.keiptaun.'''
#'''.taibeis.'''
#'''.bon.'''
#'''.delis.'''
#'''.nis.'''
#'''.atinas.'''
#'''.lidz.'''
#'''.xelsinkis.
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Lojbanise the following names:
#John
#Melissa
#Amanda
#Matthew
#Michael
#David Bowie
#Jane Austen
#William Shakespeare
#Sigourney Weaver
#Richard Nixon
#Istanbul
#Madrid
#Tokyo
#San Salvador
 
===Lojban words as names<span id="1.8"></span>===
 
You can use not only cmevla, but also other brivla to choose your nickname in Lojban. If you prefer, you can translate your name into Lojban (if you know what it means, of course) or adopt a completely new Lojban identity.{{^| Native Americans generally translate their name when speaking English, partly because they have meaningful names, and partly because they don't expect the ''wasichu'' to be able to pronounce words in Lakota, Cherokee or whatever!}}
 
So if your name or nickname is ''Cat'' ('''mlatu''' in Lojban) you can introduce yourself as
:'''mi'e la mlatu'''
However, if you just say
:'''mi'e mlatu'''
it would mean
:''I'm a cat.''
 
Here are a few examples of Lojbanic names:
*Fish
**'''finpe''' - ''fish'' in Lojban
**'''la finpe''' - your name
*Björn (means ''bear'' in Scandinavian)
**'''cribe''' - ''bear'' in Lojban
**'''la cribe''' - your name
*Mei Li ('''beautiful''' in Mandarin Chinese)
**'''melbi''' - ''beautiful'' in Lojban
**'''la melbi''' - your name
 
==Take your places...<span id="2.2"></span>==
 
Now we can recognise a '''gismu''', let's see what we can make it do. '''dunda''' means ‘give’, and it describes a relationship between a giver, something they give, and someone who receives it — in that order. (Lojban insists on the order so you can tell which is which; but that's a convention of '''dunda''', rather than something intrinsic in the act of giving).
 
Let's say we have three people, Maria, Claudia and Julia, for instance. If we say
:'''la .mari,as. cu dunda la .iulias. la .klaudias.'''
we mean that ''Maria gives Julia to Claudia''.
 
If, on the other hand, we say
:'''la .iulias. cu dunda la .mari,as. la .klaudias.'''
we mean that Maria is who is being given away, and Julia is the one who gives her to Claudia. How do we know this? English uses the word ''to'' to indicate the receiver, and in some other languages (like Latin or Turkish) the form of the words themselves change. In Lojban, as in logic, we have what is called '''place structure'''.
 
Place-structure means that dunda doesn't just mean ''give'', it means
:x1 gives x2 to x3
where ''x'' means someone or something. Even if we just say dunda on its own, we still mean that someone gives something to someone; we just aren't interested in (or we already know) who or what.
 
We can say, then, that dunda has three ‘places’. We can think of places as slots which we can, if we want, fill with people, objects, events or whatever. These places are called sumti in Lojban (easy to remember, as it sounds a bit like someone saying ''something'' and chewing off the end of the word). Again, a sumti is not a ''type'' of word, it is something a word ''does''. The simplest Lojban sentence is a bridi, i.e. a selbri and a bunch of sumti. In other words,
 
:bridi <nowiki>=</nowiki> selbri + sumti
{{talkquote|'''Note for logicians and computer programmers: '''For selbri, logicians can read ‘predicate’ or ‘relation’, and programmers can read ‘function’; for sumti, both can read ‘argument’.}}
 
How many sumti can a selbri describe? The number depends on the place structure of the word we use for the selbri. (There are ways of tagging on extra sumti, which we'll cover in later lessons). A gismu has a set number of places; as we've just seen, dunda has three. The number of places varies from one to a staggering (and rare) five. Here are some examples.
{| class="wikitable"
| colspan="2" | '''One place'''
 
|-
|| ninmu
|| x1 is a woman (any female humanoid person, not necessarily adult)
{{talkquote|Note: To assume that Lojban works like English in general is a sin Lojbanists are ever on the alert for. It is enough of a community obsession that the Lojban word for it — '''malglico''' - ''damned English'' — routinely turns up in the English of Lojbanists, even when they're not talking about Lojban. In this instance, it is malglico to asume that ninmu refers to an adult.}}
 
|-
|| blabi
|| x1 is white / very light-coloured
 
|-
|| cmila
|| x1<nowiki> laughs [not necessarily at someone or something; to include the object of the laughter you would use the </nowiki>lujvo (compound word) mi'afra — x1 laughs at x2, a slightly different concept]
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
| colspan="2" | '''Two places'''
 
|-
|| cipni
|| x1 is a bird/avian/fowl of species x2
 
|-
|| vofli
|| x1<nowiki> flies [in air/atmosphere] using lifting/propulsion means x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| jungo
|| x1<nowiki> reflects Chinese [Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, etc.] culture/nationality/language in aspect x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| junri
|| x1 (person) is serious/earnest/has gravity about x2 (event/state/activity)
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
| colspan="2" | '''Three places'''
 
|-
|| xamgu
|| x1 is good/beneficial/acceptable for x2 by standard x3
{{talkquote|This is ''very'' Lojbanic — the English word ''good'' on its own is so vague as to be almost meaningless. It is also slightly malglico to put a person in the x1 place, which is normally filled by an object, state or event. For ‘morally good’ you would usually use vrude ‘virtuous’.}}
 
|-
|| pritu
|| x1 is to the right of x2, where x2 is facing x3
{{talkquote|Remember all those times you have to ask “Is that my right or your right?” in English.}}
 
|-
|| cliva
|| x1 leaves x2 via route x3
 
|-
|| kabri
|| x1<nowiki> is a cup/glass/tumbler/mug/vessel/[bowl] containing contents x</nowiki>2, and of material x3
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
| colspan="2" | '''Four places'''
 
|-
|| vecnu
|| x1<nowiki> [seller] sells/vends x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [goods/service/commodity] to buyer x</nowiki>3 for amount/cost/expense x4
 
|-
|| tivni
|| x1<nowiki> [broadcaster] televises programming x</nowiki>2 via media/channel x3 to television receiver x4
 
|-
|| bajra
|| x1 runs on surface x2 using limbs x3 with gait x4
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
| colspan="2" | '''Five places'''
 
|-
|| klama
|| x1 goes/comes to x2 from x3 via x4 by means x5
 
|-
|| cukta
|| x1 is a book about subject/theme/story x2 by author x3 for audience x4 preserved in medium x5
 
|-
|| fanva
|| x1 translates x2 to language x3 from language x4 with translation-result x5
 
|}
 
So for example you can say (trying desperately to match the grammar to what you've been taught so far):
:'''la .mari,as. cu ninmu'''
:''Maria is a woman''.
 
:'''la .tuitis. cu cipni la .serinus.serinus.kanarias.'''
:''Tweety is a bird of species 'Serinus serinus canaria'''.
 
:'''la .iulias. cu pritu la .mari,as. la .klaudias.'''
:''Julia is to the right of Maria, facing Claudia.''
 
:'''la .pybysys. cu tivni la .niksyn.in.tcainas. la .kycy,etys. la .telis.'''
:''PBS (the American Public Broadcasting Service) televises 'Nixon in China' (an opera) through KCET (the Los Angeles PBS affiliate) to Telly (a pet name for a particular television) (!)''.
 
:'''la .iulias. cu klama la .uacintyn. la .losandjeles. la .cikagos. la .amtrak.'''
:''Julia travels to Washington from Los Angeles via Chicago on Amtrak (the American inter-city train network)''.
 
==Determining place structure<span id="2.3"></span>==
 
If all these places sound a bit daunting, don't worry — you don't have to memorise all of them (in fact nobody does). There are a few cases where it's worth learning the place structure to avoid misunderstanding, but usually you can guess place structures using context and a few rules of thumb.
 
#The first place is often the person or thing who ''does'' something or ''is'' something (in Lojban there is no grammatical difference between ‘doing’ and ‘being’).
#If someone or something has something done to them, he/she/it is usually in the second place.
#''to'' places (destinations) nearly always come before ''from'' places (origins).
#Less-used places come towards the end. These tend to be things like ‘by standard’, ‘by means’ or ‘made of’.
The general idea is that the places which are most likely to be filled come first. You don't have to use all the available places, and any unfilled places at the end are simply missed out.
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Try to guess the place structure of the following gismu. You probably won't get them all, but you should be able to guess the most important ones. Think of what ''needs'' to be in the sentence for it to make sense, then add anything you think would be useful. For example, with klama, you need to know who's coming and going, and although you could in theory say “Julie goes,” it would be pretty meaningless if you didn't add where she goes to. Where she starts her journey, the route she takes and what transport she uses are progressively less important, so they occupy the third, fourth and fifth places.
#'''karce''' – ''car''
#'''nelci''' – ''like, is fond of''
#'''cmene''' – ''name''
#'''sutra''' – ''fast, quick''
#'''crino''' – ''green''
#'''sisti''' – ''stop, cease''
#'''prenu''' – ''person''
#'''cmima''' – ''member, belongs to''
#'''barda''' – ''big''
#'''cusku''' – ''say, express''
#'''tavla''' – ''talk, chat''
{{talkquote|Note: What the place structure for gismu should be is often enough an involved philosophical issue. Place structures were debated exhaustively in the early '90s, and the current place structures (finalised in 1994) are not really open for negotiation any more.}}
 
==tanru<span id="2.4"></span>==
 
Note that '''lo ninmu klama''' does not mean “A woman goes”. Two gismu next to each other form a compound '''brivla''' (or '''tanru'''), which means that '''ninmu''' and '''klama''' do get run together. The result is that that '''lo ninmu klama''' means “The woman-type-of goer” (maybe a female traveller). What we say instead, to avoid this, is
 
:'''lo ninmu <u>cu</u> klama'''
:''A woman goes.''
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Add '''cu''' to the following Lojban sentences where necessary, then work out what they mean. For example, for '''lo klama ninmu''' to make sence as a sentence, you need to add '''cu''': '''lo klama <u>cu</u> ninmu'''.
 
#la .klaudias. dunda lo cukta la .bil.
#lo karce sutra
#la .kamIL. cukta
#mi fanva la .kaMIL. la .lojban.
#lo prenu sisti
#lo ninmu cliva
#la .istanbul. barda
#mi tavla la .mari,as.
#la .meiris. pritu la .meilis. mi
#lo cipni vofli
#crino
#ninmu
==Changing Places<span id="2.5"></span>==
 
We've seen that if we don't need all the places (and we rarely do), then we can miss out the unnecessary ones at the end of the bridi. We can also miss out the first place if it is obvious (just as in Spanish). However, it sometimes happens that we want places at the end, but not all the ones in the middle. There are a number of ways to get round this problem.
 
One way is to fill the unnecessary places with zo'e, which means ‘something not important’. So '''la .suzyn. cu klama la .paris. la .berlin. zo'e lo karce''' tells us that Susan goes to Paris from Berlin by car, but we're not interested in the route she takes. In fact '''zo'e''' is always implied, even if we don't say it. If someone says klama, what they actually mean is
:'''zo'e klama zo'e zo'e zo'e zo'e'''
but it would be pretty silly to say all that.
 
{{talkquote|Note: A bridi containing only a selbri, and no sumti, has a special kind of role in Lojban. Such bridi are called '''observatives''', and their job is to make a simple observation that something is there or is going on, without going into the details of who or what is involved. So fagri means just “Fire!”, not “My house is on fire” or “The salmon was poached over a gently lapping campfire.” Similarly, karce means “Car!”, and not “This is a natural gas powered 2001 sedan Hyundai car, featuring fuzzy dice and a ‘Free Brobdignag!' bumper sticker”.}}
&nbsp;
{{talkquote|Observatives are as simple as baby talk — which is no surprise, since that's what they were modelled on. Note that observatives are still normal Lojban selbri; in particular, they don't make any distinction between verb and noun. So '''klama''' means not “Go!” (we'll find out how to say ''that'' [[#3|next lesson]]), but “Goes!” or “Goer!” — more idiomatically, “Look! Someone's going!” And there is no real difference between klama “Look! Someone's going!” and karce “Look! A car!”}}
 
Most people don't want more than one '''zo'e''' in a sentence (though there's nothing to stop you using as many as you like). A more popular way to play around with places is to use the ''place tags'' '''fa, fe, fi, fo''' and '''fu'''. These mark a sumti as being associated with a certain place of the selbri, no matter where it comes in the sentence: '''fa''' introduces what would normally be the first place, '''fe''' the second place, and so on. For example, in
 
:'''la .suzyn. cu klama fu lo karce'''
:''Susan goes in the car / Susan goes by car.''
 
'''fu''' marks '''lo karce''' as the fifth place of klama (the means of transport). Without '''fu''', the sentence would mean “Susan goes to the car.”
 
After a place introduced with a place tag, any trailing places follow it in numbering. So in
 
:'''la .suzyn. cu klama fo la .uacintyn. lo karce'''
:''Susan goes via Washington by car.''
 
'''la .uacintyn.''' is the fourth place of '''klama''', and '''lo karce''' is understood as the place following the fourth place — i.e. the fifth place.
 
With place tags you can also swap places around. For example,
 
:'''fe lo cukta cu dunda fi la .klaudias.'''
:''The book was given to Claudia.''
 
(''The book'' — '''lo cukta''' — is the second place of '''dunda''', what is given; '''Claudia'' — '''la .klaudias.''' — is the third place of '''dunda''', the recipient).
 
Again, you probably don't want to overdo place tags, or you'll end up counting on your fingers (although they're very popular in Lojban poetry — place tags, that is, not fingers).
 
A final way to change places is '''conversion''', which actually swaps the places round in the selbri — but we'll leave that for another lesson. There are no rules for which method you use, and you can use them in any way you want, so long as the person you're talking to understands.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| glico
|| x1 is English/pertains to English-speaking culture in aspect x2
 
|-
|| rokci
|| x1 is a quantity of/is made of/contains rock/stone of type/composition x2 from location x3
 
|-
|| rupnu
|| x1 is measured in major-money-units (dollar/yuan/ruble) as x2 (quantity), monetary system x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
Reorder the sumti with place tags in these Lojban sentences so that no place tags are necessary, and the sumti appear in their expected places. Insert '''zo'e''' where necessary. For example: '''fi la .iulias. cu pritu fa lo karce''' - '''lo karce cu pritu zo'e la .iulias.'''
 
#'''fo lo cukta cu cusku fe lo glico fi lo prenu'''
#'''fi mi vecnu fa do lo karce'''
#'''fu la .Odisis. cu fanva fi lo glico fa la .fits.djerald.'''
#'''mi vecnu fo lo rupnu'''
#'''fi lo rokci cu kabri'''
#'''fi la .lojban. fo la .lojban. cu tavla fa do'''
 
==Summary<span id="2.6"></span>==
 
In this lesson we've covered the following points:
*The basic bridi structure.
*'''lo''' to convert verbs to nouns, '''la''' to convert verbs to names, '''cu''' to separate '''selbri''' from '''sumti'''.
*The difference between different '''brivla''': '''gismu''', '''cmevla''' and others.
*The place structure of '''gismu'''.
*'''zo'e''' to fill missing sumti places.
*Changing places with place-tags.
 
Although there is a lot more to Lojban sentences than this, you now have the basics of Lojban grammar; the rest is just a matter of adding things on to it — different articles, tags, times, numbers and so on.
 
==Answers to exercises<span id="2.7"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
{| class="wikitable"
||1.
||'''lojban'''
||cmene
|-
||2.
||'''dunda'''
||gismu (''give'')
|-
||3.
||'''.praxas.'''
||cmene (Prague — ''Praha'' in Czech — the capital of the Czech Republic)
|-
||4.
||'''mi'''
||Neither: it's a type of cmavo (structure word) called a ‘pronoun’
|-
||5.
||'''cukta'''
||gismu (''book'')
|-
||6.
||'''prenu'''
||gismu (''person'')
|-
||7.
||'''blanu'''
||gismu (''blue'')
|-
||8.
||'''ka'e'''
||Neither, it's a cmavo or structure word, meaning ‘can’
|-
||9.
||'''.dublin.'''
||cmene (''the capital of Ireland'')
|-
||10.
||'''selbri'''
||Neither, it's a lujvo or compound word
|}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#'''.ua'''
#'''.oi'''
#'''.u'inai'''
#'''.u'i'''
#'''.ienai'''
#'''.oi''', '''.i'enai''', or even '''.oi.i'enai'''
#'''.iunai'''
#Probably '''.a'unai.oi''', unless you like cold greasy food, of course.
#'''.uu'''
#Depends on your feelings about beetles. '''.ii''' if you have a phobia, '''.a'unai''' if you are merely repelled by it, '''.a'u''' if you're an entomologist, and so on.
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#New York: USA
#Rome: Italy
#Havana: Cuba
#Cardiff: Wales (The Welsh for ''Cardiff'' is ''Caerdydd'', which would Lojbanise to something like kairdyd.).
#Beijing: China
#Ankara: Turkey
#Albequerque: New Mexico, USA
#Vancouver: Canada
#Cape Town: South Africa
#Taipei: Taiwan (note b, not p. Although actually, the b in Pinyin is pronounced as a p... But this isn't meant to be a course on Mandarin!)
#Bonn: Germany
#Delhi: India (The Hindi for ''Delhi'' is ''Dillî'', which would give diliys. or dili'is.).
#Nice: France
#Athens: Greece (''Athina'' in Greek)
#Leeds: England
#Helsinki: Finland
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
There are usually alternative spellings for names, either because people pronounce the originals differently, or because the exact sound doesn't exist in Lojban, so you need to choose between two Lojban letters. This doesn't matter, so long as everyone knows who or where you're talking about.
 
#'''.djon.''' (or '''.djan.''' with some accents)
#'''.melisys.'''
#<b>.amandys.</b> (again, depending on your accent, the final '''y''' may be '''a''', the initial '''a''' may be '''y''', and the middle '''a''' may be '''e''').
#'''.matius.'''
#'''.maikyl.''' or '''.maik,l.''', depending on how you say it.
#'''deivyd.bau,is.''' or '''bo,is.'''{{^|too specific???(but not bu,is. — that's the knife)}}
#'''.djein.ostin.'''
#'''.uiliam.cekspir.'''
#'''.sigornis.uivyr.''' or '''.sygornis.uivyr.'''
#'''.ritcyrd.niksyn.'''
#'''.istanBUL.''' with English stress, '''.IStanbul.''' with American, '''.istanbul.''' with Turkish. Lojbanists generally prefer to base cmene on local pronunciation, but this is not an absolute rule.
#'''.maDRID.'''
#'''.tokios.'''
#'''.san.salvaDOR.''' (with Spanish stress)
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
{| class="wikitable"
|1.
|'''karce'''
|x1<nowiki> is a car/automobile/truck/van [a wheeled motor vehicle] for carrying x</nowiki>2, propelled by x3
 
(A car propelled by natural gas is a different kind of thing to a diesel truck).
|-
|2.
|'''nelci'''
|x1 is fond of/likes/has a taste for x2 (object/state)
|-
|3.
|'''cmene'''
|x1 (quoted word(s)) is a/the name/title/tag of x2 to/used-by namer/name-user x3 (person)
 
(Different people have different names for things).
|-
|4.
|'''sutra'''
|x1 is fast/swift/quick/hastes/rapid at doing/being/bringing about x2 (event/state)
|-
|5.
|'''crino'''
|x1 is green
|-
|6.
|'''sisti'''
|x1 ceases/stops/halts activity/process/state x2<nowiki> [not necessarily completing it] </nowiki>
|-
|7.
|'''prenu'''
|x1<nowiki> is a person/people (noun) [not necessarily human]</nowiki>
|-
|8.
|'''cmima'''
|x1 is a member/element of set x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 belongs to group x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is amid/among/amongst group x2
|-
|9.
|'''barda'''
|x1 is big/large in property/dimension(s) x2 as compared with standard/norm x3
 
(Is the Taj Mahal big? Yes, compared to me; no, compared to Jupiter).
|-
|10.
|'''cusku'''
|x1 expresses/says x2 for audience x3 via expressive medium x4
|-
|11.
|'''tavla'''
|x1 talks/speaks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4
|}
 
Note the different place structures of cusku and tavla. With cusku the emphasis is on communication; what is communicated is more important than who it is communicated to. Quotes in e-mails frequently start with '''do cusku di'e''' ('''di''''e means ‘the following’) as the Lojban equivalent of “You wrote”. ('''ciska''' - ‘write’ places more emphasis on the physical act of writing.) With '''tavla''' the emphasis is rather more on the social act of talking: you can tavla about nothing in particular.
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
#'''la klaudias. <u>cu</u> dunda lo cukta la .bil.'''
##''Claudia gives the book(s) to Bill.''
#'''lo karce <u>cu</u> sutra'''
#''The car(s) is/are fast.''
#'''la kamIL. <u>cu</u> cukta'''
#''<u>Camille</u> is a book.''
#'''mi fanva la .kaMIL. la .lojban.'''
#''I translate <u>Camille</u> into Lojban.''
#'''lo prenu <u>cu</u> sisti'''
#''The person(s) stop(s)'' (whatever it was they were doing).
#'''lo ninmu <u>cu</u> cliva'''
#''The woman/women leave(s)''.
#'''la .istanbul. <u>cu</u> barda'''
#''Istanbul is big''. (An understatement — it has a population of over ten million)
#'''mi tavla la .mari,as.'''
#''I talk to Maria.''
#'''la meiris.<u> cu</u> pritu la .meilis. mi'''
#''Mary is on the right of Mei Li, if you're facing me.''
#'''lo cipni <u>cu</u> vofli'''
#''The bird(s) flies/fly''.
#'''crino'''
#''It's / they're green.''
#'''ninmu'''
#''She's a woman / They're women / There's a woman / There are some women''.
 
In sentences 4 and 8, '''cu''' is possible but not necessary. In the last two sentences, '''cu''' is impossible, since it has to separate the selbri from the sumti that comes before it, and there are no sumti here to separate. Those last two sentences are observatives, as discussed in ''Changing Places''.
 
Note that I have translated these sentences in the present tense (since in English you have to choose a tense) but they could be in any tense; so '''lo cipni cu vofli''' could also mean “The bird flew”, for example. We'll look at how Lojban expresses tense in [[#6|later lessons]]<nowiki>; just </nowiki>remember that you don't actually ''need'' it — normally it's obvious whether an action takes place in the past, present or future.
 
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
#'''zo'e cusku lo glico lo prenu lo cukta'''
##''Someone expresses the English thing for the person(s) through a book.''
##''The book is a medium for English to people.''
#'''do vecnu lo karce mi zo'e''''
##''You sell me the car for some amount.''
##''I am sold the car by you'' (Notice how lo karce is assigned x2, since it follows an x1 place immediately).
#'''la .fits.djerald. fanva zo'e lo glico zo'e la .Odisis.'''
##''Fitzgerald translates something into English from some language as 'The Odyssey'.''
##'''The Odyssey' is a translation into English by Fitzgerald.''
#'''mi vecnu zo'e zo'e lo rupnu''
##I sell something to someone for dollars.
##''I sell (it) for dollars.''
#'''zo'e kabri zo'e lo rokci'''
##Something is a cup, containing something, made of stone.
##''Stone is something cups are made of.''
#'''do tavla zo'e la .lojban. la .lojban.''
##You talk to someone about Lojban in Lojban.
##''You talk about Lojban in Lojban.''
 
{{talkquote|Note: As you can see, you can have more than one sumti in front of the selbri. This is unlike English, where you usually have only the subject before the verb. This can happen with or without place tags; for instance, '''do zo'e la .lojban. cu tavla la .lojban.''' means the same thing as '''do tavla zo'e la .lojban. la .lojban.'''}}
 
=Chapter 3. Commands, Questions, and Possessives<span id="3"></span>=
 
==Commands<span id="3.1"></span>==
 
So far we've looked at simple ''propositions'', sentences that say that something is true. You can, in theory, say anything you want with propositions, but it's pretty inconvenient. For example, if I want you to run, I could say just that:
:''I want you to run.''
but I'd probably just say:
:''Run!''
How do we do this in Lojban? We can't copy English grammar and just say bajra, since, as we've seen, this means “Look! Someone/something runs”. Instead we say
 
:'''ko bajra'''
 
'''ko''' means ''you, the person I’m talking to'', but only in commands. (In normal sentences it's do). Normally it comes in the first place of the bridi, since normally you're asking people to do something or be something, not to have something done to them. However, you can put it elsewhere, e.g.
:'''nelci ko'''
<nowiki>This means something like “Act so that [someone unspecified] likes you”, and sounds pretty odd in English, but you could use it in the sense of “Try to make a good impression.” Another example is: </nowiki>
:'''mi dunda lo cifnu ko'''
or “Act so that I give the baby to you,” with the possible meaning “Get up and put your cigarette out — I'm going to pass you the baby.”
 
You can even have ko in two places in a bridi, for example,
:'''ko kurji ko'''
:''<nowiki>[Act so that] you take care of you</nowiki>''
or in other words, “Take care of yourself.” In fact, as alluded to in the last exercise of the [[#2|previous lesson]], we can put the selbri anywhere other than the beginning of the sentence. (We can't just put the selbri at the very beginning of the sentence, without fa before the x1 sumti, because this would imply ‘someone/something' for the first place: the selbri would become an observative.) Because of this freedom with sumti position, we can (and do) say
:'''ko ko kurji'''
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| catra
|| x1 (agent) kills/slaughters/murders x2 by action/method x3
 
|-
|| ciska
|| x1 inscribes/writes x2 on display/storage medium x3 with writing implement x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a scribe
 
|-
|| finti
|| x1 invents/creates/composes/authors x2 for function/purpose x3 from existing elements/ideas x4
 
|-
|| nelci
|| x1 is fond of/likes/has a taste for x2 (object/state)
 
|-
|| nenri
|| x1 is in/inside/within x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is on the inside/interior of x2<nowiki> [totally within the bounds of x</nowiki>2]
 
|-
|| prami
|| x1 loves/feels strong affectionate devotion towards x2 (object/state)
 
|-
|| sutra
|| x1 is fast/swift/quick/hastes/rapid at doing/being/bringing about x2 (event/state)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Imagine that someone says these things to you. What is it that they want you to do?
 
#ko klama mi
#ko dunda lo cukta mi
#la .izaBEL. cu nelci ko
#ko sutra
#ko ko nelci
==Softening the blow...<span id="3.2"></span>==
 
So far we've looked at simple commands. However, outside the army, we don't normally use these very much — normally we ask people politely. Foreigners in England often make the mistake of thinking that putting ''please'' in front of a command makes it into a polite request, which it doesn't (in English we usually have to make it into a question e.g. ''Could you open the window?'') Fortunately, in Lojban, ‘please’ really is the magic word. Putting the word '''.e'o''' before a sentence turns it into a request; e.g.
 
:'''.e'o do dunda lo cukta mi'''
 
is literally “Please give me the book,” but is actually more like “Could you give me the book, please?” (Of course, norms of politeness in English do not necessarily translate into other languages, so it is better in such cases to be safe than sorry).
 
==Questions<span id="3.3"></span>==
 
In English, we make a yes/no question by changing the order of the words (e.g. ''You are ...'' - ''Are you ...'') or putting some form of ''do'' at the beginning (e.g. ''Does she smoke?''). This seems perfectly natural to someone whose native language is English (or German), but is actually unnecessarily complicated (as any speaker of Chinese or Turkish will tell you). In Lojban we can turn any proposition into a yes/no question by simply putting xu somewhere in the sentence (usually at the beginning.) Some examples:
:'''xu do nelci la .bil.'''
:''Do you like Bill?''
 
:'''xu mi klama'''
:''Am I coming?''
 
:'''xu crino'''
:''Is it green?''
There are two ways to answer these questions. Lojban, like some other languages, does not have words that mean ''yes'' or ''no''. One way to answer “yes” is to repeat the '''selbri''' e.g.
:'''xu do nelci la .bil.'''
:'''nelci'''
 
We can also use '''go'i''', which repeats the last bridi (without the question)
 
{{talkquote|Note: However, if you say “You like Bill”, and ''I'' then say “You like Bill”, I am repeating your words, but not your meaning. To do ''that'', I would need to say “I like Bill” instead. It is much more useful for '''go'i''' to repeat the meaning than the words of the bridi<nowiki>; so </nowiki>'''go'i''' after '''xu do nelci la .bil.''' means not '''''do'' nelci la .bil.''', but '''''mi'' nelci la .bil.'''. In other words, in an answer to a “Do you?” type of yes/no question, '''go'i''' means “Yes (I do)”, as you'd expect.}}
 
What about negative answers? Any bridi can be made negative by using '''na'''. This negates the ''whole'' of the bridi, so you can put it anywhere you want, with a little extra grammar. But the simplest place to put it grammatically is right before the selbri. So '''mi na nelci la .bil.''' means “It is not true that I like Bill,” or in other words, “I don't like Bill.”
 
{{talkquote|Note: By default, '''na''' is followed by a selbri. Since '''cu''' has the job of indicating that a selbri is coming up, '''na''' makes it superfluous. So you can say '''lo ninmu na nelci la .bil.''' - ''A woman like Bill'' without adding '''cu''' before '''na nelci'''.}}
 
As an answer to a question, we do the same thing, so we just say '''na nelci''' or '''na go'i'''.
 
{{talkquote|Logical note: Negatives are a lot more complicated than they look, in both English and Lojban. Strictly speaking, '''mi na nelci la .bil.''' is true even if I've never heard of Bill (since it's pretty hard to like someone you know nothing about.) We'll look at some other negatives later, but for the time being '''na''' will do fine. Just as in English, if you ask someone if they like Bill, and they reply “No” because they haven't met him, they're being amazingly unhelpful — but not really lying.}}
 
English also has a number of ''wh-'' questions — ''who'', ''what'' etc. In Lojban we use one word for all of these: '''ma'''. This is like an instruction to fill in the missing place. For example:
 
:do klama ma
:la .london.
:“Where are you going?”
:“London.”
 
:ma klama la .london.
:la .klaudias.
:“Who's going to London?”
:“Claudia.”
 
:mi dunda ma do
:lo cukta
:“I give what to you?” (probably meaning “What was it I was supposed to be giving you?”)
:“The book.”
 
Finally we have '''mo'''. This is like '''ma''', but questions a selbri, not a sumti — it's like English “What does ''x'' do?” or “What is ''x''?” (remember, being and doing are the same in Lojban!) More logically, we can see mo as asking someone to describe the relationship between the sumti in the question. For example:
 
:do mo la .klaudias.
:You ??? Claudia
:What are you to Claudia?
 
The answer depends on the context. Possible answers to this question are:
 
*nelci: “I like her.”
*pendo: “I am her friend”
*prami: “I adore/am in love with her.”
*xebni: “I hate her.”
*fengu: “I'm angry with her.”
*cinba: “I kissed her”
 
Note that the time is not important here: just as cinba can mean ‘kiss’, ‘kissed’, ‘will kiss’ and so on, mo does not ask a question about any particular time. There ''are'' ways to specify time in Lojban, but it's not necessary to use them. (Just to satisfy your curiosity though, “I kiss''ed'' Claudia” is '''mi ''pu'' cinba la .klaudias.''')
 
We've said that mo can also be a “What is ...” type of question. The simplest example is ti mo — “What is this?” You could also ask '''la .meilis. cu mo''', which could mean “Who is Mei Li?”, “What is Mei Li?”, “What is Mei Li doing?” and so on. Again, the answer depends on the context. For example:
 
*ninmu: “She's a woman.”
*jungo: “She's Chinese.”
*pulji: “She's a policewoman.”
*sanga: “She's a singer” ''or'' “She's singing.”
*melbi: “She's beautiful.” (possibly a pun, since this is what ''meili'' means in Chinese!)
 
There are ways to be more specific, but these normally involve a ma question; for example '''la .meilis. cu gasnu ma''' (“Mei Li does what?”).
 
There are more question words in Lojban, but '''xu, ma''' and '''mo''' are enough for most of what you might want to ask. Three other important questions, xo (“How many?”) ca ma (“When?”) and pei (“How do you feel about it?”) will come in the lessons on [[#4|numbers]], [[#6|time]] and [[#13|attitudes]].
 
<center>Exercise 2: Lojban general knowledge quiz</center>
 
Answer the following questions (in Lojban, of course). Most of the answers are very easy; the trick is to understand the question! For example, '''cynyny. mo''' “What is CNN?” — tivni “Broadcaster”
 
#la .brutus. cu mo la .iulius.
#ma prami la .djuliet.
#xu la .paris. cu nenri la .iunaited.steits.
#ma finti la .anas.kaREninas.
#xu la .porc. cu sutra
#la lis.xarvis.azuald. cu catra ma
#xu la .djorj.eliot. cu ninmu
#la sakiamunis. cu mo
#la cekspir. cu mo la .xamlet.
#la das.kapiTAL. cu cukta fi ma
#xu la .xardis. cu fengu la .lorel.
==Possessives<span id="3.4"></span>==
 
The sumti we have seen so far — names, and '''lo''' + gismu combinations — do an OK job in describing things. They don't do as good a job in narrowing things down. For example, you may be fortunate enough to know two people who own Porsches. Your friends will (normally) have different names, which you can use to tell them apart. But if you're discussing their cars, how do you tell ''them'' apart?
 
Or take the following sentence:
 
:mi nelci lo tamne
:I like the cousin
 
Not as informative a sentence as it might be: the question that you should be hollering at this instant is, “Whose cousin?” Is it my cousin? Your cousin? Frederick II's cousin? When we talk about things and people, we are expected to give enough information, so that the listener knows who or what on Earth we are talking about. In these examples, saying “the Porsche” or “the cousin” is clearly not enough information.
 
One of the simplest way to narrow things down is by answering the question ‘whose?' It doesn't work in all cases, but it will here: “Mary's Porsche”, “Fred's Porsche”, “Tim's cousin”, “my cousin”. So, how do we say that in Lojban? Well, there's two ways. Or four. Or seven. Or thirteen. Or more — because this is Lojban, and in Lojban you can be as precise, or as imprecise, as you want to. We'll give you the simple answer first, and then work our way up.
 
The simplest way of all is to add, after the sumti you're talking about, '''pe''' followed by the person (or thing) you associate it with. So:
 
:la .porc. pe la .meiris. cu barda
:Mary's Porsche is big.
 
:lo tamne pe la .tim.
:Tim's cousin
 
:lo nenri pe lo karce
:The inside of the car
 
:lo cmima pe la .lojbangirz.
:The member of the Logical Language Group
 
Easy as pie, so far.
 
You'll notice that the order is in some instances the other way around from English: '''la .porc. pe la .meiris.''' looks more like “the Porsche of Mary”. Now, English uses both '''s'' and ''of'' for this kind of association. The choice between the two is complicated, but basically depends on whether the ‘possessor’ is a person or not — which is why ''the Porsche of Mary'' sounds odd, as does ''English's verbs.''
 
Lojban doesn't have those restrictions: if you can do something with one sumti, you can do it with any sumti. And you can put Mary in front of her Porsche. One way to do it is to tuck the pe-phrase in between the article and the rest of your sumti: for instance, '''lo pe mi karce'''. This is literally “The of me car”/“my car”.{{^| But this construction is kind of odd, and since it's not how most languages do things, you won't be surprised that it's not commonly used.}}
 
You can also wedge the ‘possessor’ sumti between the article and the name or gismu, ''without'' the '''pe'''. This gives you '''lo mi karce''', which should be instantly recognisable as “my car” When the ‘possessor’ is a single-word sumti, this is the most popular way of expressing things: '''lo mi karce''' is how you would normally say “my cousin”. However, note that the following sentence
 
:la la .meiris. .porc.
or
:la la .meiris. karce
 
will have no sense because you can't tell when one name ends and another word starts. '''la .meiris. .porc.''' sounds like  Mary Porche where Porche might be her second name. For the same reason, you can't really say '''la pe la .meiris. .porc.''', either.
 
So it's much safer to always use ''pe''. Examples with single-word sumti like '''lo mi karce''' are of course safe as well. But not more than that.
{{^|This safe method is my proposal (mi'e la gleki). lo SUMTI brivla causes huge misunderstanding in newbies as proved by IRC #lojban}}
{{talkquote|To see why things can go wrong, consider how you would say lo tamne pe lo ninmu klama ‘the woman traveller’s cousin' with this kind of nesting. You could flip it around as lo lo ninmu klama tamne — but then, how can you tell where the ‘possessor’ ends and where the ‘possessee’ begins? That phrase could just as easily be ‘the woman’s travelling cousin.' A situation best avoided, in other words. There ''is'' a way you can make this work, though — which we'll cover in [[#5|a couple of lessons]].}}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
For each of the following, switch the two sumti around, so that you convert a pe possessive into a nested possessive, and vice versa. Only do this where grammatically allowed. For example, lo la .iulias. kabri  lo kabri pe la .iulias..
 
#lo do cukta
#lo cifnu pe la .meiris.
#lo cukta pe mi
#lo cukta pe lo ninmu
#ma pe mi
#lo zo'e karce
#lo do rokci
#la meiris. pe la .tim.
#lo cukta pe ma
==More Possessives<span id="3.5"></span>==
 
<center>Warning</center>
 
This is somewhat advanced, and you might want to skip it on a first reading.
 
What '''pe''' is actually doing is saying that there is a relationship between the two sumti. What that relationship is is left as open as possible: we've used the term ‘possessor’, but the relationship need not involve ownership in Lojban any more than in English. (That also holds when you leave the pe out.) For instance, if I say “Danny's desk” ('''lo gunjubme pe la .danis.''') at an office, I probably don't mean that Danny ''owns'' the desk (in all likelihood the company does), but simply that he sits there all the time and keeps his stuff there.
 
You can get more specific if you want — though Lojbanists tend not to. If you want to say there is actual ownership involved, or any other association in which someone is uniquely associated with what you're talking about, you can use po instead of pe. lo gunjubme po la .danis., for instance, means that this is the desk Danny is uniquely associated with. This can be because he actually paid money for at a store. In that case, like anything he owns, he can sell it, or give it away, in which case it stops being his. Or it may be the desk assigned to him, and him alone, at work; but if the desk (or Danny) is reassigned, the desk stops being his. Moreover, if there is a crisis in office space, and Danny is sharing the desk with Wilfred, then you can't speak of the desk as being either lo gunjubme po la .danis. or lo gunjubme po la .uilfred., because it's unique to the pair of them, not to any one of them. You can still, however, speak of it as lo gunjubme pe la .danis., which does not insist on uniqueness.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: There is a way to say the desk is unique to the pair of Danny and Wilfred: lo gunjubme po la .danis. joi la .uilfred. You'll be meeting joi here and there in the coming lessons, but you'll be formally introduced to it in [[#11|Lesson 11]].}}
 
Some other examples:
 
:lo cukta po mi
:My book
 
:lo cipni po la .meilis.
:Mei Li's bird
 
:la .kokakolys. po do
:Your Coca-Cola
 
There are some things which you have which are unique to you, but which also never stop being yours, by definition. Your hand, for example, remains your hand, even if you saw it off (apologies for gruesomeness): you'd have to enter the high-stakes world of international organ transplants before you could say that your hand becomes someone else's hand. Your parents also are not something you can give away or transfer (much though you might be tempted to on occasion!) Whatever happens, they remain, by definition, your parents. Many languages distinguish between this kind of having, and the here-today-gone-tomorrow kind of having. Lojban is one such language, and for your parents or your arm, you would say '''po'e''' instead of '''po''':
:lo rirni po'e la .iulias.
:Julia's parents
 
:lo birka po'e la .klaudias.
:Claudia's arm
 
{{talkquote|Note: As it happens, English is not one of those languages that distinguishes between these two notions (''alienable'' and ''inalienable possession'' are the jargon terms, in case you're ever browsing a grammar of a South Pacific language.) So the distinction hasn't been exploited much to date in Lojban. More generally, the much vaguer association signalled by pe is usually enough to narrow down what exactly you mean, anyway; and for now, most Lojbanists are content to leave it at that. You probably will too.}}
 
Oh, and one more thing. We've been answering the question “whose?” through this section, but we haven't said how you ''ask'' “whose?” You've probably already guessed, though. The word ''whose?'' just means ''who's?'', or ''of whom?'' And ''who?'' is '''ma'''. So if “Tim's cousin” is '''lo tamne pe la .tim.''', then we just follow the same fill-in-the-slot approach as we did earlier on, with ma substituting for la .tim.: “whose cousin?” is '''lo tamne pe ma'''. (You would have already found this out in the preceding exercise — if you were good, of course!)
 
<center>Exercise 4 (Advanced)</center>
 
For each of the following, specify whether they involve po, po'e, or just pe.
 
#My car
#My language
#My genes
#My jeans
#My fault
#My self
#My present (that I got)
#My present (that I gave)
==Summary<span id="3.6"></span>==
 
In this chapter, we have seen how to
 
*give commands in Lojban;
*give soft commands/requests with attitudinals;
*ask questions and give answers about sumti;
*ask questions and give answers about selbri;
*express association between two sumti, using '''pe''' and nesting;
*express association between two sumti more precisely, as alienable or inalienable possession.
 
==Answers to Exercises<span id="3.7"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#Come to me.
#Give me the book.
#Act so that Isabel likes you. (or “Butter up Isabel” perhaps).
#Be fast (“Hurry up!”)
#Like yourself. (Note that changing the word order doesn't change the meaning here).
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#catra (assuming it's Julius Caesar we're talking about).
#la romios. (assuming it's ''that'' Juliet).
#na nenri or na go'i, unless we're talking about Paris, Texas.
#la tolstois.
#Tricky question. '''la''' can name a specific Porsche, not Porsches in general, and a specific Porsche might go fast or not (e.g. it could have just broken down and not go at all.) In general, '''la .porc.''' means just what I say it means, but as a name it is not used in general to refer to all Porsches, or to the typical Porsche. (Lojban has other ways of doing that).
#la .KEnedis.
#'''ninmu''' or '''go'i''' (Despite the pen-name, George Eliot was a woman).
#Not much we can say with the vocabulary we have at the moment other than prenu (maybe emphasising that Sakyamuni — the Buddha — was a person, not a God or somesuch). Other possible answers would be xindo ‘Indian’, or pavbudjo ‘first Buddhist’.
#'''finti''' — not '''ciska'''! Lojban separates the business of putting pen to paper from the act of creating a work of art. If Shakespeare had dictated ''Hamlet'' to Francis Bacon, Bacon would have been the ciska (‘writer’), but Shakespeare would have remained the finti (‘creator’).
#la .karl.marks.
#'''fengu''' or '''go'i''' — we're talking about Laurel and Hardy here.
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#lo cukta pe do (your book)
#You can't do this: lo la .meiris. cifnu makes no sense.
#lo mi cukta (My book)
#You can't do this: lo lo ninmu cukta is ambiguous. (The woman's book)
#You can't do this: there is no article in ma for mi to follow. The Lojban literally means ‘my what?', but it can be used more flexibly. do nelci ma pe mi, for example, means “What do you like about me?”
#lo karce pe zo'e<nowiki> ([Someone's] car)</nowiki>
#lo rokci pe do (your rock)
#You can't do this: la .la tim. meiris. would make no sense. (Who is ''Tim Mary''?)
#lo ma cukta (Whose book?)
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#po: You own it, so it's uniquely associated with you (by default).
#pe: You don't own it, and you can change it, so neither kinds of ‘possession’ apply.
#po'e: Your genetic fingerprint makes your genes inseparably yours.
#Though you might consider yourself inseparable from your jeans, too, they are of course po.
#po: There's no real sense of ‘possession’ involved here; but this is still a unique association.
#po'e: If there's one thing that's inseparable from you — it's ''you''.
#po: I may not have paid any money for it, but a gift is my property nonetheless, so it's uniquely associated with me.
#po: Since I've given the gift away, I do not own it in any real sense. But the gift is ''still'' uniquely associated with me, since it was me that gave it away.
=Chapter 4. Numbers, and a few more articles<span id="4"></span>=
 
One of the first things you learn in a new language is how to count, and this course is no exception. However, in Lojban, numbers include much more than just counting; for example, in Lojban, ''some'', ''most'' and ''too many'' are numbers.
 
==Basic numbers<span id="4.1"></span>==
 
The numbers from one to nine are as follows:
#pa
#re
#ci
#vo
#mu
#xa
#ze
#bi
#so
This leaves ''zero'', which is '''no''' (think “yes, we have no bananas”). You may have noticed that the numbers repeat the vowels AEIOU. Since you can't get by without memorising numbers, try to think of mnemonics for the unfamiliar ones. For example, although the sound is different, '''xa''' has the ''x'' of ''six'', and I remembered so by thinking of the proverb “A stitch in time saves ''nine'',” which is about ''sew''ing ('''.oi''').
 
Numbers from 10 onwards are made by putting the digits together, just like you'd say a telephone number. For example:
{| class="wikitable"
|| pano
|| 10
 
|-
|| zebi
|| 78
 
|-
|| xanoci
|| 603
 
|-
|| vomusore
|| 4,592
 
|}
 
4,592 has a comma in it (or a full stop in some languages, just to make things confusing). We can't use a comma in Lojban, because that means “separate these two syllables” (as we saw in [[#1|Lesson 1]] with Lojbanised names like zo,is. for ''Zoe''). What we say instead is ki'o. We don't ''have'' to use ki'o, but it can make things clearer. So 4,592 can also be read as vo ki'o musore. ki'o also has the advantage that if the following digits are all zeroes, we don't need to say them, so 3,000 is ci ki'o. You can remember ki'o easily if you think of ''kilo'' — a thousand. (The similarity is not coincidental).
 
Just as we have a word for a comma, we also have one for a decimal point: pi. So 5.3 is mupici. In fact, pi is not always decimal; it's the point for whatever number base you're using. But that's a more advanced topic.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: Don't get this mixed up with the number ''pi'' (π): 3.14159..., which has its own word in Lojban: '''pai''' — oddly enough.}}
 
When you want to talk about numbers as sumti — that is to say, as things in and of themselves — you need to put an article in front of them. But that article cannot be la, and for reasons which hopefully will become clear soon, it cannot be lo either. In front of numbers, Lojban uses the article li. So li pareci means ‘the number one hundred and twenty three’. ‘One, two, three’, on the other hand, would be li pa li re li ci: each li introduces a brand new number.
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
What are the following numbers in Lojban? (don't forget li!)
 
#35
#4,802
#6,000
#7.54
#6,891,573.905
==Numbers and articles<span id="4.2"></span>==
 
So far, we've looked at three articles: '''la''', for cmene, '''lo''', for sumti, and '''li''' for numbers. So '''li bi''' is ‘the number eight.’ Actually, outside mathematics, '''li''' is not used very much. What we usually want to say is things like ‘three people,’ or ‘the two women.’
 
{{talkquote|'''Note for mathematicians: '''Lojban has a number of words to deal with basic mathematics, and also an incredible number of words to deal with just about any mathematical expression you can think of, in a separate subset of the language (''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 18.) But you can't expect everything in a beginners' course.}}
 
We can use numbers either before or after '''lo'''. For example,
:'''ci lo gerku'''
means ‘three of the dogs’, while
:'''lo ci gerku'''
means ‘the three dogs.’
 
Now consider the English sentence ''Three men carried a piano''. This sentence has two potential meanings, as does any sentence involving a plural in English. You could be saying that the sentence holds true for each individual of the group. If the men involved are Andy, Barry, and Chris, you might be saying that Andy carried the piano, and Barry carried the piano, and Chris carried the piano. Alternatively, you could be saying that the sentence holds for the group ''as a unit'': no one carried the piano individually, but all three men carried it together.
 
Natural languages typically leave it up to context and plausibility to determine which of the two interpretations holds. But Lojban is a logical language, and so does not tolerate this confusion! lo and lo force the individual interpretation. That is, if I say
:'''ci lo nanmu cu bevri lo pipno'''
I mean that each of the three men (nanmu) carried (bevri) the piano (pipno). And if I say
:'''ci lo gerku cu batci mi'''
I just mean that three dogs bite me. Maybe one dog bit me in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night, or maybe I mean that I have been bitten by a dog three times in my life. There is nothing to say that the three dogs have anything to do with each other.
 
But if you want those dogs, or those men, to be considered as a unit, you'd say
:'''''lu'o'' ci lo nanmu cu bevri lo pipno'''
:'''''lu'o'' ci lo gerku cu batci mi'''
'''lu'o''' means ‘the mass composed of’, and in effect converts a bunch of individuals into a coherent unit. In the case of the dogs, for example, it makes them a pack. If you're a fan of computer strategy games, think of '''lu'o''' as like the ‘group’ command for units (there's also an ‘ungroup’ command, '''lu'a'''). Moreover, since the dogs act as a pack, it is not necessarily true that each of them individually bit you: it is actually enough that one of them bit you, for the pack to have bitten you.
 
With '''lo''' things are simpler. While '''lo pano ninmu''' means ‘the ten women’, '''lu'o lo pano ninmu''' means ‘the ten women treated as a group or mass’. Let's imagine that ten women I have in mind kiss me on ten separate occasions. (Hey, I do get to write these lessons for my own amusement, after all...) I could then say
:'''lo pano ninmu cu cinba mi'''
in which case I'd consider myself quite fortunate. However, if I say '''''lu'o'' lo pano ninmu cu cinba mi''', I mean that the ten women kiss me ''en masse'', in which case I would consider myself either blessed or harrassed (maybe I'm a rock star or something.) It does not necessarily mean that each and every woman kisses me; simply that I was mobbed by a group of ten women and kissed by one or (probably) more in the process.
 
'''lu'o lo''' is very useful, even without explicit numbers, and there are shorter ways of saying each when no number comes between them: '''loi'''. So the three women kissing me could be expressed as '''''loi'' ci ninmu cu cinba mi'''.
 
{{talkquote|''For advanced students only: ''Once you have been involved with Lojban for a while, you will notice that you will see '''loi''' a lot, and '''lu'o lo''' hardly ever. In fact, by default the expression '''loi nanmu cu bevri lo pipno''', without a number, implies that all of mankind was somehow involved in carrying the piano. Strictly speaking, that's true (if three men carried the piano, then Man carried the piano.) But it's not really the most specific way of expressing what's going on.
 
So how do you get the number ‘three’ back into an expression like '''loi nanmu cu bevri lo pipno'''? You cannot say '''loi ci nanmu cu bevri lo pipno''', because that means that there are only three men that exist in the universe. You cannot say '''ci loi nanmu cu bevri lo pipno''', because the three men act as one mass, and not as three masses. As it turns out (by extension of a little-known mechanism documented in ''The Complete Lojban Language''{{^|, pp. 132–133}}), the way to do it is '''loi ci lo nanmu cu bevri lo pipno'''<nowiki>: “The mass of three out of [all] men carries the piano.”</nowiki>}}{{^|again touched by xorlo, check!}}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
In the following English sentences, are the emphasised nouns ''individuals'' (prefixed in Lojban with '''lo''') or ''masses'' (prefixed in Lojban with '''loi''')?
 
#''Students'' listened to the radio.
#''Students'' built a radio.
#I bought ''sugar''.
#I bought ''radios''.
#''Elephants'' live to an old age.
#''Elephants'' have flat ears.
#''Students'' liked talking about elephants.
 
==Proportions<span id="4.3"></span>==
<center>Warning</center>
 
This section gets into even more tricky logical stuff. Skip it if you're not interested.
 
If '''lo ci prenu''' means “the three people,” and '''re lo prenu''' means “two of the people,” how do you say “two of the three people”?
 
You probably got this one pretty easily: '''re lo ci prenu'''. If, however, we use '''lo''', the meaning changes. We can't say re lo ci prenu to mean two out of ''any'' three people (i.e. two thirds of the population). This is because while lo ci prenu means the three people that I have in mind, lo ci prenu, by the same logic, means the three people that actually exist — i.e. that there are only three people in the universe. (That's also why, as the astute reader may have noted, you can't say '''loi ''ci'' nanmu cu bevri lo pipno'''.) You would therefore only use the number+lo+number formula if you knew the actual numbers rather than just the proportions, e.g.
 
:'''re lo ci mensi pe mi cu nelci la .rikis.martin.'''
:''Two of my three sisters like Ricky Martin.''
 
This states two facts. First, that I have three sisters (though it is not actually true in my case!) Second, that two of them like Ricky Martin (it doesn't actually state that my third sister ''hates'' him — she may be indifferent to him, or never have heard of him). If I use '''lo''' in the same sentence, it isn't actually wrong, but it allows the possibility that I have, say, five sisters, but I'm only talking about three of them! This is one of the few areas where '''lo''' is ''not'' like ''the'' or ''a/some''.{{^|probably chapter 2 clearly expalined what is '''lo'''! so may be remove?}}
 
But with people in general, rather than a specific group of people I know, I would have to say something in the order of
 
:vo ki'o nocize ki'o pasovo ki'o rexare lo xa ki'o cipare ki'o pamubi ki'o nosoci remna cu nelci la .rikis.martin.
:4,037,194,262 out of the 6,312,158,093 (existing) humans like Ricky Martin
 
meaning, I would have to give the real counts for all humans, and for all humans who suffer from that particular affliction. Which obviously is not terribly practical. (The real counts, I mean, not the affliction. Though on second thought..).
 
One way out of this problem is to use '''fi'u''', which is like the Lojban slash sign. So “two out of every three people” is really “2/3 of people”, or refi'uci loi prenu. Of course, this is actually a fraction, and fractions have decimal equivalents; you could also say ''pixaxaxa'' loi prenu, and not be that far off — even if your use of decimals might have some people laughing in the aisles...
 
Yes, that's our new friend loi in that sentence. If I had said refi'uci lo prenu, that would have to be understood in the same way as re lo prenu or ci lo prenu (i.e. as a count of individuals), and I would have ended up talking about two thirds of a person. In most cultures, chopping up persons into thirds is not considered acceptable behaviour even for pollsters or advertisers. On the other hand, chopping up ''populations'' into thirds is perfectly acceptable; and that's what loi prenu is. (A population, I mean, not an acceptable. Though on second thought..).
 
Here are some more proportions:
 
:mi tcica pimu loi prenu
:I fooled half of the people (treating the people as a mass, or population)
 
:mi tcica pafi'ure lei prenu
:I fooled one out of two people (which means exactly the same thing)
 
:mi tcica pa lo re mlatu
:I fooled one out of the two cats (treating the cats as individuals)
 
:mi se slabu vopano lo pacivore gismu
:I am familiar with 410 out of the 1342 (existing) gismu
 
==Quantities<span id="4.4"></span>==
 
I've said that words like ''most'' and ''many'' are numbers in Lojban, which is pretty logical if you think about it. The following ‘numbers’ are particularly useful:
{| class="wikitable"
|| no
|| none (we've already seen this as ‘zero’)
 
|-
|| ro
|| each / all
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|| du'e
|| too many
 
|-
|| so'a
|| almost all
 
|-
|| so'e
|| most
 
|-
|| so'i
|| many / a lot of
 
|-
|| so'o
|| several
 
|-
|| so'u
|| few
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|| su'e
|| at most
 
|-
|| su'o
|| at least
 
|-
|| za'u
|| can denote plural number . Literally it means ''more than... (by default more than one)''.
 
|}
 
Some examples:
 
:no lo ninmu cu nelci la .bil.
:None of the women like Bill.
 
:no lo ninmu cu nelci la .bil.
:No women like Bill.
 
:pa lo ninmu cu nelci la .bil.
:One woman likes Bill.
:One of women likes Bill.
 
:za'u lo ninmu cu nelci la .bil.
:Women likes Bill.
:More than one woman likes Bill.
 
{{talkquote|Note: ''za'u'' is mostly used for expressing plural in ordinary speech.}}
{{talkquote|'''lo ninmu''' alone can include any number of women from one to potentially all women that exist). Lojban has no difference between singular and plural: ''the woman'' and ''the women'' can both be '''lo ninmu'''. But suppose you wanted to make a distinction between the two; how would you do it?}}
 
:coi ro do
:Hi, everyone
 
:mi nelci ro lo mlatu
:I like all cats.
 
:mi na nelci ro lo gerku
:It's not true that I like all dogs.
 
(This is ''not'' the same as “I don't like any dogs”, which would be '''mi nelci no lo gerku'''. There are other ways of saying this, but we haven't got enough grammar under our belt yet).
 
:so'i lo merko cu nelci la .nirvanas.
:Many Americans like Nirvana
 
(The group, not the mystical state. Although on second thought..).
 
{{talkquote|'''Note: '''Yes, names are ambiguous in Lojban, because they're used Humpty-Dumpty style: they mean what the ''speaker'' means.}}
 
:so'u lo jungo cu nelci la .nirvanas.
:Few Chinese people like Nirvana.
 
:su'e mu lo muno prenu cu cmila
:No more than five out of the fifty people laugh(ed)
(Let's say a comedian told a bad joke).
 
:su'o pa lo prenu cu prami do
:At least one person loves you.
 
This last sentence is logically the same as lo prenu cu prami do, which means “there exists at least one person such that that person loves you,” but it makes the meaning clearer and more emphatic. In fact, all articles in Lojban have such default numbers associated with them; lo by default means su'o pa lo ro “at least one out of all...”.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| batci
|| x1 bites/pinches x2 on/at specific locus x3 with x4
 
|-
|| cifnu
|| x1<nowiki> is an infant/baby [helpless through youth/incomplete development] of species x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| cinba
|| x1 (agent) kisses/busses x2 at locus x3
 
|-
|| citka
|| x1 eats/ingests/consumes (transitive verb) x2
 
|-
|| gerku
|| x1<nowiki> is a dog/canine/[bitch] of species/breed x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| melbi
|| x1 is beautiful/pleasant to x2 in aspect x3 (ka) by aesthetic standard x4
 
|-
|| mlatu
|| x1<nowiki> is a cat/[puss/pussy/kitten] [feline animal] of species/breed x</nowiki>2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is feline
 
|-
|| nanmu
|| x1 is a man/men; x1<nowiki> is a male humanoid person [not necessarily adult]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| rectu
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains meat/flesh from source/animal x2
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
Translate the following sentences.
#All babies are beautiful.
#The pack of three cats bite the dog.
#What a surprise! Mei Li loves two men. (use an attitudinal indicator)
#Most men love at least one woman.
#It is not true that all men love at least one woman.
#The group of four women kiss Ricky Martin.
#It's a shame that no-one likes Bill. (use an attitudinal indicator)
#Rosemary's baby bites two people (separately).
#One in three women like David Bowie.
#No more than 15% of Buddhists eat meat. (''Buddhist'' is '''budjo''', as you may remember from [[#3|Lesson 3]]).
#Nine out of ten cats like ‘Whiskas.’ (use a cmevla)
#Cats like ‘Whiskas.’ (use a cmene)
 
==Number Questions<span id="4.5"></span>==
 
All question words in Lojban are requests to fill in an unknown value: ma asks for an unknown sumti, and mo for an unknown selbri. In Lojban '''xo''' is the question word for numbers. So, remembering the sentence '''re lo mi ci mensi cu nelci la .rikis.martin.''', how would I answer the following question?
:'''xo lo mensi cu nelci la .rikis.martin.'''
The answer, of course, is ''re''. (But not all questions that can be answered with a number have to take xo, as we'll see in the next lesson).
 
{{talkquote|Tip: '''xo''' is also used in mathematics, as in
 
:'''li ci su'i vo du li xo'''
:''3 + 4 = ?''
 
A few more examples:
:'''xo lo botpi cu kunti'''
:''How many of the bottles are empty?''
 
:'''xo lo prenu cu klama ti'''
:''How many people come here?''
 
:'''do viska xo lo sonci'''
:''How many soldiers do you see?''
 
Note: It is not actually necessary to include the '''lo''' after '''xo'''. In fact, it isn't necessary after any number — for example '''ci lo gerku''' could be simply '''ci gerku''', if you prefer. However, some Lojbanists prefer to keep the '''lo''' for the sake of clarity.}}{{^| bah}}}}
 
<center>A final exercise</center>
Lojban has no difference between singular and plural. How would you exactly say "one dog". Also think of another way of saying "dogs" in plural finding other suitable cmavo explained in this section.
 
==Summary<span id="4.6"></span>==
 
In addition to numbers (and their associated questions), this lesson has entered the dangerous waters of Lojban articles. Lojban articles may seem difficult at first, but they are perfectly logical. In fact it's probably ''because'' they are logical that people have problems with them to start off with — you have to learn to think in a slightly different way. For the curious, here are the main articles and article-like words:
{| class="wikitable"
|| la
|| that named
 
|-
|| le{{^| what to do? }}
|| that one previously mentioned or known from context or this speech
 
|-
|| lo
|| that which is/does
 
|-
|| li
|| the number
 
|}
 
('''lu''' is not an article, it's a quotation mark!)
{| class="wikitable"
|| la'e
|| the referent of (not really an article, as it takes a full sumti or pro-sumti, as in la'edi'u, what the last sentence refers to, as opposed to di'u, the actual words of the last sentence).
 
|-
|| le'e
|| the typical previously mentioned or known from context
 
|-
|| lo'e
|| the typical
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|| lai
|| the mass named
 
|-
|| lei
|| the mass previously mentioned or known from context
 
|-
|| loi
|| the mass which is/does
 
|}
{| class="wikitable"
|| la'i
|| the set named
 
|-
|| le'i
|| the set previously mentioned or known from context
 
|-
|| lo'i
|| the set which is/does
 
|}
 
(Sets turn out to be pretty useful in Lojban, as we'll see towards the end of this course).
 
We also looked briefly at '''lu'o''', which turns a set into a mass, and '''lu'a''', which turns a mass into a set of individuals (‘group’ and ‘ungroup’). Strictly speaking, these aren't articles, though.
 
If all this looks terribly complicated, don't be discouraged! As you can see, these articles are all really variants on '''la, lo''' and '''le''', which are normally all you will need. My personal advice (not official Lojban policy!) is ''when in doubt, use '''lo'''''. If you use '''lo''' where another article would be more appropriate, you may not express yourself as clearly as you wanted, but at least you will not be talking ungrammatical nonsense, like you would if you said ''der Frau'' in German, or ''the two womans'' in English.
 
==Answers to Exercises<span id="4.7"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#35: li cimu
#4,802: li vobinore ''or'' li vo ki'o binore (the spaces are optional)
#6,000: li xa ki'o or li xanonono
#7.54: li ze pimuvo (again, the space is optional)
#6,891,573.905: li xa ki'o bisopa ki'o muzeci pisonomu (if that looks long, try writing it as a word in English!)
<center>Exercise 2</center>
#Individual. The students might have been in a group while listening to the radio, but listening to the radio is something a person is capable of doing on their own.
#Mass. The students worked together to make the radio, so you cannot say of any one student that they made the radio on their own.
#Mass. In fact, ''sugar'' is a mass noun even in English, because it is very hard to think of it as individual entities. (Even when we do say “three sugars” in English, we're thinking of teaspoons, or kinds of sugar, not individual grains; so in fact, we're talking about two or more distinct ''masses'' of sugar.) That's why ''sugar'' does not normally take an article in English.
#Individual. Radios are easy to think of as individual units. But Lojban does allow you to treat the radios you've purchased as a mass, if that's useful to you (particularly if you're buying in bulk).
#Mass. The statement is not necessarily true of individual elephants, but it is true of elephants ''as a whole''. (To stress that elephants ''normally'' live to an old age, you would have to attribute long life, not to the mass of elephants, but to the ''typical'' elephant: lo'e xanto, rather than loi xanto).
#Individual. All elephants by definition (as it were) have flat ears; so the claim is true of each individual elephant. Once again, however, it makes perfect sense in Lojban to make that claim of the mass of elephants, as well.
#Individual. Talking may be a group activity, but liking is something you do individually, and the students are being described as likers first, and as talkers second.
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#ro lo cifnu cu melbi
#loi ci mlatu cu batci lo gerku (or: lu'o ci lo mlatu cu batci lo gerku. If you have lu'o lo ci mlatu cu batci lo gerku, you're implying that the three cats are the only three cats you have in mind, whereas lu'o ci lo mlatu leaves it open that there are other cats around).
#.ue la .meilis. prami re lo nanmu
#so'e lo nanmu cu prami su'o pa lo ninmu
#ro lo nanmu na prami su'o pa lo ninmu
#lu'o vo lo ninmu cu cinba la .rikis.martin.  (Give yourself a pat on the back if you got that one right! If you said loi vo lo ninmu, give yourself a whole backrub! Though you may need help with that..).
#.uinai<nowiki> [</nowiki>''or'' .uu] no lo prenu cu prami la .bil. ''or'' su'o pa lo prenu na prami la .bil. (Lojban '''na''' is somewhat odd to English-speakers, since it behaves exactly like logical “it is not the case”; the sentence literally means “It is not the case that at least one person likes Bill” (i.e. “It is not the case that ''even'' one person likes Bill.”) But the interaction of negation and quantifiers is beyond the scope of these lessons; for more, see ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 16.9).
#lo cifnu pe la .ROZmeris. cu batci re lo prenu
#pafi'uci loi ninmu cu nelci la .deivyd.bo,is. (or: pafi'uci lu'o lo ninmu cu nelci la .deivyd.bo,is).
#su'e pipamu loi budjo cu citka lo rectu (or: su'e pipamu lu'o lo budjo cu citka lo rectu)
#sofi'upano loi mlatu cu nelci la .uiskas. (a Commonwealth slogan for a brand of cat food) (or: sofi'upano lu'o lo mlatu cu nelci la .uiskas).
#za'u lo mlatu cu nelci la .uiskas. (we used '''za'u''' for denote plurality)
 
<center>A final exercise</center>
 
‘The dog’ would be '''lo pa gerku'''. Normally, we wouldn't bother with the '''pa''' though, unless we wanted to make it quite clear that we only have one dog in mind. ‘The dogs’ would be '''lo za'u gerku''' (more than one dog, dogs) or '''lo su'o re gerku''' or '''loi su'o re gerku''', if we're thinking of them as a group — ‘the at least two dogs’. However, it is hard to think of many situations where you would need to say this. Like some other languages (e.g. Chinese), Lojban normally leaves number up to context. You guessed it — you've just spent all this time learning to say how many people, dogs etc. there are, and piso'e of the time, you don't need to! But, like many features of Lojban, it can be very useful when you want it, so please don't feel tricked.
 
