| 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 |
We're almost there; but you'll notice we've repeated le mi mensi twice. We might have tried using ri to refer back to le mi mensi. But you'll remember from the exercises to 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 le 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:
le 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
le mi mensi poi do viska ke'a ca le 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
{le gusta be loi kisto be'o} poi ke'a berti le tcadu
(The be'o is needed, because what you're describing as being north is the restaurant, not the Pakistani cuisine it serves.)
The restaurant of Pakistani things such that it is north of the city
The Pakistani restaurant which is north of town
le 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
The Pakistani restaurant [that] I eat curry in
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:
le mi mensi poi na nelci la rikis.martin.
le mi mensi poi do viska ca le purlamcte
le gusta be loi kisto be'o poi berti le tcadu
le 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.
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 le mensi poi tavla ke'a "my sister who is talked to" instead of le 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.
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 Lesson 11.) For example,
le mi mensi poi na nelci la rikis.martin. zi'e poi do viska ca le purlamcte
My sister who doesn't like Ricky Martin and whom you saw last night.
| Exercise 4 |
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; leave ke'a out, where the convention allows it. Also leave out ku'o where this would not result in ambiguity. For example: Watch out for any terminators you may have to insert!
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