| Lojban For Beginners — velcli befi la lojban. bei loi co'a cilre | ||
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| Prev | Chapter 9. Let me qualify that: internal sumti and relative clauses | Next |
If you want to add a sumti to a place other than x2, you can use a FA tag. So:
la renas. klama fi la melbn.
Rena is going from Melbourne
le klama be fi la melbn.
The one going from Melbourne
ti xatra fo lei dinske
This is a letter about economics
le 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. klama {le jarbu be la melbn.}
Rena is going to a suburb of Melbourne
le klama {be le jarbu be la melbn.}
The one going to a suburb of 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:la renas. klama {le jarbu} {la melbn.}
Rena is going to a suburb, from Melbourne
le klama {be le jarbu} {bei la melbn.}
The one going to a suburb, from Melbourne
le xatra be la jan. bei la suzyn.
The letter to Zhang from Susan
la djiotis. mrilu ti la ranjit.
Jyoti mails this to Ranjeet
la djiotis. mrilu le xatra be la jan. bei la suzyn. la ranjit.
Jyoti mails {Susan's letter to Zhang} to Ranjeet
le mrilu be le xatra be la jan. bei la suzyn. be'o bei la ranjit.
The one who mails {Susan's letter to Zhang} to Ranjeet
le mrilu be le xatra be la jan. bei la suzyn. ____ bei la ranjit.
The one who mails {Susan's letter to Zhang about Ranjeet}
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:
In such a phrase, the be'o can (and will) be left out.mi penmi {le pendo be la ranjit. [be'o]} le barja
I met Ranjeet's friend in the bar
Vocabulary
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)
| Exercise 2 |
Convert the following selbri to sumti, by substituting ti with le. 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.
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