Oh, what does piso'e mean? That, I will leave as an exercise to you ...
 
=Chapter 5. Times, days, dates (and abstractions)<span id="5"></span>=
 
==What is the time?<span id="5.1"></span>==
 
One way to ask the question “What is the time?” is ma tcika ti. We know that ma is the sumti question word (‘what’), so tcika must be a selbri meaning ‘is the time’. The place structure of tcika is
 
:x1 (hours, minutes, seconds) is the time of state/event x2 on day/date x3, at location x4, by calendar x5
 
So in Lojban, times do not exist in the abstract: times are always the times ''of'' something. So we ask what the time is of ti, meaning ‘this event/thing', or, in other words ‘now’.
 
{{talkquote|Note: Well, we don't really; stay tuned for [[#6|next lesson]], where we'll fill this in a little more.}}
 
A full answer would obviously be very long-winded, but remembering the Lojban convention that you miss out all the places after the last one you really need, a typical exchange would be:
 
*ma tcika ti
*li papa
*What's the time?
*Eleven
 
Note the li, since we are talking about a number here. li papa is short for li papa cu tcika ti — “the number eleven is the time of this (event)”.
 
If we want to be a bit more precise, we need to use pi'e. This introduces fractional parts of numbers like pi, but unlike pi it doesn't need to indicate decimal fractions in a number. In fact, the kind of fractional part it does indicate can vary within the same number. In normal counting, pi is a decimal point, in hexadecimal it's a hexadecimal point and so on, but the kind of fraction it indicates never changes its value. But pi'e doesn't have that restriction; so we can use it to separate hours from minutes (which are sixtieths of hours), or, as we will see below, days from hours (which are twenty-fourths of days). pi'e, in other words, means ‘part’, not ‘decimal point’. So an alternative answer to the question could be
 
:li papa pi'e mu
:11:05 (Five past eleven)
:(The number eleven, and five parts)
 
or if you want to be particularly precise,
 
:li papa pi'e mu pi'e pabi
:Five minutes and eighteen seconds past eleven
:(The number eleven, and five parts, and eighteen parts of parts)
 
Let's imagine, though, that the time is not five past eleven, but five ''to'' eleven. We can say li pano pi'e mumu (10:55), but we can also say li papa pi'e ni'u mu, where ni'u is the Lojban minus sign (for negative numbers, not for subtraction) — what we are saying is ‘11:−5'.
 
For ‘half past eleven’ you can also use '''pi''' and say '''li papa pimu''' ‘11.5'. I don't particularly like this method, but it is perfectly good Lojban. If we are using numbers for times, it is normal to use the 24-hour system, so 6 PM is li pabi (18:00).
 
If you want to use twelve-hour time instead, you need some way of distinguishing between AM and PM. The conventional way in Lojban is to use cmene for hours (so we can add supplementary information like that later on, as part of the cmene.) So ‘four o’clock' is la .vocac., ‘five o’clock' is la .mucac. and so on (from cacra ‘hour’). For 11 and 12 we need extra numbers. Fortunately Lojban has these and more; the number system actually goes up to 16 (hexadecimal), so we have the extra numbers
{| class="wikitable"
|| dau
|| 10
 
|-
|| fei
|| 11
 
|-
|| gai
|| 12
 
|-
|| jau
|| 13
 
|-
|| rei
|| 14
 
|-
|| vai
|| 15
 
|}
 
Obviously for anything other than talking about computer programming, the numbers 13–15 are useless, but we can use 10–12 for hours. ‘Ten o’clock' under this scheme is la .daucac., ‘eleven o’clock' is la .feicac., and ‘twelve o’clock' is la .gaicac. . For ‘morning’ and ‘evening’ we can then add lir. and lec., meaning ‘early’ and ‘late’ (from clira and lerci). So la .mucac. lir. is five in the morning.
 
As you can see, things start to get a little messy with the 12-hour system (how do you say 9:22 AM?), so the 24-hour system is preferred by popular acclamation.
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
What are the following times in Lojban?
 
#Nine o'clock
#Eleven o'clock in the morning
#Two in the afternoon
#A quarter to twelve
#Midnight
#9:25
#12:15
#14:30
#17:03
#20:00:03
#21:54:16.71
 
==Times and Events<span id="5.2"></span>==
 
If we want to give the time of an event, rather than just tell the time, we need to fill in some more places. The second place of tcika is ‘state/event': people don't have times — events have times. So we need some way to show that the sumti in this position is a state or an event, and not a thing. But
 
:la .daucac. cu tcika lo mi klama
 
won't work; it does not mean “Ten o'clock is the time that I go” (or come!), but “Ten o'clock is the time of my goer,” which is meaningless.
 
We get round this problem with the word '''nu''', which means — you guessed it — ‘state/event'. This is called an '''abstraction descriptor''' (or '''abstractor''' for short), other common descriptors being '''ka''' (property or infinitive), '''ni''' (amount) and so on{{^| (for a complete list, see ''The Complete Lojban Language'', p. 269)}}. What '''nu''' does here is allow us to put a whole bridi into a selbri place, and by extension (if we put an article in front of it) a sumti place. The sequence goes a little like this:{{^| where is this damn du'u ? may be remove it indeed? ;) }}
 
:'''la robin. cu salci'''
:''Robin celebrates.''
 
:'''la jbonunsla cu ''nu'' la .robin. cu salci'''
:''Logfest is an event such that Robin celebrates — Logfest is Robin's celebration/celebrating.''
 
:'''mi nelci lo ''nu'' la .robin. cu salci.'''
:''I like the event such that Robin celebrates — I like Robin's celebration/Robin celebrating.''
 
When used to introduce a sumti, nu is usually written together with the article ('''lo''' or '''le'''), but is actually a separate word. So what we want is
:'''la 'daucac. cu tcika lo ''nu'' mi klama'''
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
What do these Lojban sentences mean?
 
#li pamu pi'e reno tcika lonu mi dunda lo cukta do
#li ze tcika lonu tivni la .SEsamis.strit.
#li pa tcika lonu mi ciska
#la klaudias. cu nelci lonu zo'e vecnu loi kabri la .iulias.
#la tim. cu nelci lonu li paso tcika lonu la .meiris. cu cliva
==Times and Events, Improved: Conversion<span id="5.3"></span>==
 
If “Ten o'clock is the time that I go” sounds backwards, there are two ways you can switch it round. One is using se, which swaps the first and second places of any bridi.
:'''lo nu mi klama cu ''se'' tcika la .daucac.'''
means exactly the same thing as '''la .daucac. cu tcika lonu mi klama'''. '''se''' coincidentally is pretty much the same as Spanish ''se'', but is actually part of a series along with '''te, ve''' and '''xe''', which switch around the first and third, first and fourth, and first and fifth places of a selbri. (This kind of swapping is known as '''conversion''').
 
This conversion business, of course, doesn't apply just to sentences with abstractions in them, but to any bridi. You may want to change things around for different emphasis (people tend to mention the more important things in a sentence first), or as above, to work around the complexity of Lojban grammar (cu is a very powerful tool.) So the following pairs mean the same thing:
:'''mi viska do'''
:''I see you.''
 
:'''do se viska mi'''
:''You are seen by me.''
 
:'''lo nanmu cu klama lo barja'''
:''The man goes to a bar.''
 
:'''lo barja cu se klama lo nanmu'''
:''A bar is gone to by the man.''
 
:'''la .spot. cu mlatu la .abisinian.'''
:''Spot is a feline of the breed Abyssinian.''
 
:'''la .abisinian. se mlatu la .spot.''
:'''Abyssinian is the breed of cat Spot is.''
 
:'''lonu mi cilre fi la .lojban. cu xamgu mi'''
:''My learning Lojban is good for me.''
 
:'''mi se xamgu lonu mi cilre fi la .lojban.'''
:''I am benefitted by my learning Lojban.''
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Rearrange these Lojban sentences so that the main selbri in each sentence is converted to having se. Don't forget to use '''cu''' if you need to! For example, '''mi viska do''' → '''do se viska mi'''
 
#mi prami la .meilis.
#lo mlatu cu catra lo jipci
#la .mari,as. cu vecnu lo mlatu
#la .mari,as. cu dunda la .iulias. la .klaudias.
#la .mari,as. cu vecnu zo'e la .tim.
#la .fits.djerald. cu fanva fi lo glico
#klama la .bast,n. fu lo karce
#li ze tcika lonu tivni la .SEsamis.strit. (Leave the bridi with tivni alone).
#la .klaudias. cu nelci lonu zo'e vecnu loi kabri la .iulias. (Convert the bridi with vecnu as well as the bridi with nelci).
#la .tim. cu nelci lonu li paso tcika lonu la .meiris. cu cliva (Convert all three selbri).
 
==Times and Events, Improved #2: sumti tcita<span id="5.4"></span>==
 
With conversion and '''se''', you have a new and powerful tool to use in your Lojban. But you might still find '''lonu mi klama cu se tcika la .daucac.''' too long and clumsy. In that case, get ready for more Lojban tricks.
 
It would be really nice if '''klama''' had a place for the time of going/coming, but it doesn't. (After all, you wouldn't really want to have to learn a ''six''-place selbri!) To get round this problem of missing places in selbri, Lojban has a series of cmavo (structure words) which add extra places to the selbri. The one we want here is '''ti'u''', meaning ‘occurring at the time of day...’. So we can now say
 
:mi klama ti'u la .daucac.
:I am going at 10:00
 
'''klama''' now expresses a relationship between six things: a goer, a destination, a source, a route, a vehicle, ''and'' a time at which this all takes place.
 
So why, you may ask, didn't I just say that in the first place? I could have done, but then you wouldn't have found out about nu and se! There is more to this lesson than meets the eye.
 
{{talkquote|Note: Different types of cmavo belong to different classes (se cmavo or selma'o). For example, all articles (apart from those specific to cmene, like '''la''') belong to the same class, and all of them can appear in the same place in a sentence. This selma'o is called LE, after one of cmavo that belongs to it, '''le'''. Likewise, the cmavo that introduce new sumti into a bridi belong to the class BAI — so named from bai, the cmavo meaning ‘forced by’. (This type of cmavo is also called sumti tcita ‘sumti labels’.) We will be seeing more of these cmavo in the lessons ahead.}}
 
==Days and Months<span id="5.5"></span>==
 
The days of the week are also cmene built from numbers, this time adding djed., from '''djedi''', meaning ‘day’. There is at present some disagreement about which day should be day one, though. The original convention was to follow the Judaeo-Christian convention of taking Sunday as the first day, giving
{| class="wikitable"
|| Sunday
|| la .''pa''djed.
 
|-
|| Monday
|| la .''re''djed.
 
|-
|| Tuesday
|| la .''ci''djed.
 
|}
 
... and so on. (Conveniently for one of your authors, this matches Greek for Monday through to Thursday.) However, in a Logical Language Group meeting in 1992 it was agreed that Monday be day 1, and Sunday be either 7 (la zedjed.) or zero (la nodjed.) according to taste (much to at least one of your author's inconvenience.) Eventually, though, people will use whichever system they prefer until one becomes universally accepted.
 
This may sound chaotic, but I have gone into this point as a good example of how in Lojban a large part of the language is “left to usage” — meaning that ultimately the language depends on the way people choose to use it in practice. People are also free to work out alternative conventions for cultures which do not use a seven-day week, possibly adding to the name to make it clear; e.g. la .padjedjung. could be the first day of the Chinese ten-day week. (Remember, jungo means ‘Chinese’).
 
{{talkquote|Note: For these lessons, of course, we do have to teach ''something'' — and that ‘something’ will be that Monday is Day 1. That, of course, is already getting in the way of usage, but it's unavoidable.}}
 
'''Tip: '''You will also see days in full lujvo form (meaning in practice one extra consonant after the number), looking like this:
{| class="wikitable"
|| no(n)djed. or nondei
|| 0-day
 
|-
|| pa(v)djed. or pavdei
|| 1-day
 
|-
|| re(l)djed. or reldei
|| 2-day
 
|-
|| ci(b)djed. or cibdei
|| 3-day
 
|-
|| vo(n)djed. or vondei
|| 4-day
 
|-
|| mu(m)djed. or mumdei
|| 5-day
 
|-
|| xa(v)djed. or xavdei
|| 6-day
 
|-
|| ze(l)djed. or zeldei
|| 7-day (= 0-day)
 
|}
 
Months also use numbered cmene, adding mast. (from masti ‘month’), so January is la .pamast. and so on. Again, since there are twelve months, we use the extra numbers, so October is la .daumast. .
 
'''Note: '''You will also see months in full lujvo form — the catch being that hexadecimal digits have not been assigned rafsi (combining forms.) So:
{| class="wikitable"
|| pa(v)mast. or pavma'i
|| 1-month
 
|-
|| re(l)mast. or relma'i
|| 2-month
 
|-
|| ci(b)mast. or cibma'i
|| 3-month
 
|-
|| vo(n)mast. or vonma'i
|| 4-month
 
|-
|| mu(my)mast. or mumyma'i
|| 5-month
 
|-
|| xa(v)mast. or xavma'i
|| 6-month
 
|-
|| ze(l)mast. or zelma'i
|| 7-month
 
|-
|| bi(v)mast. or bivma'i
|| 8-month
 
|-
|| so(z)mast. or sozma'i
|| 9-month
 
|-
|| daumast. or pavnonmast. or pavnonma'i
|| 10-month
 
|-
|| feimast. or pavypavmast. or pavypavma'i
|| 11-month
 
|-
|| gaimast. or pavrelmast. or pavrelma'i
|| 12-month
 
|}
 
Just in case you're interested, the words for seasons are:
{| class="wikitable"
|| vensa
|| Spring
 
|-
|| crisa
|| Summer
 
|-
|| critu
|| Autumn
 
|-
|| dunra
|| Winter
 
|}
 
(For full definitions of these words, see the gismu list.) If the seasons where you live don't match this pattern, then you can easily create new words. For example, the rainy season or monsoon could be carvycitsi (from carvi, rain, and citsi, season) or simply la .carv. . Here are some I made up for fun to give a better idea of the weather in the UK:
{| class="wikitable"
|| la .lekcarv.
|| ‘the cold rain’ — Spring
 
|-
|| la .mliglacarv.
|| ‘the warm (mildly-hot) rain' — Summer
 
|-
|| la .bifcarv.
|| ‘the windy rain’ — Autumn
 
|-
|| la .dujycarv.
|| ‘the freezing rain’ — Winter
 
|}
 
Joking aside, this shows two features of word-building in Lojban: making cmene by losing the final vowel (which we saw in [[#1|Lesson 1]]) and creating lujvo, or compound words. (For the same reason, you'll also see pavdjed., relmast., ...) You actually need a pretty good knowledge of Lojban to make up lujvo on the spot, but we'll learn how to make some simple lujvo later on in this course.
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
What are these days and months in Lojban?
 
#Saturday
#Thursday
#March
#August
#November
#December
==Dates<span id="5.6"></span>==
 
The gismu for dates is detri:
 
:x1 is the date (day, week, month, year) of state/event x2, at location x3, by calendar x4
 
Phew! Like '''tcika''', though, most places of '''detri''' can be left out. The location is only important if we're talking about radically different timezones, or different planets, and the calendar is normally assumed to be the standard Western one — if you want to use, for example, the Arabic or Chinese calendars, you can put lo xrabo or lo jungo in the fourth place. (As always, context is important — in a discussion of Islamic history we would probably assume that the Arabic calendar was being used).
 
The tricky bit is the number in x1. Normally we don't want to specify the day, week, month ''and'' year! To prevent confusion, the following conventions are used:
 
*If there is only one number, it is the ''day'' e.g. li pano is ‘the 10th'.
*If there are two numbers, they are the ''day and month'' e.g. li pano pi'e pare is 10/12, or ‘the 10th of December'.
*If there are three numbers, they are day, month, year (''not'' month, day, year, as in the American convention) e.g. li repa pi'e ze pi'e pasoxaso is 21/7/69 — the date of the first moon landing.
 
We can therefore say
 
:li repa pi'e ze pi'e pasoxaso cu detri lonu lo remna cu klama lo lunra
:21/7/1969 is-the-date-of the-event a human goes (to) the moon
 
Now, just as with tcika, we often want to put the event first — after all, in most languages we would normally say “My birthday is on the fifteenth of August” rather than “The fifteenth of August is the date of my birthday.” We can manage this change by using place tags, e.g.
 
:<nowiki>fe lonu mi jbena [kei] cu detri fa li pamu pi'e bi </nowiki>
:the-event I am-born is-dated 15/8
 
but it is easier to use se, like this:
 
:lonu mi jbena cu ''se'' detri li pamu pi'e bi
:the-event I am-born is-dated 15/8
 
In both cases, putting the lonu phrase before the cu is convenient — and a well-established Lojban trick of the trade: cu is powerful enough to close off any structure in front of it, including lonu mi jbena.
 
As you have probably guessed, there is also a sumti tcita for ‘dated’: de'i, which works like ti'u (notice how sumti tcita tend to be similar to the selbri they suggest). So the other way I can tell you my birthday is:
 
:mi jbena de'i li pamu pi'e bi
 
'''Question. '''If only one number is used with detri, it is the day. So how do we say what year an event happened without giving the day and month as well?
 
The gismu for ‘year’, nanca cannot be used instead of detri, since it has the place-structure
 
:x1 is x2 years in duration, by standard x3
 
i.e. it gives the length of an event in years, not the year when an event happened. One way out is to use a cmene for the year, so the year I (Robin) am writing this would be la .pasososonanc. (And the year I (Nick) am writing this would be la .renonopananc.).
 
{{talkquote|Tip: You will also see year names ending in nan: la .renonopanan.}}
{{talkquote|Tip: More recently there has been a proposal to make single numbers refer by default to year rather than day; the controversy on this has not settled down yet.}}{{^|ping!}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| cnino
|| x1 is new/unfamiliar/novel to observer x2 in feature x3 (ka) by standard x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a novelty
 
|-
|| dable'a
|| conquer, sieze (‘war-take’)
 
|-
|| facki
|| x1 discovers/finds out x2 (du'u) about subject/object x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 finds (fi) x3 (object)
 
|-
|| gugde
|| x1 is the country of peoples x2 with land/territory x3<nowiki>; (people/territory relationship)</nowiki>
 
|-
|| fraso
|| x1 reflects French/Gallic culture/nationality/language in aspect x2
 
|-
|| guntrusi'o
|| Communist (‘work-govern-idea’)
 
|-
|| jecyga'ibai
|| revolution (‘government-change-force’)
 
|-
|| joi
|| Joins two sumti together as a mass. We'll have more to say about this later.
 
|-
|| selpeicku
|| manifesto (‘thought-book’)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 5 — history quiz</center>
 
Give the dates to answer these questions, using cmene for the years. If you don't happen to know them, that's OK — they're given at the bottom of the exercise.
 
#lonu la .kolombus. cu facki lo cnino gugde cu se detri ma
#la mexmet. cu dable'a la .konstantinupolis. de'i ma
#lonu fraso jecyga'ibai cu se detri ma
#la marks. joi la .engels. cu finti lo guntrusi'o selpeicku ku de'i ma {{^| {ku}. where from? have we covered it yet?}}
#la muxamed. cu klama la .medinas. de'i ma
(1492; 1453; 1789; 1848; 622)
 
==Summary<span id="5.7"></span>==
 
Apart from times and dates, this lesson has covered some important points of Lojban grammar.
 
*Some simple lujvo.
*The abstractor for states and events, nu, and its terminator, kei.
*Conversion — swapping round places — with se.
*The sumti tcita: ti'u (‘with time’) and de'i (‘with date’).
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| barja
|| x1 is a tavern/bar/pub serving x2 to audience/patrons x3
 
|-
|| birje
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a amount of beer/ale/brew brewed from x2
 
|-
|| botpi
|| x1 is a bottle/jar/urn/flask/closable container for x2, made of material x3 with lid x4
 
|-
|| briju
|| x1 is an office/bureau/work-place of worker x2 at location x3
 
|-
|| cpedu
|| x1 requests/asks/petitions/solicits for x2 of/from x3 in manner/form x4
 
|-
|| denpa
|| x1 awaits/waits/pauses for/until x2 at state x3 before starting/continuing x4 (activity/process)
 
|-
|| djica
|| x1 desires/wants/wishes x2 (event/state) for purpose x3
 
|-
|| dotco
|| x1 reflects German/Germanic culture/nationality/language in aspect x2
 
|-
|| jimpe
|| x1 understands/comprehends fact/truth x2 (du'u) about subject x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 understands (fi) x3
 
|-
|| lerci
|| x1 (event) is late by standard x2
 
|-
|| nandu
|| x1 is difficult/hard/challenging for x2 under conditions x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 challenges (non-agentive) x2
 
|-
|| penmi
|| x1 meets/encounters x2 at/in location x3
 
|-
|| pinxe
|| x1 (agent) drinks/imbibes beverage/drink/liquid refreshment x2 from/out-of container/source x3
 
|-
|| sruma
|| x1 assumes/supposes that x2 (du'u) is true about subject x3
 
|-
|| tcita
|| x1 is a label/tag of x2 showing information x3 (as in sumti tcita)
 
|-
|| viska
|| x1 sees/views/perceives visually x2 under conditions x3
 
|-
|| xebni
|| x1 hates/despises x2 (object/abstraction); x1 is full of hate for x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 is odious to x1
 
|-
|| zvati
|| x1 (object/event) is at/attending/present at x2 (event/location)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translate the following from Lojban:
{{talkquote|Note: In the following, there are some instances of '''nu''' which would properly be expressed using '''du'u''' instead. Since you don't know what '''du'u''' is yet, use '''nu''' for now, but stay tuned for [[#7|Lesson 7]].}}{{^|ping!}}
{{talkquote|Note: You'll notice that every new sentence begins with '''.i'''. That is in fact the default for Lojban, which does not rely on punctuation or intonation for its grammatical structure: '''.i''' is used consistently to separate one sentence in running text from the next.}}
 
#.i la .djang. cu zvati lo barja
#.i la .djang. cu denpa lonu la .suzyn. zvati lo barja
#.i la .djang. cu cpedu fi lo dunda fe re birje {{^| What???? }}
#.i lonu pinxe loi dotco birje cu se nelci la .djang.
#.i .uu la .suzyn. loi dotco birje cu xebni
#.i la .djang. cu djica loka li reno pi mu tcika lonu la .suzyn. cu klama {{^| cover infinintves earlier! }}
#.i li repa tcika lonu la .djang. cu djuno lonu la .suzyn. na klama
#.i pinxe pici lo pa birje
#.i la .djang. cu cliva lo barja
<center>Exercise 7 (Advanced)</center>
 
Translate into Lojban (but only if you're feeling intrepid!):
 
#Susan goes to the bar at 22:00 from the office.
#Susan assumes that Zhang knows that Susan is late. (Hint: actually even harder than it looks. Look carefully at the definition of the gismu for ‘late’).
#Susan sees one of the two bottles.
#It is not difficult for Susan to understand that Zhang left. (Hint: try it as “To understand that Zhang left is not difficult for Susan.”)
#At 22:15, Susan wants to meet Jyoti at 22:45.
==Answers to Exercises<span id="5.8"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#'''la .socac.''' or '''li so'''
#la .feicac. lir.
#la .recac. lec.
#li papa pi'e ni'u pamu or li pare pi'e vomu. (You can also use the hexadecimal digits, if you like, though this will probably be less common: li gai pi'e ni'u pamu, li fei pi'e vomu).
#la .nocac. ''or'' la .gaicac. lir. (if you follow the convention that midnight is 12 AM)
#li so pi'e remu
#li pare pi'e pamu
#li pavo pi'e cino ''or'' li pavopimu
#li paze pi'e ci
#li reno pi'e no pi'e ci
#li repa pi'e muvo pi'e paxa pi zepa (The last component is just an ordindary decimal point).
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#15:20 is the time that I gave the book to you.
#7:00 is the time that [someone] broadcasts </nowiki>''Sesame Street''<nowiki>; 7:00 is the time that </nowiki>''Sesame Street'' is broadcast.
#1:00 is the time that I write [something]</nowiki>
#Claudia likes that [someone] sells cups to Julia; Claudia likes Julia buying cups.</nowiki>
#Tim likes that 19:00 is the time that Mary leaves; Tim likes it that Mary leaves at 19:00.
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#la meilis. cu se prami mi (“Mei Li is loved by me.”)
#lo jipci cu se catra lo mlatu (“The bird is killed by the cat.”)
#lo mlatu cu se vecnu la .mari,as. (“The cat is sold by Maria.” You now need cu, to prevent mlatu and se vecnu running together into the one tanru).
#la .iulias. cu se dunda la .mari,as. la .klaudias. (“Julia is given by Maria to Claudia.” As the third place, la .klaudias. is unaffected by the conversion, and stays where it is).
#zo'e se vecnu la .mari,as. la .tim. (“Something is sold by Maria to Tim.” The same holds for the third place here as in the previous sentence).
#<nowiki>[zo'e]</nowiki> se fanva la .fits.djerald. lo glico<nowiki> (“[Something] is translated by Fitzgerald into English.” The original sentence has an empty x</nowiki>2 place; so there is nothing there to swap with x1. But of course, when a sumti is left out, you can assume its value to be zo'e — which you can still leave out even after conversion. And now that there is an explicit x2 place there, you don't need fi any more to introduce the x3 place).
#la bast,n. cu se klama fu lo karce (“Boston is gone to by car.”)
#lonu tivni la .SEsamis.strit. cu se tcika li ze  (“The broadcasting of ''Sesame Street'' is at the time 7:00.” The cu is actually necessary, here, even though it follows a cmene<nowiki>; can you work out why?)</nowiki>
#lonu loi kabri cu se vecnu zo'e la .iulias. cu se nelci la .klaudias.  (“That cups are sold by someone to Julia is liked by Claudia; cups being sold to Julia is something Claudia likes.”).
#lonu lenu se cliva la .meiris. <nowiki>[cu]</nowiki> se tcika li paso cu se nelci la .tim.<nowiki> (“The fact that [something] being left by Mary is at the time 19:00 is liked by Tim; [the place] being left by Mary at 19:00 is something Tim likes.” Yes, I know it's horrible.)</nowiki>
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#la .xadjed. or la .xavdjed. or la xavdei
#la .vodjed. or la .vondjed. or la vondei
#la .cimast. or la .cibmast. or la cibma'i
#la .bimast. or la .bivmast. or la bivma'i
#la .feimast. or la .pavypavmast. or la pavypavma'i
#la .gaimast. or la .pavrelmast. or la pavrelma'i
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#la .pavosorenanc.
#la .pavomucinanc.
#la .pazebisonanc.
#la .pabivobinanc.
#la .xarerenanc. (or la .pananc., if you're using the Muslim calendar)
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
#Zhang is at the bar.
#Zhang waits for Susan to be at the bar.
#Zhang asks the giver for two beers (and no, that's not necessarily what you'd call a waiter, but that is nonetheless a legitimate if laconic description of what waiters do. Lojban grammar tends to be pedantic, but Lojban descriptions can be rather sparse).
#Drinking German beer is liked by Zhang
#Alas, Susan hates German beer.
#Zhang wants 20:30 to be the time Susan will come. (Zhang is using the fraction pimu, unlike me).
#21:00 is the time Zhang knows that Susan is not coming
#Look! He's drinking 0.3 of one beer. (Any bridi with its x1 missing is considered an observative).
#Zhang leaves the bar.
<center>Exercise 7</center>
#.i la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja ti'u li rere lo briju (Because the time of day has its own sumti tcita already, it doesn't really matter where in the sentence you place it. So .i la .suzyn. ti'u li rere klama lo barja lo briju means exactly the same thing).
#.i la .suzyn. cu sruma {lenu la .djang. djuno {lenu lerci fa {lenu la .suzyn. klama}}} (Lojban insists on distinguishing between events and entities; you can't say that someone is late in Lojban, but only that someone's ''action'' is late. There are ways in Lojban for working around this, but they are considered ‘advanced Lojban’ (see [[#15|Lesson 15]]).
And yes, that's a rather deeply nested sentence. Lojban tends, for better or worse, to make things more explicit, and thus more complex, than is usual for natural languages. The normal word order version is even worse: .i la .suzyn. sruma {lenu la .djang. djuno {lenu {lenu la .suzyn. klama} cu lerci}}).
#.i la .suzyn. cu viska pa lo re botpi
#.i {lonu jimpe {lonu la .djang. cu cliva}} na nandu la .suzyn.
#ti'u li rere pi'e pamu la .suzyn. cu djica {loka penmi la .djiotis. ti'u li rere pi'e vomu}  (Extra credit if you worked through that one!)
'''Note: '''As noted in the [[#0|Introduction]], those brackets are there for clarification only; you won't normally see them in Lojban text. The whole point of having a syntactically unambiguous language, after all, is that you shouldn't have to use brackets in the first place!
 
=Chapter 6. Time and Space — basic Lojban ‘tenses’<span id="6"></span>=
 
==Terminators<span id="6.1"></span>==
 
Before we go on any further, we've left a little unfinished business from the [[#5|previous lesson]]. This opens up a whole new set of issues, which is why we've held it over for this lesson.
 
Remember that when we speak of dates in Lojban, we also need to specify the place on the globe where the date was calculated. The instant Neil Armstrong made that small step for (a) man, for instance, it wasn't the 21st of July everywhere on Earth. In Tokyo, it was closer to the 22nd. So if we want to point out that it was the 21st, ''Houston time'', we need to specify the x3 place of detri. That means we can simply say:
 
:li repa pi'e ze pi'e pasoxaso cu detri lonu lo remna cu klama lo lunra la .xustyn.
 
right?
 
Actually, no. Look at that sentence again. How would we say that the 21st was the day Armstrong went to the moon ''<nowiki>[going] from Houston</nowiki>''? You guessed it —
 
:li repa pi'e ze pi'e pasoxaso cu detri lonu lo remna cu klama lo lunra la .xustyn.
 
So now (Houston), we have a problem. Which selbri does la .xustyn. belong to in this sentence? klama, or detri?
 
This kind of ambiguity is nothing new to natural languages, which tend to resolve problems like these with tricks like well-positioned pauses in speech, and punctuation in writing. (Consider for instance the English sentence ''21/7/69 was the date a man went to the moon, from Houston.'' With that comma, you can only read that as “according to Houston.”)
 
The trick Lojban uses instead, however, turns out to be one of its major ‘selling points’. Lojban uses words called '''terminators'''. No, they aren't killer androids with difficult-to-spell surnames, but little words used to indicate when groups of words, such as phrases, end. You can think of them like the brackets used in mathematics, and they serve pretty much the same purpose. So in Lojban, whenever a structure begins whose length is not known in advance, a terminator goes at the end of the structure. This is what makes Lojban syntactically unambiguous:
 
*Every time an article like lo or loi starts a sumti, ku ends it.
*Every time a string of numbers starts, boi ends it.
*Every time a series of sumti follows a selbri, vau ends it.
*And every time nu starts an abstraction — a bridi nested inside another bridi — kei ends it.
 
This means that our sentence about the moon landing is fully elaborated like this (putting in some braces to make things clearer, and sneaking in the terminator lo'o corresponding to li):
 
:<nowiki>[{li [repa pi'e ze pi'e pasoxaso boi] lo'o} cu detri [lo{nu [{lo remna ku} cu klama {lo lunra ku} vau] kei} ku] la .xustyn. vau]</nowiki>
 
The kei goes before la .xustyn. . This means that as a sumti, la .xustyn. cannot belong to klama: kei has cordoned off the places of klama from the rest of the sentence (and the places of detri.) So la .xustyn. can only be a sumti of the main selbri, detri.
 
The reader may well be wondering at this point how come they've never seen one of these terminators before. The reason is that Lojban is still meant to be spoken by humans, and keeping track of every single structure used in a sentence is more work than is reasonable to expect of any human. So when the sequence of words has an unambiguous structure, the terminators can be dropped out.
 
For example, if we see '''cu''' in a sentence, we know that what is coming up is a selbri<nowiki>; so the </nowiki>sumti before it must now be over. So we can drop the ku. (In fact, that's why '''cu''' exists in the first place: the beginning of a verb is a much more important structural break in natural languages than the end of a noun.) If a new sentence is beginning — as signalled by perhaps the most distinctively Lojbanic word, the ‘audible punctuation’ .i — then {{^| have we covered .i yet? :) }}there can be no more sumti from the old sentence; so we drop the vau. In fact, it is only in situations of potential ambiguity, like the sentence we've been looking at, that you'll get terminators appearing in normal Lojban usage at all. So our two possible interpretations of the sentence with Neil Armstrong would normally appear as:
:li repa pi'e ze pi'e pasoxaso cu detri {lenu lo remna cu ''klama'' lo lunra ''la xustyn.''} (date for going to the moon ''from'' Houston)
:li repa pi'e ze pi'e pasoxaso cu ''detri'' {lenu lo remna cu klama lo lunra kei} ''la xustyn.'' (date for going to the moon ''according to'' Houston)
{{talkquote|Note: Remember those pesky possessive constructions from [[#3|Lesson 3]], when you couldn't flip '''lo tamne pe lo ninmu klama''' the other way around, because it was ambiguous? All you need is '''ku''' to resolve that ambiguity: '''lo lo ninmu klama ku tamne''' means ‘the woman traveller’s cousin', and lo lo ninmu ku klama tamne means ‘the woman's traveller cousin.’
 
Still, most Lojbanists think the flip-around is not worth the hassle of inserting that bothersome ku, so you rarely see it used when the ‘possessor’ sumti is not a one-word sumti.}}{{^|ping!}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| cadzu
|| x1 walks/strides/paces on surface x2 using limbs x3
 
|-
|| skicu
|| x1 tells about/describes x2 (object/event/state) to audience x3 with description x4 (property)
 
|-
|| xabju
|| x1 dwells/lives/resides/abides at/inhabits/is a resident of location/habitat/nest/home/abode x2
 
|-
|| zutse
|| x1<nowiki> sits [assumes sitting position] on surface x</nowiki>2
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
What do the following Lojban sentences mean when the highlighted terminators are present, and what do they mean when they are absent?
 
#mi skicu li re ''boi'' re lo pendo
#li pa pi'e cino tcika lonu mi prami ''kei'' la .mumdjed.
#lo nanmu cu zgana lo mlatu ''vau''
#lo mamta pe lo cifnu ''ku'' litru
#mi cpedu lonu la .mari,as. cu tavla ''kei'' la .klaudias.
==Tenses<span id="6.2"></span>==
 
By this time, you may be wondering what has happened to all the tenses. After all, a large part of learning a language is learning tenses, and figuring out which one you ought to be using. English, for example, has about a dozen tenses (depending on what you count as a tense) and some languages have more. Use the wrong one and you're, well, wrong. In addition, there are a load of words and phrases like ''before'', ''in a while'', ''some time ago'' and so on.
 
Lojban deals with time quite differently. Like some other languages (e.g. Chinese), tense is not compulsory. All the bridi we've looked at so far have had no particular time attached to them, and this is perfectly acceptable; in fact it is ''normal''. Saying '''mi klama ti de'i la .padjed.''' is good Lojban, even if out of context we don't know if it means I'm coming here next Monday, or I came here last Monday. In most cases, sentences don't happen out of context, and the context is usually enough to tell us if we're talking about the past, present or future. Putting a past tense in just because the same sentence in English would be in the past tense can be rather malglico.
 
==Time with sumti<span id="6.3"></span>==
 
There are times, though, when you want to say things about time, and Lojban has more than enough cmavo for this. Let's say that Zhang left the bar at 10 o'clock and Susan arrived at 11 (thus missing her date). The most precise way is to use times, as in the last lesson:
 
:la djang. cu cliva lo barja ti'u la .jaucac. .i la .la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja ti'u la .feicac.
{{talkquote|Tip: As mentioned just above, '''.i''' is used in Lojban to separate sentences from each other. You can think of it as a spoken version of the full stop (period) at the end of a sentence.}}
 
However, if the actual times are not important, we can say:
 
:ba lonu la .djang. cu cliva kei la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja
:After Zhang left, Susan came into the bar.
 
or:
 
:pu lonu la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja kei la .djang. cu cliva
:Before Susan came into the bar, Zhang left.
 
which translates more naturally as:
 
:When Susan came into the bar, Zhang had already left.
 
(This, by the way, is another case of context meaning you don't have to put everything in — we haven't said that the place Zhang leaves is the bar, we just understand it from the context).
 
What are these ba's, pu's and kei's? Well, the kei's you hopefully remember from the section above: they close off the phrase opened by the nu. As you probably guessed, ba is ‘after’ (from the gismu for ‘future’ or ‘later’, balvi) and pu is ‘before’ (from the gismu for ‘past’ or ‘earlier’, purci).
 
Whenever we use ba and pu like this, we are situating the time of one event relative to the time of another. The time we will most frequently want to use as a reference point is the speaker's here-and-now. If we want to situate the event in the main bridi relative to the here-and-now, we can leave out the sumti, and just use the tense cmavo on its own. So if we want to say that Susan came to the bar some time after right now, and not after Zhang's leaving, we can say:
 
:baku la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja
 
baku here is not a city in Azerbaijan; it means ‘afterwards’ or ‘later’. The ku is necessary to separate ba from la .suzyn. (you can also say it as two separate words, ba ku — it makes no difference). Similarly, “Zhang left earlier (than now)” would be:
 
:puku la .djang. cu cliva
{{talkquote|Note: What's actually going on is that ba starts a sumti, and ku ends the sumti — but the sumti itself has been left out, like we said. So '''ba ku''' means '''ba ... ku'''<nowiki>: ‘after [something].' If we didn't have the </nowiki>'''ku''' in place, the ba would swallow up any sumti following it. So '''ba la .djang. cu cliva''' means not “afterwards Zhang left”, but “after Zhang, (she) left.”}}
 
Let's imagine that Susan is not so unlucky, and arrives just as Zhang is leaving. We can then say:
 
:ca lonu la .djang. cu cliva lo barja kei la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja
:At the moment when Zhang was leaving the bar, Susan came to the bar.
 
ca also comes from a gismu, in this case cabna, which means ‘simultaneous with’, so another way to say the same thing would be
 
:lonu la .djang. cu cliva lo barja cu cabna lonu la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja
:The event of Zhang leaving the bar is simultaneous with the event of Susan coming to the bar.
{{talkquote|Note: There is a difference between ku and kei in these sentences: ku separates the ca from the rest of the sentence, while kei terminates an event. We could have said ca lonu la .djang. cu cliva lo barja ku kei ku instead: the first ku matches ''lo'' barja, the kei matches ''nu'' la .djang. cu cliva lo barja, and the second ku matches ''lo''nu la .djang. cu cliva lo barja. Because the syntax is unambiguous, we could even have said '''lonu la .djang. cu cliva lo barja ku ku''' — though we might be thought slightly cuckoo to say it like that).}}
 
If you leave out the sumti following ca, the resulting phrase caku is interpreted as ‘simultaneous with the speaker's here-and-now’. If something is simultaneous with the here-and-now, then of course that means it is happening now; so caku itself just means ‘now’:
 
:caku la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja
:Now, Susan goes to the bar.
{{talkquote|Tip: By the way, caku ma tcika would be a more usual way to say “What time is it?”}}
 
We now have three ‘time words’: pu (before), ca (at, while) and ba (after). We can modify these with another three, zi, za and zu (series of cmavo often take an -i, -a, -u pattern, if they don't follow the AEIOU sequence). These mean a short, medium and long time distance. So puzi is ‘a short time ago,’ puza is ‘a while ago’ and puzu is ‘a long time ago’. How long ‘long’ is depends on what we're talking about — if the subject is archaeology, puzu could be thousands of years; if you've missed your train it could be a matter of minutes.
 
Let's say this time the unlucky Susan missed Zhang by only a few minutes. We could then say:
 
:bazi lonu la .djang. cu cliva kei la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja
 
And if you're in the unfortunate position of having to tell Susan that she's just missed Zhang, you would say:
 
:puziku la .djang. cu cliva lo barja
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| badri
|| x1<nowiki> is sad/depressed/dejected/[unhappy/feels sorrow/grief] about x</nowiki>2 (abstraction)
 
|-
|| gleki
|| x1 is happy/gay/merry/glad/gleeful about x2 (event/state)
 
|-
|| ku'i
|| but, however (This is an attitudinal, just like .uu and .ei)
 
|-
|| kumfa
|| x1 is a room of/in structure x2 surrounded by partitions/walls/ceiling/floor x3 (mass/jo'u)
 
|-
|| tcidu
|| x1<nowiki> [agent] reads x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [text] from surface/document/reading material x</nowiki>3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a reader
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Translate the following. Don't forget your nu's and kei's!
 
#Juliette went to Paris a while ago.
#A long time ago, I read ''Camille.''
#Ivan just left the room.
#Yoshiko kissed Jorge just after Pierre came into the room.
#Tracy was sad just a minute ago. But Mike is happy now.
==Time and selbri<span id="6.4"></span>==
 
What we've looked at so far is similar to (but not quite the same as) English words like ''before'', ''after'' and so on. However, we can use exactly the same cmavo with selbri to give effects which are similar (but not identical) to English tenses. Actually this is easier, but I left it till later to avoid the danger of malglico!
 
Basically, any time cmavo (or sequence of cmavo) can go before a selbri and put the whole bridi into that time. This is precisely the same thing the time cmavo would be doing if followed immediately by ku, with an empty sumti in between. So
 
:la .djang. pu cliva lo barja
 
and
 
:puku la .djang. cu cliva lo barja
 
both mean “Zhang before the here-and-now leaves the bar,” or “Zhang left the bar.” We can do the same thing with zi/za/zu, so la .djang. puza cliva lo barja, just like puzaku la .djang. cu cliva lo barja, means “Zhang left the bar a while ago.”
 
{{talkquote|Tip: By the way, ma ca tcika would be an even more usual way to say “What time is it?”}}
 
Another group of cmavo which can be used here is ze'i/ze'a/ze'u. Just as zi/ze/zu indicate a short, medium or long time from the present (or whatever other time we happen to be talking about), these cmavo indicate short, medium or long durations for the action or state we are talking about. So mi ze'u bajra means “I run for a long time.” (Not “I am a bar for a long time” — that's barja! Lojban does tend to keep you on your toes like that.) Again, we can put these together, so '''mi puzaze'u bajra''' means “A while ago, I ran for a long time.” A few more examples ...
 
:.oi .uinai lo mi zdani puzi se lindi
:Oh no! My house has just been struck by lightning! (Every language course has to have a few of these ridiculously artificial examples!)
 
'''Note: '''If you have a tense before the selbri you don't need cu — '''lo zdani''' cannot run into puzi to form a single sumti.
 
:la .bil. ze'u pinxe loi birje
:Bill drinks beer for a long time.
 
'''Tip: '''Remember: you don't drink something which is ''a'' beer, but rather something which is ''some'' beer. As discussed way back in [[#4|Lesson 4]], that means a mass rather than an individual — though as it happens lo birje also makes sense, as ‘a (fixed) quantity of beer'.
 
:mi bazize'a xabju la .djakartas.
:Pretty soon I'm going to live in Jakarta for a while.
 
:lo jenmi pe la .romas. baze'u gunta la .kart.xadact.
:The army of Romans will be attacking Carthage for a long time.
 
'''Note: '''<nowiki>This does not mean that NATO is not attacking Belgrade now (it is at the time I [Robin] am writing this). In Lojban, if we say that something is true at a particular time, it </nowiki>''doesn't'' mean that it is ''not'' true at any other time. There are ways to say that NATO will ''continue'' to attack, but that comes later. (Sorry, I know I keep saying that things will come later, but you wouldn't really want to have to learn everything at once — it would be like an English course teaching ''will go'' and ''will have been going'' in the same lesson).
 
A complete explanation of time cmavo can be found in Chapter 10 of ''The Complete Lojban Language''.{{^| stop it!}}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Translate the following, placing the tense words before the selbri.
#I will work for a short while.
#I will work very soon.
#I was working for a medium amount of time, a long time ago.
#I work some time around right now.
#Right now, I've been working for some time.
==Space<span id="6.5"></span>==
 
This is where things start getting strange. In Lojban, space can be a ‘tense’ just as much as time. This is because there is no difference in Lojban between what traditional grammar calls ‘prepositions’ and tenses. As we've seen, English, like many languages, treats a word like ''earlier'' and the past tense ending ''-ed'' as two totally separate things, while in Lojban they're the same: they both locate an event in time. Space words like ''in'' or ''near'' are prepositions in English, and can never be tenses; but in Lojban we treat them just like time words: they locate events in space. If you prefer, you can also say that Lojban treats time as a dimension, as is (conventionally) done in Einstein's physics.
 
Remember the word ti? This is part of a series ti, ta, tu, meaning roughly ‘this’, ‘that’ and ‘that over there.’ If we're talking about places rather than things, we say vi, va, vu, meaning roughly ‘here’, ‘there’ and ‘yonder’ or ‘way over there’. Again, this is determined by the thing you're talking about. If you're telling a doctor where you feel pain, ti might be the end of your toe, while if you're talking about astronomy, ti could be the solar system. We can therefore say
 
:viku mi gunka
:Here, I work.
 
or, more naturally, “I work here.”
 
We've seen that puku means ‘before the here-and-now’. Similarly, viku means ‘in the immediate vicinity of the here-and-now’, i.e. ‘here’. If we don't want to make the location relative to the speaker, but relative to something else, we can fill in the empty sumti value, in the same way, to say what the event is in the immediate vicinity of. This, of course, makes vi, va, vu acts as sumti tcita, just like de'i and ti'u: they add new sumti to the bridi. For example
 
:vi la .paris. mi gunka
:In Paris, I work.
 
:vu lo mi zdani mi gunka
:A long way from my home, I work
 
:va lonu la .KEnedis. se catra kei mi gunka
:A medium distance from where Kennedy was killed, I work
 
{{talkquote|Note: If '''kei''' in the last sentence wasn't there, '''mi''' would be a sumti of '''catra''' rather than '''gunka''', so the listener might start interpreting the sentence as “A medium distance from where Kennedy was killed by me ...”}}
 
If we want to emphasise that something is at exactly the same location as something else (something which holds true not as often as you might think), you would use '''bu'u''' - ‘coinciding with’:
 
:mi sanli bu'u lonu la .KEnedis. se catra
:I'm standing in the very spot where Kennedy was killed (i.e. I've made a visit to the Texas Book Depository — or if you prefer, the Grassy Knoll..).
 
Just like the time cmavo, place cmavo can be attatched to selbri. For example, instead of saying viku mi gunka, you can say mi vi gunka — “I here-work.” Again, this sounds odd in English, but one of the purposes of Lojban is to encourage you to say things in different ways, which may lead to being able to say different things. Lojban expands the mind (warning: unproven Lojban propaganda!).
 
If we combine place vi etc. with words like ri'u, they become more productive. ri'u is a place cmavo meaning ‘to the right of’, so ri'u vi ku is ‘in the immediate vicinity of ’'the right of'' the here-and-now'. What you're doing is, you're still saying where something is happening relative to you, but now you are saying in what direction to look for it. For example:
 
:la .bil. cu sanli ri'u vi ku
:la .bil. ri'u vi sanli
:Bill stands just to the right.
 
And just like vi and bu'u, you can use these cmavo with an explicit sumti, to say where things are happening relative to something else:
 
:la bil. cu sanli ri'u vi la .meiris.
:Bill stands just to the right of Mary.
 
There is a whole class of cmavo that work like ri'u, and they are called FAhA-type cmavo, so named after a (somewhat non-representative) member of their class, fa'a (in the direction of). These include to'o (away from), zo'i (to the same side as), zu'a (to the left of), ne'a (next to), ne'i (within) and so on. (Again, all the space cmavo are explained in Chapter 10 of ''The Complete Lojban Language'').
 
{{talkquote|Note: FAhA cmavo indicate direction, but not ''motion toward'' that direction. There is a separate cmavo for that; see [[#7|Lesson 7]].}}
 
We can also combine time and space. For example, mi vipuzu gunka means “I here-past-long-time-distance work”, or “I used to work here a long time ago.” A common expression with ku is puzuvuku, meaning ‘long ago and far away’ — a standard way to begin a fairy tale or legend!
 
Getting back to daily speech, these time and space cmavo are very useful for questions. ca ma is ‘simultaneous with what?', or in other words, ‘when?' (a simpler alternative to ti'u or di'e). Similarly, vi ma means ‘at the location of what?', or ‘where?'
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Translate the following.
 
#zdani do vi ma
#la bil. puzavi zutse
#lo cipni puzine'ava vofli
#la tcarlz.daruin. puva xabju
#mi ba tavla ne'i lo barja
==More negativity<span id="6.6"></span>==
 
We have already seen na used to turn bridi into negative statements, of the type “it is not true that.” And we saw that this sometimes leads to slightly unexpected effects compared to English ''not''. For instance, in [[#4|Lesson 4]] we saw that mi na nelci ro gerku means “it is not true that I like all dogs” (or “I don't like ''all'' dogs”). It does not mean “I don't like any dogs.”
 
'''na''' says not only that the sumti aren't connected by that particular selbri, but that they aren't necessarily connected by any selbri at all. So
 
:mi na tavla la .suzyn.
:It is not true that I talk to Susan.
 
is just as valid a thing to say if Susan is a rock formation in the Pamir Mountains, as it is if she is a human being I know. Often, however, we need our negation to be a little less powerful. In particular, it is useful to be able to say, not that the whole bridi is false, but only the selbri. This means that there ''is'' some relationship between the sumti — but this selbri isn't it.
 
The word used to negate just the selbri, and not the entire bridi, is na'e. So if we say mi na nelci ro gerku, that could be true even if I have no feelings at all about the canine species. But with
 
:mi ''na'e'' nelci ro gerku
:I other-than-like all dogs
 
on the other hand, there is something that can be said about me and all dogs; but it's not that I like them. It isn't necessarily that I hate them: I might write poems about them, or prescribe medicine for them, or imitate them in polite company. But like them, I don't.
 
If you do want to say you feel the opposite of ‘like’ for all dogs, you can say
 
:mi to'e nelci ro gerku
:I un-like (= dislike) all dogs.
 
'''to'e''' turns a selbri into its opposite: '''to'e nelci''' is pretty much the same thing as '''xebni''' - ‘hate’. And if you're indifferent, you can say
 
:mi no'e nelci ro gerku
:I am neutral-as-to-liking all dogs.
 
'''no'e''' indicates that you're neutral on the scale the selbri indicates.
 
Like time and space, Lojban places negation on a kind of scale, from lesser to greater extent. This ‘shades of grey’ approach pervades the language; you will see it time and again in the grammar. It makes for an interesting contrast with the theoretical basis for the language, classical logic — which is very much a ‘black and white’ domain.
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Now that you have three new negative words, let's see if you can use them. Give Lojban equivalents for the following English words, given their Lojban ‘opposites’ and the cmavo we've just learned.
 
#disinterested (cinri: interested)
#uninterested (cinri: interested)
#bored (cinri: interested)
#unborn (jbena: born)
#uncover (gairgau: cover)
#undead (morsi: dead)
#non-Lojban (lojbo: Lojban(ic))
#un-Lojbanic (lojbo: Lojban(ic))
#plain (melbi: beautiful)
#imaginary (fatci: factual, real)
 
==Summary<span id="6.7"></span>==
 
In this lesson we have covered the following:
 
#The uses and usefulness of terminators.
#Time cmavo: pu, ca, and ba.
#Time intervals: zi, za and zu.
#Duration: ze'i, ze'a and ze'u.
#Location: vi, va, vu and bu'u.
#Direction: fa'a, to'o, zo'i, zu'a (and so on).
#Negation: na'e, no'e and to'e.
There are many more cmavo to describe time and space (and a couple more for negation, for that matter), but they are only there if you need them. In fact, unless you want to be specific about time or space, you don't even need the ones in this lesson. Remember the golden rule of Lojban grammar: ''If you don't need it, don't use it!'' Lojban grammar is your servant, not your master.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| bevri
|| x1 carries/hauls/bears/transports cargo x2 to x3 from x4 over path x5<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1<nowiki> is a carrier/[porter]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| culno
|| x1 is full/completely filled with x2
 
|-
|| kunti
|| x1<nowiki> [container] is empty/vacant of x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [material]; x</nowiki>1 is hollow
 
|-
|| lebna
|| x1<nowiki> takes/gets/gains/obtains/seizes/[removes] x</nowiki>2 (object/property) from x3 (possessor)
 
|-
|| pendo
|| x1 is/acts as a friend of/to x2 (experiencer); x2 befriends x1
 
|-
|| vanju
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of wine from fruit/grapes x2
 
|-
|| zgana
|| x1<nowiki> observes/[notices]/watches/beholds x</nowiki>2 using senses/means x3 under conditions x4
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translation exercises are not your master, either, but they are your business! Translate from Lojban; assume the story is happening in the here-and-now:
 
#.i baza lonu la .djang. cu cliva kei la .suzyn. sanli ne'i vi lo barja
#.i caziku la .suzyn. denpa lonu baziku la .djang. cu viska la .suzyn.
#.i la .suzyn. cu viska re lo kabri
#.i go'i pa lo pu culno .i go'i pa lo ca culno
#.i lo puzi culno ca kunti ba lonu la .djang. cu pinxe loi birje kei .i'enai vau .ua
#.i lonu pinxe loi dotco birje kei ku na se nelci ro lo prenu
#.i la .suzyn. ze'i tavla lo bevri
#“.i ko lebna ta .i ko dunda lo cnino vanju botpi mi”
#“.i .ei na dotco”
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
Translate into Lojban these (hopefully much less brain-squelching than the previous lesson's) sentences:
 
#A long time ago, Susan briefly lived at Zhang's.
#Now Susan lives some way away from Zhang.
#When Susan goes to the house, she goes a little to the left of the bar.
#Every Thursday Susan goes to the bar, not far from the office.
#At the bar Susan meets Susan's long-time friends.
#Susan notices that the beer is German by seeing the bottle label. (Hint: look carefully at the place structure of zgana).
#Susan sits away from the German beer.
==Answers to exercises<span id="6.8"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#''With terminator:'' I described the number two to two friends. ''Without terminator:'' I described the number twenty-two to a friend.
#''With terminator:'' 1:30 was the time when I loved, on Friday. (la mumdjed. is the x3 of tcika) ''Without terminator:'' 1:30 was the time when I loved Friday. (la mumdjed. is the x2 of prami)
#''With terminator:'' The man observes the cat. ''Without terminator:'' The man observes the cat. (Yep, trick question. For an isolated sentence, the presence or absence of vau seldom makes any difference).
#''With terminator:'' The mother of the infant travels. (Since ku indicates the sumti is over, the selbri can now begin.) ''Without terminator:'' The mother of the infant traveller.
#''With terminator:'' I request of Claudia that Maria speaks. (Claudia is the x3 of cpedu, the person to whom a request is made.) ''Without terminator:'' I request that Maria speaks to Claudia.
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#puzaku la .juLIET. cu klama la .paris.
#puzuku mi tcidu la .kaMIL.
#puziku la .iVAN. cu cliva lo kumfa
#bazi lonu la .pi,ER. cu klama lo kumfa kei la .iocikos. cinba la .xorxes.
#puziku la .treisis. cu badri .i ku'i caku la .maik. cu gleki
<center>Exercise 3</center>
#mi baze'i gunka
#mi bazi gunka
#mi puzuze'a gunka
#mi caza gunka (That was a tricky one..).
#mi cazize'a gunka (You could also argue for mi puzize'a gunka. What's actually being conveyed by ''I've been working'' is something we'll be looking at more closely in [[#12|Lesson 12]]).
<center>Exercise 4</center>
#Where is your house? (Literally “<nowiki>[something]</nowiki> is the house of you at what?”)
#Bill was sitting here a while ago.
#The bird was just flying some distance by me. (Literally “the bird flew a short time ago located next to here at a medium distance.” This is ''not'' saying anything about the direction in which the bird was flying: FAhA on its own identifies location, not motion).
#Charles Darwin lived near here. (Note that we don't need zu to specify that he lived near here a long time ago: we assume that the person we're talking to knows who Darwin was, and therfore knows that he lived over a century ago. In fact, you could even miss out the pu, but I left it in to avoid confusion — maybe my friend thinks I'm talking about a different person with the same name, or that I'm somehow speaking metaphorically about the spirit of Darwin).
#I will speak in the bar. (As you will have surmised, you don't need to follow FAhA words with cmavo like vi).
<center>Exercise 5</center>
#disinterested: no'e cinri
#uninterested: na'e cinri (The distinction between ''disinterested'' and ''uninterested'' in English in slowly dying out — which makes the word a pedant's delight!)
#bored: to'e cinri
#unborn: na'e jbena (no'e jbena would be someone in a twilight-zone between being born and not being born — perhaps the baby at the moment it emerges from the womb. to'e jbena is the opposite of being born; what that may mean, up to and including crawling back into the womb, or dying, is pretty much up to you. The English expression is actually more like ‘not yet born’, and we will find out how to say this in a few lessons' time).
#uncover: to'e gairgau (na'e gairgau means simply ‘not to cover’, and no'e gairgau ‘to leave ajar’).
#undead: no'e morsi (na'e morsi is someone alive, not a zombie. But don't worry too much about the phenomenology of the occult; just be comfortable in the knowledge that Lojban allows you to make these distinctions, if you want to).
#non-Lojban: na'e lojbo (na'e is frequently glossed as ‘other than’; this example may show you why).
#un-Lojbanic: to'e lojbo (There is often something subjective about how things are opposites to each other; using an expression like this, you may well be asked to explain exactly how something can be the opposite of Lojban).
#plain: no'e melbi (to'e melbi would be ‘ugly’, of course).
#imaginary: na'e facti (You can quibble about whether it's not more like to'e facti or no'e facti. That's why it's just as well ‘imaginary’ has its own gismu: xanri).
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
#A while after Zhang left, Susan is standing in the bar.
#Right now, Susan expects that Zhang will soon afterwards see Susan.
#Susan sees two cups.
#[She sees] one previously full one. [She sees] one currently full one.</nowiki>
##Comment: (It's amazing what can be tucked away in exercises. Yes, sumti can have tenses in Lojban. There's no reason they can't: though there's an article in front of the gismu in '''lo kabri''', that gismu is still a selbri, and so it still expresses a relationship. This means that sumti have all the characteristics of selbri: they have sumti of their own (as we'll see later on); durations; locations; and tenses. This is an important way Lojban is different from many (though not all) natural languages: it has no essential grammatical difference between its ‘nouns’ and ‘verbs’).
#The one full just a little time ago is now empty (aha!) after Zhang drank the beer (pah!).
##Comment: (There's some mischief with terminators and attitudinals here. Attitudinals apply to the structure that precedes them. If they follow a sumti, they apply to that sumti. If they follow a selbri, they apply to that selbri. If they are at the start of a bridi, on the other hand, they apply to the whole bridi.
##Now, .i'enai ‘disapproval; Pah!' follows kei, so it applies to the phrase closed off by that kei: that is, lonu la .djang. pinxe loi birje kei. But .ua follows vau, so it applies to the whole phrase closed off by vau: namely, the entire bridi, lo puzi culno ca kunti ba lonu la .djang. pinxe loi birje).
#Drinking German beer is not liked by all people. (The terminators are the normal implied terminators for that particular structure. Of course, it's much easier to say .i lonu pinxe loi dotco birje na se nelci ro lo prenu, without the kei ku<nowiki>; the </nowiki>na acts like cu, to block off the selbri from its preceding sumti).
#Susan briefly talks to the carrier. (See? A better word for ''waiter'' already. Notice, too, that you can specify a duration without specifying a tense).
#“Take that away. Give me a new wine bottle.”
#“It should not be German.”
<center>Exercise 7</center>
#.i puzuku la .suzyn. ze'i xabju lo la .djang. zdani (You can't just say xabju la .djang. — you have to fill in the blank of “Zhang's ___.”)
#.i la .suzyn. ca xabju va la .djang.
#ca lonu la .suzyn. klama lo zdani kei la .suzyn. klama zu'a vizi lo barja (We don't really have a way for saying ''she'' — as you're probably painfully aware of by now. Take heart — relief is coming in the next lesson!
##Comment: Note that Susan's route is away from the bar, but not explicitly moving to or from it; so we don't have to indicate motion along with direction. Not that we can right now, anyway).
#.i ca ro la .vodjed. la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja va lo briju
#vi lo barja la .suzyn. penmi lo la .suzyn. ze'u pendo (Remember, sumti take tenses and durations, too).
#.i la .suzyn. cu zgana lonu lo birje cu dotco kei lonu viska lo botpi tcita (or: lo tcita pe lo botpi, or lo lo botpi ku tcita — you can feel really smug if you came up with that!)
#.i la .suzyn. zutse to'o lo dotco birje
=Chapter 7. Getting Personal: Pro-sumti and more abstractions<span id="7"></span>=
 
==Referring back<span id="7.1"></span>==
 
So far we've been referring to everybody by name, which can get very repetitive if you want to tell a story, or even string two sentences together (as you will have seen in the last few exercises.) Consider the following:
 
:la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja .i la .suzyn ze'a pinxe loi vanju .i la .suzyn. cu zgana lo nanmu .i lo nanmu cu melbi .i lo nanmu cu zgana la .suzyn.
:<nowiki>Susan goes to the bar. Susan drinks some wine for a while. Susan notices [sees, observes] a man. The man is beautiful. The man notices Susan.</nowiki>
 
{{talkquote|Note: Notice the use of melbi — in English we usually describe men as ‘handsome’ rather than ‘beautiful’, but this rather sexist distinction doesn't apply in Lojban. However, if you really wanted a Lojban word for ‘handsome’ (beautiful–kind-of–man) you could say melnau (melbi + nanmu).}}
 
It is pretty tedious to have to keep repeating ''Susan'' and ''man''. English gets round this problem by using '''pronouns''', like ''she'' or ''he''. This works OK in this case, because we have one female and one male in the story so far, but it can get confusing when more characters enter the scene. (It's even more confusing with languages that only have one word for ''he'', ''she'' and ''it'', like Turkish or spoken Chinese.) Lojban, for its part, has ''pro-sumti'', which are like pronouns — sort of.
 
In fact, we've already met some pro-sumti: mi and do, and the ti/ta/tu group; but we still don't have ''he/she/it'', which are a bit more complicated. One way of dealing with this is a group of cmavo which refer back to something we've just said. In fact we have met one of these in a different context: '''go'i'''. Just as '''go'i''' on its own repeats the previous bridi, ''lo'' go'i repeats the first sumti of the previous bridi. (In this, it is behaving no differently to any other selbri with an article in front of it: lo + selbri refers to the x1 of that selbri.) So we can rewrite the first three sentences as
 
:la .suzyn. cu klama lo barja .i lo go'i ze'a pinxe loi vanju .i lo go'i cu zgana lo nanmu
 
The system breaks down here, though, since nanmu is not in the first, but the second place of the previous bridi. English doesn't bother with precision here — ''he'' just means ‘some male person mentioned earlier.’ This works in the example here, because there is only one man in the story, but what about
 
:Bill saw Rick. He hit him.
 
Did Bill hit Rick, or did Rick hit Bill? We don't know. Lojban does have other tricks up its sleeve, and as you might just have already guessed, lo se go'i will do the trick. But counting sumti from the preceding bridi isn't really a general solution.
 
