BPFK Section: Text Structure cmavo as of 11 Feb 2005

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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 [1] 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 [2], [3], and [4]. On IRC, which is indicative of spoken language, this appears to have more of a meaning of changing the subject. Examples: [5], [6].

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. [7]
  • no'i mi pu co'a mutce kurji lo nu jmina la jbovlaste
    • "Anyway, I take great care about additions to Jbovlaste." [8]

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 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.

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}