9.8. Other modal connections

Like many Lojban grammatical constructions, sentence modal connection has both forethought and afterthought forms. (See Chapter 14 for a more detailed discussion of Lojban connectives.) Section 9.7 exemplifies only afterthought modal connection, illustrated here by:

Example 9.44. 

mi jgari lei djacu
I grasp the-mass-of water
.iri'abo mi jgari le kabri
with-physical-cause I grasp the cup.

Causing the mass of water to be grasped by me, I grasped the cup.

I grasp the water because I grasp the cup.


An afterthought connection is one that is signaled only by a cmavo (or a compound cmavo, in this case) between the two constructs being connected. Forethought connection uses a signal both before the first construct and between the two: the use of both and and in the first half of this sentence represents a forethought connection (though not a modal one).

To make forethought modal sentence connections in Lojban, place the modal plus gi before the first bridi, and gi between the two. No i is used within the construct. The forethought equivalent of Example 9.44 is:

Example 9.45. 

ri'agi mi jgari le kabri gi
With-physical-cause I grasp the cup ,
mi jgari lei djacu
I grasp the-mass-of water.

Because I grasp the cup, I grasp the water.


Note that the cause, the x1 of rinka is now placed first. To keep the two bridi in the original order of Example 9.44, we could say:

Example 9.46. 

seri'agi mi jgari lei djacu gi
With-physical-effect I grasp the-mass-of water ,
mi jgari le kabri
I grasp the cup.

In English, the sentence Therefore I grasp the water, I grasp the cup is ungrammatical, because therefore is not grammatically equivalent to because. In Lojban, seri'agi can be used just like ri'agi.

When the two bridi joined by a modal connection have one or more elements (selbri or sumti or both) in common, there are various condensed forms that can be used in place of full modal sentence connection with both bridi completely stated.

When the bridi are the same except for a single sumti, as in Example 9.44 through Example 9.46, then a sumti modal connection may be employed:

Example 9.47. 

mi jgari ri'agi le kabri gi lei djacu
I grasp because the cup , the-mass-of water.

Example 9.47 means exactly the same as Example 9.44 through Example 9.46, but there is no idiomatic English translation that will distinguish it from them.

If the two connected bridi are different in more than one sumti, then a termset may be employed. Termsets are explained more fully in Section 14.11, but are essentially a mechanism for creating connections between multiple sumti simultaneously.

Example 9.48. 

mi dunda le cukta la djan.
I gave the book to-that-named John.
.imu'ibo la djan. dunda lei jdini mi
Motivated-by that-named John gave the-mass-of money to-me.

I gave the book to John, because John gave money to me.


means the same as:

Example 9.49. 

nu'i mu'igi la djan. lei jdini mi gi
[start] because that-named John, the-mass-of money, me ;
mi le cukta la djan. nu'u dunda
I, the book, that-named John [end] gives.

Here there are three sumti in each half of the termset, because the two bridi share only their selbri.

There is no modal connection between selbri as such: bridi which differ only in the selbri can be modally connected using bridi-tail modal connection. The bridi-tail construct is more fully explained in Section 14.9, but essentially it consists of a selbri with optional sumti following it. Example 9.37 is suitable for bridi-tail connection, and could be shortened to:

Example 9.50. 

mi mu'igi viska le cukta gi lebna le cukta
I, because saw the book, took the book.

Again, no straightforward English translation exists. It is even possible to shorten Example 9.50 further to:

Example 9.51. 

mi mu'igi viska gi lebna vau le cukta
I because saw, therefore took, the book.

where le cukta is set off by the non-elidable vau and is made to belong to both bridi-tails – see Section 14.9 for more explanations.

Since this is a chapter on rearranging sumti, it is worth pointing out that Example 9.51 can be further rearranged to:

Example 9.52. 

mi le cukta mu'igi viska gi lebna
I, the book, because saw, therefore took.

which doesn't require the extra vau; all sumti before a conjunction of bridi-tails are shared.

Finally, mathematical operands can be modally connected.

Example 9.53. 

li ny. du li vo
the-number n = the-number 4.
.ini'ibo li ny. du li re su'i re
Entailed-by the-number n = the-number 2 + 2.

n = 4 because n = 2 + 2.


can be reduced to:

Example 9.54. 

li ny. du li
the-number n = the-number
ni'igi vei re su'i re [ve'o] gi vo
because ( 2 + 2 ) therefore 4.

n is 2 + 2, and is thus 4.


The cmavo vei and ve'o represent mathematical parentheses, and are required so that ni'igi affects more than just the immediately following operand, namely the first re. (The right parenthesis, ve'o, is an elidable terminator.) As usual, no English translation does Example 9.54 justice.

Note: Due to restrictions on the Lojban parsing algorithm, it is not possible to form modal connectives using the fi'o-plus-selbri form of modal. Only the predefined modals of selma'o BAI can be compounded as shown in Section 9.7 and Section 9.8.