![[Cartoon]](chap19.gif)
This chapter is incurably miscellaneous. It describes the cmavo that specify
the structure of Lojban texts, from the largest scale (paragraphs) to
the smallest (single words). There are fewer examples than are found in
other chapters of this book, since the linguistic mechanisms described
are generally made use of in conversation or else in long documents.
This chapter is also not very self-contained. It makes passing reference to
a great many concepts which are explained in full only in other chapters.
The alternative would be a chapter on text structure which was as complex as
all the other chapters put together. Lojban is a unified language, and it
is not possible to understand any part of it (in full) before understanding
every part of it (to some degree).
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
Note that although the first letter of an English sentence is capitalized,
the cmavo ``.i'' is never capitalized. In writing, it is appropriate to
place extra space before ``.i'' to make it stand out better for the
reader. In some styles of Lojban writing that have been used so far,
every ``.i'' is placed at the beginning of a line, possibly leaving space
at the end of the previous line.
An ``.i'' cmavo may or may not be used when the speaker of the following
sentence is different from the speaker of the preceding sentence, depending
on whether the sentences are felt to be connected or not.
An ``.i'' cmavo can be compounded with a logical or non-logical connective
(a jek or joik), a modal or tense connective, or both: these constructs are
explained in Chapter 9, Chapter 10, and Chapter 14. In all cases, the ``.i''
comes first in the compound. Attitudinals can also be attached to an ``.i''
if they are meant to apply to the whole sentence: see Chapter 13.
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
The paragraph is a concept used in writing systems for two purposes: to
indicate changes of topic, and to break up the hard-to-read appearance
of large blocks of text on the page. The former function is represented
in both spoken and written Lojban by the cmavo ``ni'o'' and ``no'i'', both
of selma'o NIhO. Of these two, ``ni'o'' is the more common. By convention,
written Lojban is broken into paragraphs just before any ``ni'o'' or ``no'i'',
but a very long passage on a single topic might be paragraphed before an ``.i''.
On the other hand, it is conventional in English to start a new paragraph
in dialogue when a new speaker starts, but this convention is not commonly
observed in Lojban dialogues. Of course, none of these conventions affect
meaning in any way.
The following cmavo is discussed in this section:
The normal Lojban sentence is just a bridi, parallel to the normal English
sentence which has a subject and a predicate:
Lojban uses the cmavo ``zo'u'' (of selma'o ZOhU) to separate topic (a sumti)
from comment (a bridi):
Is the fish eating or being eaten? The sentence doesn't say. The Chinese
equivalent of Example 4.5 is:
Grammatically, it is possible to have more than one sumti before ``zo'u''.
This is not normally useful in topic-comment sentences, but is necessary
in the other use of ``zo'u'': to separate a quantifying section from a
bridi containing quantified variables. This usage belongs to a discussion
of quantifier logic in Lojban (see Chapter 16), but an example would be:
The string of sumti before ``zo'u'' (called the ``prenex'': see Chapter 16)
may contain both a topic and bound variables:
Note: In Lojban, you do not ``want money''; you ``want to have money'' or
something of the sort, as the x2 place of ``djica'' demands an event.
As a result, the straightforward rendering of Example 4.8 without a
topic is not:
The subject of an English sentence is often the topic as well, but in
Lojban the sumti in the x1 place is not necessarily the topic, especially
if it is the normal (unconverted) x1 for the selbri. Thus Lojban sentences
don't necessarily have a ``subject'' in the English sense.
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
Of course, the ``ma'' need not be in the x1 place:
The answer is a simple sumti:
A sumti, then, is a legal utterance, although it does not by itself
constitute a bridi -- it does not claim anything, but merely completes
the open-ended claim of the previous bridi.
An answer might be
The answer would be a simple number, another kind of non-bridi utterance:
Fill-in-the-blank questions may also be asked about: logical connectives
(using cmavo ``ji'' of A, ``ge'i'' of GA, ``gi'i'' of GIhA, ``gu'i'' of GUhA,
or ``je'i'' of JA, and receiving an ek, gihek, ijek, or ijoik as an answer)
--- see Chapter 14; attitudes (using ``pei'' of UI, and receiving an
attitudinal as an answer) --- see Chapter 13; place structures (using ``fi'a''
of FA, and receiving a cmavo of FA as an answer) --- see Chapter 9; tenses
and modals (using ``cu'e'' of CUhE, and receiving any tense or BAI cmavo as
an answer) --- see Chapter 9 and Chapter 10.