Coming back to the man Susan saw, we can refer to him as ri, which means ‘the most recent sumti.’ So we can say
 
:.i lo go'i cu zgana lo nanmu .i ri melbi
 
'''ri''' is one of a series, ri/ra/ru, meaning ‘the most recent/fairly recent/distant sumti'; but as far as I've noticed, ra and ru aren't very popular in Lojbanistan at the moment. (Put it down to ideological reasons: they are deliberately vague, like their natural language counterparts, so they are regarded as somehow ‘un-Lojbanic’.) ri, on the other hand, is used a lot, since it's very common for the last thing in one sentence to be the subject of the next sentence.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: sumti are counted from their beginnings. So in a sentence like}}
 
:lonu lo nanmu cu dotco kei cu se djuno ri
 
:ri refers to lo nanmu and not lonu lo nanmu cu dotco: the start of lo nanmu is closer to ri than the start of lonu lo nanmu cu dotco.
{{talkquote|Tip: ri cannot refer to a sumti if it is already smack in the middle of that sumti. For example, in}}
 
la .suzyn. cu pinxe lo ri vanju
 
:ri obviously refers to la .suzyn., and not to lo vanju.
 
Another pro-sumti is '''da''', which means ‘someone/something.' You may remember zo'e, which means also means ‘someone/something,' but with zo'e the something is unimportant — it's just a way of filling a sumti place. '''da''', on the other hand, is important: it introduces something or someone we are directly talking about.{{^| wrong? }}
 
{{talkquote|Note for logicians: '''da''' is the ‘existential’ ''x'', as in “There exists some ''x'' such that ''x'' is ...”}}
 
Coming back to our story, we could start by saying '''da klama lo barja'' — “Someone came to the bar.” Unlike the other pro-sumti we've been looking at, da does not point back to a sumti we've necessarily already seen. It ''does'', however, point back to the same thing as any other da in any sentences conjoined with logical connectives, or more informally anywhere in the same paragraph. (No, we haven't done Lojban logical connectives or paragraphs yet... Just keep this in mind for future reference.) So if I say da nanmu .i da klama lo barja, you can typically assume I'm referring to the same man in both sentences.
 
Because they are all tied up with predicate logic, da and its companions de and di are used a lot for talking ''about'' language — you see them frequently on the Lojban e-mail list, for example. By the way, there are no do and du in this series, because these already have other meanings: ‘you’ and ‘is the same thing as.’
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
The two highlighted sumti in each of the following Lojban sentences refer to the same thing or person. For each, check whether the pro-sumti you have learned — lego'i, ri, ra — can replace the second sumti.
 
#.i ''la .suzyn.'' cu nelci loi vanju .i ''la .suzyn.'' na nelci loi birje
#.i la .suzyn. cu viska ''lo nanmu'' .i ''lo nanmu'' cu dotco
#.i ''la .suzyn.'' cu nelci lonu ''la .suzyn.'' cu klama lo barja
#.i ''la .suzyn.'' cu nelci lo ''la .suzyn.'' cu pendo
#.i lonu ''la .suzyn.'' cu badri cu nandu .i ''la .suzyn.'' cu gleki
#.i ''lenu la .suzyn. cu badri'' cu nandu .i ''lenu la .suzyn. cu badri'' na se zgana
==Assigning pro-sumti<span id="7.2"></span>==
 
If we're telling a story in English, the meaning of, say, ''she'' keeps changing. At the moment, it means ‘Susan’, but if Susan's friend Jyoti walks into the bar, ''she'' could very well mean start meaning ‘Jyoti’. In Lojban, we can keep on using lo go'i, ri and their relatives, but there is an easier way of dealing with a larger cast of characters.
 
What we do is assign pro-sumti as and when we need them, using the cmavo ''goi'' (which is like the Latin word ''sive'', or the English ''also known as (aka)''). The sumti assigned by goi are a series called KOhA, consisting of ko'a, ko'e, ko'i ... you get the idea?
 
{{talkquote|Note for lawyers (and frustrated non-lawyers): The equivalent in legal documents of goi is “henceforth referred to as,” and '''ko'a''' is something like “the party of the first part.” Lojban has in fact been proposed as the ideal language for law, where precision is of utmost importance. It would also allow non-lawyers to understand legal documents, which would be something of a miracle.}}
 
OK, let's go back to Susan's story. We start by saying
:la .suzyn. ''goi ko'a'' klama lo barja
This means that from now on, every time we use ko'a, we mean ‘Susan’. The man she sees can then be ko'e, so we say
:.i ko'a zgana lo nanmu goi ko'e
Now every time we use ko'e, it means that particular man, so the full story so far reads:
:la .suzyn. goi ko'a klama lo barja .i ko'a ze'a pinxe loi vanju .i ko'a zgana lo nanmu goi ko'e .i ko'e melbi .i caku ko'e zgana ko'a
(Note how the '''cu'''s have disappeared: '''ko'a''', like '''mi''', doesn't need them, since it can't join with a selbri to form a new selbri).
 
Assigning '''ko'e''' to '''lo nanmu''' is actually better than starting the next sentence with lo nanmu. This is because lo nanmu simply means “the thing I have in mind which I call ‘man’,” which is not exactly the same as “the man” (it could, in theory, be something totally different). Some Lojbanists might even say that using lo like this is a bit malglico. (Or at least malrarbau ‘damned natural languages’: lots of languages have definite articles, and Lojban lo is no definite article).
 
{{talkquote|Tip: If you combine '''ko'a/ko'e/ko'i/ko'o/ko'u''' with '''ri/ra/ru''', ''don't'' count '''ko'a'''-type pro-sumti when you're counting back. For example
:la .suzyn. cu rinsa ko'e .i ri cisma
doesn't mean that '''ko'e''' (the man, in this context) smiles, but that ''Susan'' smiles. Why? Because it is pointless to have a replacing word ('''anaphor'''), like ri, replace another replacing word, like ko'e. If you wanted the x1 of cisma to be ko'e, you would have simply said .i ko'e cisma, not .i ri cisma. It works out simpler to keep ri/ra/ru in reserve for more important things.}}
 
Let's continue by introducing Susan's friend Jyoti (if people are wondering where I get all these unusual names from, Jyoti is an old Gujarati friend of mine). We continue ....
 
:la .djiotis. goi ko'i mo'ine'i klama .i ko'i rinsa ko'e
:Jyoti (henceforth #3), goes into. #3 greets #2.
:Jyoti comes in and says hello to the guy.
 
'''mo'ine'i''' is another space ‘tense’. mo'i indicates movement; ne'i means ‘inside’ (from the gismu, nenri). So mo'ine'i corresponds to the English preposition ''into'' (while ne'i on its own corresponds to ''inside'' or ''in''.) The way Lojban grammar works, mo'ine'i on its own is treated as mo'ine'i ku: a sumti tcita with an omitted sumti. (Remember caku, which is exactly the same. Just as baku means ‘afterwards’ (relative to the here-and-now), mo'ine'i <nowiki>[ku]</nowiki> means something like ‘in(to)wards' — but is nowhere near as weird in Lojban as it is in English).
 
mo'i is extremely useful, as it allows you to distinguish between location and motion. For example, ''I ran behind the bar'' in English is properly speaking ambiguous: are you running while behind the bar, or are you running with your final destination behind the bar? Lojban does not allow that ambiguity: '''mi bajra ti'a lo barja''' means the former, while '''mi bajra ''mo'i'' ti'a lo barja''' means the latter. In the example given above, ne'i klama would mean not that Jyoti comes in (from outside), but that she is going from somewhere to somewhere else, while inside. This kind of ambiguity may pass unnoticed by native English speakers, but speakers of languages which are more precise about direction find it extremely vague (Turkish, for example, has at least three words to translate ‘here’).
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| catlu
||  x1 looks at/examines/views/inspects/regards/watches/gazes at x2<nowiki> [compare with </nowiki>zgani]
 
|-
|| je
|| and (individuals, as opposed to '''joi'''.) Stay tuned for a proper explanation of these words in [[#11|a couple of lessons]].
 
|-
|| rinsa
|| x1<nowiki> (agent) greets/hails/[welcomes/says hello to]/responds to arrival of x</nowiki>2 in manner x3 (action)
 
|-
|| xanka
|| x1 is nervous/anxious about x2 (abstraction) under conditions x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Translate the following. Assume the same values for '''ko'a/ko'e/ko'i''' that we have been using so far (i.e. '''ko'a''' is Susan, and so on).
 
#.i ko'a ca rinsa ko'i
#.i ko'a je ko'i xanka cmila
#.i caku lo go'i cu catlu ko'e
#.i ko'e cadzu mo'i zu'a ko'i
#.i ko'e djica lonu djuno fi lo ko'a cmene
==Acronyms<span id="7.3"></span>==
 
Now there are plenty of KOhA sumti to go around. In fact, if you've run out of words by getting to ko'u, you can start over again with fo'a, fo'e ... fo'u. There is a problem, though: you have to remember (a) which sumti was assigned to which KOhA word, and (b) to assign the sumti in the first place. There's nothing to say that this will not become commonplace in future Lojban usage. Right now, however, there is a feeling that this is a little too calculated to work spontaneously. And Lojban cannot readily use the little hints natural languages pepper their grammar with (like gender and number), to keep track of who is who.
 
As a result, yet another strategy has been introduced to refer back to sumti. This strategy dates back from ‘Institute’ Loglan, before Lojban arose in its modern form. (Yes, Lojban has a history and a prehistory. No, we don't really have the time to go into them here.) The strategy involves acronyms. Simply put, if you see a Lojban letter being used as a sumti, you take it as referring to the last sumti whose selbri starts with that letter. So in
 
:la .suzyn. cu cusku lu coi li'u lo nanmu .i ny. cisma
:Susan says “Hello” to a man. The man smiles
 
ny. stands for nanmu. There is no need to explicitly assign ny. with goi; but you can, and indeed if you assign it to a sumti which doesn't start with that letter, then that assignment will be the one that counts (“A certain Lojbanist, let's call him ''N'', dislikes KOhA cmavo...”). Some Lojbanists dislike this usage because it, too, seems a little calculated (and initials and acronyms have decidedly non-literary associations in most natural languages!) Only time will tell which of the two usages will become more commonplace.
 
==Direct quotations<span id="7.4"></span>==
 
You may have noticed two other new words in the previous Lojban sentence. lu and li'u are like ‘quote’ and ‘unquote’ — they put something someone says into a sumti. li'u is one of the few terminators that can almost never be missed out, since that would make everything else that follows part of the quotation. You can also nest quotations, e.g.
 
:la ranjit. pu cusku lu la .djiotis. pu cusku lu coi li'u mi li'u
:Ranjeet said “Jyoti said ‘Hello’ to me.”
 
which is similar to
 
:la ranjit. pu cusku lu la .djiotis. pu rinsa mi li'u
:Ranjeet said “Jyoti greeted me.”
 
Being a logical language, Lojban is very careful to distinguish between words for things, and the things themselves. So you can't speak about the ''phrase'' lo munje ‘the universe’ in the same way you speak about the universe itself. To give a silly example, the phrase lo munje is small, but the universe itself is not. To distinguish between the two in Lojban, you need to use quotation:
 
:lu lo munje li'u cu cmalu
:‘The universe’ is small
 
:lo munje na cmalu
:The universe is not small
 
{{talkquote|Tip: '''lu ... li'u''' is intended to quote grammatical pieces of Lojban — ideally, entire sentences, rather than individual words. For smaller chunks of Lojban, which do not necessary make sense in isolation, the proper quotation words are instead '''lo'u... le'u''', the ‘error quotes’. For example, '''ro lo mi pendo cu klama''' makes sense in Lojban as a sentence, and can be enclosed in '''lu ... li'u'''. But if you want to say what goes before pendo in the sentence, ro lo mi does not make that much sense on its own. So you would quote that sentence fragment, not as '''lu ro lo mi li'u''', but as '''lo'u ro lo mi le'u'''.}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| fengu
||  x1 is angry/mad at x2 for x3 (action/state/property)
|-
|| zmadu
|| x1 exceeds/is more than x2 in property/quantity x3 (ka/ni) by amount/excess x4
 
|-
|| clani
|| long
|| x1 is long in dimension/direction x2 (default longest dimension) by measurement standard x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Translate the following. Continue to assume the same values for ko'a/e/i that we have been using so far.
 
{{talkquote|Note: '''doi''' is used to show who you're talking to (without '''doi''', the cmene might become the first sumti of the bridi). It's a bit like English ''O'' (as in “O ye of little faith”) or the Latin vocative (as in ''Et tu, Brute'').}}
 
#.i ko'e cusku lu doi djiotis. ma cmene lo do pendo li'u
#.i ko'i cusku lu lu suzyn. li'u li'u
#.i ko'e cusku lu .ui ro lo do pendo cu pendo mi li'u
#.i ko'i fengu cusku lu djica ma li'u ko'i
==Indirect quotations (reported speech)<span id="7.5"></span>==
 
A phrase like “Ranjeet said ‘Jyoti said “Hello” to me.'” can also be expressed in a rather more subtle way:
 
:la ranjit. pu cusku lo se du'u la .djiotis. pu rinsa ry.
:Ranjeet past-express the-predicate Jyoti past-greet R
:Ranjeet said that Jyoti greeted him.
 
What is this sedu'u? Well, to explain that, we have to go via du'u.
 
du'u is a tricky but very useful cmavo meaning, in logical terms, ‘the proposition.’ What this means in ordinary language is something like “the notion that ''x'' is true.” Sorry, that wasn't really ordinary language. The closest equivalent in English is ''that'', as in “Ranjeet knows ''that'' ...”, or “Ranjeet thinks ''that'' ...”. Here's an example of du'u used on its own:
 
:la .suzyn. na djuno lo du'u la .djang. cu cinynei ra
:Susan doesn't know that Zhang fancies (‘sexually-likes’) her.
 
du'u belongs to selma'o (= se cmavo) NU, just like '''nu''' itself. This means you can use it grammatically wherever you use nu. In fact, du'u and nu are the two major kinds of '''abstractions''' in Lojban. Lojban can distinguish between abstractions pretty finely, but the main distinction is between things that can happen ('''events'''), which take nu, and things you can know ('''facts'''), which take du'u. The gismu definition usually tells you which abstraction type is normal for the word.
 
{{talkquote|Note: By the way, most of the instances of nu in the final exercises of [[#5|Lesson 5]] and [[#6|6]] should have been du'u. Sorry about the over-simplification — and please don't repeat it in your own Lojban from now on!}}
 
OK, but why is what Ranjeet said introduced with sedu'u rather than du'u? Basically, because Lojban is a stickler for details. What you know or remember or believe is a fact: something you hold inside your brain. What you ''say'', however, is not something you hold inside your brain; instead, it is sounds which ''mean'' what you hold inside your brain. The distinction is subtle, but it is the kind of distinction Lojban insists on. (That's why it's a logical language, after all.) When you want to refer to something you say rather than something you think, Lojban uses sedu'u rather than du'u.
 
{{talkquote|Note: The '''se''' in '''sedu'u''' is what you think it is. I'll explain what it's doing there next lesson.}}
{{talkquote|Note: A jargon word you will occasionally see in talk about Lojban is '''reification'''. Don't be scared off: this piece of jargon actually helps! Reification is Latin for taking something, and turning it into an object, a thing. It's what it turns out both '''du'u''' and '''sedu'u''' do. These words take what was an event, an occurrence in the physical world, and turns it into a single object, a thing, which you can think, which you can discover, or which you can use in logic. (Or, in the case of sedu'u, which you can say).{{^|rephrase and remove this "reification", be simple!}}}}
 
So Lojban has different words for ''that...'', depending on what sort of thing is meant.
 
*If ''that'' introduces something that happened, use nu. (Events can be subdivided more finely yet, but for now let's not complicate matters even more than necessary).
*If ''that'' introduces something that you think, use du'u.
*If ''that'' introduces something that you say, use sedu'u
* — unless it is a literal quote, in which case you use lu ... li'u.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: This insistence on detail — which can get even more involved for NU cmavo — is quite useful; but it seems to contradict what the previous lesson claimed, that Lojban grammar is your servant, not your master. It ''is'' an error to say nu when you mean du'u — though you will find it is a rather frequent error. But Lojban does allow you to embed bridi inside other bridi as abstractions, ''without'' specifying whether they are events, facts, utterances, qualities, or whatever. The magic cmavo to use in that case is su'u. So you can correctly say all three of:}}
*mi nelci losu'u mi dotco
*mi djuno losu'u mi dotco
*mi cusku losu'u mi dotco
{{talkquote|Admittedly, '''su'u''' has not been much used to date; it is a fairly late addition to the language (as is '''du'u'''!), and people haven't got used to it yet. But if you can't be bothered specifying what kind of abstraction you're using, that's the word to use.}}{{^| ehm }}
 
==Infinitives, properties and quantities<span id="7.6"></span>==
The word '''ka''' also belongs to selma'o NU. It's main purpose is to create infinitives.
 
:mi djica lo ka pinxe
:I want to drink.
 
This is equivalent to
:mi djica lo nu mi pinxe
which literally means
:I want that I drink.
or something like
:I want myself drinking.
 
Yes, it sounds weird. That's why we have '''ka'''.{{^|ELABORATE ON THIS TOPIC }} What this abstractor does is actually copying the sumti from the main bridi (in most cases it's intuitively clear from context which sumti will be copied{{^|but guaspi definitions are better ;)}}).
 
Another '''NU''' abstractor is '''ni'''. It's the same as '''ka''' but talks about quantities.
:mi zmadu do lo ni clani
:I exceed you in the quantity of being long
:I'm longer/higher than you
Just like '''ka''' '''ni''' copies one of the sumti of the main bridi into the inner bridi. Thus in this example it says that
:mi clani .i do clani .i mi zmadu do lo nu clani{{^| have we covered .i yet? }}
:I'm long. You are long. I'm longer than you.
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Which of '''nu, du'u, sedu'u, ka''' or '''ni''' would you use to translate ''that'' in the folowing sentences?
 
#I claimed ''that'' Lojban is easy.
#I am frustrated ''that'' Lojban is easy.
#I agree ''that'' Lojban is easy.
#It is confusing ''that'' Lojban is easy.
#It was decided ''that'' Lojban should be easy.
#You want to ask me.
#Ranjeet is bigger than me.
 
==Some more personal pro-sumti<span id="7.7"></span>==
 
We've already seen two personal pro-sumti, mi and do, meaning ‘I’ (or ‘me’) and ‘you’. However, ''you'' in English can mean four different things:
 
#The one person I'm talking to.
#A number of people I'm talking to.
#The person or people I'm talking to and some other person or people.
#Anyone (as in “Money can't buy ''you'' love.”)
Lojban gets round the confusion between (1) and (2) by using numbers. The most common way to express (2) is rodo, ‘all of you’ (or Southern U.S. ''Y'all'') and, as we've seen, coi rodo is “Hello all” — a common way to start an e-mail to a list. You can also use specific numbers: redo would mean ‘two of you’ or ‘you two’ (for example, I start e-mails to my parents with coi redo).
 
{{talkquote|Tip: To say “''the'' two of you”, Lojban does actually let you say lo re do. But you need the numeral to be there already, in order to put an article in front of a pro-sumti: you can't say lo do to mean ‘you’.}}
 
You can also use numbers with ko, e.g. ro ko klama ti “All of you, get over here.”
 
Case (3) is expressed by do'o ‘you and someone else’. Case (4) is completely different: it's normally expressed by roda ‘all ’'x''' or, more specifically ro lo prenu ‘all persons’, but often you can just miss it out altogether.
 
English ''we'' is almost as confusing, as it can mean the speaker and the listener(s), the speaker and some other people, or the speaker and the listener and some other people. Not surprisingly, Lojban has five distinct pro-sumti for ''we'':{{^| '''mi'ai''' fixes the problem and has perfect meaning}}
{| class="wikitable"
|| mi'ai
|| I and at least one other person (corresponds to English "we")
 
|-
|| mi'o
|| you and I (but no-one else)
 
|-
|| mi'a
|| I and another/others (but not you)
 
|-
|| ma'a
|| you and I and another/others
 
|}
 
(Once again, Lojban follows the lead of languages other than English in differentiating between these different kinds of ''we'').
 
The fifth pro-sumti? Oddly enough, it's mi! Lojban makes no distinction between singular and plural by default; so if several people are speaking all together, '''mi''' (which refers to the one or more speakers) is perfectly correct for ''we''. In practice, you'll usually get '''mi''' used like that when one person is presuming to speak (or more often, to write) on behalf of others.
 
Some examples:
 
:mi prami do
:I love you.
 
:mi'a penmi do ti'u la .cicac.
:We'll meet you at three o'clock.
 
:ma'a remna
:We are all human.
 
:mi djica lonu do cliva
:We want you to go away.
 
:mi'ai prami la .bil.
:We love Bill <nowiki>
:[the sentence just states there are several people loving Bill including the speaker. It's not known if "we" includes the listener]</nowiki>
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Is ''we/us'' in the following mi'o, mi'a, ma'a, or mi?
 
(Of course '''mi'ai''' is more vague than '''mi'o, mi'a, ma'a''' and therefore can replace any of them so we excluded it from this task to make it more hard and interesting ;) )
#''We'' need to start seeing other people.
#''We'' the people hold these truths to be self-evident.
#''We'' decided to expel you from the association.
#You can't talk to ''us'' that way!
#''We'''re in a fine mess, all of us, aren't we?
#They told ''us'' we should get married, and you said “OK.”
#They told ''us'' we should get married, and he said “OK.”
==Summary<span id="7.8"></span>==
 
In this chapter, we have covered the following topics:
 
*How to refer back to previous sumti, using the previous bridi (lo go'i), counting sumti (ri, ra, ru), assigning pro-sumti (ko'a–ko'u, fo'a–fo'u), and using acronyms (Lojban letters).
*How to refer to existential ''x'' (‘something, someone’) (da, de, di). {{^| so they are existential, unexpected xo'o . To be changed }}
*Referring to motion in Lojban (mo'i).
*How to give direct quotations (lu ... li'u).
*How to give indirect quotations (se du'u).
*How to refer to facts (du'u) as distinct from events (nu).
*Lojban's complement of first and second person pro-sumti (do'o, mi'o, mi'a, ma'a).
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| bebna
|| x1<nowiki> is foolish/silly in event/action/property [folly] (ka) x</nowiki>2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a boob
 
|-
|| burna
|| x1 is embarrassed/disconcerted/flustered/ill-at-ease about/under conditions x2 (abstraction)
 
|-
|| cinri
|| x1 (abstraction) interests/is interesting to x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 is interested in x1
 
|-
|| dansydi'u
|| <nowiki>disco [</nowiki>dansu (dance) + dinju (building)]
 
|-
|| .e'u
|| ‘I suggest’ (attitudinal)
 
|-
|| mutce
|| x1 is much/extreme in property x2 (ka), towards x3 extreme/direction; x1 is, in x2, very x3
 
|-
|| ni'a
|| down, below (space ‘tense’)
 
|-
|| ninpe'i
|| <nowiki>meet for the first time [</nowiki>cnino (new) + penmi (meet)]
 
|-
|| pe'i
|| ‘I think’ (opinion attitudinal)
 
|-
|| penmi
|| x1 meets/encounters x2 at/in location x3
 
|-
|| simlu
|| x1 seems/appears to have property(ies) x2 to observer x3 under conditions x4
 
|-
|| simxu
|| x1 (set) has members who mutually/reciprocally do x2
 
|-
|| .y.
|| ‘er’ (hesitation)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
The story is now on in earnest! For each of the highlighted pro-sumti, say who or what they mean. (Oh, and translate the sentences, too).
 
{{talkquote|Note: ka is like nu, but while nu describes a state or event, ka describes a property or quality.{{^| bah! }}}}
 
#.i ko'a burna
#.i ko'a catlu lo kabri pe la .cardoNES.
#.i lonu zgana ''ra'' cu simlu loka cinri ko'a
#.i ko'e simxu cinba ko'i
#.i ko'i cusku lu pe'i ''redo'' puzi simxu ninpe'i li'u
#.i lo vanju pe ni'a cu simlu loka mutce cinri
#.i ko'a sutra pinxe ''lo go'i''
#.i ko'e cusku lu .y. na ''go'i''
#.i ''mi'' puze'a na simxu penmi ''ti''
#.i baziku ko'a cmila
#.i ko'a cusku lu .u'i redo bebna
#.i .e'u ''mi'o'' klama lo dansydi'u
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| bilga
|| x1 is bound/obliged to/has the duty to do/be x2 in/by standard/agreement x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 must do x2
 
|-
|| cismyfra
|| x1 reacts/responds/answers by smiling to stimulus x2 under conditions x3<nowiki> [</nowiki>cisma (smile) + frati (react)]
 
|-
|| dunku
|| x1 is anguished/distressed/emotionally wrought/stressed by x2
 
|-
|| gusta
|| x1 is a restaurant/cafe/diner serving type-of-food x2 to audience x3
 
|-
|| jinvi
|| x1 thinks/opines x2<nowiki> [opinion] (du'u) is true about subject/issue x</nowiki>3 on grounds x4
 
|-
|| kansa
|| x1 is with/accompanies/is a companion of x2, in state/condition/enterprise x3 (event/state)
 
|-
|| morji
|| x1 remembers/recalls/recollects fact(s)/memory x2 (du'u) about subject x3
 
|-
|| reisku
|| x1 asks question x2 (reported speech with sedu'u/text  with '''zo''' or '''lu ... li'u'''/or a concept with '''lu'e''') to x3 via expressive medium x4, about subject x5.{{^|add sedu'u etc. }}
 
|-
|| spusku
|| x1 gives reply/answer/responds with x2 (reported speech with sedu'u/text  with '''zo''' or '''lu ... li'u'''/or a concept with '''lu'e''') to x3 via expressive medium x4, about subject x5.
 
|-
|| xumske
|| <nowiki>chemistry [</nowiki>xukmi (chemical) + saske (science)]
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
Translate into Lojban. Use Lojban letters (acronyms) for the characters to refer to each other. Do not use li'u to close quotations opened with lu at the end of each sentence, but only when the speaker actually stops speaking.
 
#Jyoti asked Susan, “Where's Zhang?” (Hint: just use '''reisku''').
#Susan answered “He said that he would wait for me to come.” (Hint: just use '''spusku''').
#Jyoti said, “I'm not that worried about him leaving. I think that he'll meet us at the disco.” (Use a gismu instead of an attitudinal for ‘I think.’)
#“He has to read for a while.”
#“He's forgotten a lot of chemistry in the summer.” (Hint: he's actually forgotten many things about chemistry).
#“We're going to a restaurant before going to the disco.”
#“Do you want to accompany us?”
#“Sure,” said Susan, as she smiled at Ranjeet. (Hint: ''as'' = ''at the same time as'').
==Answers to Exercises<span id="7.9"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#lo go'i: Yes. ri: No. (ri would be loi vanju.) ra: Yes.
#lo go'i: No. ri: Yes. ra: No. (Strictly speaking, if ri is not used in a sentence, ra can refer to the immediately preceding sumti<nowiki>; but that would be needlessly misleading.)</nowiki>
#lo go'i: No. (go'i refers back to the previous sentence — which is why it can answer a yes/no-question — and not to a bridi in the same sentence.) ri: Yes. ra: No.
#lo go'i: No. (Once again, there's no previous sentence for it to refer to.) ri: Yes. (ri counts only completed sumti, and lo ri pendo is not yet complete when you count back from ri to the lo immediately in front of it.) ra: No.
#lo go'i: No. (The x1 of the preceding sentence is not la .suzyn. but lonu la .suzyn. badri.) ri: Yes. (See discussion.) ra: No.
#lo go'i: Yes. ri: No. ra: Yes. (lenu la .suzyn. badri is the second sumti counting backwards from the start of the sentence).
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#Susan greets Jyoti.
#They laugh nervously.
#Now, they look at the man. (lo go'i means that the people doing the laughing are the same as the people doing the looking — both of them).
#He walks towards the left of Jyoti. (Without the mo'i, this would mean “He walks ''at'' the left of Jyoti”).
#He wants to know (about) her name. (That's Susan's name, not Jyoti's — though in English you'd assume Jyoti, since she is the most recently named female. Pro-sumti like ko'a aren't affected by what candidate referent has been mentioned most recently: they have a unique referent that stays constant).
In order to get this into understandable English, we've had to change some of the pro-sumti back into names. We could also make the translation sound more natural by changing the word order a bit more, and maybe putting the whole thing into the past tense.
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#He says “Jyoti, what is the name of your friend?” (This is actually the simplest way of saying “Who's your friend?”; lo do pendo cu mo is closer to “What's your friend?”, as in “What does your friend do?” or “What is your friend like?”)
#She says “‘Susan.’” (Note the characteristic, Lewis-Carrollesque Lojban pedantry here. Susan, the young woman with an irrational fear of German alcoholic beverages, is not Susan's name. The ''word'' ‘Susan’ is Susan's name. So Jyoti cannot answer la .suzyn., meaning la .suzyn. cu cmene lo mi pendo, but lu suzyn. li'u, meaning lu suzyn. li'u cu cmene lo mi pendo. Since we're putting everything Jyoti says inside our own quotes, this makes her answer be lu lu suzyn. li'u li'u).
#He says “Delighted — any friend of yours is a friend of mine.” (Remember, Lojban selbri can be used in both bridi and sumti: pendo means both ‘a friend’, with an article in front of it, and ‘is a friend’, as an independent selbri).
#Jyoti says to herself angrily “What does he want?” (Because it is in direct quotation, the question is Jyoti's, not the narrator's, obviously: this does not mean “What was it that Jyoti said to herself he wanted?”)
<center>Exercise 4</center>
#sedu'u, in the usual usage of ''claim'' as ‘make a statement’. Lojban gives du'u for xusra ‘assert, claim’, but that points to the more logic-specific sense of ‘claim that something is true’.
#nu. It is events in the world, rather than concepts, which usually provoke emotional responses. If du'u represents something you hold in your brain, then nu, not du'u, is necessary after ‘frustrated’: your emotional response is too much of a reflex action for your perception to have the time to become something you hold in your brain!
#du'u: agreement is a response you have to a concept; this concept has not necessarily been put in words, nor are you necessarily putting it in words yourself.
#nu. Confusion is an emotional response, just like frustration, and primarily involves events in the world, rather than rational facts. (If they're confusing, of course, they're probably not all that rational in the first place).
#du'u: decisions are things you hold in your brain, ''before'' you either put them into words, or into action.
#ka: you want the following event: you ask. So instead of saying "you" two times you can use '''ka''' to say it shorter like in English.
#ni: you are talking about quantities. Adn you compare quantities in this example.
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
#mi'o
#mi (Classic case of someone speaking on behalf of the many, by the way).
#mi'a, although this could be mi if the expeller is speaking institutionally, on behalf of the association.
#mi'a
#ma'a
#mi'o
#mi'a
<center>Exercise 6</center>
{| class="wikitable"
| colspan="2" | '''pro-sumti'''
 
|-
|| ra
|| lo kabri pe la .cardoNES. (It can't be lonu zgana ri kei, because the '''lonu'''-sumti isn't finished yet — and that interpretation would be as weirdly self-referential as any Escher drawing. Not that Lojban isn't perfectly capable of such mischief!{{^| rework! broken ri here}}
 
But we couldn't refer back to lo pe kabri la .cardoNES. with ri, either: the way sumti are counted by their beginnings, the immediately previous sumti is not lo kabri la .cardoNES.— it's the la .cardoNES. ''inside'' the phrase lo la .cardoNES. kabri! This kind of annoyance may give you a hint about why ri is not as popular as you might think..).
 
|-
|| redo
|| la .suzyn. je la .ranjit.: “You two.”
 
|-
|| lo go'i
|| lo vanju
 
|-
|| go'i
|| la .suzyn. ce la .ranjit. puzi simxu ninpe'i. Don't worry about how you said “Susan ''and'' Ranjeet” — it's not like we've covered ce anyway! (For the record, it makes a set out of Susan and Ranjeet, since a set is what simxu looks for. See [[#14|Lesson 14]]).
 
go'i here refers back not to the previous sentence in the story, but to the previous sentence ''in the conversation''. Obviously Ranjeet wouldn't be referring back to sentences written by the narrator. He's not meant to realise he's fictional, after all.
 
|-
|| mi
|| la .ranjit. (Just checking if you're awake..).
 
|-
|| ti
|| la .suzyn. (By elimination; but strictly speaking ti could be anyone or anything Ranjeet happens to be pointing to).
 
|-
|| ma'a
|| la .suzyn. je la .ranjit. je la .djiotis.
 
|}
 
==Translation<span id="7.10"></span>==
#Susan felt embarrassed.
#She looked at the chardonnay glass. (As specified in [[#3|Lesson 3]], lo la .cardoNES. kabri does not mean that the Chardonnay owns the glass — merely that it is associated with it: it corresponds to lo kabri pe la .cardoNES).
#She seems to find observing it very interesting. (In Lojban, things and people aren't interesting by themselves; only their properties or activities can be interesting. There is a workaround, which is something like “''some property about the glass I won't bother specifying'' is interesting.” We'll cover this [[#15|towards the end of the course]]).
#Ranjeet and Jyoti kissed each other.
#“I think you two have just [mutually] met,” she said. (In Lojban, you can't say “two people meet”. But you can use simxu ‘mutually’ to get the two sumti involved into the one sumti place.) '''Note: '''Seasoned Lojbanists will have noticed that this sentence is not strictly correct, and that it would have been rather better as lu'i redo puzi ninpe'i simxu, or lu'i redo puzi simxu loka ce'u ninpe'i ce'u. Seasoned Lojbanists will also cut me some slack for not trying to introduce everything at once...{{^| khm khm. rephrase? }}
#The wine below seemed to be incredibly interesting. (Literally, “The wine associated with below...”. Strictly speaking, this does not mean the wine below Susan, but the wine below the speaker; but we won't insist on that point for now).
#She drank it quickly.
#“Errr, no,” said Ranjeet.
#“We've never met [each other].”</nowiki>
#A little later, Susan laughed.
#“Come on, you're both being silly,” she said.
#“Let's go (you and I) to the disco.”
 
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
You now know enough Lojban that your translations can vary to some extent. Don't be too concerned about matching these translations to the letter.
#'''.i lu jy. zvati ma li'u se reisku la .djiotis. la .suzyn.''' ''or'' '''.i lu jy. zvati ma li'u se reisku fi la .suzyn. fe la .djiotis.'''
#.i la .suzyn. cu spusku lu jy. cusku lo se du'u jy. denpa lonu mi klama li'u (And no, it's unlikely that Susan would refer to herself as sy.!)
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu mi no'e dunku lonu jy. cliva .i mi jinvi lodu'u jy. penmi ma'a vi lo dansydi'u  (We translate ''us'' as ma'a rather than mi'o, because presumably it refers to Ranjeet as well as Jyoti and Susan).
#.i jy. bilga loka ze'a tcidu
#.i jy. to'e morji so'e da lo xumske ca lo crisa (You could also say so'e lo fatci instead of so'e da).
#.i mi'a klama lo gusta pu loka klama lo dansydi'u
#.i xu do djica lonu do kansa mi'a li'u (We put li'u here, because this is where Jyoti's quotation ends).
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu go'i li'u ca lonu sy. cismyfra la .ranjit. (or: ra cismyfra or ko'a cismyfra. Not ri cismyfra, though: ri here is lu go'i li'u! Infuriating but true..).
 
=Chapter 8. Swapping things round: conversion and simple lujvo<span id="8"></span>=
 
==selbri conversions<span id="8.1"></span>==
 
Conversion is swapping the places of a bridi around. We [[#5|have already encountered]] one case of conversion: the cmavo, se, which changes round the first and second places of a bridi. For example
 
:la .djiotis. cu cinba la .ranjit.
:Jyoti kisses Ranjeet.
 
is the same as
 
:la ranjit. cu se cinba la .djiotis.
:Ranjeet is kissed by Jyoti.
 
'''se''' is part of a series of cmavo which go, in alphabetical order, se, te, ve, xe. Like a lot of these series, the first one is used a lot more than the others, but sometimes the others are useful.{{^| have we covered them yet? ju'o we did }}
 
Just as '''se''' changes round the first and second places, te changes round the first and third places, ve, the first and fourth, and xe, the first and fifth.
 
:ti bakfu loi tirse grana loi skori
:This is-a-bundle-of iron rods held together with string.
:loi skori cu te bakfu loi tirse grana ti
:String holds the bundle of iron rods together (literally, “with string are bundled iron rods.”)
 
The ti has now moved to a less conspicuous place in the sentence, and so can now be dropped out without being missed. In fact place conversion is often used when we want to get rid of places like this.
 
:mi'a tugni do zo'e lo dinske
:mi'a tugni do fo lo dinske
:<nowiki>We agree with you [that something is true] about economics.</nowiki>
 
:lo dinske cu ve tugni
:<nowiki>As regards economics [we] agree [with you].</nowiki>
 
:lo prenu cu klama zo'e zo'e zo'e lo trene
:lo prenu cu klama fu lo trene
:The person goes somewhere, from somewhere, via somewhere, by train.
 
:lo trene cu xe klama
:<nowiki>[Someone] goes by train. (literally “By a train is gone”)</nowiki>
:A train is a vehicle.
 
As I've said, the more extreme conversions like ve and xe are rarely used, partly because most gismu only have two or three places, and partly because even with four- or five-place gismu, the less-used places are what come towards the end.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| gugde
|| x1 is the country of peoples x2 with land/territory x3<nowiki>; (people/territory relationship)</nowiki>
 
|-
|| jamna
||  x1 (person/mass) wars against x2 over territory/matter x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is at war with x2
 
|-
|| jdini
|| x1 is money/currency issued by x2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is financial/monetary/pecuniary/fiscal
 
|-
|| xatra
|| x1<nowiki> is a letter/missive/[note] to intended audience x</nowiki>2 from author/originator x3 with content x4
 
|-
|| xlura
|| x1 (agent) influences/lures/tempts x2 into action/state x3 by influence/threat/lure x4
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Convert the following sentences so that the highlighted sumti comes first. Miss out any unimportant places.
 
#zo'e fengu ''lonu jamna''
#ti xatra mi ''la .djang.''
#zo'e xlura mi lonu cliva lo gugde kei ''loi jdini''
#lo prenu cu tavla zo'e zo'e ''la .lojban.''
#lo prenu cu dunda lo cukta ''mi''
 
==sumti conversions<span id="8.2"></span>==
 
Another thing we can do is to use conversion cmavo to make sumti. We saw how Lojban articles turn selbri into sumti, so that, for example, lo mlatu means “something(s) which could fit in the first place of mlatu” — in other words, lo changes ‘is-a-cat’ to ‘a cat’. The same is true for lo mlatu except that, as we've seen, it is something which the ''speaker'' has in mind as occupying x1 of mlatu — in other words, ‘the cat.’
 
This works fine if the only place we want to access and turn into a sumti is x1<nowiki>; but with other </nowiki>gismu we may want to make sumti out of other places. Let's look at the last example from the previous exercise:
 
:lo prenu cu dunda lo cukta mi
 
lo prenu can also be lo dunda ‘the giver’; but what about the sumti describing mi and lo cukta? Well, you probably guessed. The answer you gave to the exercise was (I hope)
 
:mi te dunda lo cukta
 
This means that mi can be lo te dunda ‘the recipient’. In the same way, lo cukta can be lo se dunda ‘the gift’ or ‘the thing given’. So if we want to make a really obvious sentence, we can say
 
:lo dunda cu dunda lo se dunda lo te dunda
:The giver gives the given-thing to the person-to-whom-it-is-given
:The donor gives the gift to the recipient.
 
{{talkquote|Note: ‘gift’ here is anything given without payment or exchange — it doesn't need to have the ‘special present’ associations of the English word).}}
 
These conversions apply not only to gismu, but to any word acting as a selbri. Remember go'i, for example, which stands in for the preceding sentence's bridi. Just as we did with dunda, we can construct a bridi like
 
:lo go'i cu go'i lo se go'i lo te go'i lo ve go'i lo xe go'i
 
On its own, this sentence doesn't mean terribly much; it just repeats the previous sentence. But the trick is, this version of the sentence repeats the previous sentence, ''with its sumti'' appearing explicitly. This is how we can refer back to sumti in the previous sentence in general. For example,
 
:.i la .suzyn. cu zgana lo nanmu goi ko'a .i ko'a melbi
 
can also be expressed as
 
:.i la .suzyn. cu zgana lo nanmu .i ''lo se go'i'' cu melbi
 
That's because lo se go'i refers to the second place (x2) of the preceding bridi, which is lo nanmu. (There are even ways to refer back to sumti introduced by sumti tcita<nowiki>; but that's an advanced topic.) </nowiki>
 
Even some abstraction cmavo can be modified by se. For example, du'u, which can be used to form a selbri, has two sumti: x1, the thought described, and x2, the words used to express it:
 
:lo la .djang. cu se pensi cu {du'u ri nelci la .suzyn. kei} lu do dirba mi li'u
:Zhang's thing-thought (= what Zhang thought) is {the thought that he likes Susan}, put into the words “You are dear to me.”
 
That's why lo se du'u refers to words rather than thoughts.
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Come up with sumti for the following concepts, using the following gismu:
{| class="wikitable"
|| ciska
 
|-
|| cmene
 
|-
|| cpedu
 
|-
|| fanva
 
|-
|| klama
 
|-
|| penmi
 
|-
|| skicu
 
|-
|| spusku
 
|}
 
#the destination
#the route
#the namer
#the translation
#the translator
#the request
#the meeting place
#the writing implement
#the description
#the response
{{^|broken formatting}}
==lujvo<span id="8.3"></span>==
 
We've already seen quite a few lujvo, or compound words, in the exercises; but we haven't actually made any of our own yet. Lojban has strict rules for making lujvo<nowiki>; you can't just crunch words together like English </nowiki>''brunch'' or ''edutainment'', because this might result in a word which sounds like something else, falls apart or makes intelligent computers repeat “Does not compute” in a tinny voice and blow up in a cloud of blue smoke. However, one safe way of making acceptable lujvo is by using the conversion cmavo we've just looked at.
 
se dunda, as we've seen, means ‘is given (by someone, to someone)'. We can turn this into a lujvo simply adding l to the se, to give seldunda. The new word comes complete with its own place-structure — which is, of course, the same as that of se dunda:
 
:x1 is a gift from x2 to x3
 
If we want to say ‘the gift’, lo seldunda is not really an improvement on lo se dunda. However, most gismu have short combining forms (rafsi). These are never used on their own, only in lujvo. As it happens, dunda has two short forms: dud and du'a. We can't use dud, because that would give us a word ending in a consonant, and, as we know, only cmene can end in a consonant. (Some cmene do in fact use them for that reason.) The only candidate, then, is du'a, so ‘the gift’ is lo seldu'a. (sel''du'a'' has exactly the same place structure as sel''dunda'').
 
The same is true for the other conversion cmavo, though their corresponding rafsi don't all follow the same pattern:
{| class="wikitable"
|| se
|| sel-
 
|-
|| te
|| ''ter-''
 
|-
|| ve
|| vel-
 
|-
|| xe
|| xel-
 
|}
 
So ‘the recipient’ is lo terdu'a.
 
{{talkquote|Note: You might wonder whether stela ‘lock’ was really important enough to have wrested the rafsi tel- away from te — given that xel-, after all, was successfully wrested away from xelso ‘Greek’. The answer is, probably not; but after the Great rafsi Reallocation of 1993, it's really too late to do anything about it now. Consider it an endearing quirk of the language...}}
 
In this way you can expand on the gismu list dramatically, to give equivalents of common English words which are not included and, more interestingly, words which don't have equivalents in English. A lot of these are words you would probably never want to say, like terna'e ‘x1 is the rule/logic by which proposition x2 contradicts/denies/refutes/negates proposition x3.' However, you sometimes find interesting and/or useful words which don't exist as single words in English. Here are a few of my own creations:
{| class="wikitable"
|| lo tertcu
|| a purpose/activity for which something is needed (from nitcu ‘need’)
 
|-
|| lo ternu'e
|| a person to whom a promise is made (from nupre ‘promise’)
 
|-
|| lo selvu'e
|| a moral standard (from vrude ‘be virtuous’)
 
|-
|| lo selte'a
|| a scary thing (from terpa ‘fear’)
 
|-
|| lo selcta
|| something/someone that is looked at (from catlu ‘look, examine’)
 
|-
|| lo selta'i
|| something which wears you out (from tatpi ‘be tired/fatigued')
 
|-
|| lo veltu'i
|| an area of agreement (from tugni ‘agree with’)
 
|-
|| lo selzi'e
|| something you are free to do (from zifre ‘be free’)
 
|-
|| lo selxei
|| an object of hate (from xebni ‘hate’)
 
|-
|| lo selpa'i
|| an object of devotion (from prami ‘love, be devoted to’)
 
|}
 
<center>Warning</center>
 
This method will always give you an acceptable lujvo — except in one case. Lojban does not allow double consonants, because they are difficult to pronounce, and can be heard incorrectly as one consonant. This means that we can't have lujvo like vellu'i (‘cleansing agent’, from the x4 of lumci ‘wash’). The way out of this problem is to put y between the two ls, giving us velylu'i.
 
In fact, if you see y in a Lojban word, it cannot be a gismu or a cmavo (with two exceptions we've already seen: .y. ‘er...’ and letters of the alphabet like .y'y. and dy.) Such a word can only be either a lujvo or a name (cmene). y was purposefully avoided in ‘normal’ Lojban words.
 
==Negative lujvo<span id="8.4"></span>==
 
Just as se has the combining form sel, the negative na'e has the combining form nal, and we can use this to make lujvo in exactly the same way.
 
{{talkquote|Note:  '''na''' has its own rafsi, nar; but '''na'e''' is more useful in creating new words. na'e in a selbri still indicates an existing kind of relationship, which you would want to describe with a single lujvo<nowiki>; while </nowiki>na could mean anything, including non-existence — making it too broad a concept for most uses.}}
 
For example, jdice means ‘decide’ and has the short combining form jdi. naljdi therefore means ‘not decide’ or ‘be indecisive’. Some other examples:
{| class="wikitable"
|| lo naljmi
|| one who does not understand (from jimpe ‘understand’)
 
|-
|| lo naljvi
|| a non-competitor (from jivna ‘compete’)
 
|-
|| lo nalkri
|| a non-believer/skeptic (from krici ‘believe’)
 
|-
|| lo nalyla'e
|| an unlikely event (from lakne ‘be likely’)
 
|-
|| lo nalre'a
|| a non-human (from remna ‘be human’)
 
|}
 
We can see that nal is like the English ''non-'', but we need to remember that ''non-'' sometimes has other meanings or associations that nal does not have. lo naljvi is simply someone who is not taking part in a competition, not a ‘non-contender’ in the sense of someone who competes but doesn't stand a chance of winning. Similarly lo nalre'a is someone who is not a member of the species ''homo sapiens'' (e.g. a chimpanzee or Klingon), and cannot be applied to someone who is inhumane or perceived as subhuman in some way.
 
We can also use nal with sel and its relatives; for example,
{| class="wikitable"
|| lo naltertcu
|| not a purpose/activity for which something is needed; something which has no requirements (from nitcu ‘x1<nowiki> needs/requires/is dependent on/[wants] necessity x</nowiki>2 for purpose/action/stage of process x3')
 
|-
|| lo nalveltu'i
|| an area of disagreement; a controversial issue (from tugni ‘x1<nowiki> [person] agrees with person(s)/position/side x</nowiki>2 that x3 (du'u) is true about matter x4')
 
|-
|| lo nalselzi'e
|| something you are not free to do (from zifre ‘x1 is free/at liberty to do/be x2 (event/state) under conditions x3')
 
|-
|| lo nalselsanji
|| something you are unaware of (from sanji ‘x1 is conscious/aware of x2 (object/abstract); x1 discerns/recognizes x2 (object/abstract)'; this gismu has no suitable short combining form)
 
|-
|| lo nalselse'i
|| someone who lacks a self/ego; an enlightened person according to Hindu/Buddhist philosophy (from sevzi ‘x1 is a self/ego/id/identity-image of x2')
 
|}
 
As you'll have guessed, the companions of na'e, namely to'e and no'e, have rafsi of their own: tol- and nor-, respectively. So ‘disinterested’, ‘uninterested’ and ‘bored’ in Lojban are norselci'i, nalselci'i and tolselci'i.
 
lujvo can be much more interesting than this; interesting enough, in fact, that we won't be covering them any further here. You can make lujvo out of pretty much any tanru you can devise; this is the main way to introduce ‘new words’ into Lojban. But to make the lujvo you come up with work, you need some background knowledge:
 
*how to make sure rafsi in a word stick together unambiguously in Lojban grammar (''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 4.5–4.6, 4.10–4.12).
*how to make sure the gismu inside your tanru group together properly (''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 5).
*how to derive the place structure of the lujvo from the place structures of the gismu that make it up (''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 12).
 
It's worth your while to look into these issues if you'll be using the language seriously, and especially if you'll be writing in it. (lujvo are easier to deal with while writing than while speaking, because you have the time to reflect on how you'll be creating your new word.) At this stage, though, you don't need to go into all that just yet.
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
If you have access to a gismu list, use it to look up gismu and make lujvo meaning the following, using short combining forms where possible and nal- where necessary.
 
#a television
#a subject of conversation
#someone who is deceived or cheated
#an immoral or amoral (not virtuous) person
#a railroad
#an insignificant event
#something unseen
#something about which you have no feelings/emotions
==Reflexives<span id="8.5"></span>==
 
Let's now look at a slightly embellished version of the plot-advancing example sentence from [[#7|Lesson 7]], involving Zhang and Susan:
 
:la .suzyn. na djuno fi lo nei fe lo du'u la .djang. cu cinynei sy.
:Susan doesn't know about herself that Zhang fancies (‘sexually-likes’) her.
 
We have snuck into the sentence a new construct: lo '''nei'''.
 
'''nei''' alone links to the current bridi. Just like '''go'i''' links to the previous bridi. They both belong to selma'o GOhA.
 
Now '''lo nei''' means ‘the first sumti of this bridi’, '''lo se nei''' - ‘the second sumti of this bridi’, '''lo te nei''' - ‘the third sumti of this bridi’ and so on. In practice, '''lo nei''' is used quite a lot, while the others are rarer; but that could be because people still tend to think in terms of natural languages, where only the equivalent of '''lo nei''' is usual. Those equivalents are '''reflexives''' — words like ''herself'', ''itself'', and so on; and '''lo nei''' is very handy for expressing them. As people start thinking more in Lojban, the others could get used more.
 
Here are some more straightforward examples of its use:
 
:la meilis. cu pensi '''lo nei'''
:Mei Li thinks about herself.
:lo gerku cu batci '''lo nei'''
:The dog bites itself.
 
You can also say
 
:mi nelci '''lo nei'''
:I like myself.
 
but this is the same as '''mi nelci mi''', which is simpler.
 
{{talkquote|Note: '''lo nei''' is fixed in what it refers back to and, unlike '''ri''', can point back to '''ko'a''' — though, of course, you can also repeat '''ko'a''' if you prefer.}}
 
Okay, this is all well and good when your sentence only contains one bridi. But when it doesn't — and it often doesn't — we have a problem. In
 
:la .kris. cu djuno lodu'u la .pat. cu prami lo nei
:Chris knows that Pat loves herself
'''lo nei''' refers to '''la .pat.'''
 
In order to refer always to the first sumti of the sentence we can use the word '''vo'a'''.
 
:la .kris. cu djuno lodu'u la .pat. cu prami vo'a
:Chris knows that Pat loves her.
 
Here is the difference. '''lo nei''' refers to the first sumti of the current bridi. And '''vo'a''' refers to the first sumti of the current sentence.
 
When there are no embedded bridi those two words mean the same. But as you can see not in this case.
 
{{talkquote|Note: In natural languages, reflexives almost always refer back to subjects; and in Lojban, the x1 place is as close as you will get to a subject. The difference is, when you have this kind of embedding, the reflexive can refer back to the subject of the verb it is immediately tied to ('''short-distance reflexive''' like our '''lo nei'''), or it can refer all the way back to the subject of the entire sentence ('''long-distance reflexive''' like our '''vo'a''').
 
Now, ''herself'' in English is a short-distance reflexive: if Chris knows that Pat loves herself, then Chris knows that Pat loves Pat, not Chris. Reflexives in almost all languages are short-distance. Other languages like Chinese allow their reflexives to be long-distance as well as short-distance. Or languages have long-distance reflexives distinct from short-distance just like in Lojban.}}
Some Lojbanists in order to get long-distance reflexives use '''ra''', which is deliberately as vague as natural language pronouns.
 
'''vo'a''' belongs to selma'o KOhA4. Here are other words of this selma'o.
*'''vo'e''' refers to the second sumti of the current sentence.
*'''vo'i''' refers to the third sumti of the current sentence.
*'''vo'o''' refers to the 4th sumti of the current sentence.
*'''vo'u''' refers to the 5th sumti of the current sentence.
 
==Summary<span id="8.6"></span>==
 
This lesson has introduced the following:
 
*Converting sentences (swapping round sumti) using se and its relatives;
*Making sumti from places other than x1 by the same method;
*Making lujvo using '''sel'''-, '''vel'''- etc. and short combining forms (rafsi);
*Making negative lujvo using nal-.
*Expressing reflexives using '''lo nei''' and '''vo'a'''.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| berti
|| x1<nowiki> is to the north/northern side [right-hand-rule pole] of x</nowiki>2 according to frame of reference x3
 
|-
|| cinta
|| x1<nowiki> [material] is a paint of pigment/active substance x</nowiki>2, in a base of x3
 
|-
|| cpina
|| x1 is pungent/piquant/peppery/spicy/irritating to sense x2
 
|-
|| ctebi
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the lip [body-part]/rim of orifice x</nowiki>2 of body x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is labial
 
|-
|| fanza
|| x1 (event) annoys/irritates/bothers/distracts x2
 
|-
|| jarbu
|| x1 is a suburban area of city/metropolis x2
 
|-
|| jmina
|| x1 adds/combines x2 to/with x3, with result x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 augments x2 by amount x3
 
|-
|| jukpa
|| x1 cooks/prepares food-for-eating x2 by recipe/method x3 (process)
 
|-
|| kisto
|| x1 reflects Pakistani/Pashto culture/nationality/language in aspect x2
 
|-
|| klaji
|| x1<nowiki> is a street/avenue/lane/drive/cul-de-sac/way/alley/[road] at x</nowiki>2 accessing x3
 
|-
|| minra
|| x1 reflects/mirrors/echoes x2<nowiki> [object/radiation] to observer/point x</nowiki>3 as x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 bounces on x1
 
|-
|| nitcu
|| x1<nowiki> needs/requires/is dependent on/[wants] necessity x</nowiki>2 for purpose/action/stage of process x3
 
|-
|| snanu
|| x1 is to the south/southern side of x2 according to frame of reference x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Translate from Lojban; some of the places used here are contorted into quite non-English forms, but try and be as idiomatic as possible.
 
#.i lo karce pe la .djiotis. cu xe klama lo gusta fu la .djiotis je la .ranjit je la .suzyn.
#.i la .suzyn. cu catlu lo ve minra pe lo nei
#.i lo go'i cu jmina fi lo ctebi cinta pe lo nei
#.i ca lonu go'i kei la .suzyn. cu simxu te minra la .ranjit.
#.i la .suzyn. cu reisku fi la .djiotis. fe lu .i ma te klaji fi ti li'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i lo kisto jarbu
#.i lo vu se jukpa cu mutce cpina li'u
#.i la .djiotis. cu se fanza cusku lu .i ma'a doi ranjit. do'u {{^|do'u?}}klama lo berti lo snanu
#.i pe'i lo ve klama pe lo gusta na te djuno fi do li'u
 
==Answers to Exercises<span id="8.7"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#lenu jamna cu se fengu
#la .djang. cu te xatra <nowiki>[mi</nowiki> ti] (Whether or not you include the mi and ti depends on whether they are important in this context — probably they are obvious and can be missed out).
#loi jdini cu ve xlura mi lonu cliva lo gugde (“Money is an inducement for me to emigrate.”)
#la lojban. cu ve tavla fo lo prenu (“There is a conversation in Lojban.” We don't need lo prenu, though, since we can assume that it is people chatting in Lojban and not, say, chimpanzees).
#mi te dunda lo cukta lo prenu
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#lo se klama
#lo ve klama
#lo te cmene
#lo xe fanva
#lo fanva (Hope you weren't fooled!)
#lo ve cpedu (lo se cpedu is what you ask for, not your request)
#lo te penmi
#lo ve ciska
#lo ve skicu
#lo se spusku
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#lo veltivni
#lo terta'a
#lo seltcica
#lo nalvu'e
#lo teryre'e
#lo nalvai
#lo nalselvi'a
#lo naltercni
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#Jyoti's car is the means by which Jyoti, Ranjeet and Susan get to the restaurant.
#Susan looks at her reflection. (This is the more Lojbanic version of “looks at herself in the mirror.” There are other ways to say this, but we haven't covered the requisite grammar yet).{{^| change the sentence? }}
#She puts on more lipstick. (Literally, “She adds to her lip paint.)”
#When this is happening, Susan and Ranjeet see each other's reflection.
#Susan asks Jyoti, “Where does this street go to?”
#Ranjeet says, “The Pakistani suburb.”
#“The cuisine there is very spicy.”
#Jyoti irritatedly says, “We, Ranjeet, have been going from south to north” (i.e. from south to north).
#“I think the way of (= to) the restaurant is unknown to you.”
=Chapter 9. Let me qualify that: internal sumti and relative clauses<span id="9"></span>=
 
==Internal sumti<span id="9.1"></span>==
 
The business of a selbri (as you hopefully remember from [[#2|Lesson 2]]) is to point out a relationship between one or more things (its sumti.) So when you say dunda, you mean that there's a giver, a receiver, and a gift involved. When you say klama, you mean that there's a traveller, a destination, an origin, a route, and a means of transportation involved. When you say mensi, you mean that there's someone who is a sister, and someone that she's a sister of. And so on.
 
Now, when we put an article in front of a selbri, we turn it into a sumti. But the selbri within a sumti remains a selbri: it still indicates that there's a relationship between some sumti of its own. If you say lo dunda, you still mean that there is something the ‘donor’ is giving, and someone they are giving it to. If you say lo xe klama, you still mean that there is someone going in the ‘vehicle’, somewhere they are going to, somewhere they are coming from, and some route they are taking. And as we've already hinted, it is meaningless just to say lo mensi, just as we don't say ''the sister'' in English: a sister is always a sister ''of'' someone.
 
Previously, we have used pe to attach sumti to other sumti, in order to narrow things down. But that doesn't necessarily mean that what follows pe is a sumti of what comes before it. So if I describe my sister as lo mensi pe mi ‘my sister’, for example, that might be the same as saying zo'e (= my sister) mensi mi. But if I say lo jdini pe mi ‘my money’, I certainly do not mean zo'e jdini mi — that I am the mint which issued the money! Obviously pe won't do as a general solution to filling in the selbri you might need.
 
If you have a selbri contained inside a sumti, the way to give it a sumti of its own (an '''internal''' sumti) is to add it in with be. You'll remember (we hope!) that, when a selbri gets an article, its meaning is the x1 place of that selbri. By default, be fills in the x2 place of the sumti. So:
 
:la renas. cu mensi mi
:Rena is my sister
 
:lo mensi be mi
:My sister
 
:la renas. cu te dunda lo cukta
:Rena is given the book
 
:lo te dunda be lo cukta
:The recipient of the book
 
:la renas. cu klama la .sidnis.
:Rena is going to Sydney
 
:lo klama be la .sidnis.
:The one going to Sydney
 
As you can see, be can translate — often but not always — to English ''of''. In fact, it covers surprisingly many of the functions of ''of''. And because it is tied to a specific place of the sumti, its relation to the main sumti is unambiguous (another one of Lojban's ‘selling points’!)
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
What do these sumti mean in English?
 
#lo vecnu be lo cukta
#lo cliva be la .sanfransiskos.
#lo xe klama be la .sanfransiskos.
#lo se xabju be la .renas.
#lo detri be lonu mi cliva
#lo pendo be lo penmi be la .ranjit.
==More internal sumti<span id="9.2"></span>==
 
If you want to add a sumti to a place other than x2, you can use a FA tag. So:
 
:la renas. cu klama fi la .melbn.
:Rena is going from Melbourne
 
:lo klama be fi la .melbn.
:The one going from Melbourne
 
:ti xatra fo lei dinske
:This is a letter about economics
 
:lo xatra be fo lei dinske
:The letter about economics
 
If you want to be really thorough, you can add more than one sumti to the selbri in your sumti. The extra sumti are added in with bei, not be. This (like many things in Lojban) is to avoid ambiguity: if we just used be again, the new sumti would be considered a sumti of the sumti you just added, rather than the original sumti!
 
OK, that wasn't terribly clear. Let me illustrate:
 
:la renas. cu klama {lo jarbu be la .melbn.}
:Rena is going to a suburb of Melbourne
 
:lo klama {be lo jarbu be la .melbn.}
:The one going to a suburb of Melbourne
 
:la renas. cu klama {lo jarbu} {la melbn.}
:Rena is going to a suburb, from Melbourne
 
:lo klama {be lo jarbu} {bei la .melbn.}
:The one going to a suburb, from Melbourne
 
This means, by the way, that you can nest sumti inside sumti inside sumti, up to and including the point where you fry your brain. To hold off on frying your brain just a little, you need to be able to say “this is where the list of nested sumti stops” — at least at the current level of nesting. That means a terminator, of course, and the terminator corresponding to be is be'o. Armed with this little word, you can come up with phrases like these:
 
:lo xatra be la .djang. bei la .suzyn.
:The letter to Zhang from Susan
 
:la .djiotis. cu mrilu ti la .ranjit.
:Jyoti mails this to Ranjeet
 
:la .djiotis. cu mrilu lo xatra be la .djang. bei la .suzyn. la .ranjit.
:Jyoti mails {Susan's letter to Zhang} to Ranjeet
 
:lo mrilu be lo xatra be la .djang. bei la .suzyn. be'o bei la .ranjit.
:The one who mails {Susan's letter to Zhang} to Ranjeet
 
:lo mrilu be lo xatra be la .djang. bei la .suzyn. ____ bei la .ranjit.
:The one who mails {Susan's letter to Zhang about Ranjeet}
 
{{talkquote|Tip: Just because you can inflict such untold misery on the world as the examples above, doesn't mean you have to, of course. In fact, like ku and vau (and unlike kei), be'o is not a word you'll see that much of. This is because, when a nested sumti gets followed by a normal sumti, and is not preceded by be or bei, it's pretty obvious that the new sumti is not nested as well, but rather belongs to the main selbri. So be'o isn't normally needed to close off the list of nested sumti — as long as the list is not all that complicated. (And it usually won't be).}}
 
For example:
:mi penmi {lo pendo be la .ranjit. <nowiki>[be'o]}</nowiki> lo barja
:I met Ranjeet's friend in the bar
In such a phrase, the be'o can (and will) be left out.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| cidjrkari
|| curry. Yes, this is a ''very'' odd-looking word; we'll explain why in a little while.
 
|-
|| ctuca
|| x1 teaches audience x2 ideas/methods/lore x3 (du'u) about subject(s) x4 by method x5 (event)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Convert the following selbri to sumti, by substituting ti with lo. Use be, bei and be'o as needed to link the existing sumti in to the new sumti. If you feel up to it, translate the sumti into as colloquial English as you can manage.
 
#ti fanza la .suzyn.
#ti te jukpa loi cidjrkari
#ti klaji lo barja lo gusta
#ti se nitcu fi lonu jukpa loi cidjrkari
#ti se nitcu la .ranjit. lonu jukpa loi cidjrkari
#ti se reisku fu lei xumske fe la .djang. fi lo ctuca
#ti kansa lo ctuca be la .ranjit.
#ti kansa lo ctuca be la .ranjit. lonu pinxe loi birje (Hint: be careful about this one!)
==Internal sumti tcita<span id="9.3"></span>==
 
Using be, you can attach the default places of a selbri to it when it acts as a sumti. But default places aren't the only places a selbri can have. We have seen in [[#5|Lesson 5]] that sumti tcita and tense cmavo can be used to add new sumti to a selbri. You can add these kinds of places as internal sumti, as well. This can often be useful. For example, if I wanted to say
 
:This letter, dated the 4th, was mailed on the 7th
 
I could try
 
:lo vi xatra de'i li vo cu se mrilu de'i li ze
 
But this would not work at all. A date tagged with de'i applies to the whole bridi, and can appear anywhere in that bridi. So there's no actual way of telling that either date applies to the letter specifically. (Mere position is not enough to do it in Lojban.) What we want to say is that the former date applies just to the letter, and the latter date applies to the mailing of the letter. This means that the 4th, as a date, applies only to the sumti, lo xatra, and not to the entire bridi. So it is an internal sumti:
 
:lo vi xatra ''be'' de'i li vo cu se mrilu de'i li ze
 
Much better. Still not usable everywhere, though. In particular, you won't be able to attach a sumti to something like a cmene, because it won't contain a selbri. In that case, you would use pe rather than be in front of the sumti tcita.
 
