View source for BPFK Section: Text Structure cmavo as of 11 Feb 2005


== Prior usage and discussion ==

MAI is postfix, this was probably decided to make it analogous to mei, moi, roi, and re'u. However, this serves to make the grammar of Lojban non-LALR(1), because the parser may have to look through an arbitrarily large numeral string to decide that it actually belongs in a free modifier. This should not be a problem if Robin's PEG parser is made official. If Robin's PEG parser is ''not'' made official, however, extensive pre-processing will be required.

=== fa'o ===

Described as unconditional end of parsing. Evidently intended only for machine input. Sometimes used in the sense of "the end". Some erroneous uses, such as inside of tu'e -- tu'u groups. See [http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:MpjTKbPZY88J:www.lojban.org/twiki/pub/Files/Documents/carvi.html+%22fa%27o%22+site:.lojban.org&amp;hl=no] I see no reason to legalise this practice, since ''fe'o'' is available for this purpose.

=== ni'o ===

Seems to be used mostly parallel to paragraph breaks in natural languages. See [http://www.lojban.org/], [http://www.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9312/msg00394.html], and [http://www.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9107/msg00052.html]. On IRC, which is indicative of spoken language,  this appears to have more of a meaning of changing the subject. Examples: [http://www.digitalkingdom.org/lojban/irclog/lojban/2004_06_02-02_21.txt], [http://www.digitalkingdom.org/lojban/irclog/lojban/2002_05_12--2002_11_28.txt].

ni'o implicitly cancels some assignments, depending on the number of consecutive ni'o and whether the text is spoken or written. The following table is due to CLL pp. 446--447.

||'''Number of consecutive ni'o'''|'''Written'''|'''Spoken'''

ni'o|no effect|cancel KOhA and GOhA

ni'oni'o|cancel KOhA and GOhA|cancel KOhA and GOhA and tenses

ni'oni'oni'o|cancel KOhA and GOhA and tenses|cancel KOhA and GOhA and tenses||

=== i ===

Ubiquitous. This is used mostly in front of sentences that are not the first sentence in the text. Sometimes also the first sentence in the text is prefixed with .i.

=== no'i ===

Examples:

* no'i la xrist. ba cpacu loi vanju mu'i lenu pinxe kei gi'e te preti fo ko'a felenu ko'a djica lenu la xrist. dunda dakau ko'a
** ''"Christ then took wine to drink, and asked the man what he wanted Christ to give him."'' From the translation of "Cardplayer", by Nick Nicholas. [http://www.lojban.org/files/texts/cardplayer]

* no'i mi pu co'a mutce kurji lo nu jmina la jbovlaste
** ''"Anyway, I take great care about additions to Jbovlaste."'' [http://www.livejournal.com/users/camgusmis/2435.html]

=== tu'e - tu'u ===

''tu'e'' - ''tu'u'' seems to be used mainly to be used to set off a large block of text and refer to it metalinguisticially. For instance, there is a (very large) mailing list thread called [http://www.lojban.org/lists/lojban-list/msg03769.html oi preti be fi lo nincli zo'u tu'e]. Also lots of poetry are prefixed with titles that uses ''di'e'' to refer to the body of the poem, set of with ''tu'e''.

* [http://lojban.org/lists/lojban-list/msg08842.html onfusion as to the fact that tu'e clauses don't fit into relative clauses]

=== zo'u ===

Marks the end of a prenex. A prenex can have one or more terms, which may constrain the instantiation of logical variables in the main sentence. Prenexes are also used as a topic field.

== Proposed dictionary entries ==

;'''fa'o''' (FAhO):Unless quoted by "zo" or "lo'u" -- "le'u", turned into a quote delimiter by zoi, or acting as part of a lujvo made by a preceding "zei", marks the end of input to be parsed. Any remaining text is to be disregarded.

;'''i''' (I):Starts a new sentence.

;'''mai''' (MAI):Enumerates a point in the text. Combines with the preceding numeral to make a free modifier, which can be placed almost anywhere in a text.

;'''mo'o''' (MAI):Enumerates a higher-level section or chapter in the text. Combines with the preceding numeral to make a free modifier, which can be placed almost anywhere in a text.

;'''ni'o''' (NIhO):Marks the start of a paragraph and a change of subject. Multiple "ni'o" in a row means higher-level section breaks. In written contexts, two or more consecutive "ni'o" cancels the assignment of pro-sumti and pro-bridi in the selma'o KOhA and GOhA, respectively, and three or more consecutive "ni'o" additionally cancels all current tenses. In spoken contexts, a single or several consecutive "ni'o" cancels the assignment of pro-sumti and pro-bridi in the selma'o KOhA and GOhA, respectively, while two or more consecutive "ni'o" additionally cancels all current tenses.

;'''no'i''' (NIhO):Marks the start of a paragraph and change back to a previous subject. If no'i has a positive or zero subscript, it indicates the continuation of an earlier topic that was introduced with the word ni'o with the same subscript. If no'i has a negative subscript, it is a resumption of the topic of the paragraph found by counting backwards, starting with the paragraph before the one introduced with ni'o.

;'''tu'e''' (TUhE):Starts a text scope, which is a group of sentences. The text scope acts as a single sentence externally, for purposes such as logical operators.

;'''tu'u''' (TUhU):Ends a text scope. Elidable terminator for tu'e.

;'''zo'u''' (ZOhU):Marks the end of a prenex. A prenex can occur at the beginning of the sentence, and consists of one or more terms. A term is either a sumti or a sumti preceded by a tense or modal tag. The primary use of a prenex is for quantifying logical variables prior to their use in the sentence and/or sentences that are joined to it by a logical connective. Terms that do not quantify logical variables are instead interpreted as 'topics' of the containing sentence, and any sentences that are joined to it by a logical connective. 

== Proposed keywords ==

;fa'o:The End. parsing ends here. end parsing here.

;i:and then.

;mai:-stly. -ndly. -thly.

;mo'o:-st section. -nd section. -rd section.

;ni'o:continuing to the next topic.

;no'i:returning to the previous topic.

;zo'u:so that. such that.

== Interaction with other sections ==

* The wording of the definition of "fa'o" must be watched closely to prevent contradictions with [[BPFK Section: Nonce connectives]].
* The selma'o MAI probably requires either preprocessing prior to YACC, or a PEG grammar.

== Impact ==

It is my belief that this section does not invalidate actual usages that were previously valid, nor does it contradict current prescription of the language.

* Clarification: topic resumption by label applies if no'i has a positive '''or zero''' subscript.
* Clarification: topic resumption by back-counting '''starts at section before the one currently being introduced'''.

* Clarification: the implication that any term in a prenex is either a bound variable or a topic (CLL p. 467) is made explicit.

{POLL(pollId=>16)}Text Structure cmavo Poll{POLL}