Questions can be marked by placing ``pau'' (of selma'o UI) before the
question bridi. See Chapter 13 for details.
The full list of non-bridi utterances suitable as answers to questions is:
At the beginning of a text, the following non-bridi are also permitted:
Where not needed for the expression of answers, most of these are made
grammatical for pragmatic reasons: people will say them in conversation,
and there is no reason to rule them out as ungrammatical merely because
most of them are vague.
The following cmavo is discussed in this section:
Lojban gismu have at most five places:
Consequently, selma'o SE (which operates on a selbri to change the order
of its places) and selma'o FA (which provides place number tags for
individual sumti) have only enough members to handle up to five places.
Conversion of Example 6.1, using ``xe'' to swap the x1 and x5 places,
would produce:
And reordering of the place structures might produce:
Likewise, a sixth place tag can be created by using any cmavo of FA
with a subscript:
However, by convention we can attach a subscript to ``ja'a'' to indicate
fuzzy truth (or to ``na'' if we change the amount):
Other uses of subscripts will doubtless be devised in future.
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
This does not imply that I go to the store before I go to the market:
that meaning requires a tense. The sumti are simply numbered for
convenience of reference. Like other free modifiers, the utterance
ordinals can be inserted almost anywhere in a sentence without affecting
its grammar or its meaning.
Any of the Lojban numbers can be used with MAI: ``romai'', for example,
means ``all-thly'' or ``lastly''. Likewise, if you are enumerating a long
list and have forgotten which number is wanted next, you can say
``ny.mai'', or ``Nthly''.
The difference between ``mai'' and ``mo'o'' is that ``mo'o'' enumerates larger
subdivisions of a text; ``mai'' was designed for lists of numbered items,
whereas ``mo'o'' was intended to subdivide structured works. If this chapter
were translated into Lojban, it might number each section with ``mo'o'':
this section would then be introduced with ``zemo'o'', or ``Section 7.''
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
An attitudinal meant to cover a whole sentence can be attached to the
preceding ``.i'', expressed or understood:
Likewise, an attitudinal meant to cover a whole paragraph can be attached
to ``ni'o'' or ``no'i''. An attitudinal at the beginning of a text applies to
the whole text.
Here, only the ``blanu zdani'' portion of the three-part tanru ``blanu zdani
ponse'' is marked as a belief of the speaker. Naturally, the attitudinal
scope markers do not affect the rules for interpreting multi-part tanru:
``blanu zdani'' groups first because tanru group from left to right unless
overridden with ``ke'' or ``bo''.
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
Grammatically, quotations are very simple in Lojban: all of them are sumti,
and they all mean something like ``the piece of text here quoted'':
But in fact there are four different flavors of quotation in the language,
involving six cmavo of six different selma'o. This being the case,
quotation deserves some elaboration.
Note the topic-comment formulation (Section 4) and the indicator applying to
the selbri only (Section 8). Neither ``viska le'' nor ``viska lo'' is a valid
Lojban utterance, and both require ``lo'u'' quotation.
In Example 9.4, ``ri'' is a pro-sumti which refers to the most recent previous
sumti, namely ``le ninmu''. Compare:
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
Since ``zo'' acts on a single word only, there is no corresponding terminator.
Brevity, then, is a great advantage of ``zo'', since the terminators for
other kinds of quotation are rarely or never elidable.
Within written text, the Lojban written word used as a delimiting word may
not appear, whereas within spoken text, the sound of the delimiting word may
not be uttered. This leads to occasional breakdowns of audio-visual
isomorphism: Example 10.3 is fine in speech but ungrammatical as written,
whereas Example 10.4 is correct when written but ungrammatical in speech.
The text ``gy'' appears in the written word ``gyrations'', whereas the sound
represented in Lojban by ``jai'' appears in the spoken word ``gyrations''.
Such borderline cases should be avoided as a matter of good style.
(In Examples 10.6 through 10.7, the name ``bab.'' was separated from
a preceding ``zo'' by a pause, thus: ``zo .bab.''. The reason for this extra
pause is that all Lojban names must be separated by pause from any preceding
word other than ``la'', ``lai'', ``la'i'' (all of selma'o LA) and ``doi'' (of
selma'o DOI). There are numerous other cmavo that may precede a name:
of these, ``zo'' is one of the most common.)