Huh? Well, let's try it slower. Take '''fi'e''': a sumti tcita meaning ‘authored by’ (from '''finti'''.) Now, fi'e, like ''by'' in English, tends to apply only to specific things, and not to events: you say “a book by Dickens” or “a sonata by Mozart”, not “Jim went to the zoo, by Norman Mailer.” (OK, you can say “''Jim Went To The Zoo'', by Norman Mailer” if ''Jim Went To The Zoo'' is the name of a book. But then ''by Norman Mailer'' is still attached to a thing, and not to an event.) So fi'e is almost always used as an internal sumti. This means you can say
 
:lo cukta be fi'e la .dikens.
{{talkquote|Tip: As it happens, that's the same as saying lo cukta be fi la .dikens. . The good thing about sumti tcita is, you can use them when you've forgotten the default places of your selbri. Which you will.}}
 
So how do I say “''Oliver Twist'' by Dickens is very good”? I ''could'' say
 
:la .Oliver.tuist. be fi'e la .dikens. cu mutce xamgu
 
But that looks kind of odd: .Oliver.tuist is not really a selbri, so it is strange to say that it actually has sumti places of its own. (As it turns out, in fact, this is considered ungrammatical in Lojban.) But if you say
 
:la .Oliver.tuist. pe fi'e la .dikens. cu mutce xamgu
 
you aren't really committing to .Oliver.tuist being a selbri<nowiki>; you're merely saying that the phrase “authored by Dickens” is closely associated with the thing you're calling </nowiki>la .Oliver.tuist.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| kakne
|| x1 is able to do/be/capable of doing/being x2 (event/state) under conditions x3 (event/state)
 
|-
|| lidne
|| x1 precedes/leads x2 in sequence x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is former/preceding/previous; x2 is latter/following
 
|-
|| pluja
|| x1 is complex/complicated/involved in aspect/property x2 (ka) by standard x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Translate the following sentences into Lojban. The highlighted terms are to be attached into the sentence with sumti tcita<nowiki>; we give you the </nowiki>sumti tcita you need for each sentence. You'll have to work out whether the highlighted term is an internal sumti (in which case use be or pe to link it in), or a normal sumti.
 
#I mail you ''in Lojban'' (bau: in language..., from bangu ‘language’)
#I give you a book ''in Lojban'' (bau: in language..., from bangu ‘language’)
#''According to Jyoti'', Ranjeet is foolish (cu'u: as said by..., from cusku ‘express’)
#''So named by Susan'', ‘Chemistry Irritant’ drinks German beer (te me'e: as a name used by..., from te cmene ‘name’)
#Names ''in Lojban'' are preceded by ‘la’ (se pa'u: as a part of..., from se pagbu ‘have as a part’. There's a trick to the quotation here (and you do need to use a quotation); check [[#7|Lesson 7]] again..).
#City roads are very complicated; ''for example, Ranjeet cannot go to the Pakistani restaurant'' (mu'u: exemplified by..., from mupli ‘example’)
==Relative clauses<span id="9.4"></span>==
 
Nesting sumti within sumti goes a long way towards pinning down what exactly we mean; but it's not always going to work. If for example, I have two sisters, I can point out that they are mensi ''be mi'' until I'm blue in the face; but that won't go any further towards distinguishing one from the other. What I'd want to do instead is introduce a new bridi into the mix: the sister I'm talking about is the one who doesn't like Ricky Martin, say, or the one you saw at the restaurant last night. Similarly, if I'm talking about two different Pakistani restaurants, pointing out that the type of food they serve is Pakistani (gusta be loi kisto) doesn't go very far in differentiating them; pointing out the one which is north of town, or the one I eat curry at, does.
 
What I want, in other words, are '''relative clauses'''. In fact, they are what I've just used in English: phrases like ''who doesn't like Ricky Martin''<nowiki>; </nowiki>''<nowiki>[which] I eat curry at</nowiki>''<nowiki>; and so on. These clauses contain a verb and nouns in English: they correspond to Lojban </nowiki>bridi, though they might be missing a word or two. What we need in Lojban is some way of connecting a bridi like this to a sumti — without necessarily the peculiarities of words like ''who'' and ''that''.
 
Lojban allows this: you connect a relative clause — a bridi narrowing down what a sumti means — by using poi. And just as with nu and its relatives (those other words which nest bridi inside bridi in Lojban), you want a terminator to say “the relative clause is over, the rest of these words belong to the main bridi now.” That terminator is ku'o.
 
So let's try this out. How would we say “You talked to my sister — the one who doesn't like Ricky Martin — about economics”? Let's take it by steps:
 
:do pu tavla lo mi mensi loi dinske
:You talked to my sister about economics.
 
:lo mi mensi na nelci la .rikis.martin.
:My sister does not like Ricky Martin.
 
:do pu tavla lo mi mensi {poi ''lo mi mensi'' na nelci la .rikis.martin. ku'o} loi dinske
:You talked to my sister who doesn't like Ricky Martin about economics.
 
Notice that you needed the ku'o there, to keep the relative clause out of the hair of the main bridi. Otherwise, loi dinske would be a sumti of nelci and not tavla — which is not really what you want. Just as with nu and kei, though, Lojbanists will normally make sure they don't have to use ku'o, by little tricks like making sure the relative clause comes just before cu — which shuts every open clause down.
 
Here's another example:
 
:mi klama lo gusta be loi kisto
:I go to the Pakistani restaurant.
 
:lo gusta be loi kisto cu berti lo tcadu
:The Pakistani restaurant is north of town.
 
:mi klama lo gusta be loi kisto be'o {poi ''ra'' berti lo tcadu}
:I go to the Pakistani restaurant which is north of town.
 
==ke'a<span id="9.5"></span>==
 
We're almost there; but you'll notice we've repeated lo mi mensi twice. We might have tried using '''ri''' to refer back to lo mi mensi. But you'll remember from the exercises to [[#7|Lesson 7]] the acute pain associated with using ri: we should be avoiding it where possible. (In this instance, in fact, we can't use it properly anyway, because a sumti includes its relative clause; so ri would not be referring back to a completed sumti, like it's supposed to: the risk of insane recursion is just too great.) A similar problem arises with ra referring back to lo gusta be loi kisto: ra isn't particularly precise, so if at all possible we'd like to use a less ambiguous sumti in its place.
 
Fortunately, we can avoid ri and ra after all: relative clauses in Lojban have a special pro-sumti, ke'a, which like ''who'' and ''which'' in English points back to the sumti you've been talking about. So now, we can make a stab at all four relative clauses in our example:
 
:lo mi mensi poi ''ke'a'' na nelci la .rikis.martin.
:My sister, such that ''she'' doesn't like Ricky Martin.
:My sister who doesn't like Ricky Martin.
 
:lo mi mensi poi do viska ''ke'a'' ca lo purlamcte
:My sister, such that you saw ''her'' at the restaurant during the immediately-preceding-night.
:My sister whom you saw at the restaurant last night.
 
:{lo gusta be loi kisto be'o} poi ''ke'a'' berti lo tcadu
:The restaurant of Pakistani things such that ''it'' is north of the city.
:The Pakistani restaurant which is north of town.
:(The be'o is needed, because what you're describing as being north is the restaurant, not the Pakistani cuisine it serves).
 
:lo gusta be loi kisto be'o poi mi citka loi cidjrkari ne'i ''ke'a''
:The restaurant of Pakistani things, such that I eat curry in ''it''.
:<nowiki>The Pakistani restaurant [that] I eat curry in</nowiki>.
:The Pakistani restaurant where I eat curry.
 
To make things somewhat more succinct, there exists a convention that, when a relative clause is missing its ke'a, you fill it in at the first available empty place. Which means, if the bridi after poi has nothing in its x1 place, that's where the ke'a goes. If it has an x1 place but no x2 place, then ''that's'' where ke'a goes. (This way, poi-clauses look a little more like most languages' relative clauses, as they don't use a distinct word for ke'a and poi.) So our example phrases become:
 
:lo mi mensi poi na nelci la .rikis.martin.
:lo mi mensi poi do viska ca lo purlamcte
:lo gusta be loi kisto be'o poi berti lo tcadu
:lo gusta be loi kisto be'o poi mi citka loi cidjrkari ne'i ''ke'a''
 
The last sentence hasn't changed: the convention does not apply to non-default places (like sumti tcita and spatial ‘tense’ places), since they don't follow a predictable order.
 
{{talkquote|Note: This means that (as you'll have already seen several times by now) Lojban, like ‘normal’ languages, has usage and conventions, over and above its notions of grammaticality and logic. Strictly speaking, there is nothing wrong with saying lemi mensi poi tavla and actually meaning lo mensi poi tavla ''ke'a'' “my sister who is talked to” instead of lo mensi poi ''ke'a'' tavla “my sister who talks”: This is merely an omitted place, after all, and the value that fits the omitted place is theoretically open. And Lojban is by its nature a stickler for the ‘Letter of the Law’. Yet you will still find that, like any language actually used by a community, there are more and less usual ways of saying things in Lojban.}}
{{talkquote|Tip: If you ever want to hang two relative clauses off the same sumti, use zi'e to connect them. This corresponds to English ''and'', since both clauses are supposed to be true. (More on this in [[#11|Lesson 11]].) For example,}}
 
:lo mi mensi poi na nelci la .rikis.martin. ''zi'e'' poi do viska ca lo purlamcte
:My sister who doesn't like Ricky Martin ''and'' whom you saw last night.
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Combine the following pairs of sentences into single sentences. In each case, make the second sentence a relative clause modifying the highlighted sumti in the first sentence. The highlighted sumti in the second sentence is the same as that in the first, and will turn into ke'a<nowiki>; leave </nowiki>ke'a out, where the convention allows it. Also leave out ku'o where this would not result in ambiguity. For example:
 
:.i mi viska ''lo botpi'' .i ''lo botpi'' cu culno 
:.i mi viska lo botpi poi culno
 
Watch out for any terminators you may have to insert!
 
#.i lo ninmu cu dunda lo cifnu ''lo nanmu'' .i ''lo nanmu'' cu citka loi cidjrkari
#.i lo ninmu cu dunda ''lo cifnu'' lo nanmu .i ''lo cifnu'' cu kakne loka citka
#.i ''lo ninmu'' cu dunda lo cifnu lo nanmu .i mi pu viska ''lo ninmu'' vi lo barja
#.i ''lo ninmu'' cu dunda lo cifnu lo nanmu .i lonu mi viska ''lo ninmu'' cu nandu
#.i mi viska va ''lo barja'' lo ninmu .i mi klama ''lo barja'' lo briju
#.i ca lonu mi klama ''lo barja'' lo briju kei mi penmi lo nanmu .i ''lo barja'' cu snanu lo briju
#.i mi viska ''lo kansa be lo ninmu'' .i lo ninmu cu dunda lo cifnu ''lo kansa be lo ninmu''
'' ''8. .i mi kakne ''loka citka loi cidjrkari'' .i ''lenu citka loi cidjrkari'' cu nandu
 
==Restrictive and non-restrictive<span id="9.6"></span>==
 
We've learnt how to use relative clauses to narrow things down. But not all relative clauses are used for that purpose. Sometimes they are used just to supply extra information about someone or something whose identity we've already worked out. For example, if I say
 
:Lojban, which is descended from (Institute) Loglan, has a public domain grammar
 
I'm hardly saying that Lojban is descended from Institute Loglan, in order to distinguish it from the scores of Lojbans ''not'' descended from Loglan! Instead, I'm providing extra, incidental information, to fill in the listener or reader.
 
This means that there are two kinds of relative clause: '''restrictive''', like we've been discussing until now, and '''non-restrictive''', like what we've just seen. The grammar of these kinds of relative clause is different in many languages. In American English, for example, style guides recommend that you keep ''who'' and ''which'' for non-restrictives, and use ''that'' for restrictives. (“The Lojban ''that'' I learned in 1993 is somewhat different from contemporary Lojban.”) Furthermore, non-restrictive relative clauses in English usually have a comma in front of them, in writing, and a little pause in front of them, in speaking: this kind of clause is pretty much a parenthetical remark, and is marked out like one.
 
Lojban distinguishes between the two kinds of relative clause by the word that introduces them: non-restrictive relative clauses start with noi, rather than poi. Otherwise, their grammar is identical:
 
:la lojban. ''noi''<nowiki> [ke'a] se dzena la .loglan. pe lo ckule cu se gerna lo gubni</nowiki>
:<nowiki>Lojban, which (non-restrictive) [it] has-the-ancestor Loglan-of-the-institute, has-as-its-grammar something-public</nowiki>
 
(Yes, that's the old “cu closing off everything in its wake” trick in action).
 
{{talkquote|Note: The restrictive/non-restrictive divide also applies to a word we saw back in [[#3|Lesson 3]]: pe. This word is in fact a special case of a relative clause (introducing a sumti rather than a complete bridi.) Since it is a relative clause in a way, it too can have a non-restrictive version: ne.}}
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Are the relative clauses in the following English sentences restrictive or non-restrictive? We've left off any punctuation hints like commas or choice of correct relativisers, so some sentences will sound a little odd.
 
#This is the way ''that'' the world ends.
#I saw the same waiter ''that'' I saw last night.
#This is my friend Zhang ''that'' I already told you about.
#Then came a full train ''that'' I wasn't going to bother boarding.
#I'm doing the best ''that'' I can.
#Radiophones ''that'' are generally known as radios are prevalent at the majority of work places.
#I don't like ''what'' has happened.
#I live in the city centre ''where'' the rent is more expensive.
==Summary<span id="9.7"></span>==
 
In this lesson, we have covered the following:
 
*Internal sumti (be, bei, be'o);
*Internal sumti attached with sumti tcita (pe, fi'e);
*Restrictive relative clauses (poi, ku'o, ke'a)
*Non-restrictive relative clauses (noi, ne)
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| bartu
|| x1 is on the outside of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is exterior to x2
 
|-
|| cacra
|| x1 is x2 hours in duration (default is 1 hour) by standard x3
 
|-
|| fonxa
|| x1 is a telephone transceiver/modem attached to system/network x2
 
|-
|| janco
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the shoulder/hip/joint [body-part] attaching limb/extremity x</nowiki>2 to body x3
 
|-
|| jgari
|| x1<nowiki> grasps/holds/clutches/seizes/grips/[hugs] x</nowiki>2 with x3 (part of x1) at locus x4 (part of x2)
 
|-
|| jgita
|| x1<nowiki> is a guitar/violin/fiddle/harp [stringed musical instrument] with actuator/plectrum/bow x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| jgitrviolino
|| x1 is a violin
 
|-
|| jundi
|| x1 is attentive towards/attends/tends/pays attention to object/affair x2
 
|-
|| kanla
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the eye [body-part] of x</nowiki>2<nowiki>; [metaphor: sensory apparatus]; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is ocular
 
|-
|| kerfa
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the hair/fur [body-part] of x</nowiki>2 at body location x3
 
|-
|| mintu
|| x1 is the same/identical thing as x2 by standard x3<nowiki>; (x</nowiki>1 and x2 interchangeable)
 
|-
|| moi
|| convert number to ordinal selbri; x1 is (n)th member of set x2 ordered by rule x3
 
|-
|| nenri
|| x1 is in/inside/within x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is on the inside/interior of x2<nowiki> [totally within the bounds of x</nowiki>2]
 
|-
|| simsa
|| x1 is similar/parallel to x2 in property/quantity x3 (ka/ni); x1 looks/appears like x2
 
|-
|| sazri
|| x1 operates/drives/runs x2<nowiki> [apparatus/machine] with goal/objective/use/end/function x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| secau
|| sumti tcita: without... (from se claxu ‘lacked’)
 
|-
|| zgike
|| x1 is music performed/produced by x2 (event)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translate from Lojban:
 
#.i bazi lo cacra be li pimu lo karce cu zvati lo kisto gusta
#.i la .djiotis. noi sazri lo karce cu fengu la .ranjit. lonu na jundi lo ve klama
#.i la .ranjit. cu simxu jundi la .suzyn.
#.i la .ranjit. ca tavla la .suzyn. loi zgike pe fi'e la .ioxan.sebastian.bax.
#.i la .suzyn. na se cinri loka jundi loi zgike pe la .bax. noi ke'a dotco
#.i ku'i la .suzyn. cu mutce se cinri lonu jundi lo kanla be la .ranjit.
#.i la .suzyn. nelci loka zgana lo kerfa be la .ranjit. bei lo ctebi be'o noi zo'e pe la .lex.va,uensas. cu simsa
#.i la .djiotis. noi denpa vi lo bartu be lo gusta cu sazri lo se bevri fonxa ne la .nokias.
#.i cusku lu .i coi jan. mi'e djiotis.
#.i ko penmi mi'a vi lo dansydi'u pe vi la re moi klaji ba lo cacra be li re li'u
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
Translate into Lojban:
 
#When Jyoti goes to the interior of the restaurant, Susan asks her “Where were you?”
#Jyoti says “I was talking to a friend I forgot to talk to earlier.”
#Susan says “Ranjeet was telling me that Bach's music is like Pakistani music in its complexity.”
#Jyoti says “Susan, you think anything without a guitar is complex.”
#Ranjeet says “The violin is identical to the guitar one carries on the shoulder.”
#Jyoti says “Ranjeet is identical to one unable to go to a restaurant north of town.”
#“What will you be eating?”
#Susan and Ranjeet stare at each other.
#Jyoti, who is bored by the staring, asks for the carrier (= waiter) to her left to come.
==Answers to Exercises<span id="9.8"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#The seller of the book.
#The one leaving from San Francisco.
#The vehicle going to San Francisco. (mi klama la .sanfransiskos. fu lo karce  lo karce cu xe klama la .sanfransiskos. fu mi)
#The dwelling of Rena. (la renas. xabju lo zdani  lo zdani cu se xabju la .renas).
#The date of my leaving; the date of my departure.
#The friend of the one meeting Ranjeet; the friend of the ‘meet-er’ of Ranjeet. (Yes indeed, internal sumti can nest. Somehow, I don't think you're really all that surprised..).
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#lo fanza be la .suzyn.: Susan's annoyance, what annoyed Susan
#lo te jukpa be loi cidjrkari: the recipe for curry
#lo klaji be lo barja bei lo gusta: the road at (or from) the bar to the restaurant
#lo se nitcu be fi lonu jukpa loi cidjrkari: the requirements for cooking curry. (loi cidjrkari is safely tucked away inside the lonu jukpa abstraction, so there's no reason that be need be worried about it).
#lo se nitcu be la .ranjit. bei lonu jukpa loi cidjrkari: Ranjeet's requirements for cooking curry
#lo se reisku be la .djang. bei lo ctuca bei fu lei xumske: Zhang's question about chemistry to the teacher
#lo kansa be lo ctuca be la .ranjit.: the one with Ranjeet's teacher, Ranjeet's teacher's partner
#lo kansa be lo ctuca be la .ranjit. ''be'o'' bei lonu pinxe loi birje: Ranjeet's teacher's partner in drinking beer.
'''Note: '''You absolutely must have that be'o there; otherwise, lonu pinxe loi birje would be the x3 sumti not of kansa (the collaborative effort), but of ctuca (the subject taught). The meaning would then be “The partner of Ranjeet's teacher about drinking beer.” Remember, Lojban words attach to the words closest to them, unless a terminator intervenes).
 
Of course, you would never say lo ctuca be la .ranjit. bei lo ''nu'' pinxe loi birje, because you've noticed that the x3 of ctuca is a fact (du'u) and not an event (nu) — and you would ''never'' get the two confused. Right?
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#mi mrilu fi do bau la .lojban.
#mi dunda lo cukta be bau la .lojban. do (The book is in Lojban; the giving is not).
#cu'u la .djiotis. la .ranjit. cu bebna (Since Jyoti said the whole bridi, the sumti applies to the whole bridi — so it cannot be ‘internal’).
#la xumske fanza ku pe te me'e la .suzyn. cu pinxe loi dotco birje (Yes, trick question. Despite where ''so named by Susan'' sits in the sentence, it applies only to the studious person of Zhang, and not to his preferences in alcohol).
'''Tip: '''The need for ku in the sentence above is ''very deep voodoo'', so there's no need for you to be particularly concerned about it (yet). As ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 8.6 points out, without the ku any qualifying phrase becomes part of the name.
 
To illustrate this, consider the old parlor trick of calling someone ''Nobody''. This is a device as old as Homer, and is used to work in jokes like “''Nobody'' hurt me!” Lojban disallows this kind of ambiguity (consider why), so this kind of joke is impossible in the language. (The notorious ''Who's on First?'' sketch by Abbott & Costello is un-Lojbanisable for the same reason.) But you'll still want to talk about people called ''Nobody''.
 
So suppose you're talking about the Greek ''Nobody'' (Homer's ''Oútis''), and comparing him to the Latin ''Nobody'' (Jules Verne's Captain ''Nemo''). And in a pique of Lojban purism, you decide to refer to both with Lojbanised names — la nomei. If now you want to say “The Greek ''Nobody''”, you can't say la nomei poi xelso. That would mean that Odysseus identified himself to the Cyclops not as ''Nobody'', but as ''Nobody Who Is Greek'' (something like ''Oútis Hòs Akhaiós'' in Greek.) You want to make sure that the cmene is over before the relative clause begins. Since this cmene contains a selbri, it is terminated with ku: la nomei ''ku'' poi xelso. If you'd stuck with la .utis., the pause would have been signal enough that the cmene is over, so the issue would not arise.
 
No, of course you weren't meant to know all that. But aren't you happy you know it now?
 
#loi cmene be se pa'u la .lojban. <nowiki>[cu]</nowiki> se lidne lo'u la le'u (Hope you remembered to put la .inside the Lojban ‘error’ quotes lo'u ... le'u! You can't use lu ... li'u, because la .by itself doesn't make sense as a fragment of Lojban).
#loi tcadu klaji cu mutce pluja mu'u lonu la .ranjit. na kakne loka klama lo kisto gusta (Ranjeet's navigational difficulties are an illustration of the ''complexity'' of city streets — not of the streets themselves).
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#.i lo ninmu cu dunda lo cifnu lo nanmu poi citka loi cidjrkari “The woman gives the baby to the man who eats curry”
#.i lo ninmu cu dunda lo cifnu poi kakne loka citka ku'o lo nanmu “The woman gives the baby who can eat to the man” (If you did not insert ku'o, you would be claiming that the infant can eat the man!)
#.i lo ninmu poi mi pu viska vi lo barja cu dunda lo cifnu lo nanmu “The woman I saw at the bar gives the baby to the man” (Despite the presence of vi lo barja, ke'a can be dropped off, since it occupies the first available ''default'' place in its bridi).
#.i lo ninmu poi lonu mi viska ke'a cu nandu cu dunda lo cifnu lo nanmu “The woman that it is difficult for me to see gives the baby to the man” (ke'a cannot be dropped off, since it doesn't occupy a default place of the relative clause bridi, but rather a nested place inside an abstraction within the bridi).
#.i mi viska va lo barja poi mi klama fi lo briju ku'o lo ninmu “I saw, some way away from the bar that I go to from work, the woman” (The x2 place of klama is left empty as the place where ke'a belongs; so now you have to insert fi to make sure lo briju is the origin, not the destination. You also need to insert ku'o<nowiki>; otherwise </nowiki>lo ninmu becomes a sumti of klama instead of viska: the woman becomes not who you see, but the route you take to the bar (!) ).
#.i ca lonu mi klama lo barja poi snanu lo briju ku'o lo briju kei mi penmi lo nanmu<nowiki> “While going to the bar [which is] south of the office from the office, I meet the man” (Again, </nowiki>ku'o needs to be inserted, to prevent lo briju being incorporated into snanu: “going to the bar south of the office from the office's perspective,” rather than “going from the office to the bar south of the office.”
#.i mi viska lo kansa be lo ninmu be'o poi lo ninmu cu dunda lo cifnu “I see the woman's companion, who the woman gave the baby to” (You must insert be'o, so that the relative clause applies to the entire sumti, lo kansa be lo ninmu. Otherwise, it will apply only to the sumti it is right next to, lo ninmu: “I see the companion of the woman the woman gave the baby to.”)
#.i mi kakne loka citka loi cidjrkari kei poi nandu “I can eat curry, which is difficult” (Again, you must insert kei, so that the relative clause applies to the entire abstraction. Otherwise, what is difficult is not eating the curry, but the curry itself).
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#Restrictive: ''the way'' is pretty meaningless unless you say what it is the way of.
#Restrictive: again, ''the same waiter'' is being uniquely identified by the relative clause, and is otherwise pretty opaque.
#Non-restrictive: normally, the description ''my friend Zhang'' should be doing a good job of identifying who is being talked about.
#Non-restrictive: although this is an indefinite noun phrase in English, the relative clause given doesn't make it any more definite: I'd be saying the same about any full train.
#Restrictive: ''the best'' is meaningless without the following relative clause.
#Non-restrictive: obviously, this is merely providing an alternative name for the same thing.
#Restrictive: in fact, this is what is called in English a '''headless relativiser''' — not because the relative clause is about decapitated horsemen in Washington Irving short stories, but because there is no noun (‘head’) there for the relative clause to narrow down at all! So the relative clause ends up supplying ''all'' the information on what is being talked about. That's as restrictive as it gets. Lojban would use a fairly empty ‘head’ to translate this — something like da.
#Non-restrictive — unless you live in a city with multiple city centres. In which case I'd move away, if I were you: the traffic must be murder...
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
#A little after half an hour, the car is at the Pakistani restaurant.
'''Note: '''That odd expression lo cacra be li pimu is in fact how you'd normally say ‘half an hour.’ In general, when Lojban measures things, it doesn't divide them up into ''n'' individual units, but rather says that ''x'' measures ''n'' units. So “Reading this lesson took me two hours” would be in Lojban lonu mi tcidu lo vi ve cilre cu cacra li re.
 
We've also specified a distance after the half an hour, through '''zi'''. Logically, '''ba lo cacra be li pimu''' will be true if I show up after half an hour, or after three hours: in both cases, you've shown up ‘after’ half an hour. By adding zi, you're making sure that you're not allowing that kind of latitude: the event happens in the ''immediate'' vicinity of half an hour later. This is being pedantic, of course; but of such pedantry is Lojban made.
 
#Jyoti, who was driving the car, is angry at Ranjeet for not paying attention to the route. (Literally, “Jyoti, who was operating the car.” Lojban tends to keep its gismu fairly vague: there is no essential difference, as far as it's concerned, between what you do with a car, a computer, or an espresso machine).
#Ranjeet and Susan have been paying attention to each other.
#Ranjeet is now talking to Susan about music by Johann Sebastian Bach.
#Susan is not interested in paying attention to music by Bach — who is German. (Bach, not the music! Although, on second thought..).
#But Susan is very interested in paying attention to Ranjeet's eyes.
#Susan likes observing Ranjeet's lip hair (= moustache), which Lech Wałesa's looks like (You need the be'o, otherwise it will be Ranjeet's lip that Wałesa's moustache resembles).
#Jyoti, who is waiting at the outside of the restaurant (= outside the restaurant), is operating a Nokia mobile phone. (Since this is presumably Jyoti's only mobile phone, we do not need to use pe: the brand is only incidental information, and we don't need it to narrow down which phone is being ‘operated’. So ne is the word to use).
#She says “Hello Zhang. This is Jyoti.” (Hope you remembered coi from [[#7|Lesson 7]]!)
10. “Meet us at the disco at Second Street after (= in) two hours.” (Sorry about springing that ordinal on you. All Lojban ordinals — pamoi ‘first’, bimoi ‘eighth’, nomoi ‘zeroth’, romoi ‘allth = last' — are formed in the same way).
 
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
#.i ca lonu la .djiotis. cu klama lo nenri be lo gusta kei la .suzyn. cu reisku fi dy. fe lu .i do zvati ma li'u (''or'': '''reisku lu .i do zvati ma li'u la .djiotis.''')
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i mi pu tavla lo pendo poi mi to'e morji lonu mi tavla ke'a puku li'u (You have to insert the ke'a).
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i la .ranjit pu tavla mi lo se du'u lo zgike be fi'e la .bax. cu simsa lo kisto zgike lo ka pluja li'u (<!-  remove? -->We tucked away ka in an earlier lesson; nu or su'u would be just as fine. You could also have said the less specific lo zgike pe la .bax.<nowiki>; this could mean the music Bach played or owned, rather than wrote, but in context it's clear enough.)</nowiki>
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i doi suzyn. do jinvi lodu'u ro da pe secau lo jgita cu pluja li'u (Lojban does not distinguish between ‘anything’, ‘everything’ and ‘all things’).
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i lo jgitrviolino cu mintu lo jgita poi zo'e bevri vi lo janco li'u
'''Note: '''Two things. First, Lojban doesn't encourage you to say that one sumti ‘is’ another sumti<nowiki>; there is a word, </nowiki>du, that sort of does that, but you should think of it as being more like an equals sign (see [[#12|Lesson 12]].) If you want to say that a violin is a guitar, it is better to say either that they are identical (lo jgitrviolino cu mintu lo jgita), or to turn one of the two sumti into a selbri (lo jgitrviolino cu jgita). Since we need a relative clause here, we have gone with the former.
 
The other thing is that Ranjeet (much to Jyoti's annoyance) is correct in his Lojban usage. In order to have as broad a coverage as possible, gismu tend to be inclusive rather than narrow in their definitions; we already saw that with Jyoti ‘operating’ her car. So while the Lojban wordlists list jgita under ''guitar'', the gismu is actually used to refer to ''any'' stringed instrument. Jyoti should have specified Susan's instrument of choice as '''jgitrgitara''' (a ‘''guitar'' guitar’), or even dikca jgitrgitara ‘electric guitar’.
 
Those funny-looking words are loan words into Lojban (fu'ivla), and we will also be covering them in [[#12|Lesson 12]].
 
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i la .ranjit. cu mintu da poi na kakne loka klama lo gusta poi berti lo tcadu (or: la .ranjit mintu lo na kakne be loka klama lo gusta poi berti lo tcadu)
#.i do ba citka ma li'u (You could specify that Jyoti means both of them by using re do or ro do, but you wouldn't normally bother unless it was somehow vital).
#.i la .suzyn. cu simxu catlu la .ranjit.{{^| remove }}
#.i la .djiotis. noi to'e se cinri lonu catlu cu cpedu fi lo bevri pe zu'a lo nei fe lonu klama (or: cpedu lo nu klama kei lo bevri pe zu'a lo nei) (As you can see, '''lo nei''' is more useful than you might have thought!){{^| check ll usages of vo'a for possible short-scope and change to lo nei. Is this sentence smudra? seems like kei is missing.}}
=Chapter 10. Cause and Effect<span id="10"></span>=
 
Most children go through a phase where every second sentence seems to start with ''why?'' For example:
 
*Why is it raining?
*Why did Sally hit me?
*Why does Sally always get a star from the teacher?
*Why did Fluffy have to die?
 
To these, the frustrated parent may give a series of answers with ''because'':
 
*Because the clouds are crying.
*Because you pulled her hair.
*Because she works hard.
*Because Fluffy is a rabbit, and rabbits don't live very long.
 
What neither the child nor his long-suffering parent are aware of is that in these examples, the ''why''s ask different questions and the ''because''s give different kinds of answers. In some languages, in fact, we would use different words for them: Turkish has three words for ''why'', and until recently even English had two (the other being ''wherefore'', as in “wherefore art thou Romeo?”) We would expect, then, that Lojban would have at least four words for ''why'', but in fact it doesn't, since all such questions are handled with ma. What Lojban ''does'' have is four words for ''because''.
 
==Physical causation<span id="10.1"></span>==
 
Going back to the first question, “Why does it rain?”, the child is asking for a physical explanation, and this is what he gets. If we express the rather unlikely explanation in Lojban, we get
 
:lonu lei dilnu cu klaku cu rinka lonu carvi
:the-event the-mass-of cloud weep physically-cause the-event rain
:The clouds' crying is making it rain.
 
'''rinka''' means ‘cause’ in a physical or mechanical sense:
 
:x1 (event/state) effects/physically causes effect x2 (event/state) under conditions x3
 
To change this ‘cause’ to a ‘because’, we can use ri'a. This is a sumti tcita derived from rinka, in the same way that we saw de'i derived from detri in [[#5|Lesson 5]]. So it adds a new place to the bridi it sits in: just as de'i means ‘with date’, ri'a means ‘with physical cause’. This means we can now say
 
:carvi ri'a lonu lei dilnu cu klaku
 
which is much more elegant. (Note that Lojban does not need the empty ''it'' in ''It's raining'').
 
The reason I have emphasised that rinka and ri'a only deal with ''physical'' causes is that it cannot apply in many cases where an English-speaker would use ''because''. Consider the second example. If we say
 
:la salis. darxi do ri'a lonu do lacpu lei kerfa
:Sally hits you with-physical-cause you pull the-mass-of hair
 
this is nonsense, since it means that little Joey pulling Sally's hair physically caused her to hit him, which would only be true if Joey had pulled her hair so hard that she had fallen on top of him, perhaps.
 
==Motivation<span id="10.2"></span>==
 
In the hair-pulling case, what we have is not two events which are physically connected, like clouds and rain, but three events:
 
#Joey pulls Sally's hair.
#Sally decides, as a result of this, to hit Joey.
#Sally hits Joey.
For the sake of convenience, English misses out the second event and says “Sally hit Joey because he pulled her hair.” However, this is not only vague but, some would say, psychologically dangerous. People do not generally react to stimuli automatically, but as a result of motivation, and confusing complex responses with simple physical causation may lead us to believe that we have no control over our emotions or even our actions. Whether or not we believe in free will at a metaphysical level, it is useful to distinguish between physical reactions and responses which have a cognitive/emotional element. Not surprisingly, then, Lojban has a separate gismu for motivation: mukti. The full definition of mukti is
 
:x1 (action/event/state) motivates/is a motive/incentive for action/event x2, per volition of x3
 
We can therefore say
 
:<nowiki>lenu do lacpu lei kerfa [pe la .salis.] cu mukti lonu la .salis. darxi do [kei la .salis]</nowiki>
:<nowiki>the-event you pull the-mass hair [related-to Sally] motivates the-event Sally hit you [through the volition of Sally]</nowiki>
:Your pulling Sally's hair motivated her to hit you.
 
As we can see, the third place is nearly always unnecessary, since we can assume that the agent of the second event is also the person who decides to do it. Even so, this structure is a bit clumsy, so again we would normally use a sumti tcita — in this case, mu'i. This gives us
 
:la salis. cu darxi do mu'i lonu do lacpu lei kerfa
:Sally hits you with-motive you pull the-mass hair
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Don't bother to translate these sentences, just decide whether they should use ri'a or mu'i.
 
#The can exploded because it was hot.
#I felt afraid because I heard a noise.
#The people revolted because of the high taxes.
#The bread is moldy because you left it in the plastic wrapper.
#Prices have risen because of excessive wage claims.
==Justification and Implication<span id="10.3"></span>==
 
The difference between motivation and justification is not always clear, but we can say that the latter involves some rule or standard while the former does not require this. Going back to the example of Sally and the teacher, it is possible to say
 
:la salis. cu te dunda lo tartcita lo ctuca mu'i lonu sy. tcetoi gunka
:<nowiki>Sally is-given a star-label [by] the teacher with-motivation she much-try work</nowiki>
 
However, this says only that Sally's hard work motivated the teacher to give her a star. It does not imply that it is the custom for teachers to give stars (or ‘star-labels’, as I have rather pedantically translated it) as a reward for good work. What we need here is ki'u, the sumti tcita from krinu:
 
:x1 (event/state) is a reason/justification/explanation for/causing/permitting x2 (event/state)
 
We can therefore more accurately say
 
:lonu la .salis. cu tcetoi gunka cu krinu lonu lo ctuca cu dunda lo tartcita sy.
 
or, as in the earlier example,
 
:'''la .salis. cu te dunda lo tartcita lo ctuca ki'u lonu sy. tcetoi gunka'''
{{talkquote|Note: Don't get '''ki'u''' mixed up with '''ku'i''' ‘but, however’!}}
 
'''ki'u''' appeals to more general considerations than '''mu'i''', but it still deals with human standards, not logical laws. Only a very naive student would believe that if a student is given a star, it must logically imply that that student has worked hard. In the tragic case of Fluffy, however, the fact that Fluffy is a rabbit logically implies that he will not live long, given what we know about rabbits. Here we can confidently use nibli
:x1 logically necessitates/entails/implies action/event/state x2 under rules/logic system x3
The sentence
:lonu la .flufis. cu ractu cu nibli lonu fy. mrobi'o
:the-event Fluffy is-a-rabbit implies the-event he dies
actually misses out a step (the information that rabbits are short-lived) but it will do for practical purposes. If you want a textbook logic example, you can say
:la .flufis. cu ractu .ije ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive .i la .flufis. ni'i na ze'u jmive
This expresses the following:
#Fluffy is a rabbit ''and'' all rabbits are not long-lived.
#Fluffy is therefore not long-lived.
==Converting causes<span id="10.4"></span>==
 
The reason I have included this blindingly obvious piece of logic is that it demonstrates how sentences can be joined, and how ‘because’ can be turned into ‘therefore’. We'll deal with the second part first, because there's a few issues about connecting sentences we want to leave till the next section. So for now, don't worry about '''.ije'''. Do worry, however, about '''ni'i'''.
 
What we have here is a '''proposition''' (Fluffy is a rabbit, and rabbits don't live long), and a '''conclusion''' (Fluffy doesn't live long.) So what is ni'i doing in front of the final selbri? Lojban treats sumti tcita the same as tenses; so ni'i can go in front of the selbri, as if it was a tense. This corresponds to an adverb like ''therefore'' in English; in terms of Lojban, however, it means the same as if you'd said ni'i zo'e ‘because of something obvious’ (in this case, the preceding two sentences). So in this construction, ni'i, used as a tense (or ni'i zo'e, using an ellipsed sumti) correspond to ''therefore''.
 
But in the following sentence, where ni'i is a sumti tcita introducing a distinct sumti and not a ‘tense’, ni'i does not mean ‘therefore’. As we'd expect, ni'i relates a sumti to its bridi through the gismu underlying ni'i, namely nibli ‘logically necessitates.’. So ni'i means ‘logically because’:
 
:la .flufis. cu mrobi'o ni'i lonu ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive
:Fluffy past die with-logical-necessity the-event all rabbits other-than long-time-period live
:Fluffy died because rabbits don't live long.
 
But what is the sumti tcita for ‘therefore’? How do we say the reverse — “Rabbits don't live long; therefore Fluffy died” — in a single sentence? As it turns out, we say it like this:
 
:ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive seni'i lonu la .flufis. cu mrobi'o
:Rabbits don't live long, with the logical consequence that Fluffy died.
 
We have here a sumti tcita, seni'i, which means ‘with the logical consequence that’, i.e. ‘therefore’. And this seni'i looks a lot like ni'i, the sumti tcita meaning ‘logically because’.
 
Actually, you should have seen enough to work out the relation between the two from [[#9|Lesson 9]]. As you saw there, sumti tcita can be modified with se, te, ve, xe, just like their underlying gismu. You know by now that the sumti introduced by '''ni'i''' is lo nibli ‘that which logically necessitates, the logical cause.’ This means that se ni'i is a sumti tcita introducing lo se nibli — ‘that which is logically necessitated; the logical result.' So we have a pair: ni'i ‘the logically necessitator, logically because’, and seni'i ‘the logically necessitated, logically therefore’.
 
We can apply this principle to the other sumti tcita we've looked at. Here are some examples:
 
:lo lante cu spoja ri'a lonu ri pu glare
:the can explode with-physical-cause the-event it past is-hot
:The can exploded because it was hot.
 
:lo lante pu glare seri'a lonu ri spoja
:the can past is-hot with-physical-result the-event it explode
:The can was hot, so it exploded.
 
:so'i lo prenu cu nelci la .djiotis. mu'i lonu ri xajmi
:many people like Jyoti with-motivation the-event she is-funny
:Many people like Jyoti because she's funny.
 
:la .djiotis. xajmi semu'i lonu so'i prenu cu nelci dy.
:Jyoti is-funny with-motivated-result the-event many people like her
:Jyoti is funny, so many people like her.
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
This is just like Exercise 1, except that now we have eight choices: '''ri'a, mu'i, ki'u, ni'i''' and their '''se''' forms. For each sentence, choose the most suitable sumti tcita.
 
#''Alien Bloodbath'' won an Oscar because of its brilliant special effects.
#I like ''Quine's Rabbit'' because it's got an exciting story-line.
#He spilt my beer, so I hit him.
#He walks like that because he has an artificial leg.
#She's Australian, so she must like Vegemite.
#That computer can't get a virus because it's running Linux.
#You have committed adultery, and thus shall burn in Hell.
==Connecting sentences<span id="10.5"></span>==
 
Let's revisit that piece of logic we were ruminating on earlier:
 
:la .flufis. cu ractu .ije ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive .i la .flufis. ni'i na ze'u jmive
 
We've seen how .i shows that a new sentence is starting; but we can also tag things onto the .i. We've seen (in passing) that two sumti can be joined with .e. In the same way, .ije joins two sentences with a logical AND, i.e. it asserts that both sentences are true. Normally we don't need to do this, since we usually assume that what we say is true; but it is useful here, because it binds the first two sentences together, so that when the ‘conclusion’ sentence comes, it ‘therefores’ both of them, not just the second. (This is called ‘left-grouping’ and there are ways to override it, which we'll come back to).
 
{{talkquote|Note: Again, this sentence misses out a number of logical steps, including the fact that Fluffy is a rabbit and that he had lived out his rabbit life naturally, rather than getting eaten by a dog — but you get the idea, I hope.}}
 
Now, '''lonu'''-abstractions can be treated as sentences: they contain complete bridi, after all. So we can also phrase these sentences as separate sentences, still using sumti tcita to connect them:
 
:la .flufis. cu mrobi'o ni'i lonu ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive
:Fluffy died because rabbits don't live long.
:la .flufis. cu mrobi'o .i ni'ibo ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive
:Fluffy died. That's because rabbits don't live long.
:ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive seni'i lonu la .flufis. mrobi'o
:Rabbits don't live long, with the logical consequence that Fluffy died.
:ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive .iseni'ibo la .flufis. mrobi'o
:Rabbits don't live long. Therefore, Fluffy died.
 
There's a new cmavo in the last example, bo. Why? Well, a sumti tcita can indeed be used to connect sentences to other sentences, just as it is used to connect sumti into bridi (though there are only so many sumti tcita this makes sense for — and this lesson contains most of them.) ''However'', left on its own, a sumti tcita always applies to the sumti after it. So had I just said
 
:.iseni'i la .flufis. cu mrobi'o
 
<nowiki>that would have meant something like “With the logical result of Fluffy, [something] dies.” I'm not quite sure what this means; maybe the ‘something’ is some mythical creature that spontaneously generates bunny rabbits as it expires. But of course, this doesn't mean what we want. To make the </nowiki>sumti tcita apply to the ''entire'' sentence, we follow it with the word bo.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: This applies to other kind of sumti tcita, by the way, like tense words. For example, .i ba bo means ‘afterwards, then’: the sentence after .i ba bo refers to something that took place later than what took place in the sentence before .i ba bo.}}
{{talkquote|Note: The very astute reader will have noted that ‘afterwards’ ''should'' have been .i pu bo<nowiki>; the analogy with </nowiki>ba ku won out, though. (See ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 10.12.) The rest of you may ponder what on Earth I'm talking about, but need not lose sleep over it.}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| catke
|| x1<nowiki> [agent] shoves/pushes x</nowiki>2 at locus x3
 
|-
|| cnita
|| x1 is directly/vertically beneath/below/under/underneath/down from x2 in frame of reference x3
 
|-
|| crane
|| x1 is anterior/ahead/forward/(in/on) the front of x2 which faces/in-frame-of-reference x3
 
|-
|| ganlo
|| x1 (portal/passage/entrance-way) is closed/shut/not open, preventing passage/access to x2 by x3
 
|-
|| telgau
|| x1 (agent) makes x2 be a lock/seal of/on/for sealing x3 with/by locking mechanism x4 (stela ‘lock’ + gasnu ‘do’)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Where necessary, insert any of je, seni'ibo, babo, seri'abo after all but the first .i in each of the following text fragments. For example: .i mi telgau fi lo vorme .i ''seni'ibo'' lo vorme cu te telgau fi mi
 
#.i mi telgau fi lo vorme .i ___ do na klama lo nenri
#.i mi telgau fi lo vorme .i ___ lo vorme cu ganlo
#.i mi telgau fi lo vorme .i ___ mi cliva
#.i mi viska do .i ___ do viska mi .i ___ mi simxu rinsa do
#.i do rinsa mi .i ___ do crane mi .i ___ do seni'i viska mi
#.i la .pantc. cu catke la .djudis. .i ___ ri farlu .i ___ ri cnita
==Why?<span id="10.6"></span>==
 
With four types of ''because'', we can now make four types of ''why'', simply by using ma. Our child's questions from the beginning of the lesson translate as follows:
 
*.i carvi ri'a ma
*.i la .salis. cu darxi mi mu'i ma
*.i la .salis. cu te dunda lo tartcita lo ctuca ki'u ma
*.i la .flufis. pu mrobi'o ni'i ma
 
Of course, the questions do not have to take these forms; if young Joey is a religious type, he might say la .flufis. pu mrobi'o ki'u ma, asking with what justification God took his rabbit from him, whereas if he is scientifically minded, he might ask la .flufis. pu mrobi'o ri'a ma, inquiring as to the physical cause of Fluffy's death.
 
To an English-speaker, this looks back-to-front (“It rains. Why?”) but there is really no reason why question-words have to come at the beginning of a sentence. However, if you prefer to start with ma, you can always use the full gismu, e.g.
 
:ma rinka lonu carvi
:what? physically-causes the-event rain
 
And since the position of sumti tcita in the bridi is fairly free, nothing is preventing you from saying
 
:ri'a ma carvi
 
Answers to ''why''-questions are usually not a whole sentence but an event abstraction-sumti, following Lojban's fill-in-the-slot approach to questions and answers; e.g.
 
*la .salis. cu darxi mi mu'i ma
*lonu do lacpu lei kerfa
 
This is short for the long-winded ''la salis. cu darxi do mu'i'' lonu do lacpu lei kerfa.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| cevni
|| x1 is a/the god/deity of people(s)/religion x2 with dominion over x3<nowiki> [sphere]; x</nowiki>1 is divine
 
|-
|| cmoni
|| x1<nowiki> utters moan/groan/howl/scream [non-linguistic utterance] x</nowiki>2 expressing x3 (property)
 
|-
|| danfu
|| x1<nowiki> is the answer/response/solution/[reply] to question/problem x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| manku
|| x1 is dark/lacking in illumination
 
|-
|| palci
|| x1<nowiki> is evil/depraved/wicked [morally bad] by standard x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| spebi'o
|| x1 marries x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 becomes a spouse of x2 under law/custom/tradition/system/convention x3 (speni ‘spouse’ + binxo ‘become’)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Translate the following questions.
 
#Why did Jim marry Samantha?
#Why's the dog barking?
#Why is it dark in here?
#Why is the answer 4.6?
#Why does God allow evil?
==Summary<span id="10.7"></span>==
 
In this lesson we have looked at four gismu for cause and effect and their corresponding sumti tcita:
{| class="wikitable"
|| ri'a
|| physical cause (rinka)
 
|-
|| mu'i
|| motive (mukti)
 
|-
|| ki'u
|| justification (krinu)
 
|-
|| ni'i
|| implication (nibli)
 
|}
 
We have also seen how sumti tcita can be converted with se and looked briefly at connecting sentences (.ije, .iseni'ibo.) The next lesson will look at connectives in more detail.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| ba'e
|| forethought emphasis indicator; indicates next word is especially emphasized
 
|-
|| carna
|| x1 turns/rotates/revolves around axis x2 in direction x3
 
|-
|| ckasu
|| x1 ridicules/mocks/scoffs at x2 about x3 (property/event) by doing activity x4 (event)
 
|-
|| clite
|| x1 is polite/courteous/civil in matter x2 according to standard/custom x3
 
|-
|| jubme
|| x1 is a table/flat solid upper surface of material x2, supported by legs/base/pedestal x3
 
|-
|| lanli
|| x1 analyzes/examines-in-detail x2 by method/technique/system x3<nowiki> [process/activity] </nowiki>
 
|-
|| manci
|| x1 feels wonder/awe/marvels about x2
 
|-
|| pi'o
|| used by... (sumti tcita from pilno ‘use’)
 
|-
|| sanmi
|| x1 (mass) is a meal composed of dishes including x2
 
|-
|| se ba'i
|| instead of... (sumti tcita from se basti ‘is replaced’)
 
|-
|| smaji
|| x1<nowiki> (source) is quiet/silent/[still] at observation point x</nowiki>2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| tarti
|| x1 behaves/conducts oneself as/in-manner x2 (event/property) under conditions x3
 
|-
|| tirna
|| x1 hears x2 against background/noise x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 is audible; (adjective:) x1 is aural
 
|-
|| voksa
|| x1 is a voice/speech sound of individual x2
 
|-
|| vi'irku'a
|| toilet (vikmi ‘excrete’ + kumfa ‘room’)
 
|-
|| xajmi
|| x1 is funny/comical to x2 in property/aspect x3 (nu/ka); x3 is what is funny about x1 to x2
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Translate from Lojban.
 
{{talkquote|Note: On occasion, it is useful to give bits of non-Lojban in a Lojban text, leaving it in its original spelling. This could be because we don't want to distort a name too much by ‘Lojbanising’ it, or because we're actually inserting a phrase from another language into the text. In both cases, we have to give an unambiguous signal where the non-Lojban text finishes, and the Lojban resumes.
 
To do this, the non-Lojban is surrounded on either side by a Lojban word — any word, as long as it doesn't occur inside the non-Lojban text. The most popular choice is gy., standing for glico ‘English’ (since that's where most non-Lojban text comes from these days).
 
If the text is a name, it is preceded by '''la'o''' instead of '''la'''. If it is a quotation, it is preceded by zoi instead of '''lu ... li'u'''.}}
 
#.i la .ranjit. cu smaji ca lonu la .suzyn. cu cpedu lo sanmi lo bevri kei ki'u lo nu ry. clite kei je lo nu ry. nelci lo voksa be la .suzyn. kei{{^| check all wrong usages of cpedu !! }}
#.i seri'a bo la .djiotis. cu kakne loka tirna lonu lo'i zutse pe lo ri'u jubme cu tavla simxu
#.i la .djiotis. mu'i lonu go'i cu carna fi lo ri'u jubme
#.i ni'i ku la .djiotis. na zgana lonu la .ranjit. cu tarti lonu simsa dy. kei mu'i lo nu ckasu
#.i la .suzyn. cu cmila semu'i lonu la .djiotis. cu carna fi sy.
#.i cusku lu .i mo li'u
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i la .ranjit. pu cusku lo xajmi pe la'o gy. Schönberg gy. .e. la'o gy. Stravinsky gy. li'u
#.i la .djiotis. mu'i cmoni cusku zoi gy. chootio! gy.
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translate into Lojban.
 
#After requesting the meal, Ranjeet leaves to go to the bathroom, so he cannot hear Jyoti.
#Jyoti talks so that she is like Ranjeet in complexity.
#She says “I shall now analyse the 47th creation (= composition) of Jimmy Bob Bach with this mirror — because I can.” (Hint: use la'o. You can come up with a word for ‘with’; look at the vocabulary list carefully..).
#Susan laughs, since Jyoti is as funny as Ranjeet. (Hint: use mintu)
#Jyoti says “Susan, why are you talking with Ranjeet about crap?” (Hint: do ''not'' use the Lojban word for ‘excrement’; the metaphor won't necessarily translate, and would be malglico. Instead, use ‘foolishness’).
#Susan says “Because he has ''awesome'' eyes.” (Hint: don't use the Lojban for ‘have’; the place structure of ‘eye’ will do this for you).
==Answers to Exercises<span id="10.8"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#ri'a, obviously.
#mu'i. Even if it is a classic ‘startle response’, my fear is not a ''direct'' result of the noise, but the result of some kind of cognitive interpretation, however low-level.
#Even the most dogmatic dialectical materialist would probably give mu'i here.
#ri'a, since the mold cannot really be said to be motivated by the plastic wrapper, or indeed by anything.
#I would say mu'i, since economics is determined by human motives, not physical laws. Note that here the x3 of mukti is not ‘prices’ (jdima) but those who increase the prices: manufacturers, retailers or the government.
'''Note: '''This is actually a classic example of the ‘invisible hand’ phenomena so beloved of economists: the result is not an ''intended'' result of human activities, but comes about as a side-effect of them. The best sumti tcita for this is actually one we happen not to have covered here: seja'e ‘as a result of’ (from jalge ‘result’).
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#ki'u, because at least somebody thought that it ''deserved'' an Oscar.
#mu'i: the exciting story motivated me to like the book.
#semu'i (an obscure example of British pub culture).
#ri'a: the artificial leg physically causes him to walk in a particular way.
#seni'i, even though it's a logical fallacy — just because a lot of Australians like Vegemite doesn't mean that she has to.
'''Cultural note: '''Vegemite is the Australian equivalent of the British Marmite; both are a salty paste that you spread on bread. Outside these two countries, nobody seems to like the stuff. Your Australian co-author did not spend his formative years in ‘God’s Own Country', so he never really did get a taste for it).
 
#A tricky one. You could say ri'a, meaning that the fact that the computer is running Linux physically prevents it from getting a virus, or you could possibly say ni'i, implying that it is an essential feature of Linux computers that they are immune to viruses.
'''Computer flamebait: '''One can argue that Macintoshes are immune to viruses only ki'u their being Macs, and not ni'i: they aren't inherently more secure than PCs, they just haven't been paid as much attention by crackers. This would of course be getting into geek wars; but we have a sneaking suspicion many of you will indeed be geeks...
 
#seki'u, whether or not you actually believe in Hell or the criteria for entering it. Note also that in English ''and'' sometimes has the sense of ''so'', which is not the case in Lojban:
do pu zergle .ije vi lo daptutra do ba jelca
 
It is true that you committed adultery and it is also true that you will burn in Hell
 
(literally: you past crime-copulate AND at-this-place the hell you future burn)
 
More about the logical (and non-logical) connectives follows in [[#11|the next lesson]].
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#seri'abo: The door is not only logically preventing you from going inside; it is ''physically'' preventing you.
#seni'ibo: It logically follows from the definition of ‘lock’ that, if you lock a door, the door is then closed.
#babo: there is no real causal connection between closing a door and leaving. You may be closing the door because you've finished your business there; but who's to say why you closed it, after all...
#''Either'' je; babo, ''or'' babo; babo. The actions don't follow from each other logically or physically. (If they follow at all, they follow by social convention; so you ''might'' have used seki'ubo.) With the first pair, you're at least allowing that you saw me at the same time I saw you. With the second pair, you definitely saw me only after I saw you.
#je<nowiki>; nothing. This is a syllogism like the Fluffy syllogism above; it follows from the </nowiki>''two'' facts — you greeting me and you being in front of me — that you have seen me. (Well, it doesn't ''really'' follow, but this is a lesson on Lojban, not logic.) So you need to join the two facts together with AND.
On the other hand, the ‘therefore’ is already there, as the ‘adverbial’ seni'i<nowiki>; so you don't need to insert it again for the third sentence. In fact, as we discussed later on, it would join the wrong sentences together anyway...</nowiki>
 
#seri'abo; seni'ibo. People fall as a physical result of being pushed. The definition of ‘fall’ logically requires that someone who has fallen is lower down than someone who hasn't fallen. (You don't fall upwards. Zero-gravity counterexamples — and you'll make a good Lojbanist if you came up with one — are already anticipated in the x4 place of farlu!)
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#la djim. cu spebi'o la .samantas. mu'i ma
#lo gerku ca cmoni mu'i ma (mu'i seems the best choice, since we can assume that dogs bark as a response to something, and are thus motivated rather than physically caused to bark. Note that cu is possible here instead of ca<nowiki>; I have used </nowiki>ca since it seems important that the dog is barking ''now'').
#vi manku ri'a ma (It isn't really necessary to translate the ''in'', since the speaker is probably inside anyway).
#li vopixa cu danfu ni'i ma (Give yourself a pat on the back if you got that one right! Numbers and mathematical problems belong to the realm of logic, not the physical world).
#lo cevni cu curmi lonu palci kei ki'u ma (ki'u is best here, since a religious believer would probably look for some justification for the existence of evil, rather than a physical cause or personal motivation. Some theologians might prefer ni'i, I suppose! The kei is necessary because you're asking a question about the allowing, not about the evil itself).
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#Ranjeet is silent while Susan requests a meal from the carrier (= waiter), because (justification) he is polite and because he likes Susan's voice. (Note the kei: only the first kei is absolutely necessary, and by now you should be able to work out why).
#As a (physical) result, Jyoti can hear the ones sitting at the table to the right talking to each other. (simxu takes a set as its x1<nowiki>; more on this in </nowiki>[[#14|Lesson 14]]. lo ri'u jubme means ‘the table to the right’: selbri can take sumti tcita and locations as ‘tenses’, just like they do time tenses).
#Jyoti, because (motivation) of this, turns towards the table to the right.
#Necessarily (= with something logically causing this), Jyoti does not observe that Ranjeet behaves as resembling her in order to mock (i.e. Ranjeet is imitating her) (The logical cause in ni'i ku has been left out, but is presumably the previous sentence. Without the kei, the mocking would be associated with simsa rather than tarti — although there's ultimately isn't that much difference in meaning between the two. Unambiguity doesn't always buy you that much).
#Susan laughs, causing (motivating) Jyoti to turn to her.
#(She) says “What?”
#Susan says “Ranjeet said something funny to do with Schönberg and Stravinsky.”
#Jyoti thus (motivation) groans “Chootio!” (Gujarati for ‘jerk’) (Like any other sumti tcita, mu'i can also be used as a ‘tense’).
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
#.i ba lonu cpedu lo sanmi kei la .ranjit. cu cliva mu'i lonu klama lo vi'irku'a kei se ri'a lonu ry. na kakne loka tirna la .djiotis. (or: ra na kakne)
#.i la .djiotis. cu tavla semu'i lonu ri simsa la .ranjit. lo ka pluja
#.i dy./lo go'i/la .djiotis./ra cusku lu .i mi lanli lo vozemoi se finti be la'o gy. Jimmy Bob Bach gy. se pi'o lo vi minra mu'i lonu mi kakne li'u (''or'' la .djimis.bab.bax.. You could say lo vozemoi se finti pe fi'e ..., but that would mean exactly the same thing. If the composition rather than the analysis happened with a mirror, you would say lo vozemoi se finti be la'o gy. Jimmy Bob Bach gy. be'o ne se pi'o lo vi minra.
You could also say lo vozemoi be lo'i se finti be ... , in which case you're either brilliant, or you've been reading ahead..).
 
#.i la .suzyn. cu cisma ki'u lonu la .djiotis. cu mintu la .ranjit. lo ka xajmi
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i doi suzyn. mu'i ma do <nowiki>[simxu]</nowiki> tavla la .ranjit. loi se bebna li'u (loi se bebna, ‘the thing one is foolish in’, is better here than loi nu bebna or loi ka bebna).
#.i lu .i lonu ry./lo se go'i/la ranjit./ra cu se kanla lo ba'e se manci li'u (This is an extra-idiomatic way of saying things; kudos if you got it, don't be too worried if you didn't).
=Chapter 11. Putting it together: Lojban connectives<span id="11"></span>=
 
All languages need ways to connect words, phrases and sentences. In English there are a host of words for this purpose: ''and, or, because, additionally, however, on the other hand'' ... the list seems endless, as foreign students of English know all too well. Lojban also has a wide variety of words like this, known as '''connectives''', but it is more systematic about it. (Lojban also handles some of the functions of English conjunctions in other ways — as we saw, ''because'' and ''so'' are translated with sumti tcita, not connectives).
 
There are two types of connective: logical and non-logical. Logical connectives say something about whether and in what circumstances the two things connected are true; an example is .ije. Non-logical connectives do not deal with separate truth values, but group things together to form different kinds of units; an example is joi, which we've already seen in passing, and we'll be discussing again below.
 
Moreover, Lojban distinguishes between the logical component of connectives, and their attitudinal content. For example, most languages have different words for ''and'' and ''but''. Logically, they both mean the same thing. In terms of attitude, however, they are different: ''but'' contains a connotation of contrast or unexpectedness, which ''and'' does not. So Lojban translates ''but'' in two parts: je ku'i ‘and — however'. This follows the Lojban principle of keeping content and attitude separate as far as possible (e.g. '''.ui la .djiotis. cu klama ti''' has a content element — the information that Jyoti is coming here, and an attitude element — happiness).
 
In this lesson we will only look at logical connectives; non-logical connectives (with one exception) will be dealt with later, along with some other attitudinals.
 
==Types of logical connectives<span id="11.1"></span>==
 
In order to understand Lojban connectives, we first need to look at logical connectives in general. The types of logical connective in Lojban are based on truth tables and are explained in detail in Chapter 14 of ''The Complete Lojban Language''. However, if you're not a logician, this can be rather confusing, so here I'll look at them in terms of Boolean operators. If you haven't a clue what a Boolean operator is, don't panic; they are very simple, and you may even have used them in an internet search without realising it. On the other hand, if you've used Boolean operators in maths or computer programming, the rest is a piece of cake. The operators we will look at here are AND, OR, EOR, IF and IFF.
 
We have already looked at one operator: AND. A statement with AND is true if and only if both elements are true. For example, if you do an internet search for “games AND strategy”, the search engine will only come up with pages that contain both games and strategy: you will get pages on strategy games, for example, but not (ideally) on simulation games or military strategy. Similarly in Lojban
 
:la .flufis. cu ractu .ije ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive
 
is false if Fluffy is not a rabbit, or if some rabbits are long-lived. It is only true if both sentences are true.
 
The next type we need to look at is OR. This is not always, or even usually, the same as the English word ''or''. English is vague about ''or'', which sometimes means ‘one or the other or both’, but sometimes means ‘one or the other but not both’. Compare these two sentences:
 
#If it's cold or rainy we'll stay inside.
#The winner of the competition will receive a holiday in Hawaii or the cash equivalent.
In the first sentence common sense tells us that if it is both cold and rainy we will also stay inside. However, in the second case, the winner would have a hard time convincing the competition organisers that he/she is entitled to both the holiday and the cash. The first case is a genuine logical OR; the second is called an EOR, for ‘exclusive or’ (or sometimes XOR — I use EOR because it reminds me of the donkey in ''Winnie the Pooh''). You can think of OR as ‘and/or' and EOR as ‘either/or'.
 
English has similar problems with the word ''if''. Sentence (1) is unclear as to what will happen if it is neither cold nor rainy. We assume that in this case we will go out, but this is not necessarily the case. Strictly speaking, we might stay inside even if the weather is beautiful. In fact there are two potential meanings here:
 
#IF it's cold or rainy we'll stay inside.
#IFF it's cold or rainy we'll stay inside.
The first means “If it's cold or rainy we'll stay inside (but we may stay inside anyway)”, while the second means “''If and only if'' it's cold or rainy, we'll stay inside (otherwise we'll definitely go out)”.
 
Just to make the difference clear, here are some examples:
 
:''Romeo loves Juliet'' AND ''Juliet loves Romeo''
 
means that both statements are true, i.e. Romeo and Juliet love each other.
 
:''Romeo loves Juliet'' OR ''Juliet loves Romeo''
 
means that one of them loves the other, and perhaps both of them do.
 
:''Romeo loves Juliet'' EOR ''Juliet loves Romeo''
 
means that ''either'' Romeo loves Juliet (but Juliet doesn't love him) ''or'' Juliet loves Romeo (but he doesn't love her).
 
:''Romeo loves Juliet'' IF ''Juliet loves Romeo''
 
means that if Juliet loves Romeo, he definitely loves her, but he may love her anyway (the only outcome which is impossible is that Juliet loves Romeo but he doesn't love her).
 
:''Romeo loves Juliet'' IFF ''Juliet loves Romeo''
 
means that if Juliet loves Romeo, he loves her, and if she doesn't love him, he doesn't love her.
 
The basic operators OR, AND and IFF are represented in Lojban by the words '''ja, je''' and '''jo'''.
 
{{^|*'''i''' is not used for logical connectives, since it is already in use as a sentence separator.}}
*'''ju''' is a special case, taking the logical meaning ‘whether or not’ — in other words, it emphasises that the second value does not affect the truth of the sentence.
*The other operators, EOR and IF, are based on these vowels combined with negatives. As we shall see below, EOR is '''jonai''' and IF is '''janai'''.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: There is some controversy in the Lojban community about whether natural language ''if'' is best expressed as a logical connective (IF, IFF), or as a sumti tcita. There are a couple of strikes against IF. One is that its logical analysis, NOT A OR B, isn't terribly obvious. Another is that IFF is often what is meant, rather than IF. Yet another is that natural language ''if'' is strongly tied up with notions of causality, precondition, or deduction — none of which is particularly emphasised by IF as a strictly logical connective. For example, logical IF will give a poor rendering of “It's not true that, if I'm rich, I'm happy” — which is decidedly not the same thing as “It's not true that I'm either not rich or happy”!
 
For that reason, you will see many Lojbanists avoiding IF, and instead using sumti tcita like fau ‘in the event of...’, va'o ‘under conditions...’, seja'e ‘results from ... happening’, or ni'i ‘logically caused by...’}}
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
In the following, work out whether the logical relationship represented by the emphasised word is closer to OR, EOR, IF, or IFF.
 
#''If'' you're naughty, I won't get you any ice cream.
#''If'' Jack Kennedy is the president of the United States, this must be the twentieth century.
#''If'' I drink too many strawberry daquiris, I get a hangover.
#Call now for a free consultation ''or'' quote!
#I can come up with six ''or'' seven reasons why that won't work.
#Liechtenstein's next to Switzerland ''or'' Austria or something.
==Connecting sumti<span id="11.2"></span>==
 
The most common connective for sumti is AND. In fact we've already seen this as early as [[#7|Lesson 7]]: .i ko'a je ko'i xanka cmila (“Jyoti and Susan laugh nervously”). Here's another example:
 
:mi ralte pa gerku je re mlatu
:I keep one dog AND two cat
:I've got a dog and two cats.
 
This is actually a contracted way of saying “It is true that I have a dog; it is true that I have two cats,” or in Lojban,
 
:mi ralte pa lo gerku .ije mi ralte re lo mlatu
 
Not all English sentences containing ''and'' are like this, though. Firstly, sentences like “I had a bath and washed my hair” are structurally different and will be dealt with later on. Secondly, “I visited Ranjeet and Jyoti” is slightly different from “I visited Ranjeet AND I visited Jyoti.” In this case, you probably want to say that you visited Ranjeet-and-Jyoti ''as a unit'' on one occasion — not that you visited Ranjeet and Jyoti on (potentially) different occasions (“It is true that I visited Ranjit, and it is true that I visited Jyoti.”) In this case you don't want '''je''' (which is true but potentially misleading), but '''joi''', which means ‘in a mass with’. So what you have is
 
:mi pu vitke la .ranjit. joi la .djiotis.
:I past visit Ranjeet in-a-mass-with Jyoti
:I visited Ranjeet and Jyoti (together).
 
You've seen '''joi''' before, too: in [[#5|Lesson 5]], where Marx and Engels wrote ''The Communist Manifesto'' as a joint project, rather than individually ('''la marks. joi la .engels. finti lo guntrusi'o selpeicku'''.) This is just like the difference between '''lo ci gerku''' and '''loi ci gerku''' which we looked at in [[#4|Lesson 4]] — considering the three dogs as individuals, or as a mass. Incidentally, it is not just Lojban which makes this distinction; Turkish, for example, would use ''ile'' (‘with’) rather than ''ve'' (‘and’) for '''joi''' here.
 
We can also use OR here. For example,
 
:mi ba vitke lo mi mamta ja lo mi tamne
:I future visit the me mother OR the me cousin
:I'll visit my mother or my cousin.
 
This leaves open the possibility that I will get round to visiting both of them at some point. If I want to say that that I will visit either my mother or my cousin but not both, I need EOR. For this we use .onai. This is actually a negative IFF, which sounds confusing, but is quite simple and logical. “If and only if I do not visit my cousin, I will visit my mother” logically implies that, if I visit my cousin, I will not visit my mother, and vice versa; so I will visit either my mother or my cousin but not both. So we have
 
:mi ba vitke lo mi mamta jonai lo mi tamne
:I future visit the me mother EOR the me cousin
:I'll visit either my mother or my cousin.
 
It is probably obvious that '''jo''' means IFF, so “I will visit my mother if (and only if) I visit my cousin” would be '''mi ba vitke lo mi mamta jo lo mi tamne'''. If, for some strange reason, I want to use IF and say that I will definitely visit my mother if I visit my cousin, but I may visit her anyway, I need another negative: '''janai'''. But since this is rare in sumti connection, I'll leave that till later.
 
Finally, there is '''ju''', meaning ‘whether or not’. This is not a standard Boolean operator, but I've called it WON for convenience. In this way I can say
 
:mi ba vitke lo mi mamta ju lo mi tamne
:I future visit the me mother WON the me cousin
:I'll visit my mother whether or not I visit my cousin.
 
To sum up:
{| class="wikitable"
|| OR
|| ja
 
|-
|| AND
|| je
 
|-
|| IFF
|| jo
 
|-
|| WON
|| ju
 
|-
|| IF
|| janai
 
|-
|| EOR
|| jonai
 
|}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| cinynei
|| x1 fancies x2 (cinse ‘sex’ + nelci ‘like’)
 
|-
|| finpe
|| x1 is a fish of species x2
 
|-
|| jisra
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of juice/nectar from-source/of-type x2
 
|-
|| narju
|| x1<nowiki> is orange [color adjective]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| nimre
|| x1<nowiki> is a quantity of citrus [fruit/tree, etc.] of species/strain x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| patlu
|| x1<nowiki> is a potato [an edible tuber] of variety/cultivar x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| pelxu
|| x1<nowiki> is yellow/golden [color adjective]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| ralte
|| x1 retains/keeps/holds x2 in its possession
 
|-
|| rasyjukpa
|| fry (grasu ‘grease’ + jukpa ‘cook’)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Express the following in Lojban. Don't try to translate the English word for word; work out what the Boolean operator is first, then work from that.
 
#Susan fancies Zhang or Ranjeet, or maybe both of them.
#I like fish and chips.
#Request (= order) the lemon juice or the orange juice. (Hint: Build expressions for ‘lemon’ and ‘orange’ (the fruit) as tanru).
#I want the beer, whether or not I want the curry. (Hint: This is a single bridi, ‘want’!)
#If I go from Boston to Washington, I'll go all the way to Atlanta. (Hint: This too involves a single bridi).
==Connectives in tanru<span id="11.3"></span>==
 
tanru have been lurking in these lessons since [[#2|Lesson 2]] without a proper explanation; so before discussing connectives in tanru, it's worth looking at how tanru normally work.
 
As we've seen before, we can put two or more words into a selbri or sumti place. An example is the aforementioned ‘Communist manifesto’, lo guntrusi'o selpeicku.
 
{{talkquote|Note: Actually, I cheated a little here; since this is the title of a specific book, not just any old manifesto, it would be better to say la'e lu guntrusi'o selpeicku li'u “the-referent-of quote Communist Manifesto unquote” — but that would be tedious.}}
 
Let's start with a simpler example, though.
 
:xunre cukta
:<nowiki>[there is a] red [type-of] book</nowiki>
 
The first element of the tanru modifies or restricts the second element, in some unspecified way. What happens if there are three or more elements, though? Like many other features of Lojban grammar, tanru follow a left-grouping rule, which means that the element on the far left modifies the next one, then those two together modify the next, and so on. For example, in a careless moment I once described ''The Complete Lojban Language'' as lo barda xunre cukta since it is, indeed, big and red. However, lo barda xunre cukta does not mean this; it means “the {(big type-of red) type-of book}” and it is hard to imagine what “big type of red” would mean.
 
There are various ways to get out of the left-grouping rule when you need to; we'll see some in [[#14|Lesson 14]], but the simplest one here is to use a logical connective and say
 
:lo barda je xunre cukta
:the {(big AND red) book}
:The big red book.
 
:la .suzyn. cu cinynei ro xajmi ja melbi nanmu
:Susan fancy all {(funny OR beautiful) man}
:Susan fancies men who are funny or handsome (or both).
 
<center>Warning</center>
 
This sentence is still true even if Susan also likes men who are ''not'' funny or handsome. In natural language, social conventions means you wouldn't normally say such a sentence in that case, because it would be misleading. Lojban is stricter about these things, so you might want to add '''po'o''' ‘only’ (see [[#13|Lesson 13]]), or use a relative clause: ro nanmu poi se cinynei la .suzyn. cu xajmi ja melbi. We'll stick with the vaguer sentences here, though.
 
 
 
Let's say that Susan finds the qualities of humour and good looks attractive but incompatible — she fancies Woody Allen and Steven Seagal, but thinks a mixture of the two would be just too much. We would then say
 
:la .suzyn. cu cinynei ro xajmi jonai melbi nanmu
:Susan fancy all {(funny EOR beautiful) man}
:Susan fancies men who are either funny or handsome (but not both).
 
On the other hand, Jyoti is turned on by funny men, and doesn't care about their looks at all. Woody Allen would do fine, but Steven Seagal wouldn't stand a chance unless he could tell a few jokes (funnier than Schwarzenegger's, preferably.) What we need here is
 
:la .djiotis. cu cinynei ro xajmi ju melbi nanmu
:Jyoti fancy all {(funny WON beautiful) man}
:Jyoti fancies funny men, whether they are handsome or not.
 
As you'll remember from [[#10|last lesson]], this kind of connective is also used to connect sentences, placed next to .i. So if I wanted to say “Either Susan fancies funny men, or Susan fancies handsome men”, I need only say
 
:.i la .suzyn. cu cinynei ro xajmi nanmu .ijonai la .suzyn. cu cinynei ro melbi nanmu
 
<center>Warning</center>
 
Be careful not to confuse this kind of connection with sumti connectives. '''mi ba vitke lo mi mamta je lo mi speni''' is not the same as '''mi ba vitke lo mi mamta je speni'''. The first means that I will visit my mother and my spouse (probably on separate occasions). The second means that I will visit a person who is both my mother and my spouse, which implies that I have a ''really'' serious Oedipus complex.
 
'''je''' and '''joi''' act as both sumti connectives and tanru connectives. However, don't forget to put '''lo''' where needed as in the example above.
 
This means you can say '''loi jisra joi jdacu ‘the juice-and-water-mixture’; but you have to say '''loi jisra joi loi djacu''' ‘the juice and the water, considered together’.{{^| removed YACC "ku joi lo" rule here. Yippee! }}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| kukte
|| x1 is delicious/tasty/delightful to observer/sense x2<nowiki> [person, or sensory activity]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| nabmi
|| x1 (event/state) is a problem to/encountered by x2 in situation/task/inquiry x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Translate the following from Lojban.
 
#la .ranjit. cu pinxe loi vanju jonai birje
#la .ranjit. cu pinxe loi vanju joi birje
#la .natraj. cu barja je gusta
#da se spusku ju danfu lo nabmi
#la .djang. cu klama je penmi je tavla la .suzyn.
#ro prenu cu fengu naja xanka loka se xebni
#la .ranjit. cu nelci loi kukte ja cpina
#mi bilga jenai kakne loka klama lo barja
==Connecting bridi tails<span id="11.4"></span>==
 
Many human languages — English among them — divide sentences into two parts: the subject, and the rest. In mainstream linguistic parlance, these get called the '''noun phrase''' and the '''verb phrase'''. (We've mostly managed to avoid so far the kind of grammar talk that might have sent shivers down your spine at school. Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit..).
 
Now the thing about subjects is, we tend to talk about them a lot. In fact, it's not unusual to string together a series of sentences, each with the same subject. From sentence to sentence, you keep saying what the same person did, or was. This means you're keeping the subject constant, and changing the rest of the sentence.
 
This makes for an obvious shortcut: rather than repeat the same subject in two sentences, keep everything in one sentence, with a single subject, and join together the two ‘rest-of-the-sentences’. For example, why say ''Nick went to California. And Nick stayed there for three years'', when you can join them together as ''Nick went to California, and stayed there for three years''?
 
Lojban, being spoken by human beings (ostensibly), is not immune to this kind of pressure. Strictly speaking, Lojban doesn't have noun phrases and verb phrases. However, it does have zero or more sumti in front of the selbri, and then a selbri followed by zero or more other sumti. The selbri with its trailing sumti can be considered the '''tail''' of the bridi (corresponding to the verb phrase), where the initial sumti (if any!) are its '''head''' (corresponding to the noun phrase).
 
Lojban allows you to join bridi-tails using a different series of logical connectives. You just add the word '''gi''' in front of our logical connectives. So the bridi-tail connective version of AND is '''gi je'''.
 
So what is this good for? Quite simply, you can take sentences like
 
:.i la .nik. cu klama la .kalifornias. .ije la .nik. cu stali la .kalifornias. ze'a lo nanca be li ci
 
and change them into the much more stylish
 
:.i la .nik. cu klama la .kalifornias. gije stali la .kalifornias. ze'a lo nanca be li ci
 
— or, indeed, the even more stylish (and much less like English)
 
:.i la .nik. la .kalifornias. cu klama gije stali ze'a lo nanca be li ci
 
You'll be seeing a lot of '''gije''' in Lojban for that reason.
 
{{talkquote|Note: '''ze'a''' as a sumti tcita? Sure, and you shouldn't be surprised at this by now. Anything that can be used as a tense can be used as a sumti tcita, and vice versa. Since '''ze'a''' as a tense specifies duration, as a sumti tcita it introduces the duration of the bridi. So it corresponds precisely to ''for'' in English.}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| bruna
|| x1 is brother of/fraternal to x2 by bond/tie/standard/parent(s) x3<nowiki>; [not necess. biological]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| dunli
|| x1 is equal/congruent to/as much as x2 in property/dimension/quantity x3
 
|-
|| gunta
|| x1 (person/mass) attacks/invades/commits aggression upon victim x2 with goal/objective x3
 
|-
|| jatna
|| x1 is captain/commander/leader/in-charge/boss of vehicle/domain x2
 
|-
|| jikca
|| x1 interacts/behaves socially with x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 socializes with/is sociable towards x2
 
|-
|| kratr­senatore
|| x1 is a senator representing x2 in senate x3
 
|-
|| mansa
|| x1 satisfies evaluator x2 in property (ka)/state x3
 
|-
|| misno
|| x1 (person/object/event) is famous/renowned/is a celebrity among community of persons x2 (mass)
 
|-
|| nupre
|| x1 (agent) promises/commits/assures/threatens x2 (event/state) to x3<nowiki> [beneficiary/victim]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| slabu
|| x1 is old/familiar/well-known to observer x2 in feature x3 (ka) by standard x4
 
|-
|| speni
|| x1 is married to x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a spouse of x2 under law/custom/tradition/system/convention x3
 
|-
|| tinbe
|| x1 obeys/follows the command/rule x2 made by x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is obedient
 
|-
|| vlipa
|| x1 has the power to bring about x2 under conditions x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is powerful in aspect x2 under x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Combine the following pairs of Lojban sentences into a single sentence. Get as many common sumti as possible into the bridi-head. Use conversion liberally.
 
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu jatna lo merko .i la .djak.kenedis. bruna la .rabyrt.kenedis.
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu speni la .djaklin.buvier. .i la .djak.kenedis. cu se catra la .lis.xarvis.azuald.
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu nupre lonu lo merko cu cadzu lo lunra .i la .nasas. cu tinbe fi la .djak.kenedis.
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu tavla fi la .kubas. .i la .djak.kenedis. cu gunta la .kubas.
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu mansa lei merko loka vlipa .i la .djak.kenedis. cu ckasu la .nikitas.xrucTCOF. loka vlipa
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu sutra tavla .i la .djak.kenedis. na denpa
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu jikca la .MErilin.monROS. .i la .djak.kenedis. cu djuno lodu'u la .MErilin.monROS. cu misno
#.i mi la .djak.kenedis. cu se slabu .i la .djak.kenedis. pu pendo mi .i do doi kratrsenatore na dunli la .djak.kenedis.
==Asking about connectives<span id="11.5"></span>==
 
*How can you tell someone is a computer programmer?
*You ask them “Do you want milk or sugar?”, and they answer “Yes.”
 
In natural languages, that kind of answer is liable to get you a clip around the ears. That is because natural languages are run not only by logic, but also by social conventions. And one of the most important social conventions about language (''Gricean informativeness'', for those taking third year linguistics courses) is that, whatever you say, you should say enough to fully inform your listener about what's going on. If I ask “Do you want milk or sugar?”, I need that information in order to prepare you a cup of coffee to your liking. Answering me “yes” doesn't give me much to go on.
 
As far as strict logic is concerned, though, “Yes” is the only proper answer, as computer programmers (and logicians, and Lojbanists) discover much to their amusement — and to the irritation of the rest of the world. That is because the question is phrased as a yes/no question; and OR, in the question, does not behave any differently as a logical connective than AND. (“Yes” ''is'' an appropriate answer to “Do you want milk ''and'' sugar?” Of course, now it's “No” which is not helpful as an answer).
 
The same holds for Lojban, of course: '''.i xu do djica lonu jmina loi ladru ja loi sakta''' is a yes/no-question, and the only proper answers are '''.i go'i''' and '''.i na go'i'''{{^| heh, never added .i before in such answers! needs to be added everywhere. Why not teach .i from the beginning?}}. What you should actually be asking, if you want to be logically correct, is “Identify which of the following you want: milk, sugar.”
 
You could say that, but it's not much like Lojban's fill-in-the-slot approach. Instead, Lojban sneakily asks you to fill in a slot you might not have expected: not the ‘milk’ slot, or the ‘sugar’ slot, but the ''connective'' slot:
 
:.i do djica lonu jmina loi ladru ji loi sakta
:You want to add milk ___ sugar.
 
By filling in the slot, you get to pick what you want. If you say '''je''', you are saying the sentence '''.i do djica lonu jmina loi ladru je loi sakta''' — in other words, you want both. If you say .enai, you are using the AND NOT connective, which negates what follows it: so you are saying “I want milk, ''and not'' sugar.” If you want to negate what went before the connective instead, you use '''na je'''. (You can negate what goes before ''any'' connective by putting na in front of it.) So if you answer '''na je''', you are saying “I want ''not'' milk, ''and'' sugar” (or, as is more usual in English, “not milk, but sugar”) — which means that you are picking only sugar. If you want neither, you can negate both sides: '''na je nai'''. You can still be unhelpful with your response: '''ja''' would leave us right where we started, for instance. But at least this way you have a logically consistent way of picking alternatives presented to you.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: Be careful, though: this kind of question doesn't really generalise past two alternatives, so you may still have to fall back on the ‘pick zero or more alternatives out of the following’ approach.}}
 
You can ask questions in the same way about the other kinds of connectives we have looked at. The connective interrogative for bridi-tails is '''gi ji'''.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| spita
|| x1 is a hospital treating patient(s) x2 for condition/injuries/disease/illness x3
 
|-
|| stali
|| x1 remains/stays at/abides/lasts with x2
 
|-
|| tadni
|| x1 studies/is a student of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a scholar; (adjective:) x1 is scholarly
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Answer these questions in Lojban.
 
#.i la .ranjit. cu penmi la .suzyn. vi lo barja ji lo spita
#.i la .djiotis. cu stali lo barja giji klama lo gusta
#.i la .djang cu. tadni loi xumske giji nelci loi dotco birje
#.i la .djiotis. cu pendo la .lis.xarvis.azuald. ji la .ranjit.
#.i la .suzyn. cu nelci loi dotco ji fraso birje (Hint: Just as you thought: you have no idea whether Susan likes French beer or not. You should still be able to come up with a connective that reflects that).
==Summary<span id="11.6"></span>==
 
In this lesson, we have covered:
 
*Lojban logical connectives (AND, OR, EOR, WON, IF, IFF)
*Non-logical connectives (joi)
*sumti and tanru connectives (ja, je, jo, ju, jonai, janai)
*bridi-tail connectives (gija, gije, gijo, giju, gijonai, gijanai)
*Asking questions about logical connectives (ji, giji)
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| bakni
|| x1<nowiki> is a cow/cattle/kine/ox/[bull/steer/calf] [beef-producer/bovine] of species/breed x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| cidjrkebabi
|| x1 is a kebab (Yet another one of those funny-shaped words..).
 
|-
|| djacu
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity/expanse of water; (adjective:) x1<nowiki> is aqueous/[aquatic]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| fange
|| x1<nowiki> is alien/foreign/[exotic]/unfamiliar to x</nowiki>2 in property x3 (ka)
 
|-
|| jipci
|| x1<nowiki> is a chicken/[hen/cock/rooster]/small fowl [a type of bird] of species/breed x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| ju'i
|| Pay Attention! Followed by the name of the person; same grammar as doi and coi (selma'o COI)
 
|-
|| kensa
|| x1 is outer space near/associated with celestial body/region x2
 
|-
|| lanme
|| x1<nowiki> is a sheep/[lamb/ewe/ram] of species/breed x</nowiki>2 of flock x3
 
|-
|| nanba
|| x1<nowiki> is a quantity of/contains bread [leavened or unleavened] made from grains x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| pencu
|| x1 (agent) touches x2 with x3<nowiki> [a locus on x</nowiki>1 or an instrument] at x4<nowiki> [a locus on x</nowiki>2]
 
|-
|| sabji
|| x1 (source) provides/supplies/furnishes x2<nowiki> [supply/commodity] to x</nowiki>3<nowiki> [recipient]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| sluni
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains onions/scallions of type/cultivar x2
 
|-
|| spaji
|| x1<nowiki> (event/action abstract) surprises/startles/is unexpected [and generally sudden] to x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| zdile
|| x1 (abstract) is amusing/entertaining to x2 in property/aspect x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>3 is what amuses x2 about x1
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translate from Lojban.
 
#.i lo bevri cu klama lo jubme pe lo ci pendo gije cusku lu .i do djica lonu do citka ma li'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i do ca sabji lo mo cidjrkari ja cidjrkebabi li'u
#.i lo bevri cu cusku lu .i lanme ja bakni ja jipci li'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i mi djica lo bakni cidjrkari je lo sluni nanba li'u
#.i lo bevri fi la .djiotis. cu dunda fe loi djacu gije cusku fe lu .i do djica ma li'u
#.i la .djiotis cu cusku lu .i lo cidjrkari li'u
#.iseki'ubo lo bevri cu cusku lu .i lanme ji bakni li'u
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i naje li'u
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
Translate into Lojban.
 
#The waiter turns to Susan, smiles, and says “Lamb or beef?”
#Susan either didn't hear the waiter, or didn't pay attention to him.
#Jyoti touches Susan on the shoulder and says “Hey, Susan?”
#Susan is surprised, and says “Um... Chicken.”
#Jyoti says “Hope you enjoyed travelling through outer space — whether or not you met any aliens.” (Use an attitudinal for ‘Hope.’)
==Answers to exercises<span id="11.7"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#IFF. In English, we expect that IFF is what is meant, anyway; but a very legalistic (and horridly mean) parent can still say “I said I wouldn't get you ice cream if you were naughty; I never said I'd get you ice cream if you were nice.” That's because ''if'' in English logically means IF, and only conventionally means the stronger IFF. This conventional kind of meaning goes by the name of '''implicature'''<nowiki>; and implicature has always been something of an issue in Lojban, since humans expect it, but it's not really anything to do with logic.</nowiki>
#Definitely IF: If Calvin Coolidge is president, it's still the twentieth century.
#IF. If this was IFF, the relation would be symmetrical, so you should be able to say ''If I get a hangover, I've drunk too many strawberry daquiris.'' But daquiris aren't the only way to get a hangover, so this doesn't follow.
#The reputable members of the business community who say this kind of thing will hardly begrudge you a quote if you've already called for a consultation; so this is OR.
#EOR: You may be being imprecise, but you're not being nonsensical — the number of reasons you can come up with can't be both six and seven.
#OR: As it turns out, it's next to both. (Nick met some people from Liechtenstein once, actually. They found the name of their capital hilarious..).
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#la .suzyn. cu cinynei la .djang. ja la .ranjit.
#'''mi nelci loi finpe joi loi se rasyjukpa patlu''' (or any reasonable facsimile thereof: '''loi patlu poi se rasyjukpa, loi rasyjukpa patlu''', or anything of the sort).
'''je''' is possible, but '''joi''' is better, since we are probably talking about fish and chips together.
 
#ko cpedu lo pelxu nimre jisra jonai lo narju nimre jisra (When you order your beverage, you are not normally expected to order more than one.) {{^| someone doesnt remember how cpedu should be used }}
#mi djica lo birje ju lo cidjrkari{{^| where is tu'a??? }}
#mi klama la .uacintyn jo la .atlantas. la .bastn. (Yes, this was meant to be tricky. In particular, it involves IFF rather than IF, since to get from Boston to Atlanta, you would likely go via Washington. So you cannot go to Atlanta without going to Washington, and you've just said you won't go to Washington without going to Atlanta).
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#Ranjeet drinks something which is either wine or beer.
#Ranjeet drinks wine mixed with beer (.aunai)
#''Natraj'' is a bar and restaurant (i.e. a bistro, or a licensed restaurant).
#''x'' is a response, whether or not it is an answer to the question.
#Zhang goes up to, meets, and talks to Susan.
This might lead you to ask what the place structure of a tanru is. The answer is, it is the place structure of its final gismu — however it is connected with the rest of the tanru.
#All people are, if angry, then anxious about being hated.
#Ranjeet likes tasty or spicy things. (The normal implication in English, made explicit in Lojban, is to add “or both”. This is an implicature, as described in Exercise 1).
#I should but cannot go to the bar. (Not a typo: '''jenai''' builds a new connective, AND NOT, since what follows it gets negated).
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu jatna lo merko gije bruna la .rabyrt.kenedis. “Jack Kennedy was leader of America and brother of Robert Kennedy.”
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu speni la .djaklin.buvier. gije se catra la .lis.xarvis.azuald. “Jack Kennedy was married to Jacquelin Bouvier and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.”
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu nupre lonu lo merko cu cadzu lo lunra kei gije te tinbe fi la .nasas. “Jack Kennedy promised that an American would walk on the moon, and was obeyed by NASA.” (The conversion works out in putting Kennedy as the x1 of both bridi).
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu tavla fi la .kubas. gije gunta la .kubas. “Jack Kennedy talked about Cuba and attacked Cuba.” (You can't get Cuba into the bridi-head, because it's in different places in the two bridi: x4 in the first bridi, x2 in the second).
#.i la .djak.kenedis fi loka vlipa cu mansa fe loi merko gije ckasu fe la .nikitas.xrucTCOF. “Jack Kennedy, as regards power, satisfied the Americans, and mocked Nikita Khrushchev.” (Tricky, tricky, I know. The x1 and x3 are the same; so with some clever usage of fi — and fe, so that the next sumti doesn't get taken for x4 — this can be made to work).
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu sutra tavla gije na denpa — or equivalently, .i la .djak.kenedis. cu sutra tavla gijenai denpa “Jack Kennedy talked fast and didn't pause.”
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu jikca la .MErilin.monROS. gije djuno lodu'u la .MErilin.monROS. cu misno “Jack Kennedy socialised with Marilyn Monroe and knew that Marilyn Monroe was famous.” (Marilyn isn't in the same place in the two bridi: she's in x2 in the first bridi, but in a sumti ''within'' an abstraction in x2 in the second bridi).
#.i la .djak.kenedis. cu slabu mi gije pu pendo mi gijenai se dunli do doi kratrsenatore “Jack Kennedy was familiar to me and was my friend, and is not equalled by you, senator.” (If it wasn't for the third sentence, you could have fit the mi into the bridi-head. The original text, famously spoken by Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle in the 1988 American Vice-Presidential debate, is: “I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.”)
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#jenai (“Does Ranjeet meet Susan at the bar or the hospital?”)
#nagije (“Does Jyoti stay at the bar or go to the restaurant?”)
#gije, because he does both. (“Does Zhang study chemistry or like German beer?”)
#naje — in all likelihood. (“Is Jyoti is a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald's or of Ranjeet's?”)
#naju. Think about it... (“Does Susan like German or French beer?”)
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
#The waiter goes to the three friends' table and says “What would you like to eat?”
#Ranjeet says “What curries or kebabs are you serving now?” (There's no reason you can't use mo in a tanru. As usual, this asks for the listener to fill in the blank. The way Lojban works, mo cidjrkari ja cidjrkebabi is interpreted as mo {cidjrkari ja cidjrkebabi} — in other words, mo} applies to both cidjrkari and cidjrkebabi. There is more on the structure of tanru in [[#14|Lesson 14]]).
#The waiter says “Lamb, beef or chicken.” (That is to say, the sentence “We serve ''x'' curries and kebabs” is true for ''x'' being ''lamb'' OR ''beef'', OR ''chicken''. This means that the waiter has come up with a new kind of animal, a ‘Lamb-OR-Cow-OR-Chicken’; but of course, that description fits any one of a lamb, a cow or a chicken, so what the waiter has said does make sense).
#Ranjeet says “I want a beef curry and an onion bread.”
#The waiter gives Jyoti water and says to her “What would you like?” (Whatever is in front of the first selbri gets repeated in front of the second; so this is the same as saying '''lo bevri fi la .djiotis. cu dunda fe loi djacu .i je lo bevri fi la .djiotis. cu cusku fe lu .i do djica ma li'u''').
#Jyoti says “A curry.”
#For that reason, the waiter says “Lamb or beef?”
#Jyoti says “Not A but B” (or, in English, “Beef.”)
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
#.i lo bevri cu carna fi la .suzyn. gije cisma gije cusku lu .i lanme ji bakni li'u
#.i la .suzyn. cu tirna lo bevri gijonai jundi lo bevri (or: .i la .suzyn. cu tirna lo bevri gijonai jundi ri)
#.i la .djiotis. cu pencu la .suzyn. lo janco gije cusku lu .i ju'i .suzyn. li'u
#.i la .suzyn. cu se spaji gije cusku lu .i .y. jipci li'u (Not one of the alternatives the waiter presented, so she couldn't very well answer with a connective).
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i .a'o do se zdile lonu do litru lo kensa kei giju penmi lo fange (If you left out the kei, the '''giju''' will attach to '''litru''' rather than '''se zdile''', which gives a slightly different meaning. As it turns out, though, both would be acceptable renderings of the English).
=Chapter 12. Aspect, Vocatives, Loan Words, and Equalities<span id="12"></span>=
 
This lesson is something of a mixed bag. In it, we cover four topics which are fairly important in Lojban, each of which kind of fits somewhere else — but would take us far afield in each of the other lessons. '''Aspects''' are a special kind of [[#6|tense]]<nowiki>; </nowiki>'''vocatives''' are a special kind of [[#13|attitudinal]]<nowiki>; </nowiki>'''loan words''' are a way of introducing new words into Lojban, comparable to [[#8|lujvo]]<nowiki>; and </nowiki>'''equalities''' involve a special kind of [[#2|selbri]].
 
==Aspect<span id="12.1"></span>==
 
We've seen that we can locate our bridi in space and time, by using tenses. But this is something of a simplification. We can't just say that events are before, simultaneous with, or after other events, because events have beginnings, middles and ends. They are not simply points that can be lined up on a timeline.
 
And we tend to be very interested in the beginnings and ends of events. There is quite a difference between these three sentences:
 
*Is he about to do his homework?
*Is he still doing his homework?
*Has he done his homework yet?
 
Doing homework is an activity that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. So when we pinpoint the time at which doing homework happens, we are also pinpointing its beginning, its middle, and its end. Which means that the first of those questions asks whether the time is before the ''beginning'' of doing the homework, or after it. The second question asks whether or not the time is in the ''middle'' of doing the homework. And the third question asks whether the time is after the ''end'' of doing the homework, or not.
 
The term in linguistics for situating the beginnings and ends of events is '''aspect'''. The term Lojban uses is '''event contours''': events are perceived as shapes, which have beginnings and ends. (This is why Lojban can use its aspects in space as well as time, although we won't be going into that here.) In many languages, aspect is as important as tense, or even more important. In Russian, to use the best-known example, you cannot use a verb at all without choosing between a stem indicating that something is (or was, or will be) still going on (''imperfective''), and a stem indicating that something is (or was, or will be) completed (''perfective'').
 
English isn't like that: you can quite often leave off any indication of aspect in your verbs. Yet English has ways of expressing aspect anyway. When we say “I have spoken to the doctor”, we are also indicating that we have now finished doing so — we are after the end of the event. When we say “I am speaking to the doctor”, on the other hand, we are also indicating that we are in middle of the event: the event is continuing, and is not yet over.
 
{{talkquote|Note: <nowiki>Aspect is quite independent of tense: you can say that something will be over some time in the future (“I will have spoken to the doctor [by then]”), or that something was continuing in the past (“I was speaking to the doctor”), without giving any indication of what is happening in the here-and-now.</nowiki>}}
 
Lojban uses cmavo belonging to selma'o ZAhO to express event contours. You use them just like tense words; if you use both, the tense word goes first. The three-way distinction we made — before the beginning, in the middle, after the end — is made with three distinct words: pu'o, ca'o, ba'o. This is, of course, no coincidence: ''before'' (pu) an event begins, you use pu'o<nowiki>; </nowiki>''after'' (ba) an event ends, you use ba'o. So you can come up with sentences like these:
 
:mi ba'o tavla lo mikce
:I have spoken to the doctor (or had spoken, or will have spoken)
:mi ca'o tavla lo mikce
:I am speaking to the doctor (or was speaking, or will be speaking)
:mi pu'o tavla lo mikce
:I am about to speak to the doctor (or was about to speak, or will be about to speak)
:mi pu pu'o tavla lo mikce
:I was about to speak to the doctor
:mi ba ba'o tavla lo mikce
:I will have spoken to the doctor
:mi pu ba'o tavla lo mikce
:I had spoken to the doctor
:mi pu ca'o tavla lo mikce
:I was speaking to the doctor
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| fekpre
|| insane, crazy person (fenki ‘crazy’ + prenu ‘person’)
 
|-
|| troci
|| x1 tries/attempts/makes an effort to do/attain x2 (event/state/property) by actions/method x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Translate into Lojban.
 
#I will be on the verge of going insane.
#I'm done reading the book.
#Jyoti's still on her way to the restaurant.
#Ranjeet was eating his curry.
#Susan was to have been with us, but she had to stay at the bar.
#I'd gone to the hospital before you tried to talk to me.
==More Aspects<span id="12.2"></span>==
 
The aspects pu'o and ba'o describe situations in which the event is still not going on, or is no longer going on: if you draw a time-line, they are outside of the line corresponding to the event. But beginnings and endings are pretty conspicuous, as moments go. So we often want to point out that we are not before the beginning of the event, but right at the point when it begins; and not after the end of the event, but right at the point when it ends.
 
To pinpoint your time at the instant when the event begins, the aspect word you use is co'a. So you can say mi co'a tcidu lo cukta at the moment when you start reading a book. When you stop reading the book, the aspect is co'u. When you finish reading, on the other hand, the word to use is mo'u. So Lojban makes a distinction between finishing and stopping (before the event would have finished normally).
 
For this kind of aspect, English normally just uses verbs: ''start'', ''finish'', ''stop''. Lojban likewise allows you to use distinct selbri to express these notions: cfari, mulno, and sisti. Using aspects just lets you express things more succinctly; and with Lojban the way it is, anything that makes things more succinct comes in handy.
 
There are more aspects in Lojban, though you won't necessarily see them as often in Lojban text; you can find out about them in Chapter 10.10 of ''The Complete Lojban Language''.
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Some of you may be familiar with the puzzles ''Where's Waldo?'' and ''Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?''. Well now we're going to play a little game of la .djang. cu zvati ma. For each of these sentences, say where Zhang is, given the aspect expressed. You're allowed to say “Between A and B” in your answer. For example:
 
:.i la .djang. ca'o klama la .paRIS. la .li,ON.  Zhang is between Paris and Lyon.
 
Watch out for strange Lojbanisations of names!
 
#.i la .djang. co'a klama la .sankt.PEterspurg. la .myskFAS.
#.i la .djang. ba'o klama la .minxen. la .keln.
#.i la .djang. mo'u klama la .firentses. la .veNEtsi,as.
#.i la .djang. co'u klama la .cai,en. la .nolinz.
#.i la .djang. pu'o klama la .canXAIS. la .guanJOUS.
#.i la .djang. ca'o stali lo barja.
==Vocatives<span id="12.3"></span>==
 
When you address people by name, you usually do so to make it clear who out of a group you are talking to. We've already seen how to do that in Lojban: doi, followed by the name (without the name article, la.) So “Houston, we have a problem” ends up as
 
:doi xustyn. mi'a se nabmi
 
(sidestepping the slight illogicality of speaking to a single person in Houston but addressing a whole city).
 
Often, however, we address people in order to manage our conversations: to make someone pay attention to our turn; to butt in before it is our turn; to signal that a conversation is beginning or ending; and so on. We can also do this without using names, but instead by various context cues and all-purpose words. When you think about it, for example, ''OK'' does a lot of work for such a small word.
 
As we know, Lojban tends to be precise rather than vague. So when it comes to signalling what you want done with a conversation, Lojban doesn't play along with the usual natural language tricks of leaving it up to the principles of politeness and social convention to work out what's going on. Instead, it has explicit words for managing turns in a conversation, which can optionally be followed by the name of whoever you're bringing it to the attention of. Since all these words address someone, they are called '''vocatives''' (selma'o COI).
 
{{^|needed?}}Natural languages don't distinguish as carefully between these various contexts, except in fairly artificial contexts: for example, conversations over two-way radio, where it is impossible to talk over each other, or to negotiate whose turn it is to speak through subtle visual cues. (A less elaborate vocabulary is in place for IRC, its Internet equivalent.) This means that Lojban vocatives look a little like a CB enthusiast's nightmare, because the glosses you see for them come from this more explicit subset of English. But normal English has these kinds of words as well — they're just not as clearly distinguished, because context is usually relied on instead.
 
We are already familiar with some of them. Remember '''mi'e''' used for self-introduction? And they work exactly as attitudinals but take one sumti after them.
*'''mi'e''' is the word you use to introduce yourself: it's the only vocative followed by the speaker's name, rather than the addressee's. So '''mi'e la .robin.''' means “I'm Robin” or “This is Robin speaking.”
*'''o'ai''' is the greeting/parting word much like Italian ''ciao'': it corresponds to “Hello” /  “Bye” and whatever else happens to be in vogue.
*'''coi''' is the word for greetings only: it corresponds to “Hello”, “Good morning”, “Hi”, “Wazzup?”, and whatever else happens to be in vogue.
*Conversely, co'o is the farewell word, corresponding to “Goodbye”, “Farewell”, “Yo Later Dude”, and so on. Lojbanists signing off on e-mail often end with something like co'omi'e .robin. — this is equivalent to putting your name at the end of your email in English as a signature, and translates as “Goodbye; I'm Robin.”
 
The other vocatives are not as common.
 
*Two words similar to coi are '''ju'i''' ‘Hey!', with which you draw someone's attention, and fi'i ‘Welcome! At your service!', with which you offer hospitality or a service. (It's what you say to a visitor; you wouldn't say it over the phone, for instance, unless your addressee is calling from the airport and is on their way over).
*'''je'e''' corresponds to ‘Roger!' in radio-speak, and ‘right’ or ‘uh-uh’ in normal English: it confirms that you've received a message. If you haven't, you say je'enai instead (of course); in normal English, that would be ‘Beg your pardon?' or ‘Huh?'.
*In case you haven't received the message clearly, you can explicitly ask for the speaker to repeat whatever they said with ke'o.
*Similarly, be'e signals a request to send a message (“Hello? Are you there?”), and re'i indicates that you are ''ready'' (Lojban bredi) to receive a message. (It's what you say when you pick up the phone — which in English also happens to be “Hello?”, but in Italian is ''Pronto'' ‘Ready!').
*mu'o is what you say when you explicitly make it another speaker's turn to speak: it's the “Over!” of radio.
*When it isn't your turn to speak, but you want to barge in anyway, you can say ta'a — though it probably won't make anyone any happier that you're interrupting.
*nu'e introduces a promise; pe'u introduces a request, and so is fairly similar to the attitudinal .e'o.
*vi'o acknowledges a request, and promises to carry it out: in radio talk this is “Wilco!”, and in normal English “OK” or “All right, I will” (or for that matter, “Consider it done!”)
*You say “Thank you” with ki'e — to which the appropriate response is ''not'' fi'i (“You're welcome” doesn't mean you're being visited by some guests), but the simple acknowledgement je'e.
*Finally, to close communication (radio's “Over and out!”), you can use fe'o. (This is what people actually ''should'' be putting at the end of their e-mails; but it's not as well-known a word as co'o)
 
Vocatives take names, sumti or selbri. The names come after an obligatory pause, to make sure any eavesdropping computers don't misconstrue the vocative as one long name. The sumti or selbri describes the addressee (e.g. '''co'o lo mensi''' or '''co'o mensi''' - “Goodbye, sister!”.) If any of these are used, they normally don't need terminators after them. If you use the vocative on its own, however, you will need a terminator, because the things likeliest to follow the vocative in a sentence could easily be misconstrued as describing your addressee. The terminator for vocatives is '''do'u'''. For example,
 
:'''coi do'u la .suzyn. la .ranjit. puzi cliva'''
:''Hello! Susan's just left Ranjeet.''
 
:'''coi la .suzyn. la .ranjit. puzi cliva'''
:''Hello, Susan! Ranjeet's just left.''
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Give the Lojban vocatives corresponding to the emphasised words in each of the following sentences. You may need to add nai to your vocatives. Beware of trick questions!
 
#“Jyoti, ''are you there?''” “''Just a second!''”
#“Come on in, Zhang, ''make yourself at home!''” “''Much obliged!''”
#“You're coming along, ''right''?” “''Come again?''”
#“''Excuse me'', is this seat taken?” “''Be my guest!''”
==Loan words<span id="12.4"></span>==
 
You got a brief taste of lujvo in [[#8|Lesson 8]]. As we said there, lujvo are the main way of introducing new words — more precisely, new brivla — into Lojban. The most important thing about lujvo is that, as selbri, they are meant to have very well-defined place structures; and there are guidelines in place for deriving them (see ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 12.) So, particularly when the concept you want to express is ‘verb-like’ (that is, when it's likely to have sumti of its own), lujvo are preferred.
 
There are some cases, though, when you do have to borrow a word from another language, creating a loan word (called in Lojban a fu'ivla). This can be because the thing you're talking about is very concrete or particular, and/or because the reference is quite culture-specific. In either case, it would be really cumbersome to describe it with a combination of gismu. (For example, how would you come up with a description for ''brie''? Or ''rock 'n' roll''? — which, we should point out, you would have to keep distinct from the later musical genre of ''rock''!)
 
The problem with borrowing words into Lojban is, Lojban has a quite thorough set-up for working out what the words are in a stream of letters. This means that most words you import into Lojban (once you spell them in Lojban letters) are likely to mean something else already. For example, if I want to bring the ancient name of the river Danube - ''Istros'' into Lojban, the last thing I want to do is start saying '''.istero'''. That will get analysed as '''.i stero''', which is something like ‘and steradian function’{{^| we need a better example }}.
 
The sanctioned way to deal with loan-words (described in more detail in ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 4.7) is to stick a gismu (minus its final letter) in front of the word, showing what sort of thing the word is; and to put an r (or, if an r is already there, an n) between the gismu and the word. The gismu helps the reader or listener, who has likely never seen this word before, guess what the word might be. This is particularly handy if the source word might be ambiguous between two different meanings. And the combination of gismu minus final vowel, source word (which should start with a consonant, and end with a vowel), and r or n will hopefully produce a cluster of consonants crunchy enough that it cannot be mistaken for another Lojban word or phrase.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: There is no standard consonant to put in front of the word to become a fu'ivla if it starts with a vowel. Two popular choices are x and n. Similarly, there is no set convention on where to get the vowel from, if your word ends in a consonant. In these lessons, we'll just repeat the preceding vowel; e.g. ''England''  gugdr''n''ingl''a''nd''a'' (from gugde ‘country’).}}
 
So what does all this look like in practice? Well, we've already seen ''curry'':
 
*take ‘food’, <nowiki>cidj[a]</nowiki><nowiki>;</nowiki>
*take the word in Lojban garb (starting with a consonant and ending with a vowel), kari<nowiki>;</nowiki>
*and wedge them together with an r: cidjrkari.
 
(The consonant cluster is also crunchy enough to be difficult to pronounce; the r is a syllable on its own, and the word should sound something like ''shidgerrrrrkari'').
 
Loan words (in Lojban, fu'ivla) are still only sporadically used — particularly because, as of this writing at least, there is no Lojban dictionary where a standard list of them can be looked up. The problem of which language to borrow words from is also hard to settle, and the choices made can cause problems of their own. The most international solution for plant and animal names, for example, is Latin, and in particular the Latin of the Linnaean system of classification. But this means that, to come up with a word for ‘catnip’, say, you have to know Latin and your Linnaean taxonomy. (Or, like I did, look it up on the Internet — but you can't normally do that while you're having a conversation.) So fu'ivla are still largely unexplored terrain in Lojban.
 
{{talkquote|Note: That said, you will occasionally see ‘Stage 4' fu'ivla in use. The fu'ivla we've seen are ‘Stage 3'; in Stage 4, you drop the initial ‘crunchy’ rafsi, reasoning that the word should already be well-known or recognisable enough — and making sure that the word still doesn't look like a normal brivla. (For example, ''The Complete Lojban Language'' suggests tci'ile for ‘Chile’, instead of gugdrtcile.) Not everyone likes them, so they're not yet all that common, and you'll usually get plenty of warning if someone is using them.
 
P.S.: If you were wondering, by the way: cirlrbri, zgiknroknrolo, zgiknroko.}}
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Turn these words into fu'ivla, using the gismu supplied as the prefix. For example:
 
:Mummy/Mommie: mamta  mamtrmami.
 
#Cockney: bangu
#Pizza: cidja
#Derivative: cmaci
#Adagio: zgike
#Psychopathy: bilmi
#Deuterium: cidro
#Amethyst: jemna
#Rallentando: zgike
==Equalities<span id="12.5"></span>==
 
You may at some stage have asked yourself the question, what the Lojban for ''is'' is. The short answer is, most of the time there isn't one. Lojban represents the world in terms of relations (bridi), and ''is'' is a fairly empty kind of relation. Moreover, if the thing to the right of ''is'' (the ‘predicate’, in grammar terminology) means a class of things, instead of a single entity, then it corresponds to a selbri, and we don't need to put a word for ''is'' in. So “Robin ''is'' English” comes out in Lojban as la .robin. glico: glico is already a selbri that takes la .robin. as a sumti — so we don't need a separate selbri for ''is''.
 
Very, very, ''very'' occasionally, you'll need a Lojban word for ''is'' anyway. Lojban offers three words which sort of do the job of ''is''<nowiki>; each has its own provisos. </nowiki>
 
The first word is '''me'''. '''me''' takes a sumti following it, and converts it into a selbri. So '''me la .nik.''' is a selbri, which takes as a sumti anything that ‘is a Nick’. Similarly, since '''lo mi ci mensi''' is ‘my three sisters’, '''la .renas. cu me lo mi ci mensi''' means “Rena is one of my three sisters” (as she is described by the selbri version of ‘my three sisters’.) So me is best thought of as meaning ‘is one of’.
 
{{^|;'''Historical note: '''me, way back in the dawn of (Lojbanic) time, used to mean ‘pertaining to’ instead of ‘is’. You'll see confusion between the two persisting among old timers. Be gentle with them, we pray you...}}
The second word is '''du'''. '''du''' is a selbri on its own, and it means that all its sumti are the same thing and have the same identity. So '''mi du la .nik.''' (or '''mi du la .robin.''') is a way of saying “I am Robin (or Nick.)” The claim made is one of identity; so you can flip the sumti around without making any difference: '''la .robin. cu du mi'''. It does ''not'' make a sumti behave like a selbri, so du cannot mean ‘is one of’, like me does: '''la .renas. cu du lo mi ci mensi''' makes the nonsensical claim that Rena ''is'' my three sisters. (Or should that be ''are''?)
 
We can also see the difference between '''me''' and '''du''' in the following example:
 
:mi me lo ctuca
:I'm a teacher
 
:mi du lo ctuca
:mi du lo ctuca
:I'm the teacher <nowiki>[may be the one you were talking about]</nowiki>
 
{{talkquote|Tip: Can you say '''mi du lo prenu''', doing the Lojban equivalent of making an indefinite noun ‘equal’ a definite noun? After all, lo prenu applies to many more people in the world than just me, so du here does kind of act like ‘is one of’.
 
The answer is, yes you can, because in this context they both do refer to the same person. (In strict logical terms: “there is at least one person such that that person is me.”) This is frowned upon in Lojban in general, though, because it's misleading: du tends to be reserved for mathematical equality, and for claiming that two different names (or definite nouns) refer to the same thing. If you really wanted to say mi du lo prenu, after all, why wouldn't you just say '''mi prenu'''?}}{{^| remove? }}
 
These two means are grammatical Lojban, but they are viewed with some distaste, and are usually giveaways that some poor translating from English (or another natural language) has been going on. The third mechanism is better regarded, because it tucks the equality away in an inconspicuous corner. '''po'u''' has the same grammar as the sumti modifiers like '''pe''' and '''po''' we saw in [[#3|Lesson 3.]] But instead of claiming that one sumti is associated with the other, or owned by the other, po'u claims that the two sumti are the same thing. So:
 
:la ranjit. ''po'u'' lo pendo be la .djiotis. vi zvati
:Ranjeet, ''who is'' Jyoti's friend, is here.
 
Like those other members of selma'o GOI ('''pe, po''' and '''po'e'''), '''po'u''' has a non-restrictive version: '''no'u'''. So if I was saying that Ranjeet was Jyoti's friend, not to distinguish him from the other Ranjeets you might know, but just for your information, I should use no'u instead of po'u. You can think of no'u as tantamount to noi du, and po'u as tantamount to poi du.
{{^| it's just poi du }}
{{talkquote|Note: '''no'u''' and '''po'u''' are typically used in Lojban to introduce alternate names for something; so they correspond to English ''namely, i.e.'' For instance, '''la .suzyn. cu penmi la xumske fanza ku ''no'u'' la .djang.''' - “Susan met ‘Chemistry Annoyance’, ''namely'' Zhang.”}}{{^| do we know about {ku}? probably but check}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| xadba
|| x1 is exactly/approximately half/semi-/demi-/hemi- of x2 by standard x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Where appropriate (and ''only'' where appropriate), translate ''is'' in each of the following sentences with each one of me, du, po'u, and no'u. To get po'u and no'u to work, you may have to rearrange the sentences. For instance:
 
:''x''<nowiki>, which is [equal to] y, is a number. </nowiki>
 
*da noi me de cu namcu
*da noi du de namcu
*da no'u de namcu
 
#Jyoti ''is'' a woman.
#Jyoti and Susan ''are'' the two women who went in Jyoti's car.
#Jyoti and Susan ''are'' among the women whom Zhang considers his friends. (Use jinvi).
#Ranjeet, who ''is'' a friend of Jyoti, ''is'' half-German.
#This blue car which ''is'' the one to the right of mine ''is'' a Ford car. (Use lo pritu for ''the one to the right'').
==Summary<span id="12.6"></span>==
 
In this lesson, we have covered:
 
*Simple aspects (pu'o, ca'o, ba'o; co'a, co'o, mo'u)
*Vocatives (DOI, COI)
*Loan words
*Words expressing equality (me, du, po'u, no'u)
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| banli
|| x1 is great/grand in property x2 (ka) by standard x3
 
|-
|| banxa
|| x1 is a bank owned by/in banking system x2 for banking function(s) x3 (event)
 
|-
|| casnu
|| x1(s) (mass normally, but 1 individual/jo'u possible) discuss(es)/talk(s) about topic/subject x2
 
|-
|| cladu
|| x1 is loud/noisy at observation point x2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| cradi
|| x1<nowiki> broadcasts/transmits [using radio waves] x</nowiki>2 via station/frequency x3<nowiki> to [radio] receiver x</nowiki>4
 
|-
|| dukse
|| x1 is an excess of/too much of x2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| ji'a
|| additionally, also
 
|-
|| la'edi'u
|| ‘the content of the previous sentence’ (''that'', as in “I knew that!”)
 
|-
|| mau
|| sumti tcita: exceeded by... (from zmadu ‘more’)
 
|-
|| sanga
|| x1 sings/chants x2<nowiki> [song/hymn/melody/melodic sounds] to audience x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| smagau
|| x1 acts so that x2<nowiki> is quiet/silent/[still] at observation point x</nowiki>3 by standard x4 (smaji ‘quiet’ + gasnu ‘do’)
 
|-
|| ticygau
|| x1 (person) acts so that x2 (event/experience) misleads/deceives/dupes/fools/cheats/tricks x3 into x4 (event/state) (tcica ‘deceive’ + gasnu ‘do’)
 
|-
|| voksa
|| x1 is a voice/speech sound of individual x2
 
|-
|| zmadu
|| x1 exceeds/is more than x2 in property/quantity x3 (ka/ni) by amount/excess x4
 
|-
|| zgikrfanki
|| This is a fu'ivla, and you'll have to work out what it is. Hint: say the word out loud, minus the prefix.
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translate from Lojban:
 
#.i ba'o lonu citka kei lei ci pendo ca casnu
#.i ca'o bo ri klama lo dansydi'u po'u la zgikrfanki jipci
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i pe'u .djiotis. ko smagau lo ve cradi{{^| remove pe'u}}
#.i mi co'u tirna la .ranjit. li'u
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i ke'o .suzyn. mi na'e tirna ri'a lonu lo ve cradi cu cladu li'u gije mo'u smagau
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i .u'i ki'e do'u mi co'a tirna mi li'u
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i .uu mi ji'a go'i li'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i ke'onai .djiotis. mi nelci lei me la'o gy. Eurythmics gy. selsanga ne mau lemi voksa li'u
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i mi pu'o cusku la'edi'u li'u
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i ke'onai .suzyn. li'u
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
Translate into Lojban:
 
#Jyoti, Ranjeet and Susan arrive at the disco at 0:50. (Hint: you don't have a distinct word for ‘arrive’; use klama and an appropriate aspect).
#Ranjeet says to Jyoti and Susan “Look, you two, I've got to go to the bank.”
#“I was going to bring money, but I was paying too much attention to my radio transmissions.” (Hint: use dukse in a tanru)
#While Ranjeet isn't there, Jyoti says “Susan? Günter — The Great Deceiver — dumped you” (Again, you don't have a word for ‘dump’; use prami and an appropriate aspect).
#“So I thought you still hated everything German.”
#Susan says “Uh-uh, but Ranjeet's eyes are much more beautiful than Günter's.”
#A long way away from the women, Zhang loudly says “How are you doing, friend!” to Ranjeet.
==Answers to exercises<span id="12.7"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#.i mi ba pu'o fekpre
#.i mi ca ba'o tcidu lo cukta
#.i la .djiotis. ca ca'o klama lo gusta
#.i la .ranjit. pu ca'o citka loi ri cidjrkari/.i la .ranjit. pu ca'o citka loi cidjrkari pe lo nei
#.i la .suzyn. pu pu'o kansa mi'a gije ku'i bilga lonu stali lo barja
#.i mi pu ba'o klama lo spita pu lonu do troci lonu do tavla mi
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
To explain the peculiar Lojbanisations of place names below, we have helpfully supplied IPA transcriptions in brackets afterwards.
 
#Moscow (St. Petersburg [</nowiki>sanktˈpɛtɛrspurg<nowiki>], Moscow [</nowiki>məsˈkfa])
#Munich (Munich [</nowiki>ˈmynçɛn<nowiki>], Cologne [</nowiki>ˈkœln])
#Florence (Florence [</nowiki>fiˈrentse<nowiki>], Venice [</nowiki>veˈnetsia])
#Between New Orleans and Cheyenne (Cheyenne [</nowiki>ʃæˈjɛn<nowiki>], New Orleans [</nowiki>ˈnɑlɪnz]. OK, we aren't necessarily serious about the last one).
#Canton/Guangzhou (Shanghai [</nowiki>ʂaŋxai<nowiki>], Canton/Guangzhou [</nowiki>kuaŋtʂow])
#The bar ([</nowiki>lo ˈbarʒa]). Of course.
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#
#* be'e (“Will Jyoti receive my message?”, although ju'i could also be used, as someone is trying to draw Jyoti's attention).
#* re'inai (Jyoti is ''not'' ready to receive any messages).
#.
#* fi'i (the English is a classic formula for offering hospitality; it may not always be literally meant!)
#* je'e (the simplest response is simply to acknowledge what has been said to you; “Much obliged!” is doing pretty much the same job as “You're welcome!” You ''could'' respond with vi'o “That's exactly what I'll do!”; but vi'o is a response to an explicit request, and fi'i isn't really a request. It would also make sense to respond with ki'e).
#
#* mu'o (“Please respond”, which is pretty much the same thing as “It's now your turn to speak.”)
#* ke'o (unless you're sneakily trying to say “No”, which would be more like vi'onai “I refuse to comply with your request.”)
#
#* pe'u (because the primary thing you're doing is making a request; but “Excuse me” is also initiating an exchange the other person wasn't expecting, so you could also use ju'i, ta'a, be'e, or even coi).
#
#* fi'i, because you're offering a service, although vi'o is just as good, because you're carrying out a request.
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#bangrkokni
#cidjrpitsa (Remember, fu'ivla are done by pronunciation, not by spelling).
#cmacrderivativi (Or, if you know about Interlingue and ablatives, cmacrderivativo. But that's a long story..).
#'''zgikrnadadjio''' or '''zgikrxadadjio''', depending on what your favourite consonant is.
#bilmrsaikopati, if you're borrowing the word from English; bilmrpsikopati or bilmrpsikopatia, if you want something closer to Greek (and thus presumably more recognisable to at least some non-English speakers).
#cidrndeuteriumu (or cidrndeuterio, if you know about those ablatives I'm not going to explain here...) Of course, you can't use r as the joining consonant, since cidr- already ends in r.
#jemnrnametisti or jemnrxametisti. (As it turns out, jemnrametisti would have also been acceptable as a fu'ivla).
#zgiknralentando (Remember, the word already starts with r, so you have to use n to join the two parts of the fu'ivla together instead).
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#
#* la .djiotis. me lo ninmu.
#* la .djiotis. du lo ninmu is possible, but frowned on, as discussed.
#* As for the other two alternatives, even if we tucked away the ''is''-clause after po'u or no'u, we would be left with no selbri at all. So we can't get away with them.
#
#* la .djiotis. je la .suzyn. cu me lo re ninmu poi klama fu lo karce po la .djiotis.
#*la .djiotis. joi la .suzyn. du lei re ninmu poi klama fu lo karce po la .djiotis. (note the masses! If you'd used .e, you would be saying that Jyoti was the two women, and Susan was also the two women!)
#*There are two selbri here, but you can't really tuck one away with po'u and be left with a selbri for the rest of the sentence.
#{{^|check numbering here}}
#*la .djiotis. je la .suzyn. me lo ninmu poi la .djang. jinvi lo du'u ke'a pendo ri.
#*la .djiotis. je la .suzyn. du lo ninmu poi la .djang. jinvi lo du'u ke'a pendo ri is possible but frowned on.
#*A version with no'u is not really possible, because there would be no selbri left for the main bridi.
#
#*la .ranjit. noi me lo pendo be la .djiotis. cu me lo xadba dotco.
#*Frowned on but possible: la .ranjit. noi du lo pendo be la .djiotis. cu me lo xadba dotco.
#*Frowned on but possible: la .ranjit. no'u lo pendo be la .djiotis. cu me lo xadba dotco.
#
#*lo vi blanu karce poi me lo pritu be lo mi karce cu me la .ford. karce
#*lo vi blanu karce poi du lo pritu be lo mi karce cu me la .ford. karce (The first ''is'' does indeed act as an equality sign: you're describing a car two different ways, to narrow it down. But the brand of a car is a class, so the second ''is'' is not an equality sign).
#*lo vi blanu karce po'u lo pritu be lo mi karce cu me la .ford. karce (Since you're narrowing down what the car is, you need a restrictive rather than a non-restrictive clause).
 
'''Note: '''This use of me is pretty standard to get a cmene into a tanru. There are often times when you will want to use a name to describe a class of things, rather than a unique thing. This in turn means you have to treat a cmene like a selbri, entering into domains like tanru. In fact, as an extension of this, Type 1 and 2 fu'ivla are merely cmene converted with me to selbri: Type 1 involves the undigested cmene, with la'o (e.g. me la'o gy. ''curry'' gy.), while Type 2 Lojbanises it, using la .(e.g. me la .karis.).
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
#After they have finished eating, the three friends are now discussing. (Aspects can be used as sumti tcita, just like tenses can. ba'o means pretty much the same as ba here, but emphasises that they had ''finished'' eating when they started talking again).
#While they were doing so, they went to the disco [which is] </nowiki>''The Funky Chicken'' (Aspects can also be used to connect sentences, just like tenses can. .i ca'o bo means that the second sentence took place while the first sentence was still going on. The fu'ivla considers ''Funky'' to be a kind of music: ‘The Funk Chicken’ is probably more accurate).
#Susan says “Jyoti, please turn the radio down.”
#“I've stopped hearing Ranjeet.”
#Jyoti says “Come again, Susan? I didn't hear you because the radio is loud”, and completes turning it down. (i.e. she turns it down to completion — all the way down).
#Ranjeet says “Heheh, thanks! I now start hearing myself!” (This is a more pedantic rendering of what in English would be more like “I can hear myself think again”. The do'u is necessary, because otherwise Ranjeet would be addressing himself: “Thanks, Me!”)
#Jyoti says “Unfortunately, so can I.”
#Ranjeet says “Don't repeat, Jyoti. I like Eurythmics songs, but my own voice more. (or: I like my own voice more than Eurythmics songs.)” (Ranjeet, too clever a Lojbanist for his own good, is playing around with his vocatives).
#Susan says “I was about to say that.” (The full tense would have been pu pu'o, but you don't have to state the tense as well as the aspect when you think it is obvious from context).
#Jyoti says “Don't repeat, Susan.” (Two can play at that game!)
 
<center>Exercise 7</center>
 
#.i la .djiotis. je la .ranjit. je la .suzyn. mo'u klama lo dansydi'u ti'u li no pi'e muno (Not co'u klama, which would have had them stop on the way; nor ba'o klama, which would mean that they had already arrived at 0:50).
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku fi la .djiotis. joi la .suzyn. fe lu ju'i redo mi bilga lonu mi klama lo banxa (or: mi .ei klama lo banxa. Since Ranjeet speaks to Jyoti and Susan as a unit (together), joi is more appropriate, though je is strictly speaking correct).
#.i mi pu pu'o bevri loi jdini gije dukse jundi lemi se cradi li'u (A more pedantic version — in keeping with Ranjeet's style — would be: .i ku'i lonu mi jundi lo se cradi pe mi cu se dukse)
#.i ca'o lonu la .ranjit. na zvati kei la .djiotis. cu cusku lu be'e .suzyn. la .ginter. no'u la banli ticygau co'u prami do (co'u is the only really good aspect to use; it's somewhat more controversial to think of love as something with a natural ending point (mo'u), and Günter — though he has turned Susan off some perfectly acceptable beverages — had not necessarily reached that point, anyway. If you wanted to keep the umlaut, you could also use la'o dy. Günter dy., or something like that. We presume this is the only Günter they know, so his nickname isn't being used to distinguish him from other Günters; hence, no'u instead of po'u).
#.i semu'ibo mi pu jinvi lodu'u do ca'o xebni ro lo dotco li'u (or: ro dotco, since lo is assumed after numbers. ro da poi dotco is also correct).
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i je'e do'u ku'i lo kanla be la .ranjit. cu mutce zmadu lo kanla be la .ginter. lo ka melbi li'u (Kind of a baptism by fire for you with that new gismu. Sorry about that. You can't avoid do'u here, otherwise Susan would be speaking to Ranjeet's eyes: “That's right, O eyes of Ranjeet's.”
By the way, the cu is necessary; otherwise, kanla be la .ranjit. mutce zmadu would be taken as a single tanru — individual gismu within a tanru can still have their own sumti attached with be).
#.i vu lo ninmu la .djang. cu cladu cusku lu .i coi pendo li'u la .ranjit. (A pure greeting, of course; Zhang is not actually asking Ranjeet ‘how he is doing’ anything. He might want to know ''what'' he is doing there; but that's the next chapter of the saga..).
=Chapter 13. Keeping it flowing: Textual cmavo<span id="13"></span>=
 
Most of what we've been concentrating on until now has had to do with the logical side of Lojban — getting sentences to be true. To that end, we've been looking at how to describe relationships between things (bridi, internal sumti); how to situate events and things in time and space; how to describe things as masses or individuals; how to speak about events and facts; and so on.
 
This kind of thing is the ‘hard-core’ of Lojban, so to speak; the logical machinery on which Lojban is based, and which works with concrete realities. But there's another, less concrete side to language. No, not its ineffable soul, or its intrinsic poetry, or anything like that: we're not about to go into such rarified abstractions. (Although those rarified abstractions do have some rather tangible — and linguistically concrete — bases.) The less concrete side of language has to do, not with ''what'' you say about things, but ''how'' you manage the business of saying it. This means things like:
 
*how you express your attitudes to things;
*how you put the things you talk about in the foreground or the background;
*how you deal with misunderstandings and errors;
*how you structure your texts.
 