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
English often uses strong stress on a word to single it out for contrastive
emphasis, thus
The heavy stress on ``George'' (represented in writing by italics)
indicates that I saw George rather than someone else. Lojban does not use
stress in this way: stress is used only to help separate words (because every
brivla is stressed on the penultimate syllable) and in names to match other
languages' stress patterns. Note that many other languages do not use stress
in this way either; typically word order is rearranged, producing something
like
Note the pause before the name ``djordj.'', which serves to separate it
unambiguously from the ``ba'e''. Alternatively, the ``ba'e'' can be moved
to a position before the ``la'', which in effect emphasizes the whole
construct ``la djordj.'':
Emphasis on one of the structural components of a Lojban bridi can also
be achieved by rearranging it into an order that is not the speaker's
or writer's usual order. Any sumti moved out of place, or the selbri
when moved out of place, is emphatic to some degree.
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
Note: The parser believes that parentheses are attached to the previous
word or construct, because it treats them as syntactic equivalents of
subscripts and other such so-called ``free modifiers''. Semantically,
however, parenthetical remarks are not necessarily attached either to what
precedes them or what follows them.
When marked with ``sei'', a metalinguistic utterance can be embedded in another
utterance as a discursive. In this way, discursives which do not have
cmavo assigned in selma'o UI can be expressed:
Using the happiness attitudinal, ``.ui'', would imply that the speaker was
happy. Instead, the speaker attributes happiness to Frank. It would
probably be safe to elide the one who is happy, and say:
The grammar of the bridi following ``sei'' has an unusual limitation: the sumti
must either all precede the selbri, or must be glued into the selbri with
``be'' and ``bei'':
This restriction allows the terminator cmavo ``se'u'' to almost always be
elided.
Lojban works differently from English in that the ``he said'' can be marked
instead of the quotation. In Lojban, you can say:
And of course other orders are possible:
Note the ``sa'a'' following each ``sei'', marking the ``sei'' and its attached
bridi as an editorial insert, not part of the quotation. In a more relaxed
style, these ``sa'a'' cmavo would probably be dropped.
1. Introductory
2. Sentences: I
.i I sentence separator
2.1) mi klama le zarci .i do cadzu le bisli
I go to-the store. You walk on-the ice.
3. Paragraphs: NIhO
ni'o NIhO new topic
no'i NIhO old topic
da'o DAhO cancel cmavo assignments
4. Topic-comment sentences: ZOhU
zo'u ZOhU topic/comment separator
4.1) mi klama le zarci
I went to the market
4.2) zhe4 xiao1xi2 wo3 zhi1dao le
this news I know [perfective]
As for this news, I knew it.
I've heard this news already.
4.3) le nuzba zu'o mi ba'o djuno
The news : I [perfective] know.
Example 4.3 is the literal Lojban translation of Example 4.2. Of course,
the topic-comment structure can be changed to a straightforward bridi
structure:
4.4) mi ba'o djuno le nuzba
I [perfective] know the news.
Example 4.4 means the same as Example 4.3, and it is simpler. However,
often the position of the topic in the place structure of the selbri
within the comment is vague:
4.5) le finpe zo'u citka
the fish : eat
4.6) yu2 chi1
fish eat
which is vague in exactly the same way.
4.7) roda poi prenu ku'o su'ode zo'u
de patfu da
for-all X which-are-persons, there-exists-a-Y such-that
Y is the father of X.
Every person has a father.
4.8) loi patfu
roda poi prenu ku'o su'ode zo'u
de patfu da
for-the-mass-of fathers
for-all X which-are-persons, there-exists-a-Y such-that
Y is the father of X.
As for fathers, every person has one.
4.9) loi jdini zo'u tu'e do ponse .inaja do djica [tu'u]
the-mass-of money : ( [if] you possess, then you want )
Money: if you have it, you want it.
4.10) do ponse loi jdini .inaja do djica ri
You possess money only-if you desire its-mere-existence
where ``ri'' means ``loi jdini'' and is interpreted as ``the mere existence of
money'', but rather:
4.11) do ponse loi jdini .inaja do djica tu'a ri
You possess money only-if you desire something-about it
namely, the possession of money. But topic-comment sentences like
Example 4.9 are inherently vague, and this difference between ``ponse'' (which
expects a physical object in x2) and ``djica'' is ignored. See Example 9.3
for another topic/comment sentence.