A language isn't really a language if it can't cope with things like these — although typically these kinds of things are not dealt with in traditional grammars, but are picked up in usage. If there's one thing you'll have noticed about Lojban, of course, it's that it is as explicitly specified as possible. Accordingly, Lojban has a special subsection of its grammar dealing with these issues, rather than leaving it up to usage. But, precisely because this isn't what logic was designed for, the grammar Lojban uses here has little to do with bridi: it is a much simpler grammar, mostly using isolated words. We'll go through the ones you're likeliest to meet.
 
==Lojban with lots more attitude<span id="13.1"></span>==
 
You'll remember from way back in [[#1|Lesson 1]] that Lojban has little words called ''attitudinal indicators'' (or ''attitudinals''), which show how you feel about something. That ‘something’ is whatever precedes the attitudinal. As we have seen, if the attitudinal is after a terminator, it's a reaction to whatever phrase ends in the terminator. If it follows an article, then it applies to the entire sumti<nowiki>; if it follows a connective, it applies to the connective and whatever following term it is connecting; and so on.</nowiki>
 
Attitudinals belong to selma'o UI. This means that their grammar is as simple as can be: they can turn up after just about any word of Lojban, without disrupting anything going on grammatically. For that reason, they don't need terminators: there's no danger of them swallowing up any errant sumti (unlike their close relatives, the vocatives).
 
There are some cmavo whose job is to modify other UI cmavo, though. You've seen one already: nai has the function of converting the attitudinal expressed to its opposite. So if .a'u expresses interest, its opposite, .a'unai, expresses repulsion. We saw in our discussion of [[#6|negations]] that, when you set up a scale between something and its opposite (to'e), you can also speak of something that's neutral, in-between (no'e). The same goes for attitudinals, and the word to use in that case is cu'i. So .a'ucu'i expresses neither interest nor repulsion, but disinterest.
 
You can divide up the continuum even more finely. If you want to say that you feel an emotion only weakly, you can add to it ru'e. If you want to say you feel it strongly, you can add sai. And if you want to say you feel it ''really'' strongly, you add cai. This gives you a seven-part scale:
 
:cai > sai > (nothing) > ru'e > cu'i > nairu'e > nai > naisai > naicai
 
So for instance, if you want to say “Eh. That's cool”, you'd say .a'ucu'i. If you want to say “That is really gross!”, you'd say .a'unaisai. And if you want to say “Oh my God, that is the most interesting thing in the world since the very invention of Lojban!!!”, .a'ucai is a pretty safe bet.
 
{{talkquote|Note: All these modifiers belong to selma'o CAI, except for nai — which turns up all over Lojban grammar, as we've already seen, and has its own selma'o, NAI.}}
 
There are 39 attitudinals fitting the pattern VV (two vowels, possibly with an apostrophe between them; these are a subclass of selma'o UI, called UI1.) Each of these corresponds to a different emotional state. With the addition of the seven-way scale we've just described, that makes 273 attitudinals you can use, plunking them pretty much wherever you want in your sentence. That's not even counting selma'o UI4 and UI5, which can further modify your attitudes. As with everything else, Lojban allows you to be as specific as you want to be in expressing yourself.
 
{{talkquote|Note: selma'o UI4 specifies what ‘part’ of you is feeling the emotion — whether it is a physical, social, mental response, and so on. selma'o UI5 has some ‘left-over’ modifiers; we already saw in passing ga'i, which indicates haughtiness.
 
The cmavo in this category you will see almost constantly is zo'o. It is used just like the smiley-face in e-mail, to indicate that you're being humorous when saying something, and it's used for much the same reason. In these two communication systems, it's difficult to work out whether someone is joking or not — in e-mail, because you can't hear the tone of voice that gives things away; in Lojban, because by its ideology the language doesn't want to leave things to natural-language–based intuition (and also because it's used a lot on e-mail anyway.) So hints like this are always welcome, and frequently taken advantage of.}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
 
'''Note: '''Attitudinals have three-way glosses: what they mean on their own, what they mean with cu'i after them, and what they mean with nai after them.
{| class="wikitable"
|| .o'o
|| attitudinal: patience – mere tolerance – anger
 
|-
|| .o'u
|| attitudinal: relaxation – composure – stress
 
|-
|| .e'u
|| attitudinal: suggestion – abandon suggest – warning
 
|-
|| .i'e
|| attitudinal: approval – non-approval
 
|-
|| .uu
|| attitudinal: pity – cruelty
 
|-
|| .u'u
|| attitudinal: repentance – lack of regret – innocence
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Match one of the following attitudinals to each of the following situations.
{| class="wikitable"
|| .a'unairu'e
 
|-
|| .e'uru'e
 
|-
|| .e'ucai
 
|-
|| .i'enai
 
|-
|| .i'eru'e
 
|-
|| .i'esai
 
|-
|| .o'onai
 
|-
|| .o'u
 
|-
|| .u'u
 
|-
|| .uu
 
|}
 
#You see someone stub their toe.
#You bought the last ice cream in the shop, and the toddler queuing behind you has started crying.
#You'd like to ask someone to take you along to the shops, if it's not too much trouble.
#You will absolutely ''die'' if your sister doesn't take you to the Ricky Martin concert.
#Your local football team, the ''Loglandia Contrapositives'', has just won a match. You watch football maybe twice a year.
#You have just been slapped in the face, and you are neither the Buddha nor Christ — or into S&M, for that matter.
==My attitudinals! All mine! (And you?)<span id="13.2"></span>==
 
A common pitfall to avoid is trying to specify whose attitude the attitudinals express. The reason UI cmavo are so simple is that they express direct emotional responses — gut reactions, without making any fine distinctions like whose attitude is involved. The reaction is always taken to be the speaker's. So .ui do cliva means ''you'''re happy that someone else is leaving, just like “You're leaving — Yay!” does. If you wanted to say that the ‘someone else’ is happy, not you, then you wouldn't say “Yay!” at all. Instead, you'd say something like “You must be happy you're leaving.” The same goes in Lojban: if you're relaying someone else's responses, not your own, then that's what bridi are there for.
 
You wouldn't likely make this mistake for .ui<nowiki>; but there are other </nowiki>cmavo it's almost impossible not to do this with. The worst offender is probably .ei, which expresses obligation. .ei mi cliva means “I ought to leave.” But .ei do cliva doesn't necessarily mean “You ought to leave.” It's more like “I feel the obligation for you to leave”: I can say this if I want you gone while you're making yourself comfortable — but not if you've remembered you've got to be somewhere else, while I'd want nothing more than for you to stick around.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: The temptation to use attitudinals for others' reactions is strong enough, in fact, that there are a couple of ways of getting around it. If you add the UI5 cmavo se'i, you say that you feel the emotion for yourself. If you add se'inai, then, you say that you feel it for someone else: .uise'inai is pretty much “I'm happy for you!” And if you add dai, you're saying that the emotion is someone else's, and that you are empathising with them. If .a'u is “That's interesting!”, .a'udai is more like “That must have been interesting for you!”}}
 
One final thing: if you want to know how someone feels about something, once again Lojban provides a fill-in-the-slot question word. The word asking the listener to fill in the attitudinal that best applies is pei. You can fill pei in with anything from selma'o UI, NAI or CAI. So if I ask you
 
:.i pei lo lunra cu blanu
:The moon is blue — how do you feel about that?
 
at least one response is .ienai “Disagree!” (“Uh-uh”, “No way!”, “No!”, etc.) pei can also explicitly ask for NAI or CAI alone, by following a UI cmavo. So a response to
 
:.i .u'ipei do farlu lo pesxu
:You fell into the mud! Funny, eh?
 
could well be ru'e: “Kinda...” Then again, it could also be naicai: “Absolutely not, and I shall thank you never to mention it in my presence again.” (Allowing for some latitude in translation..).
 
==Discursives<span id="13.3"></span>==
 
Attitude isn't the only meaning UI cmavo convey. Another subclass of UI cmavo (UI3: '''discursives''') carry information about how a particular word or phrase fits in with everything else you're saying.
 
We've seen one such cmavo already: ku'i, which means ‘but, however’. This means that whatever it is attached to contrasts with what you've been saying. It usually applies to a whole sentence (so normally you'll see it next to .i), but it can apply to a single word: .abu na.e ''ku'i'' by. is the proper Lojban for “Not A, ''but'' B.”
 
The flipside to ku'i is ji'a ‘additionally, also’ (which we saw in passing last lesson.) This means that whatever it is attached to ''adds'' on to what you've been saying. Again, this can apply to individual words, as well as sentences:
 
:.i mi venfu do doi melbi je ''ji'a'' lo do cmalu gerku
:I'll get you, my pretty — and your little dog, ''too''!
 
In some cases, there is nothing to either contrast or add to what you've said, because what you've said is the unique relevant case. In that context, you would use ''only'' in English. Because ''only'' is somewhat clumsy to express in terms of pure logic, Lojban allows another discursive as its equivalent: po'o. So “Only cats like catnip” is in Lojban
 
:loi mlatu po'o cu nelci loi spati be la'o ly. Nepeta cataria ly. (''Nepeta cataria'' being the Linnaean name for catnip I had to go look up online).
 
If you wanted to say that something is ''not'' the only applicable case, then of course you'd say po'onai.
 
There are several more discursives, but you won't seem them all that often. Some to watch out for, though, include:
{| class="wikitable"
|| ba'u
|| exaggeration – accuracy – understatement
 
|-
|| sa'e
|| precisely speaking – loosely speaking
 
|-
|| ju'o
|| certainly – uncertain – certainly not
 
|-
|| la'a
|| probably – improbably
 
|-
|| ta'o
|| by the way – returning to the subject
 
|-
|| zu'u
|| on the one hand – on the other hand
 
|}
 
There are two more UI cmavo that will come in handy. '''da'i''' means ‘hypothetically’; it points out that what you are saying is a hypothesis, an imaginary event rather than fact. This is how you distinguish between hypothetical and non-hypothetical kinds of ''if'':
 
:.i ''da'i'' do zvati lo nu la .rikis.martin. tigni .inaja do tirna la'o sy. la .Vida Loca sy.
:If you ''had'' gone to the Ricky Martin concert, then you ''would have'' heard ''La Vida Loca''.
:.i ''da'inai'' do zvati lo nu la .rikis.martin. tigni .inaja do tirna la'o sy. la .Vida Loca sy.{{^|holy shit ! }}
:If you ''did'' go to the Ricky Martin concert, then you ''must have'' heard ''La Vida Loca''.
 
ki'a, finally, is a cmavo you want to make your friend. ki'a is Lojban for ‘Huh?' When you don't understand what someone has just said — whether because you don't get what they were referring to, or you don't know the word, or the grammar confused you — you can repeat the word or phrase you didn't get, and add ki'a as a plaintive request for clarification (so it's even better than ''Huh?'', because you can point out exactly what made you say ''Huh?''):
 
:.i mi puzi te vencu lo matcrflokati
:.i matcrflokati ki'a
:“I just bought a ''flokati''<nowiki> [rug].”</nowiki>
:“''Flokati''? Huh?”
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Give the Lojban discursives corresponding to the emphasised words in each of the following sentences.
 
{{talkquote|Note: This exercise relies heavily on a particular variant of idiomatic American English. (Since the equivalents of discursives, and attitudinals in general, are among the features of language that tend to be idiomatic, this is hard to avoid.) If you're not familiar with the idiom, don't worry about this exercise; you'll get plenty of practice with discursives once you start using Lojban conversationally, anyway.}}
 
#The Eiffel Tower is, like, 20 miles tall ''or something''.
#''Say'' this guy goes up to you and goes, “Dude, your fly's undone.” That'd be, like, ''so'' embarrassing!
#''So, anyway'', I see this dude, and he's like, all “I'm ''just'' hanging with my friends, you know what I'm saying?”. And I'm, like, “''Hellooo?'' There's, like, nobody else here!”
#So, like, ''here you've got'' this dude who's, like, totally grody, scoping me out. ''And then there's'' Tiffany walking by in the other direction. ''Plus'' she's got Tracy and Shannon with her. And she ''totally'' walks two feet away from me acting like, “Do I know you?” Like, bogus to the max!
(You may attain Lojban divinity status if, on some future date, you come back to this scintillating little anecdote and translate in to Lojban. Like, totally).
 
==Erasure<span id="13.4"></span>==
 
When you make a mistake while speaking, whether in your wording or your grammar, you don't normally bother to correct it — if you even realise you made a mistake in the first place. That's because natural languages are fairly redundant (for this very reason!); and we normally rely a lot more on context than on what we actually hear, anyway. If we do catch ourselves making an error, we stumble out a correction that will do the trick, without going into details like how many words should be cancelled: again, context is almost always more than adequate. So if I say
 
:I downloaded and learned some Esperanto vocabulary. Er, Lojban vocabulary.
 
context and common sense dictate that ''Lojban vocabulary'' is meant to replace ''Esperanto vocabulary''. But what if it was meant to replace ''some Esperanto vocabulary''? Or ''downloaded and learned some Esperanto vocabulary''? We wouldn't normally care, in natural languages.
 
But Lojban is Lojban precisely because it is ''not'' a natural language. And this kind of imprecision does not sit well with how the language was designed. So Lojban allows you to be more precise about what words you are correcting. Whether it is actually too be precise to be useful — well, that's something for usage to determine. But the tools are available, if you want them.
 
si erases the immediately preceding word. If you want to erase two words in a row, you say si si after them. So the correction above would be in Lojban
 
:.i mi te benji je cilre loi ''spero valsi'' si si ''lojbo valsi''.
 
The problem with si is, you have to count words. This can get tedious, and you shouldn't have to keep a transcript of your words when you want to correct yourself. The other correction word Lojban offers is somewhat more helpful: sa erases a phrase. It works by taking the word following it, which starts the phrase to serve as the correction. It then goes back in the sentence, looking for the last time you used a phrase starting with the same word. (Same selma'o, actually.) Once it finds the last such phrase, it replaces all text from that phrase up to sa with the phrase following sa. For example:
 
:''.i mi te benji je cilre loi'' sa ''.i mi cilre loi lojbo''.
 
The correction following sa is a sentence; you know that, because the first word after sa is the sentence marker, .i. So the sentence following sa replaces the current sentence up to and including sa. Or consider:
 
:.i mi mrilu fi do ''ca lo prulamdei'' sa ''ca la .reldjed.''
 
The correction is ca la .reldjed. ‘on Monday’. So what it replaces is everything from the last phrase beginning with ca: ca lo purlamdei ‘yesterday’. The English version would be “Yesterday I mailed you... actually, it was Monday.”
 
{{talkquote|Tip: Of the Lojban erasure words, sa is not as widely known as si, and another, unofficial solution has arisen on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) to the problem of correcting a word in the sentence after you've completed that sentence. (People on IRC tend to type faster than they should, so this kind of problem arises pretty frequently.) The solution is to repeat the error word, then erase it with si, then give the correction. Strictly speaking, that's not how si is meant to work — it only makes sense to a computer parser if the erasure is within the current sentence; but you'll see this on IRC fairly often.}}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Apply the required erasures to the following Lojban sentences.
 
#.i mi viska lo si la .djan.
#.i mi viska la .djan. si si si catlu la .djan.
#.i mi viska la .djan. sa catlu
#.i lonu lebna loi lojbo valsi cu nandu sa nu vimcu loi lojbo valsi lo jufra cu nandu
#.i mi je lo mi pendo cu zvati lo barja sa je la .ranjit. cu zvati lo barja ca lonu do zvati lo gusta
==Bits and pieces<span id="13.5"></span>==
 
Inevitably with textual cmavo, there's a lot of words that can only be called odds and ends; they each have a specific little job, and don't have much in common. ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 19, bemoans the same problem in paedagogy for the same topic; so at least we're in good company.
 
To survive in Lojbanistan, though, you'll certainly need the following:
 
*ni'o begins a new paragraph. Paragraphs are usually associated with new topics, and ni'o is meant to remind you of cnino ‘new’. There's some complicated stuff about what happens with tenses and assigned pro-sumti across different types of paragraph, but you can do without that for now.
*To emphasise a word, where you would use stress in a spoken natural language, and italics or capitals in a written language, Lojban insists (as should be no surprise to you by now) that you use a separate word: ba'e. Like UI, this word can go pretty much anywhere in a Lojban sentence, but it emphasises the word that ''follows'' it, rather than what precedes it. Or, to put it in Lojban,
 
zo ba'e basna lo valsi poi se lidne jenai lidne zo ba'e
 
*zo ki'a, I hear you ask{{^| rephrase please}}? Good, that means you've been paying attention! zo is a quotation marker, just like lu. However, zo quotes ''only'' the word immediately after it. This means it does not need a terminator: we already know where the quotation ends. The saving of two syllables is highly valued in a language which can get as prolix as Lojban does.
{{^| teach {zo ken cmene mi} here }}
'''Note: '''Since zo quotes any word following it — ''any'' word — it turns out that zo ki'a doesn't mean “zo? Huh?” at all, but “The word ki'a.” To ask “zo? Huh?”, you'll have to resort to (wait for it) zo zo ki'a.
 
*Parenthetical remarks can go anywhere UI can — meaning pretty much anywhere in a Lojban sentence. With parentheses, just like with quotes, you need to know where the parenthesis starts, and where it ends. And just like quotes, the end-parenthesis terminator is going to be pretty hard to drop out. The normal Lojban parentheses are to and toi. So “This (no, I don't want another one!) apple is rotten” comes out in Lojban as:
 
ti poi ''to vi'onai do'u mi na djica lo drata toi'' plise cu fusra
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| cizra
|| x1 is strange/weird/deviant/bizarre/odd to x2 in property x3 (ka)
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Translate the following disfunctional dialogue.
 
#.i zo to to mi ca tavla fo la .lojban toi xamgu lonu tavla fo la .lojban
#.i xamgu ki'a
#ni'o xu do nelci lai loglandias.kontrapositivos.
#.i lai ki'a
#.i mi to je do xu toi gleki lonu te vecnu loi matcrflokati
#.i do tavla lo ba'e cizra
==Summary<span id="13.6"></span>==
 
In this lesson, we have covered lots and lots of little words:
 
*Attitudinal scales (NAI, CAI)
*Non–self-directed and empathic attitudinals
*Attitudinal questions (pei)
*Discursives (UI3)
*Erasing words and phrases (si, sa)
*Paragraphs (ni'o)
*Emphasis (ba'e)
*Single-word quotations (zo)
*Parentheses (to, toi)
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| crida
|| x1<nowiki> is a fairy/elf/gnome/brownie/pixie/goblin/kobold [mythical humanoid] of mythos/religion x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| dansu
|| x1 (individual, mass) dances to accompaniment/music/rhythm x2
 
|-
|| dasni
|| x1 wears/is robed/garbed in x2 as a garment of type x3
 
|-
|| drata
|| x1 isn't the-same-thing-as/is different-from/other-than x2 by standard x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is something else
 
|-
|| .e'e
|| attitudinal: competence – incompetence/inability
 
|-
|| .ia
|| attitudinal: belief – skepticism – disbelief
 
|-
|| krixa
|| x1 cries out/yells/howls sound x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a crier
 
|-
|| lanli
|| x1 analyzes/examines-in-detail x2 by method/technique/system x3<nowiki> [process/activity]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| milxe
|| x1 is mild/non-extreme/gentle/middling/somewhat in property x2 (ka); x1 is not very x2
 
|-
|| sesi'u
|| sumti tcita: assisting... (sidju “help”)
 
|-
|| pensi
|| x1 thinks/considers/cogitates/reasons/is pensive about/reflects upon subject/concept x2
 
|-
|| sisku
|| x1 seeks/searches/looks for property x2 among set x3 (complete specification of set)
 
|-
|| terdi
|| x1 is the Earth/the home planet of race x2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is terrestrial/earthbound
 
|-
|| xalfekfri
|| inebriated, drunk (xalka ‘alcohol’ + fenki ‘crazy’ + lifri ‘experience’)
 
|-
|| zirpu
|| x1<nowiki> is purple/violet [color adjective]</nowiki>
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Translate from Lojban. Remember, ka is the abstractor that specifies a quality (and is obligatory for the second place of sisku).
 
#ni'o ta'o la .djang. cu milxe xalfekfri ki'u lonu klama lo drata barja
#.i ta'onai la .djang. cu cusku lu .i doi lo pedro si pendo .e'uru'e mu'i ma do vi zvati li'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i lonu mi kansa la .djiotis. je lo pendo be ri to mutce melbi .uasai toi li'u
#.i la .djang. lu .i mi lonu do je re lo melbi cu kansa cu ba'e gleki doi pendo sa lonu do kansa re sa'e melbi cu gleki li'u
#.i la .ranjit. lu .i .e'epei zo'o do ca klama la .jipci li'u
#.i la .djang. lu .i .audai do denpa lonu viska lonu mi dansu lonu si si la .jipci vi .y. la .jipci li'u
#.i ranjit. lu .i ro da pe lo dansydi'u co'a krixa zo pe'u vau ba'uru'e li'u
#.i la .djang. lu .i xu .iacu'i do ba'o cradi fo lo crida li'u
#to la .ranjit. cu lanli loi se cradi sesi'u lo nu sisku loka terdi bartu pensi toi{{^| check }}
#.i la .ranjit. lu .i .i'e ju'o lonu do tavla cu zdile li'u
#.i la .djang. lu .i je'e do'u .i'ese'i go'i li'u
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translate into Lojban.
 
#Only Susan doesn't know that Zhang knows Ranjeet. (Hint: trick question! The two instances of ''know'' do ''not'' translate to the same gismu!)
#Susan: “Woah! You're here, and you're wearing purple, too!”
#Zhang: “If I'd known you'd be here, I'd have worn nothing :-)” (''Nothing'' in Lojban is ‘zero somethings’).
#Jyoti: “Not only geeky, but insane.” (Make up a fu'ivla for ‘geeky’, based on kulnu ‘x1<nowiki> [mass of ideas, customs, skills, arts] is culture of nation/ethos x</nowiki>2 (mass); x1 is ethnic'. Assume (for now!) the place structure “x1 is geeky”).
#Ranjeet is very amused, and says “Probably!”
#(Far away, an extraterrestrial intelligence sets off for Earth.) (You'll need a three-part tanru for this. And you've already seen it, if you've been good...).
==Answers to exercises<span id="13.7"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#.uu is the most usual reaction. This is one meaning of English ''Sorry!''
#.u'u (again, unless you flout the dominant social norms.) This is the other meaning of English ''Sorry!''
#.e'uru'e, the “Eh, whatever” type of request.
#.e'ucai, the “Begging on hands and knees” type of request.
#.i'eru'e: yet another ‘slacker’ attitudinal.
#.o'onai. In Lojban, anger is considered the opposite of patience: “losing your temper”. The Buddha would presumably react with .a'ucu'i (indifference), and Christ with .io (love). Someone getting a thrill out of this would react with something more like .oinai (un-complaint, i.e. pleasure).
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#ba'u is the only discursive Lojban would tolerate here, as the Eiffel Tower, is, like, totally ''not'' 20 miles tall!
#da'i
#ju'o “that would certainly be embarrassing” (or sa'e — “that would, in precise terms, be embarrassing.”)
#ta'onai (“getting back to what I was saying...”)
#po'o (“this is the only relevant thing I'm doing.”)
#ki'a (there's a wealth of attitudinals in this word, but ki'a is really the only relevant discursive).
#zu'u (“on the one hand...”; it might not be as elegant as the Classical Greek contrast clauses with ''men'' and ''de'', but that's what it means).
#zu'unai
#ji'a
#sa'e (or ba'ucu'i: presumably our hapless narrator isn't exaggerating here).
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#.i mi viska la .djan.
#.i mi catlu la .djan.
#.i mi catlu (What follows sa is a selbri<nowiki>; so it replaces the last </nowiki>selbri we've seen, as well as everything else up to sa, including the sumti, la .djan).
#.i lonu vimcu loi lojbo valsi lo jufra cu nandu (You're telling me!)
#.i mi je la .ranjit. cu zvati lo barja ca lonu do zvati lo gusta (The phrase following sa is the name la .ranjit.<nowiki>; everything from that name on, i.e. </nowiki>cu zvati lo barja, is deleted).
<center>Exercise 4</center>
#The word to (I am now speaking Lojban) is good for speaking Lojban.
#Good?!
#To change the topic: Do you like the (mass of) Loglandia Contrapositives?
#lai?! (Not a commonly used article, after all).
#I (and you?) are happy to buy ''flokati'' rugs. (Note that xu, as a UI cmavo, specifically queries the word it follows; this is shorthand for asking “Do you too?”)
#You say ''strange'' things.
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#(New Paragraph) Incidentally, Zhang is somewhat drunk, because he went to another bar.
#Anyway, Zhang says “Pedro, I mean, friend, do you mind telling me what you're doing here?”
#Ranjeet says “I'm with Jyoti and a friend of hers (really good-looking; what a win!)”
#Zhang: “I, for you and two beautiful people accompanying, am ''happy'', friend... I mean, for you accompanying two beautiful people (to put it precisely), am happy” (We can get away with “this sentence no verb” in Lojban. And let's not be too hard on Zhang, either, who has the sense to fix his Lojban grammar even in his elated state. He has tried to say “for you and two beautiful people being together”, but kansa in Lojban corresponds to “you are together with two beautiful people”: it is not reciprocal).
#Ranjeet: “You're now going to the ''Chicken'' — sure you can manage it? :‑)”
#Zhang: “You're just waiting to see me dance that, er, the ''Chicken'' at, uh, the ''Chicken''.” (The empathy attitudinal dai expresses desire, but it's a desire Zhang is projecting onto others. That's roughly what ''just'' is doing in the English: “You must be wanting it, waiting for me...”. Zhang produces one too many lenus, so he has to delete his last one; note that lonu counts as two words!)
#Ranjeet: “Everybody in the disco starts shouting ‘Please do’ — more or less.” (Any resemblance to “Everybody in the house say ‘Yeah’” is purely obscured by Ranjeet's pedantry. The attitudinal goes after vau, which you may remember from [[#5|Lesson 5]] is the terminator for a sentence; so the ‘slight exaggeration’ attitudinal applies to the whole sentence).
#Zhang: “Are you ''really'' done sending broadcasts to the pixies?” (Sacrificing Zhang's pretty good wordplay, considering his ‘tired and emotional’ state).
#(Ranjeet analyses radio transmissions for the ''Search for Extraterrestial Intelligence''.) (Abstractions can be names just like simple sumti).
##'''Note: '''When you search in Lojban, you search for something that fits some property, and so you name the ''property'' as x2. That means that you don't say you're searching for good things, but for ''goodness'' — that is, you're searching by checking whether each thing you come across has goodness or not. This is sort of an extension of Lojban's fill-in-the-slot approach to questions: .i mi sisku loka ___ terdi bartu pensi .i ''lo fange pe la .mars.'' cu terdi bartu pensi .i ''lo fange pe la .venus.'' cu terdi bartu pensi .i ''lo fange pe la .vulkan.'' cu terdi bartu pensi .i ''la .djang.'' na terdi bartu pensi.
#Ranjeet: “Good job! Certainly you talking is entertaining.” (Or more colloquially, “It's fun to hear you talk.”)
#Zhang: “Yup, it is, isn't it!” (Spoken with some comical smugness, no doubt..).
 
<center>Exercise 6</center>
#.i la .suzyn. po'o na djuno lodu'u la .ranjit. cu slabu la .djang. (Some languages, like French and German, differentiate between knowing facts and knowing people. Some languages, like English, do not. No prizes for guessing which side of the divide Lojban is on. po'o follows la .suzyn., since that's who it applies to).
#.i la .suzyn. lu .i .uecai do vi zvati gije ji'a dasni loi zirpu li'u ''or'' .i la .suzyn. lu .i .uecai do vi zvati .i je ji'a do dasni loi zirpu li'u (You can tone it down to .uesai, if you want).
#'''.i la .djang. lu .i da'i mi djuno lodu'u do vi zvati kei nagi'a dasni noda zo'o li'u ''or'' .i la .djang. lu .i da'i mi djuno lodu'u do vi zvati .inaja mi dasni noda zo'o li'u'''. In fact (for reasons we won't go into here), things turns out to be less problematic for hypothetical ''if''-statements if you use a solution based on nibli or ni'i: .i la .djang. lu .i lonu mi da'i djuno lodu'u do vi zvati cu nibli lonu mi dasni noda zo'o li'u, or .i la .djang. lu .i mi da'i djuno lodu'u do vi zvati .i seni'ibo da'i mi dasni noda zo'o li'u{{^| note for subjunctivity theory}}
#la .djiotis. lu .i kulnrgiki po'onai gije ji'a fekypre li'u (''But'' here doesn't contradict expectation; it corroborates it. So in this case ''but'' actually means ‘also’! You could in fact add ''also'' or ''too'' in the English sentence. Some languages have different words for the two types of ''but'': German, for instance, would here use ''sondern'' instead of ''aber'').
#.i la .ranjit. cu mutce se zdile gije cusku zo la'a (or lu .i la'a go'i li'u)
#to vuku lo terdi bartu pensi co'a klama la .terdi toi ''or'' to lo terdi bartu pensi vu co'a klama la .terdi toi (You could optionally put an .i after to, but you don't have to: there's no danger of the sentence within parentheses being merged in with the sentence before it).
=Chapter 14. Why didn't I think of that before? More connectives<span id="14"></span>=
 
We have already seen in [[#11|Lesson 11]] several Lojban connectives described. This lesson rounds off discussion of connectives, with three additional types. First, we consider forethought connectives: these are used to identify the logical relation between two terms by being placed in front of the first term, rather than in between the two. Then, we look at some more non-logical connectives — which may prove more useful than you might have expected, especially in a ‘logical’ language. Finally, we look at connectives used to structure tanru — in particular, how to group gismu together within tanru.
 
==Forethought connectives<span id="14.1"></span>==
 
As we've already seen, there are some things odd about the Lojban logical connective for IF. One oddity we haven't touched upon is that you realise that there's a conditional going on only halfway through. Recall what a typical instance of IF looks like:
 
:.i mi djuno lodu'u do vi zvati .inaja mi dasni noda
 
You read the first sentence, and everything goes swimmingly: “I know that you're here.” Then, shazam! you get the connective: “IF that were the case, I would wear nothing.” You didn't know in advance that the first sentence was going to be an IF. This is unlike the case in English (and natural languages in general), where the ''if'' comes right at the start of the first sentence, and gives you plenty of warning about what's coming up.
 
The problem here is, the logical version of IF ''denies'' what comes before it. So in effect, you're getting the first statement, quite normally, and then the surprise: “Either ''that'''s not true, or ''this'' is true.” Things are just as bad for other connectives denying what comes before them. For instance, na.e is a perfectly reasonable connective:
 
:mi djica loi bakni na.e loi jipci{{^|sumti raising! }}
:I want not the beef, but the chicken.
 
But look at what the Lojban is actually saying:
 
:I want the beef — NOT! and the chicken.
 
There was a vogue in the '90s of putting NOT! at the end of sentences in American English (see ''Wayne's World''.) This was a joke, and the reason it was a joke is that saying a sentence isn't true ''after you've already said it'' isn't exactly being helpful.
 
So if we're going to use logical connectives in Lojban, and are obligated to pull NOT!-tricks like this, the Lojban listener can understandably get frustrated. Once again, though, Lojban has an answer. With '''forethought connectives''', you can indicate the logical relationship between two terms ''in front of'' the first term. You still need a word separating the two terms, to show what is being logically connected; but now you know in advance what that logical connection is.
 
If sumti are involved, the forethought connective is formed by placing gi after the logical connective. The two sumti are then connected with the leftover g-word, gi. So the forethought version of mi je do is
 
:jegi mi gi do
 
Here, '''jegi''' means that the two sumti coming up are connected with AND, while '''gi''' indicates that what follows is the second sumti in the relation.
 
The real usefulness of these forms comes out in the NOT!-connectives we've just seen. If you want to give some warning when choosing the chicken instead of the beef, you can now say
 
:mi djica ''jeginai'' loi bakni ''gi'' loi jipci{{^|raising! }}
 
(Forethought connectives can be followed by nai, just like their afterthought counterparts.) If you wanted to say “beef, not chicken”, you would put nai after the gi:
 
:mi djica jegi loi bakni ginai loi jipci{{^|raising! }}
 
If you're connecting bridi, as it turns out, you still use '''je gi''' or their friends. If you don't follow '''jegi''' + sumti immediately by '''gi''' and another sumti, then Lojban grammar assumes that you're connecting not sumti any more, but bridi. So our forethought version of Zhang's statement of wishful thinking is:
 
:.i ''jaginai'' mi djuno lodu'u do vi zvati ''gi'' mi dasni noda
 
You'll notice that there is no second .i here. Two bridi connected by '''jaginai''' belong to the same sentence; we already know from the grammar that what's coming up after the gi is a separate bridi, so we don't need to separate it out with .i.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: This can actually turn out handy in beating Lojban precedence. For example, remember in [[#10|Lesson 10]] that we gave two sentences, and their logical conclusion:}}
 
:.i la .flufis. cu ractu .ije ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive .i la .flufis. seni'i na ze'u jmive
 
We should be able from that to say
 
:''.i'' la .flufis. ractu ''.ije'' ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive ''.iseni'ibo'' la .flufis. na ze'u jmive
 
Right? Actually, no we can't: '''bo''' has the function of connecting sentences through sumti tcita, because it connects sentences on its own. And when it does, it connects them tighter than '''.ije''' does. This means that '''.iseni'ibo''' connects only to the immediately preceding sentence — not to the preceding sentence pair! So Fluffy's death is presented as a consequence of rabbits not living long — not a consequence of ''both'' rabbits not living long ''and'' Fluffy being a rabbit.
 
However, if we put the two bridi in a single sentence, then none of this is an issue: the conclusion will attach to both bridi, but will still attach to a single sentence:
 
.i ''jegi'' la .flufis. cu ractu ''gi'' ro ractu na'e ze'u jmive ''.iseni'ibo'' la .flufis. na ze'u jmive
 
There is also a forethought connective for tanru, corresponding to JA: these connectives are formed by placing '''gu''' at the back of the connective vowel (connecting the second tanru with gi.) So if we want to say that Susan fancies men that are, if funny, then also handsome, the afterthought version is
 
:la .suzyn. cu cinynei ro melbi naja xajmi nanmu
 
To make this slightly (but only slightly!) more comprehensible, we can put this in forethought mode:
 
:la .suzyn. cu cinynei ro ''jagunai'' melbi ''gi'' xajmi nanmu
 
There are no forethought versions of bridi-tail connectives. In practice, however, two bridi connected by '''JAgi''' can be bridi-tails just as easily as full bridi: there is no real meaning distinction between the two.
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Give sentences using forethought connectives instead of the afterthought connectives used below.
 
#.i la .djiotis. cu nelci loi cidjrkari .a loi nanba
#.i la .djiotis. cu nelci loi cidjrkari .iju la .djiotis. cu citka loi cidjrkari
#.i la .djiotis. cu nelci ju citka loi cidjrkari
#.i la .djiotis. cu nelci loi cidjrkari gije xebni loi zirpu
#.i la .djiotis. cu jonai la .suzyn. cu djuno lodu'u la .djang. cu zvati jonai tadni
#.i la .djiotis. cu nelci loi cidjrkari ja loi nanba je loi jisra (Remember: Lojban nests to the left!)
#.i la .djiotis. cu jonai la .suzyn. cu djuno lodu'u la .djang. cu zvati .inaja la .djang. cu se denpa
==Non-logical connectives<span id="14.2"></span>==
 
We have already seen one non-logical connective, '''joi'''. By non-logical, we mean that the truth of the combined terms does not depend on the truth of the individual components. It may not be true that '''la .kris. cu bevri lo pipno''' “Chris carries the piano”, or '''la .pat. cu bevri lo pipno''' “Pat carries the piano”, for example (to revisit an example from [[#4|Lesson 4]]), even if it is true that '''la .kris. joi la .pat. cu bevri lo pipno''' “Chris and Pat carry the piano.”
 
Lojban has several other non-logical connectives; we'll cover the most frequently used ones:
 
*'''ce''' joins sumti (usually) into a '''set''', rather than a mass like '''joi'''.
 
We haven't said much about sets; and because sets are fairly abstract entities, as entities go, you don't often have occasion to talk about them. While you can say '''mi viska loi remna''' “I saw a mass of people”, for example (you saw them as a bunch), you aren't likely to say '''mi viska lo'i remna''' “I saw a set of people.”
 
But as we have seen in the exercises, some gismu need sets in order to work. '''simxu''', for example, takes as its x1 a set. This is because the group of things or people in a mutual relationship needs to be well-defined: you've got to be able to say with certainty whether someone is involved in the relationship or not. The point of sets is that you can categorically say ''x'' belongs to the set or doesn't. The membership of masses is left much more nebulous, so saying “a bunch of people talk to each other” doesn't make as definite a statement. The same goes for cuxna ‘choose’: what you choose from in Lojban (x3) is a set, because you normally have to be certain what belongs in the group you're choosing from, and what doesn't.
 
So when you form a set out of several sumti, you connect them with '''ce'''. To say “Jyoti, Susan and Ranjeet talk to each other”, you would say something like
 
:la .djiotis. ce la .suzyn. ce la .ranjit. cu simxu loka tavla
 
or
 
:la .djiotis. ce la .suzyn. ce la .ranjit. cu tavla simxu
 
Similarly, if you pick one of Jyoti, Susan or Ranjeet, you would say
 
:mi cuxna pa da la .djiotis. ce la .suzyn. ce la .ranjit.
 
*If you are referring to an '''ordered set''' — a sequence of things, in other words — then you use ce'o to place things in order. This gets invoked when you're compiling a list for whatever reason; for example, the Lojban alphabet is a sequence, and you'd list it as
 
:.abu ce'o by. ce'o cy. ce'o dy. ce'o .ebu ...
 
and so on. This is what liste ‘list’ and porsi ‘sequence’ expect as their x1 sumti.
 
*fa'u carries the meaning of ''respectively'': it relates pairs of sumti '''cross-wise'''. If I were to say
 
:la .suzyn. je la .djiotis. cu tavla la .djang. je la .ranjit.
 
that means that both Susan and Jyoti talk to both Zhang and Ranjeet. If I want to say that Susan only talked to Zhang, and Jyoti only to Ranjeet (i.e. “Susan and Jyoti talked to Zhang and Ranjeet, ''respectively''”), a logical connective is not useful. Instead, I would use fa'u to connect both pairs of sumti:
 
:la .suzyn. fa'u la .djiotis. cu tavla la .djang. fa'u la .ranjit.
 
Susan, cross-wise with Jyoti, talks to Zhang, cross-wise with Ranjeet.
 
*If you're talking about a range, you use '''bi'i''' to describe the range between the first thing and the second thing; so it corresponds to English ''between''. If you want to say “I dropped my pencil somewhere between the office and the bar”, you would describe the location “somewhere between the office and the bar” as lo briju ku bi'i lo barja. The whole sentence would come out as:
 
:mi falcru lemi pinsi ''vi lo briju bi'i lo barja''
 
{{talkquote|This selma'o, BIhI, like selma'o JOI to which all non-logical connectives belong, can join both sumti and selbri.}}
 
*If the order of the things defining the range matters, you use '''bi'o'''. This corresponds to ''from... to...'' in English (though ''between'' covers both ordered and unordered intervals.) For example, “from 1 PM to 2 PM” is an interval lasting an hour; but “from 2 PM to 1 PM” would normally be interpreted as a 23-hour interval (1 pm the following day), since times in English are assumed to be presented in order. Lojban follows suit with li pavo lo'o bi'o li paci as a 23-hour interval. If I said li pavo lo'o bi'i li paci, the order of the two times would not matter at all; so I could still be talking about a one-hour interval instead.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: The selma'o BIhI needs ''all'' sumti terminated before it, not just normal sumti with lo or lo. Since numbers are also sumti, you have to use the terminator corresponding to li, which is lo'o.}}
{{talkquote|Note: You can use non-logical connectives in forethought mode, too: the forethought connective is the non-logical connective followed by gi. So the forethought version of la .kris. joi la .pat. is joi gi la .kris. gi la .pat.}}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Which logical or non-logical connective would you use to translate the emphasised phrases in the following sentences?
 
#The murderer is one of ''Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, or Miss White''.
#The Greek Dialect Dictionary has published five volumes, ''from alpha to delta''.
#See the Lojban Reference Grammar, ''pp. 22–24''.
#A dactyl consists of ''two short syllables, one long syllable''<nowiki>; an anapaest consists of </nowiki>''one long syllable, two short syllables''.
#Out of ''Zhang, Susan, Jyoti and Ranjeet'', Zhang is the purplest.
#''Jyoti and Susan'' discuss Zhang's fashion sense.
#''Ranjeet and Zhang'' are wearing shirts.
==tanru grouping<span id="14.3"></span>==
 
The default grouping in Lojban is leftwards. This means that, if you have three things connected together in Lojban, the first two go together before you join in the third. For example, '''la .djiotis. je la .suzyn. jonai la .ranjit''' means not “Jyoti and either Susan or Ranjeet”, but “Either Jyoti and Susan, or Ranjeet.”
 
Does the distinction matter? Depends on your background; programmers, for example, are often driven to distraction in making sure their logical connectives work out in the right order (usually by copious use of brackets.) But there is often a real difference in meaning; the first interpretation given above describes a couple, for example, but the second doesn't.
 
The grouping of terms in Lojban grammar is particularly important when it comes to tanru. The way gismu group together in a tanru determines what that tanru means. For example,
 
:''bad music magazine''
 
has in English two interpretations: a bad magazine about music, or a magazine about bad music. In Lojban, its equivalent
 
:xlali zgike karni
 
has ''only'' the interpretation ‘magazine about bad music’, because the first two gismu (xlali zgike ‘bad music’) group together first. So it is important to be able to modify the grouping of gismu, so that we can make sure the tanru means what we actually intend it to mean. For that reason, Lojban has a couple of mechanisms in place for making tanru group together properly.
 
If you are a programmer, or a mathematician, you have long ago made brackets your trusted aide in dealing with this kind of problem. So you won't be surprised to hear that Lojban has cmavo that act as parentheses, grouping gismu together. Those cmavo are not to and toi: those are reserved for your own parenthetical comments, and you never know when you might want to insert a snide remark in the middle of a particularly arduous tanru. Rather, the cmavo you need are ke, to open the grouping bracket, and ke'e, to close it. So if xlali zgike karni means a ''{bad music} magazine'', then a ''bad {music magazine}'' is in Lojban:
 
:xlali ''ke'' zgike karni ''ke'e''
 
Now, '''ke'e''' is a terminator, like all the other terminators we've seen: '''ku, kei, ku'o, vau''', and so on. And like those terminators, it can be dropped out when no ambiguity will result. So if we know we're at the end of the tanru, having reached the end of the selbri (because we've just bumped into a sumti, say, or a new sentence), then we also know that any open ke brackets must now close; so ke'e can be omitted. This means you won't necessarily see a ke'e ‘close bracket’ after each ke ‘open bracket’:
 
:.i mi pu zi te vecnu lo xlali ''ke'' zgike karni .i to'e zanru la'o gy. Eurythmics gy.
:<nowiki>I just bought a bad {music magazine [}]. It dissed the Eurythmics.</nowiki>
 
That's one way of grouping together gismu in tanru. The other way is to use a cmavo we've already seen in a related role: '''bo'''. When '''bo''' appears between two gismu, it means that those gismu group together more tightly than anything else. So an alternative way of saying ''bad {music magazine}'' is
 
:xlali zgike ''bo'' karni
 
This means that '''zgike bo karni''' should count as a unit, to which the description '''xlali''' ‘bad’ applies.
 
'''bo''' does the same job with sentences ('''.i bo, .i ba bo, .i seni'i bo''' all attach to only the preceding sentence), with connectives ('''je bo, gije bo'''), and so on. So if I want to say “Jyoti and either Susan or Ranjeet”, I would say
 
:la .djiotis. je la .suzyn. jonai''bo'' la .ranjit.{{^| hm?}}
 
For that matter, ke can also be used with connectives (though not with sentences; they have their own kind of bracket, tu'e–tu'u.) So I could also say
 
:la .djiotis. je ''ke'' la .suzyn. jonai la .ranjit. ''ke'e''
 
— where in most cases the '''ke'e''' may be left out.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: You can't start a run of sumti with ke, for reasons of Lojban grammatical pedantry we won't go into here.}}
{{talkquote|Tip: An advantage of putting the connective before the two terms, or after the two terms, is that you can completely avoid this kind of ambiguity. The more geeky among you will have heard of Reverse Polish notation: this does arithmetic by placing the operators ''after'' the numbers they operate on (e.g. (2 + 3) × 5 becomes 2 3 + 5 ×), and so avoids having to use brackets. The same holds for Lojban forethought connectives: “Jyoti and either Susan or Ranjeet” is}}
 
:''jegi'' la .djiotis. ''gi'' joginai la .suzyn. gi la .ranjit.
:and “Either Jyoti and Susan, or Ranjeet” is
 
:''joginai'' jegi la .djiotis. gi la .suzyn. ''gi'' la .ranjit.
 
Since there is no ambiguity, you won't need bo or '''ke''' with forethought connectives.
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Gloss the following into English, using brackets to indicate their structure. For instance:
 
:xlali zgike karni
:( ( bad music ) magazine )
 
#xlali bo zgike karni
#xlali zgike bo karni
#ke xlali zgike karni
#ke xlali zgike bo karni
#xlali ke zgike ke karni ke tcidu
#xlali zgike bo karni tcidu
#xlali zgike ke karni tcidu
#ke xlali zgike ke'e karni tcidu
#xlali ke zgike karni ke'e tcidu
#ke xlali zgike bo karni ke'e tcidu
==Summary<span id="14.4"></span>==
 
In this lesson, we have covered:
 
*Forethought logical connectives ('''JAgi''', '''JAgu''')
*Non-logical connectives ('''ce, ce'o, fa'u, bi'i, bi'o''')
*Uses for sets and sequences
*tanru-grouping cmavo ('''ke, ke'e, bo''')
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| cabdei
|| today (cabna ‘now’ + djedi ‘day’)
 
|-
|| certu
|| x1 is an expert/pro/has prowess in/is skilled at x2 (event/activity) by standard x3
 
|-
|| cfipu
|| x1 (event/state) confuses/baffles x2<nowiki> [observer] due to [confusing] property x</nowiki>3 (ka)
 
|-
|| ckafi
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of coffee from source/bean/grain x2
 
|-
|| ckule
|| x1 is school/institute/academy at x2 teaching subject(s) x3 to audien./commun. x4 operated by x5
 
|-
|| frumu
|| x1 frowns/grimaces (facial expression)
 
|-
|| glare
|| x1<nowiki> is hot/[warm] by standard x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| gusni
|| x1<nowiki> [energy] is light/illumination illuminating x</nowiki>2 from light source x3
 
|-
|| jamfu
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the foot [body-part] of x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| ladru
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of milk from source x2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is lactic/dairy
 
|-
|| moi
|| convert number to ordinal selbri; x1 is (n)th member of set x2 ordered by rule x3
 
|-
|| ni
|| abstractor: quantity/amount abstractor; ‘the amount that...’
 
|-
|| skapi
|| x1 is a pelt/skin/hide/leather from x2
 
|-
|| stedu
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the head [body-part] of x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| sodva
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of a carbonated beverage/soda of flavor/brand x2
 
|-
|| traji
|| x1 is superlative in property x2 (ka), the x3 extreme (ka; default ka zmadu) among set/range x4
 
|-
|| vimcu
|| x1 removes/subtracts/deducts/takes away x2 from x3 with/leaving result/remnant/remainder x4
 
|-
|| zbasu
|| x1 makes/assembles/builds/manufactures/creates x2 out of materials/parts/components x3
 
|-
|| zmadu
|| x1 exceeds/is more than x2 in property/quantity x3 (ka/ni) by amount/excess x4
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
Translate from Lojban.
 
#.i la .djang. cu traji loka zirpu kei fo la .djang. ce la .ranjit. ce la .djiotis. ce la .suzyn.
#.i ji'a la .djang. cu joginai zmadu la .ranjit. loni certu lonu dansu gi xalfekfri caku
#.i la .suzyn. cu bevri loi birje gi loi sodva fa'u gi la .djiotis. fa'u la .djang.
#.i la .djang. cu jugu sutra gi djica pinxe loi sodva{{^| change}}
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i pe'ipei do baza djica loi glare cnino bo se zbasu ckafi li'u
#.i la .djang. cu cusku lu .i cnino skapi ki'a .i lo ca skapi be mi cu stedu bi'i jamfu melbi li'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu krixa lu .i ckafi li'u
#.i la .djang. cu se cfipu catlu gije ba ke cmila gije cusku lu .i na go'i doi bebna .i mi pinxe loi sodva li'u{{^| error }}
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Translate into Lojban. Use only forethought connectives.
 
#Jyoti, who is holding and drinking coffee, speaks to Susan.
#“It's good that Zhang is here, and that you met him today.”
#Susan says “Tell me about Ranjeet, not Zhang.”
#“Is he an old schoolfriend of yours?”
#Just then, Susan hears ''Superfreak'', the first out of the songs which are danced to (= to dance to).
#Susan shouts “Yay!”, and she and Ranjeet start dancing.
#Jyoti stares at Zhang, who is smiling and building a chicken out of pretzels, and frowns. (Make a fu'ivla for ''pretzel'' based on nanba ‘bread’. Be careful, by the way: is Zhang ''really'' constructing a chicken?)
#An alien space vehicle arrives, shines light, and removes the four friends from the disco. (Use ce'o to join the steps in this somewhat unlikely sequence of events).
==Answers to exercises<span id="14.5"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#.i la .djiotis. cu nelci jagi loi cidjrkari gi loi nanba
#.i jugi la .djiotis. cu nelci loi cidjrkari gi la .djiotis. cu citka loi cidjrkari
#.i la .djiotis. cu jugu nelci gi citka loi cidjrkari{{^| ! }}
#.i la .djiotis. cu jegi nelci loi cidjrkari gi xebni loi zirpu
#.i joginai la .djiotis. cu gi la .suzyn. cu djuno lodu'u la .djang. cu jonaigu zvati gi tadni (or: '''.i jogi la .djiotis. cu ginai la .suzyn. cudjuno lodu'u la .djang. cu jonaigu zvati gi tadni'''){{^| ! }}
#.i la .djiotis. cu nelci jegi jagi loi cidjrkari gi loi nanba gi loi jisra (You're joining loi cidjrkari ja loi nanba to loi jisra){{^| ! }}
#.i jaginai jogi la .djiotis. cu ginai la .suzyn. cu djuno lodu'u la .djang. cu zvati gi la .djang. cu se denpa
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#ce: You are picking a murderer out of a group, so the group you are picking from needs to be well-defined. That makes it a set.
#bi'o: The dictionary does not contain the letters alpha and delta, of course, but all the Greek dialect words between those two letters; so we are dealing with a range. And however slow the ''Academy of Athens'' has been in getting the volumes out (67 years and counting), it has still done them in alphabetical order; so the order of the interval matters.
#bi'o: This is still a range, as you are being asked to consult the text contained ''between'' those pages (you will also be looking at page 23.) The pages are also assumed to be in numerical order, so bi'o is preferred (although bi'i would not be incorrect: even if you looked through the pages backwards, you would still end up looking at the same pages).
#ce'o: Even if you don't know what on earth a dactyl and an anapaest is (no, they are not components of dinosaurs), you can tell from the definition that the order of short and long syllables makes a difference. So the two terms involve types of sequences.
#ce: You are still picking something out of a well-defined group, so Lojban uses a set. In fact, all superlatives in Lojban (‘fastest’, ‘smartest’, ‘most likely to dance the funky chicken’) involve sets in the same way.
#joi: Discussion is a group effort, and it does not involve ranges of people or sequences of people. We ''could'' speak of sets of people involved in discussion, if we assumed that you're definitely either in the discussion or out of it; but joi avoids having to commit to such a clearcut distinction.
#je: This is a perfectly logical connective: what Ranjeet and Zhang do with their shirts, they do independently.
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#( ( bad music ) magazine )
#( bad ( music magazine ) )
#( ( ( bad music ) magazine ) ) — The ke spans the entire tanru, so it doesn't make much of a difference in the meaning.
#( ( bad ( music magazine ) ) )
#( bad ( music ( magazine reader ) ) )
#( ( bad ( music magazine ) ) reader ) — bo binds zgike and karni together, so this becomes a three-part tanru, which still binds leftwards.
#( ( bad music ) ( magazine reader ) )
#( ( ( bad music ) magazine ) reader ) — the ke–ke'e pair is merely reproducing the standard structure of a tanru.
#( ( bad ( music magazine ) ) reader )
10. ( ( bad ( music magazine ) ) reader )
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#Zhang is the most purple out of Zhang, Ranjeet, Jyoti and Susan. (Literally, “Zhang is superlative in purpleness among...” You would normally use a lujvo — in this case ziryrai ‘purplest’ — to cut the sentence down to a manageable size: la .djang. cu ziryrai la .djang. ce la .ranjit. ce la .djiotis. ce la .suzyn.).
#Also, Zhang either dances better than Ranjeet, or drunk (at that time). (''Or'': when he's not drunk.) (Literally, again, the Lojban gives more detail: “Zhang exceeds Ranjeet in the amount by which he is expert at dancing.” And here, too, you can use a lujvo to make the sentence somewhat simpler: '''.i la .djang. cu ''cremau'' la .ranjit. lonu dansu''', from '''certu zmadu''' ‘more expert’).
#Susan brings Jyoti a beer, and Zhang a soda. (Or soft drink, or pop, or coke, or cordial, or lolly water — whatever your local word for carbonated beverages is).
#Zhang quickly (whether or not willingly) drinks the soda. (Remember that '''jugu sutra gi djica''' means the same as '''sutra ju djica''': it is the willingness, rather than the quickness, that is irrelevant).
#Ranjeet says “Don't you think you'll eventually want some hot, freshly-brewed coffee?” (As the punctuation in the English shows, the Lojban words for ''freshly-brewed'' — literally the more prosaic ‘newly constructed’ — go together. If the bo was not there, Ranjeet would be saying something like the coffee being novel in that it is hot (''<nowiki>{hot [kind of] new} made coffee</nowiki>''); perhaps the establishment doesn't normally have much of a water heating process, so any actual hot coffee would be a sensation).
#Zhang says “New skin? Huh? My current skin is head-to-foot beautiful!” (Zhang has misheard Ranjeet over the thumping music, not to mention the buzz in his own head. As this shows, you can use non-logical connectives to join together selbri as well as sumti: ''from head to toe'' snuck inside a tanru is as good a place as any for it).
#Ranjeet shouts “Coffee!”
#Zhang looks confusedly, and afterwards (then) laughs and says “No, silly! I'm drinking soda!” (Ranjeet's exclamation can also be interpreted as an observative — “Look! Coffee!”, especially to a mind as addled as Zhang's).
'''Note: '''Just like .i, gije can be followed by a tense to indicate when the second term happened relative to the first term. If gije means ‘and’, then gije ba bo means ‘and later’, or ‘and then’. We saw someting similar with gi ca bo above.
 
But '''bo''' still binds immediately to what went before it. So if we left things as they were, we would be saying something like “Zhang looks confusedly and then laughs. He also says...” In that case, it wouldn't necessarily be clear that he spoke ''after'' he stared at Ranjeet, dumbstruck: since logical AND says nothing about the time when things happen, that sentence would still be true even if Zhang had made his perceptive remark three days earlier.
 
What we want is for the ''and later'' to apply to ''both'' him laughing and him talking. To force this to happen, we use the bracket ke instead of bo (ke can also take tense): “Zhang {stares}, ''and then'' {laughs and says ‘No, silly...’}” You might also want to refer to p. 364 of ''The Complete Lojban Language''.
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#.i la .djiotis. noi jegu jgari gi pinxe loi ckafi cu tavla la .suzyn.
#There are several ways you can say this:
*.i lu .i lonu jegi la .djang. vi zvati gi do penmi ri ca lo cabdei cu xamgu li'u
*.i lu .i jegi lonu la .djang. vi zvati gi lonu do penmi ri ca lo cabdei cu xamgu li'u
*.i lu .i xamgu fa lonu jegi la .djang. vi zvati gi do penmi ri ca lo cabdei li'u
*.i lu .i xamgu fa jegi lonu la .djang. vi zvati gi lonu do penmi ri ca lo cabdei li'u
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i ko tavla mi jegi la .ranjit. ginai la .djang.
#'''.i xu slabu ckule bo pendo do li'u''' ''or'' '''.i xu slabu ke ckule pendo do li'u''' ('''slabu ckule pendo''' would have meant ‘friend from an old school’ instead).
#'''.icazibo la .suzyn. cu tirna la'o gy. Superfreak gy. no'u lo pamoi be lo'i selsanga poi se dansu''' ''or'' '''.icazibo la .suzyn. cu tirna la .SUperfrik. noi pamoi lo'i selsanga poi se dansu'''
#.i jegi la .suzyn. cu krixa zo .ui gi joigi la .suzyn. gi la .ranjit. co'a dansu (if you want to emphasise that they're dancing together) ''or'' .i jegi la .suzyn. cu krixa zo .ui gi jegi la .suzyn. gi la .ranjit. co'a dansu (if you don't.){{^| check original }}
#'''.i la .djiotis. cu jegi catlu la .djang. noi jegi cisma gi zbasu lo jipci loi nanbrpretsele gi frumu''' {{^|('''le jipci'' ‘the chicken’ is the easiest way around the fact that Zhang's incipient masterpiece of contemporary art is not an actual flesh-and-blood, clucking chicken. Lojban being the logical language it is, you'll probably find people insisting on the distinction, and saying things like ‘facsimile of a chicken’ or ‘chicken-like thing’. Like we said, the final vowel of nanbrpretsele is pretty much up to you — until there's a standard dictionary fu'ivla for it, at least).
##'''Note: '''Strictly speaking, neither lo jipci nor lo jipci actually work. lo is '''non-veridical''' (“that which I describe as”), but it is also specific (the speaker, at least, must have a specific referent in mind — which is not necessarily the case here.) lo is '''veridical''', so it at least raises the expectation that the chicken clucks and lays eggs — although many Lojbanists would allow for metaphorical extension, and say that a chicken made out of pretzels is still a chicken, of the species ''Chickenus Breadproductus Pretzelus''. (Remember: all chickens have to have a species or breed (lo se jipci) to be called lo jipci! Compare ''The Complete Lojban Language'', Chapter 6.2, and the example of teddybears.) Holy shit! it's bear goo! }}
#.i lo fange kensa bo xe klama ce'ogi mo'u klama gi ce'ogi te gusni gi vimcu lo vo pendo lo dansydi'u (Although fange ke kensa xe klama would also have been fine. fange kensa xe klama would have meant a vehicle intended only for alien space — which can't be right, since the spaceship has just paid planet Earth a surprise visit. ''Way'' surprising..).
 
=Chapter 15. Singled out: Isolating specific places<span id="15"></span>=
 
In this lesson, we look at three features of Lojban grammar which normally get relegated to the ‘too-hard’ basket. Each of them involves singling out a particular sumti from a bridi, as being somehow more special than the other sumti. The full logical machinery associated with these ‘singlings out’ can get rather formidable, which is why Lojbanists tend to regard these features with some degree of awe. Hopefully we'll present these concepts to you with a minimum of fuss, in enough detail that you can go about using them comfortably in your Lojban.
 
==Indirect questions<span id="15.1"></span>==
 
A Lojban question word is a request to “fill in the slot”, ''wherever'' it appears in a sentence. So
 
:''ma'' cilre la .lojban.
 
is the question “''Who'' is learning Lojban?” By the same token,
 
:mi djica lonu ''ma'' cilre la .lojban.
 
is the question “I want ''who'' to learn Lojban?” — or, in actual English (since English likes to have its question words at the start of the sentence), “''Who'' do I want to learn Lojban?” And
 
:mi pu cusku lo se du'u ''ma'' cilre la .lojban.
 
is “I said ''who'' is learning Lojban?” — i.e. “''Who'' did I say is learning Lojban?”
 
There's no reason '''du'u''' should behave any differently than '''nu''', let alone '''sedu'u'''; so
 
:mi djuno lodu'u ''ma'' cilre la .lojban.
 
means “I know that ''who'' is learning Lojban?” — i.e. “''Who'' do I know is learning Lojban?”
 
What it does not mean is “I know who is learning Lojban” — as in “I know the identity of the person learning Lojban.” In a construction like that in English, you are not asking a real question; that's why this is called an '''indirect question'''. Instead, you are saying that you already ''know'' the answer to the question. You can tell that the word ''who'' in that statement is not a request for information, because it is not at the start of the sentence, there's no question mark (or questioning intonation), and the question word is not being emphasised.
 
Lojban does not use any of these workarounds; a question word is a question word in Lojban, wherever it happens to end up in the sentence. This means that '''mi djuno lodu'u <u>ma</u> cilre la .lojban.''' can never be an indirect question: it is asking for an answer. (It is asking for an answer even if you're doing it rhetorically, although that's the kind of behaviour which Lojbanists — a level-headed bunch by most accounts, at least when they're speaking in Lojban — might not necessarily appreciate.) So what to do?
 
Well, let's look at what you do know. Let's say the person learning Lojban is Fred. If I ask you the question '''ma cilre la .lojban.''', you know what value to fill in the '''ma''' slot with: '''la .fred.''' So you could just say
 
:mi djuno lodu'u la .fred. cu cilre la .lojban.
 
For whatever reason, however, you're not telling me the actual name — totally within your prerogative. In fact, I could say about you that “''You'' know who is learning Lojban” — but because I don't know it, I have no name to fill in the ‘who’ slot with.
 
So you know that ''someone'' is learning Lojban: '''do djuno lodu'u zo'e cilre la .lojban.''' And you can fill in the value of zo'e, even though I can't. What we want is some word that would tell us “the answer that goes here isn't being said, but it is known anyway.” That word is the UI cmavo, '''kau'''. So we can say:
 
:mi djuno lodu'u zo'e ''kau'' cilre la .lojban.
:I know someone is learning Lojban, and I know who it is.
 
:do djuno lodu'u zo'e ''kau'' cilre la .lojban.
:You know someone is learning Lojban, and ''you'' know who it is.
 
'''kau''' says that the value of the word it attaches to is known — whatever that word might be. So in fact, you can put it next to a question word, and it will cancel out the question word's force. '''mi djuno lodu'u ''ma kau'' cilre la .lojban.''' means exactly the same as '''mi djuno lodu'u ''zo'e kau'' cilre la .lojban.''' — and it has the advantage of looking just like the indirect questions we're already familiar with.
 
{{talkquote|Tip: Question words have the advantage that they are fairly devoid of content, so they don't make any presumptions you might not welcome. For example, if I know that no-one is learning Lojban, I can say '''mi djuno lodu'u makau cilre la .lojban.'''<nowiki>; but I cannot say </nowiki>'''mi djuno lodu'u dakau cilre la .lojban.''' — because da by default means ‘at least one entity’.}}
 
Since '''kau''' belongs to selma'o UI, you can place it pretty much anywhere. In particular, anywhere you can put a question word in Lojban, you can turn it into an indirect question by adding '''kau'''. So you can say “I know how many people are learning Lojban”, as
 
:mi djuno lodu'u ''xo kau'' lo prenu cu cilre la .lojban.
 
(Remember, '''xo''' is the question word for numbers).
 
You can even make indirect questions of Lojban's more exotic question words. For example, in [[#11|Lesson 11]], the waiter asks Jyoti and Susan '''lanme ji bakni''' “lamb or beef?” Once they answer, he knows whether they want to eat lamb or beef; in Lojban,
 
:ba'o lonu la .djiotis. je la .suzyn. cu spusku kei lo bevri cu djuno lodu'u re ra djica loka citka loi lanme ''ji kau'' bakni
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| farna
|| x1 is the direction of x2 (object/event) from origin/in frame of reference x3
 
|-
|| gunro
|| x1 rolls/trundles on/against surface x2 rotating on axis/axle x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a roller
 
|-
|| rokci
|| x1 is a quantity of/is made of/contains rock/stone of type/composition x2 from location x3
 
|-
|| sepli
|| x1 is apart/separate from x2, separated by partition/wall/gap/interval/separating medium x3
 
|-
|| simsa
|| x1 is similar/parallel to x2 in property/quantity x3 (ka/ni); x1 looks/appears like x2
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
Express the following indirect questions in Lojban. Use Lojban question words to translate the English question words.
 
#I want to know when you will talk to me.
#I don't know why you don't talk to me.
#I've said who I thought was a fool.
#Tell me where the beer is.
#You said who I should give the book to.
#Tell me how does it feel when you're on your own with no direction known like a rolling stone. (Not only is there a profusion of Dylan here, but this is kind of a trick question. But do translate it as an indirect one, anyway).
 
==Infinitives and properties<span id="15.2"></span>==
{{^| should have been explained earlier. Rework and remove}}We have seen, here and there, instances of Lojban expressions of infinitives and properties. Lojban treats them as abstractions, introduced by '''ka'''. There is nothing controversial about that; properties are things you can talk about (sumti), which involve relationships and characteristics (selbri). So if xendo means ‘kind’, for instance, '''lo ka xendo''' refers to ‘kindness’.
 
The thing about properties, though, is that they are properties ''of'' something. They are associated, not just with a selbri, but with a particular place of the selbri. For example, kindness is not just '''lo ka xendo''', but the property of someone displaying kindness — as a characteristic of that someone. In other words, not just '''lo ka xendo''', but '''lo ka ___ xendo''', where ___ stands in for that ‘someone’.
 
As a further example, consider influence and susceptibility. Both involve the relationship expressed in Lojban as xlura:
 
:x1 (agent) influences/lures/tempts x2 into action/state x3 by influence/threat/lure x4
 
So the Lojban for influence is '''lo ka xlura'''. And the Lojban for susceptibility is... what ? '''lo ka xlura'''?
 
Well, strictly speaking, both properties involve the same bridi, '''xlura'''. But obviously, we can't have the same expression for both influence and susceptibility; we have to have a way of highlighting the place in the bridi we are interested in. Though the two properties involve the same bridi, they focus on different places of that bridi. Influence is the property associated with the x1 of '''xlura''', the influencer. Susceptibility is the property associated with the x2 of '''xlura''', the influencee. So how do we say that in Lojban?
 
Lojban's solution to this problem is fairly similar to Lojban's approach to questions, as it turns out. Remember in [[#13|Lesson 13]] that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence was, in terms of Lojban, a search for the value to fit in the slot
:'''loka ___ terdi bartu pensi'''
{{^|why not du'u here? }}
By the same token, influence is a property of things that fit into the x1 place of xlura; so you can think of influence as '''lo ka ___ xlura'''. If we know that '''mi''' fits into the slot, we have ‘my influence’; if we know that '''la .fred.''' fits into the slot, we have ‘Fred’s influence'. And susceptibility is a property of things that fit into the x2 place of '''xlura'''; so you can think of susceptibility as '''lo ka xlura ___''' (or '''lo ka ___ se xlura''').
 
Lojban has a word for that slot associated with properties. It isn't '''ma''', because you're not asking someone what fills the slot; you're just pointing out that there's a slot there that can be filled. It isn't '''ke'a''' either, because '''ke'a''' refers back to something you've already expressed as a sumti (though you might think of a relative clause as a property belonging to that sumti.) Property slots get their own KOhA cmavo, '''ce'u'''. So:
*Influence is '''lo ka ce'u xlura''' “the property that ''x'' influences”: anyone or anything that has that property can stand in for '''ce'u'''.
*Susceptibility is '''lo ka xlura ce'u'''<nowiki> - “the property that [something] influences </nowiki>''x''”, or '''lo ka ce'u se xlura''' -  “the property that ''x'' is influenced”: anyone or anything that has ''that'' property can stand in for '''ce'u'''.
*And extraterrestrial intelligence is '''lo ka ce'u terdi bartu pensi''' “the property that ''x'' is an earth-exterior thinker.” You can tell whether you've found your Little Green Men by substituting them for '''ce'u''', and seeing if the bridi is true:
 
:lo ka ''lo fange pe la .vulkan.'' cu terdi bartu pensi
 
<center>Abstractors in one system</center>
{{^| add su'u }}
The difference between '''nu, du'u, ka''' and '''si'o''' is purely grammatical, and concerns the interpretation of elided sumti.
*In '''nu''' and '''du'u''' abstractions, all elided sumti are interpreted as '''zo'e'''.
*In '''ka''' abstractions that contain one or more overt '''ce'u''', all elided sumti are interpreted as '''zo'e'''.
*In '''ka''' abstractions that contain no overt '''ce'u''', the rule is that the first empty slot of the internal bridi gets '''ce'u''' implied unless specified otherwise. One of such exclusions is '''simxu''' that has two '''ce'u''' places according to it's definition. So if nothing is said in the definition then the leftmost empty sumti is interpreted as '''ce'u''' {{^|unless this default is overridden by strong contextual factors}}and the rest are interpreted as '''zo'e'''.
*In '''si'o''' abstractions, all elided sumti are interpreted as ce'u.
 
{{^|So while '''lo ka xlura''' without '''ce'u''' can potentially mean both ‘influence’ and ‘susceptibility’, the default assumption is that it means ‘influence’, while '''lo ka se xlura''' means ‘susceptibility’. }}
 
So '''lo ka xendo''' means '''lo ka ce'u xendo''' - ‘the property of people being kind’, and '''lo ka xendo fi ce'u''' - ‘the property of an action being something in which kindness is shown’ (that action ''is'' frequently what is meant in English by ''kindness'').
 
{{^|rewrite?remove?}}If you cast your mind back to [[#7|Lesson 7]], you'll remember that we split up the abstractions Lojban uses into two main types: events, using '''nu''', and facts or propositions, using '''du'u'''. A property, as introduced by '''ka''', is still what we called there a reification. That means it's just like '''du'u''': it's something you hold in your mind about what happens in the world, rather than something that objectively happens in the world. The difference is, '''ka''' has an empty slot, occupied by '''ce'u'''; and you're interested in the '''ka'''-clause only inasmuch as you're interested in what fills the slot. On the other hand, '''du'u'''-clauses don't necessarily have any such slot — although they can.
{{talkquote|Note: This means that, when you get down to it, there is no real difference between '''lo du'u ce'u xendo''' and '''lo ka ce'u xendo'''. But as we discuss below, there is a real difference between '''lodu'u xendo''' and '''loka xendo''': by default, '''ka is assumed to contain ce'u somewhere (since it is a property ''of'' something.) No such assumption is made for '''du'u''': '''lodu'u xendo''' is normally assumed to be just '''lodu'u zo'e xendo'''; the fact that someone is kind, rather than the property of someone being kind.}}{{^| just rewrite }}
 
Most usage of '''ka''' in Lojban fits this pattern of ‘filling a slot’ straightforwardly. This is particularly the case when a '''ka'''-abstraction is required in the place structure definition of a gismu: a '''ka'''-clause is required, because by it's definition the gismu involves that slot. So with '''sisku''' ‘seek’, you search for '''ka'''-clauses, to find what will fill the slot. With '''karbi''' ‘compare’, you compare things to see how well they fit the slot. Or alternatively, the gismu by definition fills that slot, by relating the property to the value satisfying it. For example,
:'''mi fange do loka ce'u se krasi lo bartu be lo tcadu'''
:I am alien to you in the property of “x1 is from out of town” (as applied to me).
 
:'''mi barda loka lo xadni be ce'u cu clani'''
:I am big in the property of “x1's body is long” — i.e. “x1 is tall” (as applied to me).
 
:'''mi mansa do loka ce'u pensi'''
:I satisfy you that the property “x1 is intelligent” applies to me.
 
What happens when you find the value that fills the slot? Then — and here Lojban parts ways with English — you no longer have a slot; so you no longer have a property. You've gone back to '''du'u'''. If '''mi mansa do loka ce'u pensi''', that's the same as saying '''do djuno lodu'u mi pensi'''. A property applying to a known entity is no longer a property at all in Lojban, but a fact — or (if you no longer have to reify it) an event.
 
Be careful here: what English (and in fact, most traditional usage) calls properties are often actually considered just states in Lojban — that is, something that happens in the world, but without anybody lifting a finger. Being a runner (also known as ‘running’) is hard work; so we're happy to think of it as an event: '''nu bajra'''. But being happy (also known as ‘happiness’) is something that just happens, without any work; so we're inclined to call it '''ka gleki'''. But that's misleading. English distinguishes between ''running'' and ''happiness'' grammatically, because ''run'' is a verb and ''happy'' is an adjective. But verbs and adjectives don't mean anything to Lojban (or to many other languages), so there's nothing to say you can't say '''nu gleki''' instead. Much of the time, in fact, that is precisely what you should be saying. As a rule of thumb: if you wouldn't say '''ka bajra''' in a sentence, don't say '''ka gleki''' either.
{{talkquote|Note: For instance, is ''illness'' a quality in the sentence “Fred's illness is more debilitating than George's”? Let's use ''running'' instead. If we translated ''more debilitating'' as a single lujvo, rubri'amau, would we say loka la .fred. cu bajra cu rubri'amau loka la .djordj. cu bajra? No; we'd likely say lonu la .fred. cu bajra cu rubri'amau lonu la .djordj. cu bajra. In fact, there ''is'' a quality involved in the sentence, if you expand it out fully — but it's not the illness, but the debilitatingness: lonu la .fred. cu bilma cu zmadu lonu la .djordj. cu bilma kei loka ce'u rinka lonu zo'e ruble “The event of Fred being ill exceeds the event of George being ill in the quality of causing someone to be weak.”}}
 
{{talkquote|Lambda Note, Part 1: If you did Computer Science at University, and you
*didn't skip ''Theory of Computation'' in third year just because it had all sorts of strange Greek letters and ivory tower mathematics in it;
*did Computer Science at University, and skipped ''Theory of Computation'' in third year, but hacked around with LISP a lot anyway;
*did Linguistics at University, and did not run screaming from the ''Formal Semantics'' elective in third year (if you were even offered it) just because it had all sorts of strange Greek letters and more mathematics than you were used to (i.e. none);
then it will mean something to you that '''ce'u''' is a lambda variable, and that
:'''lo ka ce'u xlura da de di'''
corresponds to
:λ''x''.xendo(''x'',da,de,di)
The rest of you (which includes 90% of all programmers and 99% of all linguists) can go ahead and forget I ever mentioned this.}}
{{talkquote|Lambda Note, Part 2: The infinitesimal number of you that know about lambda calculus are by now thinking this is a pretty lame way of implementing beta-reduction. All I can say to that is, if you want LISP, you always know where to find it...}}
 
Sometimes you'll want to speak of properties of applying to two entities at once. For example, the cop knows who talked about the robbery, and to whom:
 
:lo pulji cu djuno lodu'u makau tavla makau lo nu jemna zercpa.
 
To get that information he probably looked for ''both'' x1s ''and'' x2s to fill in his ka-property:
 
:'''lo pulji cu sisku loka ce'u tavla ce'u lonu jemna zerle'a''' To put it more formally, he was seeking pairs {.abu, by.} such that the proposition '''.abu tavla by.''' is true.
{{talkquote|Tip: By default, two different instances of ce'u are two distinct entities. So the example given is not saying that the police were looking to someone who talked to themselves about the heist!}}
 
==Reciprocals <span id="15.2.5"></span>==
The main use for multiple instances of '''ce'u''' is our old{{^|not old may be explain it only here}} friend '''simxu'''.
 
If we want to speak about reciprocality, we are very much interested in which two places are related through that reciprocality:
:mi ce do simxu loka ce'u tavla ce'u lonu jemna zerle'a
or saying shorter
:mi ce do simxu loka tavla fi lonu jemna zerle'a
Note that first two empty places in the abstraction are filled in with '''ce'u''' as stated in the definition of '''simxu'''.{{^| so where is the definition?}}
 
There are some reciprocalities that can be nicely distinguished here: '''simxu loka draci fi ce'u ce'u''' is a situation where people take turns writing plays for each other, while '''simxu loka draci fo ce'u ce'u''' is a situation where people take turns performing plays for each other.
 
{{talkquote|Note: The quantity abstractor, '''ni''' ‘the amount by which...’ can also take '''ce'u'''. Had we actually looked at ni in this course at all, this piece of information might have been slightly more useful to you.}}{{^| damn it. of course explain it as earlier with '''zmadu''' but more precisely}}
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| ckire
|| x1 is grateful/thankful to/appreciative of x2 for x3 (event/property)
 
|-
|| mamta
|| x1 is a mother of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 bears/mothers/acts maternally toward x2<nowiki>; [not necessarily biological]</nowiki>
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
Express the following qualities in Lojban, using ce'u explicitly in all cases.
 
#Gratitude
#Similarity to Arnold Schwarzenegger
#Motherhood
#Having a mother
#My similarity to Arnold Schwarzenegger
#Being a place where people get anxious; creepiness, (one interpretation of) hauntedness (Hint: Use sumti tcita).
 
==From sumti to abstraction: tu'a<span id="15.3"></span>==
When looking up words in a gismu list, you may have already noticed that, where languages like English have people or things as subjects and objects, Lojban often uses abstractions instead as gismu places. For example, in English, you say that ''someone'' is interesting, or ''something'' is interesting. In Lojban, you aren't really meant to say either. The definition of cinri is:
 
:x1 (abstraction) interests/is interesting to x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 is interested in x1
 
In other words, as far as Lojban is concerned, it's not things or people that are interesting, but ''actions'' or ''properties'' involving those things or people. For example, Jyoti cannot be said to be interesting simply by virtue of being Jyoti; the way Lojban puts it, it's the things Jyoti does (or is) that are interesting — the way she talks about British sitcoms, her choice of headgear, her tendency to break into '80s songs after she's had a few drinks. (Oh, I forgot to tell you about all that. Maybe next course).
 
The same goes for fenki ‘crazy’. In almost every language, it is people that are called crazy. Only occasionally are actions also called crazy. Lojban, however, defines fenki as:
 
:x1 (action/event) is crazy/insane/mad/frantic/in a frenzy (one sense) by standard x2
 
In other words, as far as Lojban is concerned, craziness lies in actions, not in people; a crazy person is by definition someone who does crazy actions.
 
{{talkquote|Note: This means that someone suffering from the particular forms of mental illness loosely called ‘crazy’ wouldn't be called fenki in Lojban — since their condition is not ''primarily'' a matter of socially unaceptable actions — but rather menli bilma: ‘mentally ill’.}}
 
For now, you may be prepared to accept this as an endearing quirk of Lojban. (If you're not, we explain why Lojban is all topsy-turvy like this in the next section.) But very often, you have no idea what to say is the selbri of that abstraction, or you don't particularly care to. For example, yes, Jyoti doing this, that and the other is what is interesting about her; but I may not know first-hand what exactly her particular talents are, or I may not feel like going into a five-minute spiel every time I merely want to point out that she is interesting. If I can't say the Lojban for “Jyoti is interesting”, I should at least be able to say something like “Jyoti {doing some stuff I'm not listing here} is interesting”, or “Some things about Jyoti are interesting.” In other words, I have to say
 
:lonu la .djiotis. cu ___ cu cinri
 
but I shouldn't have to fill in that slot with an explicit selbri each time.
 
There are slots in Lojban sentences that we have in fact been leaving empty all the time. Remember zo'e? zo'e is the ‘don't care’ value we leave implied in the unspecified places of bridi. For example, when I say mi klama lo barja, I'm not bothering to specify my point of origin, route, or vehicle. They are all implied to be zo'e: '''mi klama lo barja zo'e zo'e zo'e'''. This means that there is a point of origin, a route and a vehicle involved, but we don't really care what they are.
 
zo'e is a sumti<nowiki>; but it has a </nowiki>selbri equivalent, '''co'e'''. co'e can appear where any selbri can appear, but it leaves the relationship between its sumti unspecified. So mi co'e lo barja means something like “I thingummy the bar”: the bar and I are in some relationship, but I'm not bothering to say what it is. I might be going to it, coming from it, sleeping in it, refurbishing it, or hearing about my neighbour getting drunk in it once. It just doesn't matter enough for me to say what.
 
Now normally, you can't get away with this: if you leave out the selbri in your story, you pretty much have no story. But with these abstractions that we wish weren't really abstractions, co'e is just what you need: you can get away with making an abstraction containing only the sumti you want to talk about. You don't have to specify ''anything'' else in the abstraction — especially not the selbri. So if I want to say “Jyoti is interesting”, I need only say
 
:lonu la .djiotis. cu ''co'e'' cu cinri
 
I'm still saying an abstraction involving Jyoti is what is interesting, so I'm following the requirements of the gismu list. But that's all I'm saying; what particular abstraction it is that is interesting, I am leaving entirely open. In the same way, if I want to say “Zhang is crazy” (or “berserk”, probably a closer translation of fenki), I don't have to enumerate the various wacky stunts he has pulled over the years. I can simply say that “some stuff about Zhang is crazy”, which in Lojban comes out as
 
:lonu la .djang.cu  ''co'e'' cu fenki
 
The value of co'e could be
 
*dasni <nowiki>[loi</nowiki> zirpu] “wears purple”
*dansu <nowiki>[la</nowiki> zgikrfanki jipci] “dances the Funky Chicken”
*tavla <nowiki>[bau</nowiki> la .lojban.] “speaks Lojban”
 
or whatever; we're just not bothering to name it here.
 
Lojban can go one better, though. As you can tell, Lojban is going to have you saying lonu ___ cu co'e kei quite often (and you never know when you might need that kei terminator); so it offers you an abbreviation: tu'a. tu'a da means lesu'u da cu co'e kei (where su'u, you may recall, is the generic abstractor); so you can translate tu'a as “some abstraction associated with...”, or more colloquially, “some stuff about...”. tu'a is easily the most popular way of dealing with abstractions you wish weren't there in Lojban; Lojban sentences using it come out fairly similar to the natural language sentences ''without'' abstractions that we're used to seeing. So the usual Lojban for “Jyoti is interesting” is
 
:''tu'a'' la .djiotis. cu cinri
 
and the usual Lojban for “Zhang is crazy” is
 
:''tu'a'' la .djang. cu fenki
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
{| class="wikitable"
|| djica
|| x1 desires/wants/wishes x2 (event/state) for purpose x3
 
|-
|| cfari
|| x1<nowiki> [state/event/process] commences/initiates/starts/begins to occur; (intransitive verb)</nowiki>
 
|-
|| fanza
|| x1 (event) annoys/irritates/bothers/distracts x2
 
|-
|| nelci
|| x1 is fond of/likes/has a taste for x2 (object/state)
 
|-
|| snuti
|| x1 (event/state) is an accident/unintentional on the part of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is an accident
 
|-
|| troci
|| x1 tries/attempts/makes an effort to do/attain x2 (event/state/property) by actions/method x3
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
Some of these sentences need to be translated in Lojban with tu'a, and some don't. Supply the appropriate translation, in either case.
 
#I tried the curry.
#I wanted the curry.
#I liked the curry.
#My leaving was accidental.
#Gratitude annoys me.
#Curry annoys me.
#The irritation has begun.
==Raising: jai<span id="15.4"></span>==
 
<center>Warning</center>
 
This section is long and complicated. On the plus side, it's also the final section in the course.
 
Things weren't always like this. In the '80s, the ancestor of Lojban still said that things were interesting, and people were crazy, just like most normal languages, and without detouring through abstractions. So what happened?
 
Well, what happened was that Lojbanists noticed how linguists have been analysing these concepts in natural languages, and how they were coming up with their own versions of selbri. Often, what was a noun in one part of the sentence, and a verb in another part, were brought together and considered to be underlyingly part of the same abstraction sumti.
 
A good example is the phrase ''I am difficult to annoy'' in English. At first sight, you might think that ''I'' is a sumti of ''difficult''. And grammatically it is: it's the subject. But logically it isn't: what we're describing as difficult is not ''me''. We can't say:
 
*“Who is difficult?”
*“Me (to annoy).”
 
What's actually going on is that, underlyingly, what is difficult is ''to annoy me'': the action of getting me annoyed is what is hard to achieve — not me! This is why English also allows you to say ''It is difficult to annoy me'', and (if you squint a little) ''To annoy me is difficult''. And sure enough, Lojban expresses this concept according to that ‘underlying’ form:
 
:lonu fanza mi cu nandu
:The event of annoying me is difficult
 
So why did English pull that weird switcheroo with ''I am difficult to annoy''? Basically, because when we talk, we aren't concentrating in our minds on intangible abstractions like “the event of annoying me”, let alone “the state of Jyoti having certain unspecified properties.” Instead, we run little stories in our head, with heroes and villains: concrete heroes and villains — people, for the most part. And as it happens, we make the subjects of our sentences be the heroes and villains we're concentrating on. (That's what a subject's ultimate job is: to present what we're concentrating on).
 
So by pulling a switcheroo like that, we're not talking about abstractions and events any more; the subject of the sentence is now our perennially favourite subject — namely ''me'': it's ''me'' that is difficult to annoy. (Yes, it ''is'' all about me...) This process is called in linguistics '''raising''', because it raises concrete subjects (and objects) we want to talk about, out of the haziness of an abstraction sumti (or ‘clausal argument’, to use English logical terminology).
 
Once the requisite number of Lojbanists did an undergraduate course in syntax (you may commence throwing darts at effigies of Nick Nicholas at your leisure), it was realised that there were a ''lot'' of gismu whose place structures contained both a raised concrete sumti (usually x1), and an abstraction sumti which itself contained the first sumti. For example, the place structure of fenki used to be
 
:x1 is crazy in behaviour x2 (abstraction) by standard x3
 
But ''any'' abstraction that would go into x2 would contain the x1 sumti: any crazy behaviour would automatically be the behaviour of the crazy person. For example, you'd get
 
*la .djang. cu fenki lonu la .djang. cu dasni loi zirpu
*la .djang. cu fenki lonu la .djang. cu dansu la jipci
*la .djang. cu fenki lonu la .djang. cu tavla bau la .lojban.
 
The question then became: does the x1 tell us anything the x2 wasn't already telling us? We know who was involved in the crazy behaviour, because that person would be a sumti inside x2. (More specifically, he or she would be the active party: someone hitting random strangers is crazy; someone being hit by random strangers isn't — although arguably someone ''allowing'' themselves to keep being hit by random strangers is.) Was there any reason, then, to grant the person an extra place in the overall bridi? The decision was, no: behaviour is what is crazy, so you can work out that the person acting out the behaviour is the crazy person. There's no need to have an extra place for the person, when you can already work out who they are. The same conclusion was arrived at for cinri: it is abstractions — events and qualities — that attract interest; and an interesting person is simply a person involved in an interesting abstraction.
 
All well and good; but natural languages do raising for a reason. So when Lojban has its gismu without raising, it gains in eliminating redundancy and logical muddledness; but it loses in ‘naturalness’. We like talking about people rather than abstractions in our languages; and Lojban should not go out of its way to form an exception to this.
 
There is a solution of sorts to this problem using tu'a<nowiki>; but it doesn't actually do what raising does in natural languages: it doesn't </nowiki>''change'' the x1 place from an abstraction to a concrete sumti. And there are times you will want to do just that.
 
One example is joining bridi-tails. In English, you can say ''Jyoti is interesting and beautiful.'' This is based on two sentences (''Jyoti is interesting'', ''Jyoti is beautiful'') which have the same subject. So we can easily combine them into a single sentence. In Lojban, the equivalent sentences are
 
:tu'a la .djiotis. cu cinri
 
and
 
:la .djiotis. cu melbi
 
There is no way you're going to join those two bridi together with gije: they simply do not have their first sumti in common. But they're both somehow ‘about’ Jyoti; so you really should be able to work around this.
 
An even more important instance when you want raising is in forming sumti out of this kind of gismu. A sumti means whatever goes into the x1 of its selbri. If la .djiotis. cu ninmu “Jyoti is a woman”, then I can describe Jyoti as lo ninmu ‘a woman’. If lo mi karce cu xe klama lo gusta fu mi “My car is a vehicle to the restaurant for me”, then I can describe lo mi karce as lo xe klama ‘a vehicle’. So how do I say that someone is a cheat, or a deceiver? The gismu for ‘deceive’, tcica, has the place structure
 
:x1 (event/experience) misleads/deceives/dupes/fools/cheats/tricks x2 into x3 (event/state)
 
This means that, while in English we say that “x1 (person) deceives x2 into doing x3, by doing x4”, in Lojban the person and the action are merged into the one place. That makes lo tcica a trick, not a trickster; a deception, and not a deceiver. To say that someone is a trickster or a deceiver, we need to use '''tu'a''': '''tu'a da tcica'''. But you can't put '''lo''' in front of '''tu'a da''': the deceiver has to be the x1 of some selbri, in order to get their own sumti.
 
The solution to this is to force Lojban to have raising after all, changing the place structure of the selbri involved. This works just like se changing the place structure of its selbri, swapping its first and second place. If we put jai in front of a selbri, its x1 place changes from an abstraction, to any sumti contained ''within'' the abstraction. Let's try this with a few sentences:
 
*''lonu la .djang. cu dasni loi zirpu'' cu fenki
*''la .djang.'' cu jai fenki
 
 
*''lenu la .djiotis. cu co'e'' cu cinri
*''la .djiotis.'' cu jai cinri
 
 
*''tu'a la .ranjit.'' cu tcica la .suzyn.
*''la ranjit.'' u jai tcica la .suzyn.
 
 
*''lo nu fanza mi'' cu nandu
*''mi'' jai nandu
 
You'll notice that, with these new place structures, the Lojban phrases sound pretty much like their English equivalents. For example,
 
:la .djiotis. cu jai cinri
:Jyoti is interesting
 
:la ranjit. cu jai tcica la .suzyn.
:Ranjeet deceives Susan
 
We can now do with '''jai''' those things we couldn't before. The Lojban for “Jyoti is interesting and beautiful”, for example, is
 
:la .djiotis. cu jai cinri gije melbi
 
That's because Jyoti goes in the x1 place of jai cinri, just as it goes into the x1 place of melbi. And if I want to make a sumti meaning ‘deceiver’ or ‘trickster’, I can use '''jai''' to do it:
 
:''tu'a la .ranjit.'' cu tcica → ''la ranjit.'' jai tcica → ''lo jai tcica''
 
However, mi jai nandu does ''not'' correspond to “I am difficult to annoy.” In switching a concrete sumti for the original x1 — the abstraction that was difficult — we have lost the abstraction itself: there is nothing in mi jai nandu that means ‘to annoy’. But not to worry: Lojban allows you to keep the original abstraction in the bridi by preceding it with fai. fai is a place tag like fa and fe<nowiki>; it effectively adds a new place to the </nowiki>bridi. So ''I am difficult to annoy'' is matched almost word-for-word by the Lojban sentence
 
:mi jai nandu fai lonu fanza mi
 
And we can apply this pattern further afield; for example, “the book took three months to write” is in Lojban properly
 
:lonu finti lo cukta cu masti li ci
:To write the book had a month-duration of three
 
Raising allows the slightly more familiar-looking
 
:lo cukta cu jai masti li ci fai lonu finti
 
'''jai''' has not proven as popular as '''tu'a''', presumably because it involves a fairly thorough rearrangement of place structures — and has the whiff about being somehow ‘un-Lojbanic’{{^| really? obsolete now? }}. But as we've seen, it allows you to talk about things in a way that is in many ways more natural; and though it belongs to ‘advanced’ Lojban, it is a feature you will find it useful to be familiar with.
 
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
That was pretty heavy going. You can relax: this exercise will go easy on you. (You still have the final translation exercises to go through, after all!) Where possible, and by all means necessary, recast the abstractions in the following sentences so that they use jai (and fai, where applicable).
 
#.i tu'a mi nabmi
#.i lodu'u mi xebni loi kensa fange cu nabmi
#.i mi djuno tu'a la .lojban.
#.i mi djuno lo du'u la .lojban. cu bangu kei la .lojban.
#.i lonu mi ckire da cu nibli lonu mi se xamgu tu'a da (Don't try and be too clever here — it won't work..).
#.i lonu lonu la .djang. cu xalfekfri cu nabmi cu cizra (Only eliminate one level of abstraction).
#.i da poi lonu fanza ke'a cu nandu cu zvati (Reduce this, then see if you can't reduce it a little more..).
 
==Summary<span id="15.5"></span>==
 
In this lesson, we have covered:
 
*Indirect questions (kau)
*Property variables (ce'u)
*Raising (co'e, tu'a, jai, fai)
 
And with that, we have reached the end of the ''Lojban for Beginners'' course! There are several bits of the grammar of Lojban not covered here; but you now have the essentials with which to start using Lojban, and you are in a good position to pick up the rest — preferably from ''The Complete Lojban Language'', which is a fairly easy read for a reference grammar. Moreover, most of the Lojban you will see will stick fairly closely to the grammar covered here. .i .a'o do se zdile tu'a lo ve ctuca gije ba gleki lonu pilno la .lojban.
 
<center>Vocabulary</center>
 
'''Note: '''Remember the ‘error quote’ lo'u... le'u from [[#7|Lesson 7]].
{| class="wikitable"
|| birti
|| x1 is certain/sure/positive/convinced that x2 is true
 
|-
|| cipra
|| x1 (process/event) is a test for/proof of property/state x2 in subject x3 (individ./set/mass)
 
|-
|| curmi
|| x1 (agent) lets/permits/allows x2 (event) under conditions x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 grants privilege x2
 
|-
|| dicra
|| x1<nowiki> (event) interrupts/stops/halts/[disrupts] x</nowiki>2 (object/event/process) due to quality x3
 
|-
|| drata
|| x1 isn't the-same-thing-as/is different-from/other-than x2 by standard x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is something else
 
|-
|| drani
|| x1 is correct/proper/right/perfect in property/aspect x2 (ka) in situation x3 by standard x4 (Note: when people say correct things, that does not automatically make them ‘correct/proper/right/perfect')
 
|-
|| jarco
|| x1<nowiki> (agent) shows/exhibits/displays/[reveals]/demonstrates x</nowiki>2 (property) to audience x3
 
|-
|| kucli
|| x1<nowiki> is curious/wonders about/is interested in/[inquisitive about] x</nowiki>2 (object/abstract)
 
|-
|| kumfa
|| x1 is a room of/in structure x2 surrounded by partitions/walls/ceiling/floor x3 (mass/jo'u)
 
|-
|| logji
|| x1<nowiki> [rules/methods] is a logic for deducing/concluding/inferring/reasoning to/about x</nowiki>2 (du'u)
 
|-
|| mebri
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the brow/forehead [projecting flat/smooth head/body-part] of x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| remna
|| x1 is a human/human being/man (non-specific gender-free sense); (adjective:) x1 is human
 
|-
|| rufsu
|| x1<nowiki> is rough/coarse/uneven/[grainy/scabrous/rugged] in texture/regularity</nowiki>
 
|-
|| sonci
|| x1 is a soldier/warrior/fighter of army x2
 
|-
|| tarci
|| x1 is a star/sun with stellar properties x2
 
|}
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
Translate from Lojban.
 
#.i lo vo pendo na djuno lo du'u ri zvati ma kau mu'i ma kau
#.i la .djang. cu cusku lu .i mi cazi ckire da'i tu'a loi glare ke cnino se zbasu ckafi li'u
#.i la .djiotis. cu se cinri loka ce'u cizra pe lo kumfa poi dy. nenri
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i .ue lo vi canko noi jarco tu'a loi tarci cu pe'i jai se xanka li'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i go'i fa ji'a lo re fange noi jarco loka lo mebri po'e ce'u cu rufsu li'u
#.i pa fange poi simsa lo sonci cu jai cfari fai lonu lanli lo terdi pendo kei gije cusku lo'u .uxrup .ua. doglau. latl. tcak. val. tca. le'u
#.i la .ranjit. cu kucli lodu'u lo fange cu tavla bau ma kau
#.i lo ka tu'a ce'u se kucli cu se jundi lo drata fange noi cusku zoi gy. Greetings people of the planet ... um... Saturn? gy.
#.i la .djang. cu cusku lu .i tu'a lo fange na drani so'a da li'u
<center>Exercise 6</center>
 
Translate into Lojban. Use ce'u in quality abstractions. Use jai instead of tu'a wherever possible.
 
#Susan says “Excuse me, but I think you are uncertain about where you are — which is Earth.”
#The alien says “You are correct.”
#“We are, uh, merely testing you for terrestrial intelligence.”
#Jyoti says “You could have done that and not have interrupted our dancing.”
#Ranjeet says “And also, if you knew that we are terrestrial people and intelligent, then you also knew that we are terrestrial intelligences.” (Use forethought connectives).
#The alien says “Are you the radio transmitter?”
#Ranjeet says “I am one of the radio transmitters.”
#“But mi po'onai cradi is more logically correct.”
#The alien frowns, says “You are allowed to leave”, and un-removes the friends from the dance hall.
10. The alien says “xuˈmɑn ˈmɛqːoq. ˈwɛdʒpux”, which is translated as “Human logic. Yuck.”
 
==Answers to exercises<span id="15.5"></span>==
 
<center>Exercise 1</center>
 
#mi djica lo ka djuno lodu'u do ba tavla mi ca ma kau (You can place the ca ma kau anywhere after lodu'u).
#mi na djuno lodu'u do na tavla mi mu'i ma kau (Same goes for mu'i ma kau).
#mi ba'o cusku lo se du'u mi pu jinvi lodu'u ma kau bebna (Yes, Lojban can get prolix..).
#ko cusku lo se du'u lo birje cu zvati ma kau or ko cusku lo se du'u birje vi ma kau (... except, perhaps, where it matters most! The observative in the second version actually works: “Beer! Where?!”)
#do pu cusku lo se du'u mi bilga lonu mi dunda lo cukta ma kau ''or'' (if you want to risk the attitudinal) do pu cusku lo se du'u mi .ei dunda lo cukta ma kau
#OK, this doesn't have to be that close (let alone rhyme), and in fact the English is closer to a direct than an indirect question, but this is something like ko cusku fi mi fe lo se du'u pei kau do sepli gije na djuno lo farna gije simsa lo gunro rokci.
Told you this was kind of a trick question...
 
<center>Exercise 2</center>
 
#lo ka ce'u ckire
#lo ka ce'u simsa la .arnold. .cfartseneger. (or la'o gy. Arnold Schwarzenegger gy., if you prefer. The Lojban sound system (phonology) doesn't allow cv in sequence; this is something you can worry about more in your further Lojban studies. See ''The Complete Lojban Language'', p. 36)
#lo ka ce'u mamta
#lo ka mamta ce'u or lo ka ce'u se mamta
#lo ka ce'u simsa la .arnold. cfartseneger. kei poi ckaji mi (or, of course, lo du'u mi simsa la .arnold. cfartseneger., which actually means the same thing).
#lo ka xanka vi ce'u. A little contrived, we admit.
<center>Exercise 3</center>
 
#.i mi troci tu'a lo cidjrkari (What you actually try is to eat it — or, on occasion, to keep it down).
#.i mi djica tu'a lo cidjrkari (This usually comes as a shock to people learning Lojban, but you can't actually want objects, only events{{^|okay. what shall we do with previous examples?}}. The event you usually want is to be in possession of the object, in some way or other).
#.i mi nelci lo cidjrkari (The gismu list explicitly allows nelci to involve both objects and events; so you don't need tu'a here. This makes nelci quite different to djica).
#.i lonu mi cliva cu snuti (No surprise there; ‘leaving’ corresponds to an abstraction).
#.i loka ckire cu fanza mi
#.i tu'a lo cidjrkari cu fanza mi (Unlike gratitude, curry is certainly not an abstraction).
#.i lo fanza cu cfari (Yes, you read correctly. To fit the x1 of cfari, a sumti doesn't actually have to ''look like'' an abstraction; it just has to ''mean'' an abstraction. Anything that can be described as lo fanza is going to be an abstraction, because of the place structure of fanza. So since the x1 of fanza is a state or event, and the x1 of cfari is also a state or event, they can both be describing the same thing — without needing to strain abstractions out of one or the other using tu'a).
<center>Exercise 4</center>
 
#.i mi jai nabmi “I am a problem.”
#.i mi jai nabmi fai lodu'u mi xebni loi kensa fange<nowiki> “I am a problem in [the fact] that I hate space aliens.”</nowiki>
#.i la .lojban. cu jai se djuno mi “Lojban is known to me.” (We did say “all means necessary...”)
#.i la .lojban. cu jai se djuno mi la .lojban. fai lodu'u la .lojban. cu bangu “Of Lojban, it is known to me about Lojban that Lojban is a language.” (As this indicates, the x3 place of djuno is raised out of its x2 place. Since you have wide liberty in stating what you know about a subject, however, this won't necessarily always be the case:
##.i mi djuno lodu'u loi cidro ku joi loi kijno cu cupra loi djacu kei loi xumske
##I know about chemistry that hydrogen and oxygen makes water
#.i mi/da cu jai nibli lonu mi se xamgu tu'a da kei fai lonu mi ckire da, ''or'' .i mi/tu'a da jai se nibli lonu mi ckire da kei fai lonu mi se xamgu tu'a da No real English equivalent; the original sentence is “Me being grateful to ''x'' necessitates that I have been benefitted by ''x''.”
#.i lonu la .djang. xalfekfri cu jai cizra fai lonu nabmi “Zhang being drunk is strange in that it is a problem” ''or'' .i lonu la .djang. jai nabmi fai lonu xalfekfri cu cizra “Zhang being a problem in that he is drunk is strange.”
##'''Note: '''Can you eliminate both abstractions? For the record, yes you can, by applying jai twice:
##.i la .djang. jai jai cizra fai xi pa lonu xalfekfri kei fai xi re lonu nabmi
##Messily, we now have two fai places: the Lojban subscript phrases xi pa ‘subscript 1' and xi re ‘subscript 2' helpfully keep them apart. You're not really encouraged to do this kind of thing, though; after all, jai was intended to make Lojban more natural — not more wacky!
#da poi ke'a jai nandu fai lonu fanza da cu zvati “''x'' such that ''x'' is difficult to annoy is here.” You do need to indicate somehow who is being annoyed in the fai-clause. One way of doing so is to leave the raised sumti in, as we've just done: fai lonu fanza da cu zvati. Another is to make the raised place of the fai-clause its x1, conventionally its most important place: da poi ke'a jai nandu fai lonu se fanza cu zvati.
##Since what you're describing is a thing or person (a person, in this case), that means that da poi ke'a jai nandu fai lonu fanza should be a sumti, with nandu as its selbri. This gives
##lo jai nandu be fai lonu fanza cu zvati
##The one difficult to annoy is here.
##If you came up with that, we hereby dub thee King/Queen of Lojban! .i ko jgira! If not, well, that's OK, too; this kind of expression isn't all that popular yet, so you're not at a terrible disadvantage if you don't use it...
 
<center>Exercise 5</center>
 
#The four friends do not know where they are, or why they are there. (You can ask more than one question in a sentence in Lojban, direct or indirect).
#Zhang says “Right now, I would be grateful for a hot, freshly-brewed coffee.” (You are grateful in Lojban for events rather than objects, so fully expanded, .i la .djang. cu ckire da'i ''lonu kakne loka pinxe'' '''loi glare ke cnino se zbasu ckafi''').
#Jyoti is interested in the weirdness of the room she is in. (pe is another way of associating abstractions with specific objects).
#Susan says “Wow! This window, which shows the stars, is in my opinion something to be anxious about.” (se xanka describes an event that provokes anxiety, so jai se xanka describes a ''thing'' involved in the event that provokes anxiety. Strictly speaking, Susan is probably misusing jarco..).
#Ranjeet says “So are the two aliens, who show that their foreheads are rough” or “who exhibit roughness in their foreheads.” (... Ranjeet, of course, cannot help but be correct in his usage of jarco).
#One alien who is like a soldier starts analysing the Earthling friends, and says “ˈʔuxrup wɑʔ ˈɖoɣlɑwʔ lɑtɬ tʃɑq vɑl tʃɑʔ” (A lot of you may have guessed the language the alien is speaking. You are correct, and let's leave it at that, shall we?)
#Ranjeet is curious about what language the aliens are speaking in. (No, I haven't clued him in..).
#Being an object of curiosity is something noticed by the other alien, who says (in English) “Greetings people of the planet ... um... Saturn?”
#Zhang says “Stuff about the aliens is not right in most regards.” (In other words, there are properties involving these aliens that are not correct in most regards; for example, their sense of direction).
<center>Exercise 6</center>
#.i la .suzyn. cu cusku lu .i ta'a do'u pe'i do na birti lodu'u do zvati ma kau po'u la terdi li'u
#.i lo fange cu cusku lu .i do jai drani (or '''do drani''' as the second place of drani specifies in what asppect you are correct).
#.i mi'a .y. jai cipra po'o loka ce'u terdi pensi kei do li'u (You could say .i mi'a .y. jai cipra po'o loka ''do po'u ce'u'' terdi pensi kei li'u, because it's the person with the quality being tested that is the test subject. But for practical reasons, Lojban hasn't eliminated this particular redundancy, so you might as well exploit it).
#.i la .djiotis. cu cusku lu .i do pu kakne loka go'i gijenai jai dicra lonu mi'a dansu li'u (In Lojban, only events interrupt; latex-foreheaded aliens are ‘involved in interrupting’).
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i ji'a jaginai do pu djuno lodu'u mi'a jegi terdi prenu gi pensi gi do djuno lodu'u mi'a terdi pensi li'u (Ranjeet can never resist a good syllogism).
#.i lo fange cu cusku lu .i xu do du lo cradi li'u (A legitimate use of du, since to the alien ‘The radio transmitter’ and ‘You’ refer to the same person).
#.i la .ranjit. cu cusku lu .i mi me lo cradi (If you want to emphasise the plurality of the transmitters, you could say .i mi me lo su'o re cradi “I am one of the two or more radio transmitters”).
#.i ku'i lu mi po'onai cradi li'u cu zmadu fi loka ce'u logji drani li'u (Although a person saying something correct is not eligible to be the x1 place of drani, the correct thing that they say ''is'' eligible: drani is not by definition restricted to abstractions).
#.i lo fange cu frumu gije cusku lu .i do jai se curmi fai lonu cliva li'u gije to'e vimcu lo pendo lo dansydi'u
#.i lo fange cu cusku zoi gy. xuˈmɑn ˈmɛqːoq. ˈwɛdʒpux  gy. noi se fanva fu lu .i remna logji .a'unai li'u (or, in Lojban phonetic approximation, lo'u xuman. mekok. .uedj. pux. le'u).
 
=Appendix. Vocabulary<span id="16.3"></span>=
{| class="wikitable"
|| .abu
|| a
|| letteral for a
 
|-
|| .a'o
|| hope
|| attitudinal: hope – despair
 
|-
|| .a'u
|| interest
|| attitudinal: interest – disinterest – repulsion
 
|-
|| .au
|| desire
|| attitudinal: desire – indifference – reluctance
 
|-
|| .ebu
|| e
|| letteral for e
 
|-
|| .e'e
|| competence
|| attitudinal: competence – incompetence/inability
 
|-
|| .ei
|| obligation
|| attitudinal: obligation – freedom
 
|-
|| .e'o
|| request
|| attitudinal: request – negative request
 
|-
|| .e'u
|| suggestion
|| attitudinal: suggestion – abandon suggest – warning
 
|-
|| .i ja
|| sentence or
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought or
 
|-
|| .i je
|| sentence and
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought and
 
|-
|| .i ji
|| sentence conn?
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought connective question
 
|-
|| .i jenai
|| sentence but not
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought x but not y
 
|-
|| .i jo
|| sentence iff
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought biconditional/iff/if-and-only-if
 
|-
|| .i jonai
|| sentence xor
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought exclusive or
 
|-
|| .i ju
|| sentence whether
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought whether-or-not
 
|-
|| .i naja
|| sentence only if
|| logical connective: sentence afterthought conditional/only if
 
|-
|| .i
|| sentence link
|| sentence link/continuation; continuing sentences on same topic
 
|-
|| .ia
|| belief
|| attitudinal: belief – skepticism – disbelief
 
|-
|| .ibu
|| i
|| letteral for i
 
|-
|| .i'e
|| approval
|| attitudinal: approval – non-approval – disapproval
 
|-
|| .ie
|| agreement
|| attitudinal: agreement – disagreement
 
|-
|| .ii
|| fear
|| attitudinal: fear – security
 
|-
|| .iu
|| love
|| attitudinal: love – no love lost – hatred
 
|-
|| .o'ai
|| ciao/greetings/parting
|| vocative: ciao/greetings/hello/goodbye
 
 
|-
|| .obu
|| o
|| letteral for o
 
|-
|| .oi
|| complaint
|| attitudinal: complaint – pleasure
 
|-
|| .o'o
|| patience
|| attitudinal: patience – mere tolerance – anger
 
|-
|| .o'u
|| relaxation
|| attitudinal: relaxation – composure – stress
 
|-
|| .ua
|| discovery
|| attitudinal: discovery – confusion/searching
 
|-
|| .ubu
|| u
|| letteral for u
 
|-
|| .u'e
|| wonder
|| attitudinal: wonder – commonplace
 
|-
|| .ue
|| surprise
|| attitudinal: surprise – not really surprised – expectation
 
|-
|| .u'i
|| amusement
|| attitudinal: amusement – weariness
 
|-
|| .ui
|| happiness
|| attitudinal: happiness – unhappiness
 
|-
|| .u'u
|| repentance
|| attitudinal: repentance – lack of regret – innocence
 
|-
|| .uu
|| pity
|| attitudinal: pity – cruelty
 
|-
|| .y
|| hesitation
|| ‘er’ (hesitation)
 
|-
|| .ybu
|| y
|| letteral for y
 
|-
|| .y'y
|| '
|| letteral for '
 
|-
|| .y'ybu
|| h
|| letteral for h
 
|-
|| ba
|| after
|| <nowiki>time tense relation/direction: will [selbri]; after [sumti]; default future tense</nowiki>
 
|-
|| badri
|| sad
|| x1<nowiki> is sad/depressed/dejected/[unhappy/feels sorrow/grief] about x</nowiki>2 (abstraction)
 
|-
|| ba'e
|| emphasize next
|| forethought emphasis indicator; indicates next word is especially emphasized
 
|-
|| bai
|| compelled by
|| bapli modal, 1st place (forced by) forcedly; compelled by force ...
 
|-
|| bajra
|| run
|| x1 runs on surface x2 using limbs x3 with gait x4
 
|-
|| bakfu
|| bundle
|| x1<nowiki> is a bundle/package/cluster/clump/pack [shape/form] containing x</nowiki>2, held together by x3
 
|-
|| bakni
|| bovine
|| x1<nowiki> is a cow/cattle/kine/ox/[bull/steer/calf] [beef-producer/bovine] of species/breed x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| spero
|| Esperanto
|| x1 pertains to Esperanto language/culture in aspect x2
 
|-
|| bangu
|| language
|| x1 is a/the language/dialect used by x2 to express/communicate x3 (si'o/du'u, not quote)
 
|-
|| banli
|| great
|| x1 is great/grand in property x2 (ka) by standard x3
 
|-
|| banxa
|| bank
|| x1 is a bank owned by/in banking system x2 for banking function(s) x3 (event)
 
|-
|| ba'o
|| perfective
|| interval event contour: in the aftermath of ...; since ...; perfective
 
|-
|| bapli
|| force
|| x1<nowiki> [force] (ka) forces/compels event x</nowiki>2 to occur; x1 determines property x2 to manifest
 
|-
|| barda
|| big
|| x1 is big/large in property/dimension(s) x2 as compared with standard/norm x3
 
|-
|| barja
|| bar
|| x1 is a tavern/bar/pub serving x2 to audience/patrons x3
 
|-
|| bartu
|| out
|| x1 is on the outside of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is exterior to x2
 
|-
|| batci
|| bite
|| x1 bites/pinches x2 on/at specific locus x3 with x4
 
|-
|| ba'u
|| exaggeration
|| exaggeration – accuracy – understatement
 
|-
|| bau
|| in language
|| bangu modal, 1st place in language ...
 
|-
|| be
|| link sumti
|| sumti link to attach sumti (default x2) to a selbri; used in descriptions
 
|-
|| bebna
|| foolish
|| x1<nowiki> is foolish/silly in event/action/property [folly] (ka) x</nowiki>2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a boob
 
|-
|| be'e
|| request to send
|| vocative: request to send/speak
 
|-
|| bei
|| link more sumti
|| separates multiple linked sumti within a selbri; used in descriptions
 
|-
|| benji
|| transfer
|| x1 transfers/sends/transmits x2 to receiver x3 from transmitter/origin x4 via means/medium x5
 
|-
|| be'o
|| end linked sumti
|| elidable terminator: end linked sumti in specified description
 
|-
|| berti
|| north
|| x1<nowiki> is to the north/northern side [right-hand-rule pole] of x</nowiki>2 according to frame of reference x3
 
|-
|| bevri
|| carry
|| x1 carries/hauls/bears/transports cargo x2 to x3 from x4 over path x5<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1<nowiki> is a carrier/[porter]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| bi
|| 8
|| digit/number: 8
 
|-
|| bi'i
|| unordered interval
|| non-logical interval connective: unordered between ... and ...
 
|-
|| bilga
|| obliged
|| x1 is bound/obliged to/has the duty to do/be x2 in/by standard/agreement x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 must do x2
 
|-
|| bilma
|| ill
|| x1 is ill/sick/diseased with symptoms x2 from disease x3
 
|-
|| binxo
|| become
|| x1 becomes/changes/converts/transforms into x2 under conditions x3
 
|-
|| bi'o
|| ordered interval
|| non-logical interval connective: ordered from ... to ...
 
|-
|| birje
|| beer
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a amount of beer/ale/brew brewed from x2
 
|-
|| birka
|| arm
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the arm [body-part] of x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| birti
|| certain
|| x1 is certain/sure/positive/convinced that x2 is true
 
|-
|| blabi
|| white
|| x1 is white / very light-coloured
 
|-
|| bo
|| short scope link
|| short scope joiner; joins various constructs with shortest scope and right grouping
 
|-
|| boi
|| end number or lerfu
|| elidable terminator: terminate numeral or letteral string
 
|-
|| botpi
|| bottle
|| x1 is a bottle/jar/urn/flask/closable container for x2, made of material x3 with lid x4
 
|-
|| bredi
|| ready
|| x1 is ready/prepared for x2 (event)
 
|-
|| bridi
|| predicate
|| x1 (text) is a predicate relationship with relation x2 among arguments (sequence/set)
 
|-
|| briju
|| office
|| x1 is an office/bureau/work-place of worker x2 at location x3
 
|-
|| bruna
|| brother
|| x1 is brother of/fraternal to x2 by bond/tie/standard/parent(s) x3<nowiki>; [not necess. biological]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| budjo
|| Buddhist
|| x1 pertains to the Buddhist culture/religion/ethos in aspect x2
 
|-
|| burna
|| embarassed
|| x1 is embarrassed/disconcerted/flustered/ill-at-ease about/under conditions x2 (abstraction)
 
|-
|| bu'u
|| coincident with
|| location tense relation/direction; coincident with/at the same place as; space equivalent of ca
 
|-
|| by
|| b
|| letteral for b
 
|-
|| ca
|| during
|| <nowiki>time tense relation/direction: is [selbri]; during/simultaneous with [sumti]; present tense</nowiki>
 
|-
|| cabdei
|| today
|| x1 is today (cabna ‘now’ + djedi ‘day’)
 
|-
|| cacra
|| hour
|| x1 is x2 hours in duration (default is 1 hour) by standard x3
 
|-
|| cadzu
|| walk
|| x1 walks/strides/paces on surface x2 using limbs x3
 
|-
|| cai
|| intense emotion
|| attitudinal: strong intensity attitude modifier
 
|-
|| ca'o
|| continuative
|| interval event contour: during ...; continuative)
 
|-
|| carna
|| turn
|| x1 turns/rotates/revolves around axis x2 in direction x3
 
|-
|| carvi
|| rain
|| x1<nowiki> rains/showers/[precipitates] to x</nowiki>2 from x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1<nowiki> is precipitation [not limited to ‘rain’]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| casnu
|| discuss
|| x1(s) (mass normally, but 1 individual/jo'u possible) discuss(es)/talk(s) about topic/subject x2
 
|-
|| catke
|| shove
|| x1<nowiki> [agent] shoves/pushes x</nowiki>2 at locus x3
 
|-
|| catlu
|| look
|| x1 looks at/examines/views/inspects/regards/watches/gazes at x2<nowiki> [compare with </nowiki>zgani]
 
|-
|| catra
|| kill
|| x1 (agent) kills/slaughters/murders x2 by action/method x3
 
|-
|| ce
|| in a set with
|| non-logical connective: set link, unordered; ‘and also’, but forming a set
 
|-
|| ce'o
|| in a sequence with
|| non-logical connective: ordered sequence link; ‘and then’, forming a sequence
 
|-
|| certu
|| expert
|| x1 is an expert/pro/has prowess in/is skilled at x2 (event/activity) by standard x3
 
|-
|| ce'u
|| lambda
|| pseudo-quantifier binding a variable within an abstraction that represents an open place
 
|-
|| cevni
|| god
|| x1 is a/the god/deity of people(s)/religion x2 with dominion over x3<nowiki> [sphere]; x</nowiki>1 is divine
 
|-
|| cfari
|| initiate
|| x1<nowiki> [state/event/process] commences/initiates/starts/begins to occur; (intransitive verb)</nowiki>
 
|-
|| cfipu
|| confusing
|| x1 (event/state) confuses/baffles x2<nowiki> [observer] due to [confusing] property x</nowiki>3 (ka)
 
|-
|| ci
|| 3
|| digit/number: 3
 
|-
|| cidja
|| food
|| x1 is food/feed/nutriment for x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is edible/gives nutrition to x2
 
|-
|| cidjrkari
|| curry
|| x1 is a quantity of curry
 
|-
|| cidjrkebabi
|| kebab
|| x1 is a kebab
 
|-
|| cidro
|| hydrogen
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains/is made of hydrogen (H)
 
|-
|| cifnu
|| infant
|| x1<nowiki> is an infant/baby [helpless through youth/incomplete development] of species x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| cilre
|| learn
|| x1 learns x2 (du'u) about subject x3 from source x4 (obj./event) by method x5 (event/process)
 
|-
|| cinba
|| kiss
|| x1 (agent) kisses/busses x2 at locus x3
 
|-
|| cinmo
|| emotion
|| x1 feels emotion x2 (ka) about x3
 
|-
|| cinri
|| interesting
|| x1 (abstraction) interests/is interesting to x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 is interested in x1
 
|-
|| cinse
|| sexual
|| x1 in activity/state x2 exhibits sexuality/gender/sexual orientation x3 (ka) by standard x4
 
|-
|| cinta
|| paint
|| x1<nowiki> [material] is a paint of pigment/active substance x</nowiki>2, in a base of x3
 
|-
|| cinynei
|| fancy
|| x1 fancies x2 (cinse ‘sex’ + nelci ‘like’)
 
|-
|| cipni
|| bird
|| x1 is a bird/avian/fowl of species x2
 
|-
|| cipra
|| test
|| x1 (process/event) is a test for/proof of property/state x2 in subject x3 (individ./set/mass)
 
|-
|| cirla
|| cheese
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains cheese/curd from source x2
 
|-
|| ciska
|| write
|| x1 inscribes/writes x2 on display/storage medium x3 with writing implement x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a scribe
 
|-
|| cisma
|| smile
|| x1 smiles/grins (facial expression)
 
|-
|| cismyfra
|| smile at
|| x1 reacts/responds/answers by smiling to stimulus x2 under conditions x3<nowiki> [</nowiki>cisma (smile) + frati (react)]
 
|-
|| citka
|| eat
|| x1 eats/ingests/consumes (transitive verb) x2
 
|-
|| citsi
|| season
|| x1<nowiki> is a season/is seasonal [cyclical interval], defined by interval/property x</nowiki>2, of year(s) x3
 
|-
|| cizra
|| strange
|| x1 is strange/weird/deviant/bizarre/odd to x2 in property x3 (ka)
 
|-
|| ckafi
|| coffee
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of coffee from source/bean/grain x2
 
|-
|| ckasu
|| ridicule
|| x1 ridicules/mocks/scoffs at x2 about x3 (property/event) by doing activity x4 (event)
 
|-
|| ckire
|| grateful
|| x1 is grateful/thankful to/appreciative of x2 for x3 (event/property)
 
|-
|| ckule
|| school
|| x1 is school/institute/academy at x2 teaching subject(s) x3 to audien./commun. x4 operated by x5
 
|-
|| clani
|| long
|| x1 is long in dimension/direction x2 (default longest dimension) by measurement standard x3
 
|-
|| cladu
|| loud
|| x1 is loud/noisy at observation point x2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| clira
|| early
|| x1 (event) is early by standard x2
 
|-
|| clite
|| polite
|| x1 is polite/courteous/civil in matter x2 according to standard/custom x3
 
|-
|| cliva
|| leave
|| x1 leaves x2 via route x3
 
|-
|| cmaci
|| mathematics
|| x1 is a mathematics of type/describing x2
 
|-
|| cmalu
|| small
|| x1 is small in property/dimension(s) x2 (ka) as compared with standard/norm x3
 
|-
|| cmavo
|| structure word
|| x1 is a structure word of grammatical class x2, with meaning/function x3 in usage (language) x4
 
|-
|| cmene
|| name
|| x1 (quoted word(s)) is a/the name/title/tag of x2 to/used-by namer/name-user x3 (person)
 
|-
|| cmila
|| laugh
|| x1 laughs
 
|-
|| cmima
|| member
|| x1 is a member/element of set x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 belongs to group x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is amid/among/amongst group x2
 
|-
|| cmoni
|| moan
|| x1<nowiki> utters moan/groan/howl/scream [non-linguistic utterance] x</nowiki>2 expressing x3 (property)
 
|-
|| cnino
|| new
|| x1 is new/unfamiliar/novel to observer x2 in feature x3 (ka) by standard x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a novelty
 
|-
|| cnita
|| beneath
|| x1 is directly/vertically beneath/below/under/underneath/down from x2 in frame of reference x3
 
|-
|| co'a
|| initiative
|| interval event contour: at the starting point of ...; initiative
 
|-
|| co'e
|| unspecified selbri
|| elliptical/unspecified bridi relationship
 
|-
|| coi
|| greetings
|| vocative: greetings/hello
 
|-
|| co'o
|| partings
|| vocative: partings/good-bye
 
|-
|| co'u
|| cessative
|| interval event contour: at the ending point of ... even if not done; cessative
 
|-
|| cpedu
|| request
|| x1 requests/asks/petitions/solicits for x2 of/from x3 in manner/form x4
 
|-
|| cpina
|| pungent
|| x1 is pungent/piquant/peppery/spicy/irritating to sense x2
 
|-
|| cradi
|| radio
|| x1<nowiki> broadcasts/transmits [using radio waves] x</nowiki>2 via station/frequency x3<nowiki> to [radio] receiver x</nowiki>4
 
|-
|| crane
|| front
|| x1 is anterior/ahead/forward/(in/on) the front of x2 which faces/in-frame-of-reference x3
 
|-
|| cremau
|| more expert
|| x1 is more expert/pro/has prowess than x2 in/is more skilled at x3 by standard x4, by amount/excess x5 (certu ‘expert’ + zmadu ‘more’)
 
|-
|| cribe
|| bear
|| x1 is a bear/ursoid of species/breed x2
 
|-
|| crida
|| fairy
|| x1<nowiki> is a fairy/elf/gnome/brownie/pixie/goblin/kobold [mythical humanoid] of mythos/religion x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| crino
|| green
|| x1 is green
 
|-
|| crisa
|| summer
|| x1<nowiki> is summer/summertime [hot season] of year x</nowiki>2 at location x3
 
|-
|| critu
|| autumn
|| x1<nowiki> is autumn/fall [harvest/cooling season] of year x</nowiki>2 at location x3
 
|-
|| ctebi
|| lip
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the lip [body-part]/rim of orifice x</nowiki>2 of body x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is labial
 
|-
|| ctuca
|| teach
|| x1 teaches audience x2 ideas/methods/lore x3 (du'u) about subject(s) x4 by method x5 (event)
 
|-
|| cu
|| selbri separator
|| elidable marker: separates selbri from preceding sumti, allows preceding terminator elision
 
|-
|| cu'i
|| neutral emotion
|| attitudinal: neutral scalar attitude modifier
 
|-
|| cukta
|| book
|| x1 is a book about subject/theme/story x2 by author x3 for audience x4 preserved in medium x5
 
|-
|| culno
|| full
|| x1 is full/completely filled with x2
 
|-
|| cupra
|| produce
|| x1 produces x2<nowiki> [product] by process x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| curmi
|| let
|| x1 (agent) lets/permits/allows x2 (event) under conditions x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 grants privilege x2
 
|-
|| cusku
|| express
|| x1 expresses/says x2 for audience x3 via expressive medium x4
 
|-
|| cu'u
|| as said by
|| cusku modal, 1st place (attribution/quotation) as said by source ...; used for quotation
 
|-
|| cy
|| c
|| letteral for c
 
|-
|| da
|| something #1
|| logically quantified existential pro-sumti: there exists something #1 (usually restricted)
 
|-
|| dable'a
|| conquer
|| x1 conquers/siezes x2 from x3 (‘war-take’)
 
|-
|| da'i
|| supposing
|| discursive: supposing – in fact
 
|-
|| dai
|| empathy
|| attitudinal modifier: marks empathetic use of preceding attitudinal; shows another's feelings
 
|-
|| danfu
|| answer
|| x1<nowiki> is the answer/response/solution/[reply] to question/problem x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| dansu
|| dance
|| x1 (individual, mass) dances to accompaniment/music/rhythm x2
 
|-
|| dansydi'u
|| disco
|| x1 is a disco (dansu ‘dance’ + dinju ‘building’)
 
|-
|| dapma
|| curse
|| x1 curses/damns/condemns x2 to fate (event) x3
 
|-
|| daptutra
|| hell
|| x1 is the territory of damnation by x2 (dapma ‘curse’ + tutra ‘territory’)
 
|-
|| darxi
|| hit
|| x1<nowiki> hits/strikes/[beats] x</nowiki>2<nowiki> with instrument [or body-part] x</nowiki>3 at locus x4
 
|-
|| dasni
|| wear
|| x1 wears/is robed/garbed in x2 as a garment of type x3
 
|-
|| dau
|| 10
|| digit/number: hex digit A
 
|-
|| de
|| something #2
|| logically quantified existential pro-sumti: there exists something #2 (usually restricted)
 
|-
|| de'i
|| dated
|| detri modal, 1st place (for letters) dated ... ; attaches date stamp
 
|-
|| denpa
|| wait
|| x1 awaits/waits/pauses for/until x2 at state x3 before starting/continuing x4 (activity/process)
 
|-
|| detri
|| date
|| x1<nowiki> is the date [day,{week},{month},year] of event/state x</nowiki>2, at location x3, by calendar x4
 
|-
|| di
|| something #3
|| logically quantified existential pro-sumti: there exists something #3 (usually restricted)
 
|-
|| dicra
|| interrupt
|| x1<nowiki> (event) interrupts/stops/halts/[disrupts] x</nowiki>2 (object/event/process) due to quality x3
 
|-
|| dikca
|| electric
|| x1<nowiki> is electricity [electric charge or current] in/on x</nowiki>2 of polarity/quantity x3 (def. negative)
 
|-
|| dilnu
|| cloud
|| x1 is a cloud/mass of clouds of material x2 in air mass x3 at floor/base elevation x4
 
|-
|| dinske
|| economics
|| x1 is economics based on methodology x2 (jdini ‘money’ + saske ‘science’)
 
|-
|| dirba
|| dear
|| x1 is dear/precious/darling to x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is emotionally valued by x2
 
|-
|| djacu
|| water
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity/expanse of water; (adjective:) x1<nowiki> is aqueous/[aquatic]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| djedi
|| full day
|| x1 is x2 full days in duration (default is 1 day) by standard x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is diurnal
 
|-
|| djica
|| want
|| x1 desires/wants/wishes x2 (event/state) for purpose x3
 
|-
|| djuno
|| know
|| x1 knows fact(s) x2 (du'u) about subject x3 by epistemology x4
 
|-
|| do
|| you
|| pro-sumti: you listener(s); identified by vocative
 
|-
|| doi
|| vocative marker
|| generic vocative marker; identifies intended listener; elidable after COI
 
|-
|| dotco
|| German
|| x1 reflects German/Germanic culture/nationality/language in aspect x2
 
|-
|| draci
|| drama
|| x1 is a drama/play about x2<nowiki> [plot/theme/subject] by dramatist x</nowiki>3 for audience x4 with actors x5
 
|-
|| drani
|| correct
|| x1 is correct/proper/right/perfect in property/aspect x2 (ka) in situation x3 by standard x4
 
|-
|| drata
|| other
|| x1 isn't the-same-thing-as/is different-from/other-than x2 by standard x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is something else
 
|-
|| du
|| same identity as
|| identity selbri; = sign; x1 identically equals x2, x3, etc.; attached sumti refer to same thing
 
|-
|| du'e
|| too many
|| digit/number: too many
 
|-
|| dukse
|| excess
|| x1 is an excess of/too much of x2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| dunda
|| give
|| x1<nowiki> [donor] gives/donates gift/present x</nowiki>2 to recipient/beneficiary x3<nowiki> [without payment/exchange]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| dunku
|| anguish
|| x1 is anguished/distressed/emotionally wrought/stressed by x2
 
|-
|| dunli
|| equal
|| x1 is equal/congruent to/as much as x2 in property/dimension/quantity x3
 
|-
|| dunra
|| winter
|| x1<nowiki> is winter/wintertime [cold season] of year x</nowiki>2 at location
 
|-
|| du'u
|| bridi abstract
|| abstractor: predication/bridi abstractor; x1<nowiki> is predication [bridi] expressed in sentence x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| dy
|| d
|| letteral for d
 
|-
|| dzena
|| elder
|| x1 is an elder/ancestor of x2 by bond/tie/degree x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1's generation precedes x2's parents
 
|-
|| fa
|| 1st sumti place
|| sumti place tag: tag 1st sumti place
 
|-
|| fa'a
|| towards point
|| location tense relation/direction; arriving at/directly towards ...
 
|-
|| facki
|| discover
|| x1 discovers/finds out x2 (du'u) about subject/object x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 finds (fi) x3 (object)
 
|-
|| fagri
|| fire
|| x1 is a fire/flame in fuel x2 burning-in/reacting-with oxidizer x3 (default air/oxygen)
 
|-
|| fai
|| extra sumti place
|| sumti place tag: tag a sumti moved out of numbered place structure; used in modal conversions
 
|-
|| falcru
|| drop
|| x1 allows x2 to fall/drop to x3 in gravity well/frame of reference x4
 
|-
|| fange
|| alien
|| x1<nowiki> is alien/foreign/[exotic]/unfamiliar to x</nowiki>2 in property x3 (ka)
 
|-
|| fanva
|| translate
|| x1 translates x2 to language x3 from language x4 with translation-result x5
 
|-
|| fanza
|| annoy
|| x1 (event) annoys/irritates/bothers/distracts x2
 
|-
|| farlu
|| fall
|| x1 falls/drops to x2 from x3 in gravity well/frame of reference x4
 
|-
|| farna
|| direction
|| x1 is the direction of x2 (object/event) from origin/in frame of reference x3
 
|-
|| fasnu
|| event
|| x1 (event) is an event that happens/occurs/takes place; x1 is an incident/happening/occurrence
 
|-
|| fatci
|| fact
|| x1 (du'u) is a fact/reality/truth/actuality, in the absolute
 
|-
|| fa'u
|| and respectively
|| non-logical connective: respectively; unmixed ordered distributed association
 
|-
|| fau
|| in the event of
|| fasnu modal, 1st place (non-causal) in the event of ...
 
|-
|| fe
|| 2nd sumti place
|| sumti place tag: tag 2nd sumti place
 
|-
|| fei
|| 11
|| digit/number: hex digit B
 
|-
|| fekpre
|| crazy
|| x1 is an insane, crazy person (fenki ‘crazy’ + prenu ‘person’)
 
|-
|| fengu
|| angry
|| x1 is angry/mad at x2 for x3 (action/state/property)
 
|-
|| fenki
|| crazy
|| x1 (action/event) is crazy/insane/mad/frantic/in a frenzy (one sense) by standard x2
 
|-
|| fe'o
|| over and out
|| vocative: over and out (end discussion)
 
|-
|| fi
|| 3rd sumti place
|| sumti place tag: tag 3rd sumti place
 
|-
|| fi'e
|| created by
|| finti modal, 1st place (creator) created by ...
 
|-
|| fi'i
|| hospitality
|| vocative: hospitality – inhospitality; you are welcome/ make yourself at home
 
|-
|| finpe
|| fish
|| x1 is a fish of species x2<nowiki> [metaphorical extension to sharks, non-fish aquatic vertebrates]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| finti
|| invent
|| x1 invents/creates/composes/authors x2 for function/purpose x3 from existing elements/ideas x4
 
|-
|| fi'u
|| fraction slash
|| digit/number: fraction slash; default “/n”  1/n, “n/”  n/1, or “/” alone  golden ratio
 
|-
|| fo
|| 4th sumti place
|| sumti place tag: tag 4th sumti place
 
|-
|| fo'a
|| it #6
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #6 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| fo'e
|| it #7
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #7 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| fo'i
|| it #8
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #8 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| fonxa
|| telephone
|| x1 is a telephone transceiver/modem attached to system/network x2
 
|-
|| fo'o
|| it #9
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #9 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| fo'u
|| it #10
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #10 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| fraso
|| French
|| x1 reflects French/Gallic culture/nationality/language in aspect x2
 
|-
|| frati
|| react
|| x1 reacts/responds/answers with action x2 to stimulus x3 under conditions x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is responsive
 
|-
|| frumu
|| frown
|| x1 frowns/grimaces (facial expression)
 
|-
|| fu
|| 5th sumti place
|| sumti place tag: tag 5th sumti place
 
|-
|| fusra
|| rotten
|| x1 rots/decays/ferments with decay/fermentation agent x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is rotten/decayed/fermented
 
|-
|| fy
|| f
|| letteral for f
 
|-
|| jagi
|| fore or
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal or
 
|-
|| gacri
|| cover
|| x1<nowiki> is a cover/[lid/top] for covering/concealing/sheltering x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| gai
|| 12
|| digit/number: hex digit C
 
|-
|| gairgau
|| cover
|| x1<nowiki> [person/agent] places x</nowiki>2<nowiki> as a cover/[lid/top] on x</nowiki>3 (gacri ‘cover’ + gasnu ‘do’)
 
|-
|| galfi
|| modify
|| x1 (event) modifies/alters/changes/transforms/converts x2 into x3
 
|-
|| jaginai
|| fore only if
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal conditional/only if
 
|-
|| ganlo
|| closed
|| x1 (portal/passage/entrance-way) is closed/shut/not open, preventing passage/access to x2 by x3
 
|-
|| gasnu
|| do
|| x1<nowiki> [person/agent] is an agentive cause of event x</nowiki>2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 does/brings about x2
 
|-
|| jegi
|| fore and
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal and
 
|-
|| jigi
|| fore conn?
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal connective question
 
|-
|| gerku
|| dog
|| x1<nowiki> is a dog/canine/[bitch] of species/breed x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| gerna
|| grammar
|| x1 is the grammar/rules/defining form of language x2 for structure/text x3
 
|-
|| gi
|| connective medial
|| logical connective: all but tanru-internal forethought connective medial marker
 
|-
|| gija
|| bridi or
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought or
 
|-
|| gije
|| bridi and
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought and
 
|-
|| gijenai
|| bridi but not
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought x but not y
 
|-
|| giji
|| bridi conn?
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought connective question
 
|-
|| gijo
|| bridi iff
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought biconditional/iff/if-and-only-if
 
|-
|| gijonai
|| bridi xor
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought exclusive or
 
|-
|| gismu
|| root word
|| x1 is a (Lojban) root word expressing relation x2 among argument roles x3, with affix(es)
 
|-
|| giju
|| bridi whether
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought whether-or-not
 
|-
|| glare
|| hot
|| x1<nowiki> is hot/[warm] by standard x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| gleki
|| happy
|| x1 is happy/gay/merry/glad/gleeful about x2 (event/state)
 
|-
|| gletu
|| copulate
|| x1 copulates/mates/has coitus/sexual intercourse with x2
 
|-
|| glico
|| English
|| x1 is English/pertains to English-speaking culture in aspect x2
 
|-
|| jogi
|| fore iff
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal biconditional/iff/if-and-only-if
 
|-
|| go'i
|| last bridi
|| pro-bridi: preceding bridi; in answer to a yes/no question, repeats the claim, meaning yes
 
|-
|| goi
|| pro-sumti assign
|| sumti assignment; used to define/assign ko'a/fo'a series pro-sumti
 
|-
|| joginai
|| fore xor
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal exclusive or
 
|-
|| grana
|| rod
|| x1<nowiki> is a rod/pole/staff/stick/cane [shape/form] of material x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| jugi
|| fore whether
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal whether-or-not
 
|-
|| jagu
|| fore or
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal or
 
|-
|| janaigu
|| fore only if
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal conditional/only if
 
|-
|| gubni
|| public
|| x1 is public/un-hidden/open/jointly available to/owned by all among community x2 (mass)
 
|-
|| jegu
|| fore and
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal and
 
|-
|| gugde
|| country
|| x1 is the country of peoples x2 with land/territory x3<nowiki>; (people/territory relationship)</nowiki>
 
|-
|| jigu
|| fore conn?
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal connective question
 
|-
|| gunjubme
|| desk
|| x1 is a desk of worker x2 (gunka ‘work’ + jubme ‘table’)
 
|-
|| gunka
|| work
|| x1<nowiki> [person] labors/works on/at x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [activity] with goal/objective x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| gunro
|| roll
|| x1 rolls/trundles on/against surface x2 rotating on axis/axle x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a roller
 
|-
|| gunta
|| attack
|| x1 (person/mass) attacks/invades/commits aggression upon victim x2 with goal/objective x3
 
|-
|| guntrusi'o
|| Communism
|| x1 is a notion of communism (gunka ‘work’ + turni ‘govern’ + sidbo ‘idea’)
 
|-
|| jogu
|| fore iff
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal biconditional/iff/if-and-only-if
 
|-
|| jonaigu
|| fore xor
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal exclusive or
 
|-
|| gusni
|| illumine
|| x1<nowiki> [energy] is light/illumination illuminating x</nowiki>2 from light source x3
 
|-
|| gusta
|| restaurant
|| x1 is a restaurant/cafe/diner serving type-of-food x2 to audience x3
 
|-
|| jugu
|| fore whether
|| logical connective: forethought all but tanru-internal whether-or-not
 
|-
|| gy
|| g
|| letteral for g
 
|-
|| ja
|| tanru/sumti or
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal or
 
|-
|| jai
|| modal conversion
|| convert tense/modal (tagged) place to 1st place; 1st place moves to extra FA place (fai)
 
|-
|| jalge
|| result
|| x1 (action/event/state) is a result/outcome/conclusion of antecedent x2 (event/state/process)
 
|-
|| jamfu
|| foot
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the foot [body-part] of x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| jamna
|| war
|| x1 (person/mass) wars against x2 over territory/matter x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is at war with x2
 
|-
|| janco
|| shoulder
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the shoulder/hip/joint [body-part] attaching limb/extremity x</nowiki>2 to body x3
 
|-
|| jarbu
|| suburb
|| x1 is a suburban area of city/metropolis x2
 
|-
|| jarco
|| show
|| x1<nowiki> (agent) shows/exhibits/displays/[reveals]/demonstrates x</nowiki>2 (property) to audience x3
 
|-
|| jatna
|| captain
|| x1 is captain/commander/leader/in-charge/boss of vehicle/domain x2
 
|-
|| jau
|| 13
|| digit/number: hex digit D
 
|-
|| jbena
|| born
|| x1 is born to x2 at time x3<nowiki> [birthday] and place x</nowiki>4<nowiki> [birthplace]; x</nowiki>1 is native to (fo)
 
|-
|| jbonunsalci
|| Logfest
|| x1<nowiki> is an event of celebrating/recognizing/honoring Lojban with activity/[party] x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| jdima
|| price
|| x1<nowiki> [amount] is the price of x</nowiki>2 to purchaser/consumer x3 set by vendor x4
 
|-
|| jdini
|| money
|| x1 is money/currency issued by x2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is financial/monetary/pecuniary/fiscal
 
|-
|| je
|| tanru/sumti and
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal and
 
|-
|| jecta
|| polity
|| x1 is a polity/state governing territory/domain x2<nowiki>; [government/territory relationship]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| jecyga'ibai
|| revolutionary
|| x1 revolts against/deposes regime x2 (jecta ‘polity’ + galfi ‘modify’ + bapli ‘force’)
 
|-
|| je'e
|| roger
|| vocative: roger (ack) – negative acknowledge; used to acknowledge offers and thanks
 
|-
|| ji
|| tanru/sumti conn?
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal connective question
 
|-
|| jelca
|| burn
|| x1<nowiki> burns/[ignites/is flammable/inflammable] at temperature x</nowiki>2 in atmosphere x3
 
|-
|| jemna
|| gem
|| x1 is a gem/polished stone/pearl of type x2 from gemstone/material/source x3
 
|-
|| jenai
|| tanru/sumti but not
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal x but not y
 
|-
|| jgari
|| grasp
|| x1<nowiki> grasps/holds/clutches/seizes/grips/[hugs] x</nowiki>2 with x3 (part of x1) at locus x4 (part of x2)
 
|-
|| jgira
|| pride
|| x1 (person) feels/has pride in/about x2 (abstraction)
 
|-
|| jgita
|| guitar
|| x1<nowiki> is a guitar/violin/fiddle/harp [stringed musical instrument] with actuator/plectrum/bow x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| jgitrgitara
|| guitar
|| x1 is a guitar
 
|-
|| jgitrviolino
|| violin
|| x1 is a violin
 
|-
|| ji
|| tanru/sumti conn?
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti afterthought connective question
 
|-
|| ji'a
|| in addition
|| discursive: additionally
 
|-
|| jikca
|| socialize
|| x1 interacts/behaves socially with x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 socializes with/is sociable towards x2
 
|-
|| jimpe
|| understand
|| x1 understands/comprehends fact/truth x2 (du'u) about subject x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 understands (fi) x3
 
|-
|| jinvi
|| opine
|| x1 thinks/opines x2<nowiki> [opinion] (du'u) is true about subject/issue x</nowiki>3 on grounds x4
 
|-
|| jipci
|| chicken
|| x1<nowiki> is a chicken/[hen/cock/rooster]/small fowl [a type of bird] of species/breed x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| jisra
|| juice
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of juice/nectar from-source/of-type x2
 
|-
|| jmina
|| add
|| x1 adds/combines x2 to/with x3, with result x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 augments x2 by amount x3
 
|-
|| jmive
|| live
|| x1 lives/is alive by standard x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is an organism/living thing
 
|-
|| jo
|| tanru/sumti iff
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal biconditional/iff/if-and-only-if
 
|-
|| joi
|| in a mass with
|| non-logical connective: mixed conjunction; ‘and’ meaning ‘mixed together’, forming a mass
 
|-
|| jonai
|| tanru/sumti xor
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal exclusive or
 
|-
|| ju
|| tanru/sumti whether
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal whether-or-not
 
|-
|| jubme
|| table
|| x1 is a table/flat solid upper surface of material x2, supported by legs/base/pedestal x3
 
|-
|| ju'i
|| attention
|| vocative: attention – at ease – ignore me
 
|-
|| jukpa
|| cook
|| x1 cooks/prepares food-for-eating x2 by recipe/method x3 (process)
 
|-
|| jundi
|| attentive
|| x1 is attentive towards/attends/tends/pays attention to object/affair x2
 
|-
|| jungo
|| Chinese
|| x1<nowiki> reflects Chinese [Mandarin, Cantonese, Wu, etc.] culture/nationality/language in aspect x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| junri
|| serious
|| x1 (person) is serious/earnest/has gravity about x2 (event/state/activity)
 
|-
|| ju'o
|| certainty
|| attitudinal modifier: certainly – uncertain – certainly not
 
|-
|| ka
|| property abstract
|| abstractor: property/quality abstractor (-ness); x1<nowiki> is quality/property exhibited by [bridi]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| kabri
|| cup
|| x1<nowiki> is a cup/glass/tumbler/mug/vessel/[bowl] containing contents x</nowiki>2, and of material x3
 
|-
|| kakne
|| able
|| x1 is able to do/be/capable of doing/being x2 (event/state) under conditions x3 (event/state)
 
|-
|| kanla
|| cup
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the eye [body-part] of x</nowiki>2<nowiki>; [metaphor: sensory apparatus]; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is ocular
 
|-
|| kansa
|| with
|| x1 is with/accompanies/is a companion of x2, in state/condition/enterprise x3 (event/state)
 
|-
|| karbi
|| compare
|| x1<nowiki> [observer] compares x</nowiki>2 with x3 in property x4 (ka), determining comparison x5 (state)
 
|-
|| karce
|| car
|| x1<nowiki> is a car/automobile/truck/van [a wheeled motor vehicle] for carrying x</nowiki>2, propelled by x3
 
|-
|| karni
|| journal
|| x1<nowiki> is a journal/periodical/magazine/[newspaper] with content x</nowiki>2 published by x3 for audience x4
 
|-
|| kau
|| indirect question
|| discursive: marks word serving as focus of indirect question
 
|-
|| ke
|| start grouping
|| start grouping of tanru, etc; ... type of ... ; overrides normal tanru left grouping
 
|-
|| ke'a
|| relativized it
|| pro-sumti: relativized sumti (object of relative clause)
 
|-
|| ke'e
|| end grouping
|| elidable terminator: end of tanru left grouping override (usually elidable)
 
|-
|| kei
|| end abstraction
|| elidable terminator: end abstraction bridi (often elidable)
 
|-
|| kensa
|| outer space
|| x1 is outer space near/associated with celestial body/region x2
 
|-
|| ke'o
|| please repeat
|| vocative: please repeat
 
|-
|| kerfa
|| hair
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the hair/fur [body-part] of x</nowiki>2 at body location x3
 
|-
|| ki'a
|| textual confusion
|| attitudinal question: confusion about something said
 
|-
|| ki'e
|| thanks
|| vocative: thanks – no thanks to you
 
|-
|| kijno
|| oxygen
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains/is made of oxygen (O)
 
|-
|| ki'o
|| number comma
|| digit/number: number comma; thousands
 
|-
|| kisto
|| Pakistani
|| x1 reflects Pakistani/Pashto culture/nationality/language in aspect x2
 
|-
|| ki'u
|| because of reason
|| krinu modal, 1st place (justified by) justifiably; because of reason ...
 
|-
|| klaji
|| street
|| x1<nowiki> is a street/avenue/lane/drive/cul-de-sac/way/alley/[road] at x</nowiki>2 accessing x3
 
|-
|| klaku
|| weep
|| x1 weeps/cries tears x2 about/for reason x3 (event/state)
 
|-
|| klama
|| come
|| x1 goes/comes to x2 from x3 via x4 by means x5
 
|-
|| ko
|| imperative
|| pro-sumti: you (imperative); make it true for you, the listener
 
|-
|| ko'a
|| it #1
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #1 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| ko'e
|| it #2
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #2 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| ko'i
|| it #3
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #3 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| ko'o
|| it #4
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #4 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| ko'u
|| it #5
|| pro-sumti: he/she/it/they #5 (specified by goi)
 
|-
|| krasi
|| origin
|| x1 (site/event) is a source/start/beginning/origin of x2 (object/event/process)
 
|-
|| kratrsenatore
|| senator
|| x1 is a senator representing x2 in senate x3
 
|-
|| krinu
|| reason
|| x1 (event/state) is a reason/justification/explanation for/causing/permitting x2 (event/state)
 
|-
|| krixa
|| cry out
|| x1 cries out/yells/howls sound x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a crier
 
|-
|| ku
|| end sumti
|| elidable terminator: end description, modal, or negator sumti; often elidable
 
|-
|| kucli
|| curious
|| x1<nowiki> is curious/wonders about/is interested in/[inquisitive about] x</nowiki>2 (object/abstract)
 
|-
|| ku'i
|| however
|| iscursive: however/but/in contrast
 
|-
|| kukte
|| delicious
|| x1 is delicious/tasty/delightful to observer/sense x2<nowiki> [person, or sensory activity]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| kumfa
|| room
|| x1 is a room of/in structure x2 surrounded by partitions/walls/ceiling/floor x3 (mass/jo'u)
 
|-
|| kunti
|| empty
|| x1<nowiki> [container] is empty/vacant of x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [material]; x</nowiki>1 is hollow
 
|-
|| ku'o
|| end relative clause
|| elidable terminator: end NOI relative clause; always elidable, but preferred in complex clauses
 
|-
|| kurji
|| take care of
|| x1 takes-care-of/looks after/attends to/provides for/is caretaker for x2 (object/event/person)
 
|-
|| ky
|| k
|| letteral for k
 
|-
|| kybu
|| q
|| letteral for q
 
|-
|| la
|| that named
|| name descriptor: the one(s) called ... ; takes name or selbri description
 
|-
|| la'a
|| probability
|| discursive: probably – improbably
 
|-
|| lacpu
|| pull
|| x1 pulls/tugs/draws/drags x2 by handle/at locus x3
 
|-
|| ladru
|| milk
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of milk from source x2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is lactic/dairy
 
|-
|| la'e di'u
|| last utterance it
|| pro-sumti: the referent of the last utterance; the state described
 
|-
|| la'e
|| the referent of
|| the referent of (indirect pointer); uses the referent of a sumti as the desired sumti
 
|-
|| la'i
|| the set of named
|| name descriptor: the set of those named ... ; takes name or selbri description
 
|-
|| lai
|| the mass of named
|| name descriptor: the mass of individual(s) named ... ; takes name or selbri description
 
|-
|| lamji
|| adjacent
|| x1 is adjacent/beside/next to/in contact with x2 in property/sequence x3 in direction x4
 
|-
|| lanli
|| analyze
|| x1 analyzes/examines-in-detail x2 by method/technique/system x3<nowiki> [process/activity] </nowiki>
 
|-
|| lanme
|| sheep
|| x1<nowiki> is a sheep/[lamb/ewe/ram] of species/breed x</nowiki>2 of flock x3
 
|-
|| lante
|| can
|| x1 is a can/tightly sealed/pre-sealed container for perishable contents x2, made of x3
 
|-
|| la'o
|| the non-Lojban named
|| delimited non-Lojban name; the resulting quote sumti is treated as a name
 
|-
|| le
|| the one known from context
|| non-veridical descriptor: the one(s) known from context as ...
 
|-
|| lebna
|| take
|| x1<nowiki> takes/gets/gains/obtains/seizes/[removes] x</nowiki>2 (object/property) from x3 (possessor)
 
|-
|| le'e
|| the typical known from context
|| non-veridical descriptor: the stereotype of those known from context as ...
 
|-
|| le'i
|| the set known from context
|| non-veridical descriptor: the set of those known from context as ..., treated as a set
 
|-
|| lei
|| the mass known from context
|| non-veridical descriptor: the mass of individual(s) known from context as ...
 
|-
|| lerci
|| late
|| x1 (event) is late by standard x2
 
|-
|| le'u
|| end error quote
|| end quote of questionable or out-of-context text; not elidable
 
|-
|| li
|| the number
|| the number/evaluated expression; convert number/operand/evaluated math expression to sumti
 
|-
|| lidne
|| precede
|| x1 precedes/leads x2 in sequence x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is former/preceding/previous; x2 is latter/following
 
|-
|| lifri
|| experience
|| x1<nowiki> [person/passive/state] undergoes/experiences x</nowiki>2 (event/experience); x2 happens to x1
 
|-
|| lindi
|| lightning
|| x1 is lightning/electrical arc/thunderbolt striking at/extending to x2 from x3
 
|-
|| lo
|| that which is/does
|| veridical descriptor: the one(s) that is/are/does/do ...
 
|-
|| lo'e
|| the typical
|| veridical descriptor: the typical one(s) who is/are/does/do ...
 
|-
|| logji
|| logic
|| x1<nowiki> [rules/methods] is a logic for deducing/concluding/inferring/reasoning to/about x</nowiki>2 (du'u)
 
|-
|| lo'i
|| the set which really is
|| veridical descriptor: the set of those that is/are/does/do ..., treated as a set
 
|-
|| loi
|| the mass which really is
|| veridical descriptor: the mass of individual(s) that is/are/does/do ...
 
|-
|| lojbo
|| Lojbanic
|| x1<nowiki> reflects [Loglandic]/Lojbanic language/culture/nationality/community in aspect x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| lo'o
|| end mex sumti
|| elidable terminator: end math expression (mex) sumti; end mex-to-sumti conversion; usually elidable
 
|-
|| lo'u
|| error quote
|| start questionable/out-of-context quote; text should be Lojban words, but needn't be grammatical
 
|-
|| lu'a
|| the individuals of
|| the members of the set/components of the mass; converts another description type to individuals
 
|-
|| lujvo
|| affix compound
|| x1 (text) is a compound predicate word with meaning x2 and arguments x3 built from metaphor x4
 
|-
|| lunra
|| lunar
|| x1 is Earth's moon (default); x1 is a major natural satellite/moon of planet x2
 
|-
|| lu'o
|| the mass composed of
|| the mass composed of; converts another description type to a mass composed of the members
 
|-
|| ly
|| l
|| letteral for l
 
|-
|| ma
|| sumti?
|| pro-sumti: sumti question (what/who/how/why/etc.); appropriately fill in sumti blank
 
|-
|| ma'a
|| we with you
|| pro-sumti: me/we the speaker(s)/author(s) and you the listener(s) and others unspecified
 
|-
|| mabla
|| execrable; very bad
|| x1 is execrable/deplorable/wretched/shitty/awful/rotten/miserable/contemptible/crappy/inferior/low-quality in property x2 by standard x3; x1 stinks/sucks in aspect x2 according to x3.
 
|-
|| malglico
|| derogatorily English
|| x1 is English/pertains to English-speaking culture in aspect x2, and is derogatorily viewed by x3 (mabla ‘derogative’ + glico ‘English’)
 
|-
|| malrarbau
|| derogatorily natural language
|| x1 is a natural language, and is derogatorily viewed by x2 (mabla ‘derogative’ + rarna ‘natural’ + bangu ‘languge’)
 
|-
|| mamta
|| mother
|| x1 is a mother of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 bears/mothers/acts maternally toward x2<nowiki>; [not necessarily biological]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| manci
|| wonder
|| x1 feels wonder/awe/marvels about x2
 
|-
|| manku
|| dark
|| x1 is dark/lacking in illumination
 
|-
|| mansa
|| satisfy
|| x1 satisfies evaluator x2 in property (ka)/state x3
 
|-
|| masti
|| month
|| x1 is x2 months in duration (default is 1 month) by month standard x3
 
|-
|| matcrflokati
|| ''flokati'' rug
|| x1 is a ''flokati'' rug
 
|-
|| mau
|| exceeded by
|| zmadu modal, 1st place (a greater) exceeded by ... ; usually a sumti modifier
 
|-
|| me
|| sumti to selbri
|| convert sumti to selbri/tanru element; x1<nowiki> is specific to [sumti] in aspect x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| mebri
|| brow
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the brow/forehead [projecting flat/smooth head/body-part] of x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| melbi
|| beautiful
|| x1 is beautiful/pleasant to x2 in aspect x3 (ka) by aesthetic standard x4
 
|-
|| menli
|| mind
|| x1<nowiki> is a mind/intellect/psyche/mentality/[consciousness] of body x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| mensi
|| sister
|| x1 is a sister of/sororal to x2 by bond/tie/standard/parent(s) x3<nowiki>; [not necessarily biological]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| merko
|| American
|| x1 pertains to USA/American culture/nationality/dialect in aspect x2
 
|-
|| mi
|| me
|| pro-sumti: me/we the speaker(s)/author(s); identified by self-vocative
 
|-
|| mi'a
|| we, not you
|| pro-sumti: me/we the speaker(s)/author(s) and others unspecified, but not you, the listener
 
|-
|| mi'ai
|| we (I and at least one other person)
|| pro-sumti: me/we the speaker(s)/author(s) and at least one other person
 
|-
|| mi'e
|| self-introduction
|| self vocative: self-introduction – denial of identity; identifies speaker
 
|-
|| mikce
|| doctor
|| x1<nowiki> doctors/treats/nurses/[cures]/is physician/midwife to x</nowiki>2 for ailment x3 by treatment/cure x4
 
|-
|| milxe
|| mild
|| x1 is mild/non-extreme/gentle/middling/somewhat in property x2 (ka); x1 is not very x2
 
|-
|| minra
|| reflect
|| x1 reflects/mirrors/echoes x2<nowiki> [object/radiation] to observer/point x</nowiki>3 as x4<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 bounces on x1
 
|-
|| mintu
|| same
|| x1 is the same/identical thing as x2 by standard x3<nowiki>; (x</nowiki>1 and x2 interchangeable)
 
|-
|| mi'o
|| me and you
|| pro-sumti: me/we the speaker(s)/author(s) and you the listener(s)
 
|-
|| misno
|| famous
|| x1 (person/object/event) is famous/renowned/is a celebrity among community of persons x2 (mass)
 
|-
|| mlatu
|| cat
|| x1<nowiki> is a cat/[puss/pussy/kitten] [feline animal] of species/breed x</nowiki>2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is feline
 
|-
|| mo
|| bridi?
|| pro-bridi: bridi/selbri/brivla question
 
|-
|| mo'i
|| space motion
|| mark motions in space-time
 
|-
|| moi
|| ordinal selbri
|| convert number to ordinal selbri; x1 is (n)th member of set x2 ordered by rule x3
 
|-
|| morji
|| remember
|| x1 remembers/recalls/recollects fact(s)/memory x2 (du'u) about subject x3
 
|-
|| morsi
|| dead
|| x1 is dead/has ceased to be alive
 
|-
|| mo'u
|| completive
|| interval event contour: at the natural ending point of ...; completive
 
|-
|| mrilu
|| mail
|| x1<nowiki> mails/posts [transfer via intermediary service] x</nowiki>2 to x3 from x4 by carrier/network/system x5
 
|-
|| mrobi'o
|| die
|| x1 dies under conditions x2 (morsi ‘dead’ + binxo ‘become’)
 
|-
|| mu
|| 5
|| digit/number: 5
 
|-
|| mu'i
|| because of motive
|| mukti modal, 1st place because of motive ...
 
|-
|| mukti
|| motive
|| x1 (action/event/state) motivates/is a motive/incentive for action/event x2, per volition of x3
 
|-
|| mulno
|| complete
|| x1 (event) is complete/done/finished; x1 (object) has become whole in property x2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| munje
|| universe
|| x1<nowiki> is a universe/cosmos [complete and ordered entirety] of domain/sphere x</nowiki>2 defined by rules x3
 
|-
|| mu'o
|| over
|| vocative: over (response OK) – more to come
 
|-
|| mupli
|| example
|| x1 is an example/sample/specimen/instance/case/illustration of common property(s) x2 of set x3
 
|-
|| mutce
|| much
|| x1 is much/extreme in property x2 (ka), towards x3 extreme/direction; x1 is, in x2, very x3
 
|-
|| mu'u
|| exemplified by
|| mupli modal, 1st place exemplified by ...
 
|-
|| my
|| m
|| letteral for m
 
|-
|| naja
|| tanru/sumti only if
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti afterthought conditional/only if
 
|-
|| na
|| bridi negator
|| bridi contradictory negator; scope is an entire bridi; logically negates in some cmavo compounds
 
|-
|| nabmi
|| problem
|| x1 (event/state) is a problem to/encountered by x2 in situation/task/inquiry x3
 
|-
|| na'e
|| scalar contrary
|| contrary scalar negator: other than ...; not ...; a scale or set is implied
 
|-
|| nagija
|| bridi only if
|| logical connective: bridi-tail afterthought conditional/only if
 
|-
|| nai
|| negate last word
|| attached to cmavo to negate them; various negation-related meanings
 
|-
|| naja
|| tanru/sumti only if
|| logical connective: tanru/sumti-internal conditional/only if
 
|-
|| namcu
|| number
|| x1 (li) is a number/quantifier/digit/value/figure (noun); refers to the value and not the symbol
 
|-
|| nanba
|| bread
|| x1<nowiki> is a quantity of/contains bread [leavened or unleavened] made from grains x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| nanca
|| year
|| x1 is x2 years in duration (default is 1 year) by standard x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is annual
 
|-
|| nandu
|| difficult
|| x1 is difficult/hard/challenging for x2 under conditions x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 challenges (non-agentive) x2
 
|-
|| nanmu
|| man
|| x1 is a man/men; x1<nowiki> is a male humanoid person [not necessarily adult]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| narju
|| orange
|| x1<nowiki> is orange [color adjective]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| ne'a
|| next to
|| location tense relation/direction; approximating/next to ...
 
|-
|| ne'i
|| within
|| location tense relation/direction; within/inside of/into ...
 
|-
|| nelci
|| fond
|| x1 is fond of/likes/has a taste for x2 (object/state)
 
|-
|| nenri
|| in
|| x1 is in/inside/within x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is on the inside/interior of x2<nowiki> [totally within the bounds of x</nowiki>2]
 
|-
|| ni
|| amount abstract
|| abstractor: quantity/amount abstractor; x1<nowiki> is quantity/amount of [bridi] measured on scale x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| ni'a
|| below
|| location tense relation/direction; downwards/down from ...
 
|-
|| nibli
|| necessitate
|| x1 logically necessitates/entails/implies action/event/state x2 under rules/logic system x3
 
|-
|| nicte
|| night
|| x1 is a nighttime of day x2 at location x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is at night/nocturnal
 
|-
|| ni'i
|| because of logic
|| nibli modal, 1st place logically; logically because ...
 
|-
|| nimre
|| citrus
|| x1<nowiki> is a quantity of citrus [fruit/tree, etc.] of species/strain x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| ninmu
|| woman
|| x1 is a woman (any female humanoid person, not necessarily adult)
 
|-
|| ninpe'i
|| meet
|| x1 meets x2 for the first time at location x3 (cnino ‘new’ + penmi ‘meet’)
 
|-
|| ni'o
|| new topic
|| discursive: paragraph break; introduce new topic
 
|-
|| nitcu
|| need
|| x1<nowiki> needs/requires/is dependent on/[wants] necessity x</nowiki>2 for purpose/action/stage of process x3
 
|-
|| ni'u
|| negative number
|| digit/number: minus sign; negative number); default any negative
 
|-
|| no
|| 0
|| digit/number: 0
 
|-
|| nobli
|| noble
|| x1 is noble/aristocratic/elite/high-born/titled in/under culture/society/standard x2
 
|-
|| no'e
|| scalar midpoint not
|| midpoint scalar negator: neutral point between je'a and to'e; ‘not really’
 
|-
|| noi
|| incidental clause
|| non-restrictive relative clause; attaches subordinate bridi with incidental information
 
|-
|| no'u
|| incidental identity
|| non-restrictive appositive phrase marker: which incidentally is the same thing as ...
 
|-
|| nu
|| event abstract
|| abstractor: generalized event abstractor; x1<nowiki> is state/process/achievement/activity of [bridi]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| nu'e
|| promise
|| vocative: promise – promise release – un-promise
 
|-
|| nupre
|| promise
|| x1 (agent) promises/commits/assures/threatens x2 (event/state) to x3<nowiki> [beneficiary/victim]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| ny
|| n
|| letteral for n
 
|-
|| pa
|| 1
|| digit/number: 1
 
|-
|| pagbu
|| part
|| x1 is a part/component/piece/portion/segment of x2<nowiki> [where x</nowiki>2 is a whole/mass]; x2 is partly x1
 
|-
|| pai
|| pi
|| digit/number: pi (approximately 3.1416..).
 
|-
|| palci
|| evil
|| x1<nowiki> is evil/depraved/wicked [morally bad] by standard x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| patlu
|| potato
|| x1<nowiki> is a potato [an edible tuber] of variety/cultivar x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| pavbudjo
|| first Buddhist
|| x1 is the first Buddhist (pa ‘1' + budjo ‘Buddhist’)
 
|-
|| pe
|| restrictive phrase
|| restrictive relative phrase marker: which is associated with ...; loosest associative/possessive
 
|-
|| pe'i
|| I opine
|| evidential: I opine (subjective claim)
 
|-
|| pei
|| emotion?
|| attitudinal: attitudinal question; how do you feel about it? with what intensity?
 
|-
|| pelxu
|| yellow
|| x1<nowiki> is yellow/golden [color adjective]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| pencu
|| touch
|| x1 (agent) touches x2 with x3<nowiki> [a locus on x</nowiki>1 or an instrument] at x4<nowiki> [a locus on x</nowiki>2]
 
|-
|| pendo
|| friend
|| x1 is/acts as a friend of/to x2 (experiencer); x2 befriends x1
 
|-
|| penmi
|| meet
|| x1 meets/encounters x2 at/in location x3
 
|-
|| pensi
|| police
|| x1 thinks/considers/cogitates/reasons/is pensive about/reflects upon subject/concept x2
 
|-
|| pesxu
|| paste
|| x1<nowiki> is paste/pulp/dough/mash/mud/slurry [soft, smooth-textured, moist solid] of composition x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| pe'u
|| please
|| vocative: please
 
|-
|| pi so'e
|| most of
|| number: most of of; used to refer to a greater portion of something
 
|-
|| pi
|| decimal point
|| digit/number: radix (number base) point; default decimal
 
|-
|| pi'e
|| digit separator
|| digit/number:separates digits for base >16, not current standard, or variable (e.g. time, date)
 
|-
|| pilno
|| use
|| x1 uses/employs x2<nowiki> [tool, apparatus, machine, agent, acting entity, material] for purpose x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| pinsi
|| pencil
|| x1 is a pencil/crayon/stylus applying lead/marking material x2<nowiki>, frame/support [of material] x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| pinxe
|| drink
|| x1 (agent) drinks/imbibes beverage/drink/liquid refreshment x2 from/out-of container/source x3
 
|-
|| pi'o
|| used by
|| pilno modal, 1st place used by ...
 
|-
|| pipno
|| piano
|| x1 is a piano/harpsichord/synthesizer/organ; a keyboard musical instrument
 
|-
|| plise
|| apple
|| x1<nowiki> is an apple [fruit] of species/strain x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| pluja
|| complicated
|| x1 is complex/complicated/involved in aspect/property x2 (ka) by standard x3
 
|-
|| po
|| is specific to
|| restrictive relative phrase marker: which is specific to ...; normal possessive physical/legal
 
|-
|| po'e
|| which belongs to
|| restrictive relative phrase marker: which belongs to ... ; inalienable possession
 
|-
|| poi
|| restrictive clause
|| restrictive relative clause; attaches subordinate bridi with identifying information to a sumti
 
|-
|| ponse
|| possess
|| x1 possesses/owns/has x2 under law/custom x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is owner/proprietor of x2 under x3
 
|-
|| po'u
|| restrictive identity
|| restrictive appositive phrase marker: which is the same thing as
 
|-
|| prami
|| love
|| x1 loves/feels strong affectionate devotion towards x2 (object/state)
 
|-
|| prenu
|| person
|| x1<nowiki> is a person/people (noun) [not necessarily human]; x</nowiki>1 displays personality/a persona
 
|-
|| reisku
|| ask
|| x1 asks question x2 (reported speech with sedu'u/text  with '''zo''' or '''lu ... li'u'''/or a concept with '''lu'e''') to x3 via expressive medium x4, about subject x5.
 
|-
|| pritu
|| right
|| x1 is to the right of x2 facing x3
 
|-
|| pu
|| before
|| <nowiki>time tense relation/direction: did [selbri]; before/prior to [sumti]; default past tense</nowiki>
 
|-
|| pulji
|| police
|| x1<nowiki> is a police officer/[enforcer/vigilante] enforcing law(s)/rule(s)/order x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| pu'o
|| anticipative
|| interval event contour: in anticipation of ...; until ... ; inchoative
 
|-
|| purci
|| past
|| x1 is in the past of/earlier than/before x2 in time sequence; x1 is former; x2 is latter
 
|-
|| purlamcte
|| last night
|| x1 is the night preceding x2 (purci ‘past’ + lamji ‘adjacent’ + nicte ‘night’)
 
|-
|| py
|| p
|| letteral for p
 
|-
|| ra
|| recent sumti
|| pro-sumti: a recent sumti before the last one, as determined by back-counting rules
 
|-
|| ractu
|| rabbit
|| x1<nowiki> is a rabbit/hare/[doe] of species/breed x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| rafsi
|| affix
|| x1 is an affix/suffix/prefix/combining-form for word/concept x2, form/properties x3, language x4
 
|-
|| ralte
|| keep/own
|| x1 retains/keeps/holds x2 in its possession.
 
|-
|| rarna
|| natural
|| x1<nowiki> is natural/spontaneous/instinctive, not [consciously] caused by person(s)</nowiki>
 
|-
|| rasyjukpa
|| fry
|| x1 fries x2 (grasu ‘grease’ + jukpa ‘cook’)
 
|-
|| re
|| 2
|| digit/number: 2
 
|-
|| rectu
|| meat
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains meat/flesh from source/animal x2
 
|-
|| re'i
|| ready to receive
|| vocative: ready to receive – not ready to receive
 
|-
|| rei
|| 14
|| digit/number: hex digit E
 
|-
|| remna
|| human
|| x1 is a human/human being/man (non-specific gender-free sense); (adjective:) x1 is human
 
|-
|| ri
|| last sumti
|| pro-sumti: the last sumti, as determined by back-counting rules
 
|-
|| ri'a
|| because of cause
|| rinka modal, 1st place (phys./mental) causal because ...
 
|-
|| rinka
|| cause
|| x1 (event/state) effects/physically causes effect x2 (event/state) under conditions x3
 
|-
|| rinsa
|| greet
|| x1<nowiki> (agent) greets/hails/[welcomes/says hello to]/responds to arrival of x</nowiki>2 in manner x3 (action)
 
|-
|| rirni
|| parent
|| x1 is a parent of/raises/rears x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 mentors/acts parental toward child/protege x2
 
|-
|| ri'u
|| on the right of
|| location tense relation/direction; rightwards/to the right of ...
 
|-
|| ro
|| each
|| digit/number: each, all
 
|-
|| rokci
|| rock
|| x1 is a quantity of/is made of/contains rock/stone of type/composition x2 from location x3
 
|-
|| ru
|| earlier sumti
|| pro-sumti: a remote past sumti, before all other in-use backcounting sumti
 
|-
|| ru'e
|| weak emotion
|| attitudinal: weak intensity attitude modifier
 
|-
|| rufsu
|| rough
|| x1<nowiki> is rough/coarse/uneven/[grainy/scabrous/rugged] in texture/regularity</nowiki>
 
|-
|| rupnu
|| dollar
|| x1 is measured in major-money-units (dollar/yuan/ruble) as x2 (quantity), monetary system x3
 
|-
|| ry
|| r
|| letteral for r
 
|-
|| sa
|| erase utterance
|| erase complete or partial utterance; next word shows how much erasing to do
 
|-
|| sabji
|| provide
|| x1 (source) provides/supplies/furnishes x2<nowiki> [supply/commodity] to x</nowiki>3<nowiki> [recipient]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| sa'e
|| precisely speaking
|| discursive: precisely speaking – loosely speaking
 
|-
|| sai
|| strong emotion
|| attitudinal: moderate intensity attitude modifier
 
|-
|| sakta
|| sugar
|| x1<nowiki> is made of/contains/is a quantity of sugar [sweet edible] from source x</nowiki>2 of composition x3
 
|-
|| salci
|| celebrate
|| x1 celebrates/recognizes/honors x2<nowiki> (event/abstract) with activity/[party] x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| sanga
|| sing
|| x1 sings/chants x2<nowiki> [song/hymn/melody/melodic sounds] to audience x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| sanli
|| stand
|| x1<nowiki> stands [is vertically oriented] on surface x</nowiki>2 supported by limbs/support/pedestal x3
 
|-
|| sanmi
|| meal
|| x1 (mass) is a meal composed of dishes including x2
 
|-
|| saske
|| science
|| x1 (mass of facts) is science of/about subject matter x2 based on methodology x3
 
|-
|| sazri
|| operate
|| x1 operates/drives/runs x2<nowiki> [apparatus/machine] with goal/objective/use/end/function x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| se ba'i
|| instead of
|| basti modal, 2nd place instead of ...
 
|-
|| se cau
|| without
|| claxu modal, 2nd place (lacking) without ...
 
|-
|| se du'u
|| sentence abstract
|| compound abstractor: sentence/equation abstract; x1<nowiki> is text expressing [bridi] which is x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| se ja'e
|| results because
|| jalge modal, 2nd place (event causal) results because of ...
 
|-
|| se pa'u
|| as a part of
|| pagbu modal, 2nd place (whole) partially; as a part of ...
 
|-
|| se si'u
|| assisting
|| sidju modal, 2nd place assisting ... (in doing/maintaining something)
 
|-
|| se
|| 2nd conversion
|| 2nd conversion; switch 1st/2nd places
 
|-
|| se'i
|| self-oriented
|| attitudinal modifier: self-oriented – other-oriented
 
|-
|| selbri
|| predicate relation
|| x2 (text) is a predicate relationship with relation x1 among arguments (sequence/set) (= se bridi)
 
|-
|| selpeicku
|| manifesto
|| x1 is a manifesto about topic x2 by author x3 for audience x4 preserved in medium x5 (pensi ‘thought’ + cukta ‘book’)
 
|-
|| sepli
|| apart
|| x1 is apart/separate from x2, separated by partition/wall/gap/interval/separating medium x3
 
|-
|| si
|| erase word
|| erase the last Lojban word, treating non-Lojban text as a single word
 
|-
|| sidbo
|| idea
|| x1<nowiki> [person] labors/works on/at x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [activity] with goal/objective x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| sidju
|| help
|| x1 helps/assists/aids object/person x2 do/achieve/maintain event/activity x3
 
|-
|| simlu
|| seem
|| x1 seems/appears to have property(ies) x2 to observer x3 under conditions x4
 
|-
|| simsa
|| similar
|| x1 is similar/parallel to x2 in property/quantity x3 (ka/ni); x1 looks/appears like x2
 
|-
|| simxu
|| mutual
|| x1 (set) has members who mutually/reciprocally x2<nowiki> (event [x</nowiki>1 should be reflexive in 1+ sumti])
 
|-
|| si'o
|| concept
|| abstractor: idea/concept abstractor; x1 is x2<nowiki>'s concept of [bridi]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| sisku
|| seek
|| x1 seeks/searches/looks for property x2 among set x3 (complete specification of set)
 
|-
|| sisti
|| cease
|| x1 ceases/stops/halts activity/process/state x2<nowiki> [not necessarily completing it] </nowiki>
 
|-
|| skapi
|| pelt
|| x1 is a pelt/skin/hide/leather from x2
 
|-
|| skicu
|| describe
|| x1 tells about/describes x2 (object/event/state) to audience x3 with description x4 (property)
 
|-
|| skori
|| cord
|| x1 is cord/cable/rope/line/twine/cordage/woven strands of material x2
 
|-
|| slabu
|| familiar
|| x1 is old/familiar/well-known to observer x2 in feature x3 (ka) by standard x4
 
|-
|| sluni
|| onion
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains onions/scallions of type/cultivar x2
 
|-
|| smagau
|| quieten
|| x1 acts so that x2<nowiki> is quiet/silent/[still] at observation point x</nowiki>3 by standard x4 (smaji ‘quiet’ + gasnu ‘do’)
 
|-
|| smaji
|| quiet
|| x1<nowiki> (source) is quiet/silent/[still] at observation point x</nowiki>2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| snanu
|| south
|| x1 is to the south/southern side of x2 according to frame of reference x3
 
|-
|| snuti
|| accidental
|| x1 (event/state) is an accident/unintentional on the part of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is an accident
 
|-
|| so
|| 9
|| digit/number: 9
 
|-
|| so'a
|| almost all
|| digit/number: almost all (digit/number)
 
|-
|| sodva
|| soda
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of a carbonated beverage/soda of flavor/brand x2
 
|-
|| so'e
|| most
|| digit/number: most
 
|-
|| so'i
|| many
|| digit/number: many
 
|-
|| sonci
|| soldier
|| x1 is a soldier/warrior/fighter of army x2
 
|-
|| so'o
|| several
|| digit/number: several
 
|-
|| so'u
|| few
|| digit/number: few
 
|-
|| spaji
|| surprise
|| x1<nowiki> (event/action abstract) surprises/startles/is unexpected [and generally sudden] to x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| spati
|| plant
|| x1 is a plant/herb/greenery of species/strain/cultivar x2
 
|-
|| spebi'o
|| marry
|| x1 marries x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 becomes a spouse of x2 under law/custom/tradition/system/convention x3 (speni ‘spouse’ + binxo ‘become’)
 
|-
|| speni
|| married
|| x1 is married to x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a spouse of x2 under law/custom/tradition/system/convention x3
 
|-
|| spita
|| hospital
|| x1 is a hospital treating patient(s) x2 for condition/injuries/disease/illness x3
 
|-
|| spoja
|| explode
|| x1 bursts/explodes/violently breaks up/decomposes/combusts into pieces/energy/fragments x2
 
|-
|| spusku
|| reply
|| x1 gives reply/answer/responds with x2 (reported speech with sedu'u/text  with '''zo''' or '''lu ... li'u'''/or a concept with '''lu'e''') to x3 via expressive medium x4, about subject x5.
 
|-
|| sruma
|| reply
|| x1 assumes/supposes that x2 (du'u) is true about subject x3
 
|-
|| stali
|| remain
|| x1 remains/stays at/abides/lasts with x2
 
|-
|| stedu
|| head
|| x1<nowiki> is a/the head [body-part] of x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| stela
|| lock
|| x1 is a lock/seal of/on/for sealing x2 with/by locking mechanism x3
 
|-
|| su'e
|| at most
|| digit/number: at most (all); no more than
 
|-
|| su'i
|| plus
|| <nowiki>n-ary mathematical operator: plus; addition operator; [(((a + b) + c) + ...)]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| sumti
|| argument
|| x1 is a/the argument of predicate/function x2 filling place x3 (kind/number)
 
|-
|| su'o
|| at least
|| at least some); no less than
 
|-
|| sutra
|| fast
|| x1 is fast/swift/quick/hastes/rapid at doing/being/bringing about x2 (event/state)
 
|-
|| su'u
|| unspecified abstract
|| abstractor: generalized abstractor (how); x1<nowiki> is [bridi] as a non-specific abstraction of type x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| sy
|| s
|| letteral for s
 
|-
|| ta
|| that there
|| pro-sumti: that there; nearby demonstrative it; indicated thing/place near listener
 
|-
|| ta'a
|| interruption
|| vocative: interruption
 
|-
|| tadni
|| study
|| x1 studies/is a student of x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a scholar; (adjective:) x1 is scholarly
 
|-
|| tamne
|| cousin
|| x1 is cousin to x2 by bond/tie x3<nowiki>; [non-immediate family member, default same generation]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| ta'o
|| by the way
|| discursive: by the way – returning to the subject
 
|-
|| tarci
|| star
|| x1 is a star/sun with stellar properties x2
 
|-
|| tartcita
|| star label
|| x1 is a star-shaped label/tag of x2 showing information x3 (tarci ‘star’ + tcita ‘label’)
 
|-
|| tarti
|| behave
|| x1 behaves/conducts oneself as/in-manner x2 (event/property) under conditions x3
 
|-
|| tavla
|| talk
|| x1 talks/speaks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4
 
|-
|| tcadu
|| city
|| x1 is a town/city of metropolitan area x2, in political unit x3, serving hinterland/region x4
 
|-
|| tcetoi
|| try hard
|| x1 tries hard to do/attain x2 (event/state/property) by actions/method x3 (mutce ‘much’ + troci ‘try’)
 
|-
|| tcica
|| deceive
|| x1 (event/experience) misleads/deceives/dupes/fools/cheats/tricks x2 into x3 (event/state)
 
|-
|| tcidu
|| talk
|| x1<nowiki> [agent] reads x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [text] from surface/document/reading material x</nowiki>3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is a reader
 
|-
|| tcika
|| time of day
|| x1<nowiki> [hours, {minutes}, {seconds}] is the time/hour of state/event x</nowiki>2 on day x3 at location x4
 
|-
|| tcita
|| label
|| x1 is a label/tag of x2 showing information x3
 
|-
|| te me'e
|| as a name used by
|| cmene modal, 3rd place as a name used by ...
 
|-
|| te
|| 3rd conversion
|| 3rd conversion; switch 1st/2nd places
 
|-
|| telgau
|| lock
|| x1 (agent) makes x2 be a lock/seal of/on/for sealing x3 with/by locking mechanism x4 (stela ‘lock’ + gasnu ‘do’)
 
|-
|| terdi
|| earth
|| x1 is the Earth/the home planet of race x2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is terrestrial/earthbound
 
|-
|| ti
|| this here
|| pro-sumti: this here; immediate demonstrative it; indicated thing/place near speaker
 
|-
|| ti'a
|| behind
|| location tense relation/direction; rearwards/to the rear of ...
 
|-
|| tigni
|| perform
|| x1 performs x2<nowiki> [performance] for/before audience x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| tinbe
|| obey
|| x1 obeys/follows the command/rule x2 made by x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is obedient
 
|-
|| tirna
|| hear
|| x1 hears x2 against background/noise x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 is audible; (adjective:) x1 is aural
 
|-
|| tirse
|| iron
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains/is made of iron (Fe)
 
|-
|| ti'u
|| associated with time
|| tcika modal, 1st place (for letters) associated with time ... ; attach time stamp
 
|-
|| tivni
|| television
|| x1<nowiki> [broadcaster] televises programming x</nowiki>2 via media/channel x3 to television receiver x4
 
|-
|| to
|| start parenthesis
|| left parenthesis; start of parenthetical note which must be grammatical Lojban text
 
|-
|| to'e
|| polar opposite
|| polar opposite scalar negator
 
|-
|| toi
|| end parenthesis
|| elidable terminator: right parenthesis/end unquote; seldom elidable except at end of text
 
|-
|| to'o
|| away from point
|| location tense relation/direction; departing from/directly away from ...
 
|-
|| traji
|| superlative
|| x1 is superlative in property x2 (ka), the x3 extreme (ka; default ka zmadu) among set/range x4
 
|-
|| trene
|| train
|| x1<nowiki> is a train [vehicle] of cars/units x</nowiki>2 (mass) for rails/system/railroad x3, propelled by x4
 
|-
|| troci
|| try
|| x1 tries/attempts/makes an effort to do/attain x2 (event/state/property) by actions/method x3
 
|-
|| tu
|| that yonder
|| pro-sumti: that yonder; distant demonstrative it; indicated thing far from speaker and listener
 
|-
|| tu'a
|| the bridi implied by
|| <nowiki>extracts a concrete sumti from an unspecified abstraction; equivalent to lo nu/su'u [sumti] co'e</nowiki>
 
|-
|| tu'e
|| start text scope
|| start of multiple utterance scope; used for logical/non-logical/ordinal joining of sentences
 
|-
|| tugni
|| agree
|| x1<nowiki> [person] agrees with person(s)/position/side x</nowiki>2 that x3 (du'u) is true about matter x4
 
|-
|| turni
|| govern
|| x1<nowiki> [person] labors/works on/at x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [activity] with goal/objective x</nowiki>3
 
|-
|| tutra
|| territory
|| x1 is territory/domain/space of/belonging to/controlled by x2
 
|-
|| tu'u
|| end text scope
|| elidable terminator: end multiple utterance scope; seldom elidable
 
|-
|| ty
|| t
|| letteral for t
 
|-
|| va
|| there at
|| location tense distance: near to ... ; there at ...; a medium/small distance from ...
 
|-
|| vai
|| 15
|| digit/number: hex digit F
 
|-
|| vajni
|| important
|| x1 (object/event) is important/significant to x2 (person/event) in aspect/for reason x3 (nu/ka)
 
|-
|| valsi
|| word
|| x1 is a word meaning/causing x2 in language x3<nowiki>; (adjective: x</nowiki>1 is lexical/verbal)
 
|-
|| vanbi
|| environment
|| x1 (ind./mass) is part of an environment/surroundings/context/ambience of x2
 
|-
|| vanju
|| wine
|| x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of wine from fruit/grapes x2
 
|-
|| va'o
|| under conditions
|| vanbi modal, 1st place (conditions 1) under conditions ...; in environment ...
 
|-
|| vau
|| end simple bridi
|| elidable: end of sumti in simple bridi; in compound bridi, separates common trailing sumti
 
|-
|| ve
|| 4th conversion
|| 4th conversion; switch 1st/4th places
 
|-
|| vecnu
|| sell
|| x1<nowiki> [seller] sells/vends x</nowiki>2<nowiki> [goods/service/commodity] to buyer x</nowiki>3 for amount/cost/expense x4
 
|-
|| venfu
|| revenge
|| x1 takes revenge on/retaliates against x2 (person) for wrong x3 (nu) with vengeance x4 (nu)
 
|-
|| vensa
|| spring
|| x1<nowiki> is spring/springtime [warming season] of year x</nowiki>2 at location x3<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is vernal
 
|-
|| vi
|| here at
|| location tense distance: here at ... ; at or a very short/tiny distance from ...
 
|-
|| vi'irku'a
|| toilet
|| x1 is a toilet in structure x2 (vikmi ‘excrete’ + kumfa ‘room’)
 
|-
|| vikmi
|| excrete
|| x1<nowiki> [body] excretes waste x</nowiki>2 from source x3 via means/route x4
 
|-
|| vimcu
|| remove
|| x1 removes/subtracts/deducts/takes away x2 from x3 with/leaving result/remnant/remainder x4
 
|-
|| vinji
|| airplane
|| x1<nowiki> is an airplane/aircraft [flying vehicle] for carrying passengers/cargo x</nowiki>2, propelled by x3
 
|-
|| vi'o
|| wilco
|| vocative: wilco (ack and will comply)
 
|-
|| viska
|| see
|| x1 sees/views/perceives visually x2 under conditions x3
 
|-
|| vitke
|| guest
|| x1 is a guest/visitor of x2 at place/event x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 visits x2/x3
 
|-
|| vlipa
|| powerful
|| x1 has the power to bring about x2 under conditions x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is powerful in aspect x2 under x3
 
|-
|| vo
|| 4
|| digit/number: 4
 
|-
|| vo'a
|| x1 it
|| pro-sumti: repeats 1st place of main bridi of this sentence
 
|-
|| vo'e
|| x2 it
|| pro-sumti: repeats 2nd place of main bridi of this sentence
 
|-
|| vofli
|| fly
|| x1<nowiki> flies [in air/atmosphere] using lifting/propulsion means x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| vo'i
|| x3 it
|| pro-sumti: repeats 3rd place of main bridi of this sentence
 
|-
|| voksa
|| voice
|| x1 is a voice/speech sound of individual x2
 
|-
|| vo'o
|| x4 it
|| pro-sumti: repeats 4th place of main bridi of this sentence
 
|-
|| vo'u
|| x5 it
|| pro-sumti: repeats 5th place of main bridi of this sentence
 
|-
|| vrude
|| virtue
|| x1<nowiki> is virtuous/saintly/[fine/moral/nice/holy/morally good] by standard x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| vu
|| yonder at
|| location tense distance: far from ... ; yonder at ... ; a long distance from ...
 
|-
|| vy
|| v
|| letteral for v
 
|-
|| vybu
|| w
|| letteral for w
 
|-
|| xa
|| 6
|| digit/numeral: 6
 
|-
|| xabju
|| dwell
|| x1 dwells/lives/resides/abides at/inhabits/is a resident of location/habitat/nest/home/abode x2
 
|-
|| xadba
|| half
|| x1 is exactly/approximately half/semi-/demi-/hemi- of x2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| xadni
|| body
|| x1 is a/the body/corpus/corpse of x2<nowiki>; (adjective:) x</nowiki>1 is corporal/corporeal
 
|-
|| xajmi
|| funny
|| x1 is funny/comical to x2 in property/aspect x3 (nu/ka); x3 is what is funny about x1 to x2
 
|-
|| xalfekfri
|| drunk
|| x1 is inebriated, drunk (xalka ‘alcohol’ + fenki ‘crazy’ + lifri ‘experience’)
 
|-
|| xalka
|| alcohol
|| x1 is a quantity of/contains/is made of alcohol of type x2 from source/process x3
 
|-
|| xamgu
|| good
|| x1 is good/beneficial/acceptable for x2 by standard x3
 
|-
|| xanka
|| nervous
|| x1 is nervous/anxious about x2 (abstraction) under conditions x3
 
|-
|| xanto
|| elephant
|| x1 is an elephant of species/breed x2
 
|-
|| xatra
|| letter
|| x1<nowiki> is a letter/missive/[note] to intended audience x</nowiki>2 from author/originator x3 with content x4
 
|-
|| xe
|| 5th conversion
|| 5th conversion; switch 1st/5th places
 
|-
|| xebni
|| hate
|| x1 hates/despises x2 (object/abstraction); x1 is full of hate for x2<nowiki>; x</nowiki>2 is odious to x1
 
|-
|| xelso
|| Greek
|| x1 reflects Greek/Hellenic culture/nationality/language in aspect x2
 
|-
|| xendo
|| kind
|| x1 (person) is kind to x2 in actions/behavior x3
 
|-
|| xindo
|| Hindi
|| x1 reflects Hindi language/culture/religion in aspect x2
 
|-
|| xlali
|| bad
|| x1 is bad for x2 by standard x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>1 is poor/unacceptable to x2
 
|-
|| xlura
|| influences
|| x1 (agent) influences/lures/tempts x2 into action/state x3 by influence/threat/lure x4
 
|-
|| xo
|| number?
|| digit/number: number/digit/lerfu question
 
|-
|| xrabo
|| Arabic
|| x1 reflects Arabic-speaking culture/nationality in aspect x2
 
|-
|| xu
|| true–false?
|| discursive: true–false question
 
|-
|| xukmi
|| chemical
|| x1 is an instance of substance/chemical/drug x2 (individual or mass) with purity x3
 
|-
|| xumske
|| chemistry
|| x1 is chemistry based on methodology x2 (xukmi ‘chemical’ + saske ‘science’)
 
|-
|| xunre
|| red
|| x1<nowiki> is red/crimson/ruddy [color adjective]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| xy
|| x
|| letteral for x
 
|-
|| za
|| medium time
|| time tense distance: medium distance in time
 
|-
|| zanru
|| approve
|| x1 approves of/gives favor to plan/action x2 (object/event)
 
|-
|| zbasu
|| make
|| x1 makes/assembles/builds/manufactures/creates x2 out of materials/parts/components x3
 
|-
|| zdani
|| nest
|| x1<nowiki> is a nest/house/lair/den/[home] of/for x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| zdile
|| amusing
|| x1 (abstract) is amusing/entertaining to x2 in property/aspect x3<nowiki>; x</nowiki>3 is what amuses x2 about x1
 
|-
|| ze
|| 7
|| digit/number: 7
 
|-
|| ze'a
|| medium time interval
|| time tense interval: a medium length of time
 
|-
|| ze'i
|| short time interval
|| time tense interval: an instantaneous/tiny/short amount of time
 
|-
|| zekri
|| crime
|| x1<nowiki> (event/state) is a punishable crime/[taboo/sin] to people/culture/judges/jury x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| zergle
|| sexual crime
|| x1 copulates with x2, which is a punishable crime to people/culture/judges/jury x3 (zekri ‘crime’ + gletu ‘copulate’)
 
|-
|| zerle'a
|| steal
|| x1<nowiki> takes/gets/gains/obtains/seizes/[removes] x</nowiki>2 (object/property) from x3<nowiki> (possessor), which is a punishable crime/[taboo/sin] to people/culture/judges/jury x</nowiki>4 (zekri ‘crime’ + lebna ‘take’)
 
|-
|| ze'u
|| long time interval
|| time tense interval: a long amount of time
 
|-
|| zgana
|| observe
|| x1<nowiki> observes/[notices]/watches/beholds x</nowiki>2 using senses/means x3 under conditions x4
 
|-
|| zgike
|| music
|| x1 is music performed/produced by x2 (event)
 
|-
|| zi
|| short time
|| time tense distance: instantaneous-to-short distance in time
 
|-
|| zi'e
|| relative clause joiner
|| joins relative clauses which apply to the same sumti
 
|-
|| zirpu
|| purple
|| x1<nowiki> is purple/violet [color adjective]</nowiki>
 
|-
|| ziryrai
|| purplest
|| x1<nowiki> is the most purple/violet [color adjective] among set/range x</nowiki>2 (zirpu ‘purple’ + traji ‘superlative’)
 
|-
|| zmadu
|| more
|| x1 exceeds/is more than x2 in property/quantity x3 (ka/ni) by amount/excess x4
 
|-
|| zo
|| one-word quote
|| quote next word only; quotes a single Lojban word (not a cmavo compound or tanru)
 
|-
|| zo'e
|| unspecified it
|| pro-sumti: an elliptical/unspecified value; has some value which makes bridi true
 
|-
|| zoi
|| non-Lojban quote
|| delimited non-Lojban quotation; the result treated as a block of text
 
|-
|| zo'o
|| humorously
|| attitudinal modifier: humorously – dully – seriously
 
|-
|| zu
|| long time
|| time tense distance: long distance in time
 
|-
|| zu'a
|| on the left of
||  location tense relation/direction; leftwards/to the left of ...
 
|-
|| zutse
|| sit
|| x1<nowiki> sits [assumes sitting position] on surface x</nowiki>2
 
|-
|| zu'u
|| on the one hand
|| discursive: on the one hand – on the other hand
 
|-
|| zvati
|| at
|| x1 (object/event) is at/attending/present at x2 (event/location)
 
|-
|| zy
|| z
|| letteral for z
 
|}

Revision as of 16:43, 4 November 2013

Aspect

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