5. Questions and answers
xu UI truth question
ma KOhA sumti question
mo GOhA bridi question
xo PA number question
ji A sumti connective question
ge'i GA forethought connective question
gi'i GIhA bridi-tail connective question
gu'i GUhA tanru forethought connective question
je'i JA tanru connective question
pei UI attitude question
fi'a FA place structure question
cu'e CUhE tense/modal question
pau UI question premarker
5.1) xu do klama le zarci
[True or false?] You go to the store
Are you going to the store/Did you go to the store?
(Since the Lojban is tenseless, either colloquial translation might be
correct.) Truth questions are further discussed in Chapter 15.
5.2) ma klama le zarci
[What sumti?] goes-to the store
Who is going to the store?
5.3) do klama ma
You go-to [what sumti?]
Where are you going?
5.4) le zarci
The store.
5.5) ma klama ma
Who goes where?
and the answer would be two sumti, which are meant to fill in the two
``ma'' cmavo in order:
5.6) mi le zarci
I, to the store.
5.7) ma fa'u ma klama ma fa'u ma
Who and who goes where and where, respectively?
5.8) la djan. la marcas. le zarci le briju
John, Marsha, the store, the office.
John and Marsha go to the store and the office,
respectively.
(Note: A mechanical substitution of Example 5.8 into Example 5.7 produces
an ungrammatical result, because ``* 5.9) la lojban. mo
Lojban [what selbri?]
What is Lojban?
5.10) do viska xo prenu
You saw [what number?] persons.
How many people did you see?
5.11) vomu
Forty-five.
6. Subscripts: XI
xi XI subscript
6.1) mi cu klama le zarci le zdani
le dargu le karce
I go to-the market from-the house
via-the road using-the car.
6.2) le karce cu xe klama le zarci
le zdani le dargu mi
The car is-a-transportation-means to-the market
from-the house via-the road for-me.
6.3) fo le dargu fi le zdani fa mi fe le zarci
fu le karce cu klama
Via the road, from the house, I, to the market,
using-the car, go.
Examples 6.1 to 6.3 all mean the same thing. But consider the lujvo
``nunkla'', formed by applying the abstraction operator ``nu'' to ``klama'':
6.4) la'edi'u cu nunkla
mi le zarci le zdani
le dargu le karce
The-referent-of-the-previous-sentence is-an-event-of-going
by-me to-the market from-the house
via-the road using-the car.
6.5) le karce cu sexixa nunkla
mi le zarci le zdani le dargu
la'edi'u
The car is-a-transportation-means-in-the-event-of-going
by-me to-the market via-the road
which-is-referred-to-by-the-last-sentence.
6.6) fu le dargu fo le zdani fe mi
fa la'edi'u fi le zarci
faxixa le karce cu klama
Via the road, from the house, by me,
the-referent-of-the-last-sentence, to the market,
using the car, is-an-event-of-going.
Examples 6.4 to 6.6 also all mean the same thing, and each is derived
straightforwardly from any of the others, despite the tortured nature
of the English glosses. In addition, any other member of SE or FA
could be substituted into ``sexixa'' and ``faxixa'' without change of
meaning: ``vexixa'' means the same thing as ``sexixa''.
6.7) daxivo
X sub 4
is the 4th bound variable of the 1st sequence of the da-series, and
6.8) ko'ixipaso
something-3 sub 18
is the 18th free variable of the 3rd sequence of the ko'a-series.
This convention allows 10 sequences of ko'a-type pro-sumti and 3 sequences of
da-type pro-sumti, each with arbitrarily many members. Note that ``daxivo''
and ``dexivo'' are considered to be distinct pro-sumti, unlike the
situation with ``sexixa'' and ``vexixa'' above. Exactly similar treatment can
be given to the bu'a-series of selma'o GOhA and to the gismu pro-bridi
``broda'', ``brode'', ``brodi'', ``brodo'', and ``brodu''.
6.9) li xy.boixipa du li xy.boixire su'i xy.boixici
The-number x-sub-1 equals the-number x-sub-2 plus x-sub-3
$x1 = x2 + x3$
and can be used to extend the number of pro-sumti as well, since lerfu
strings outside mathematical contexts are grammatically and semantically
equivalent to pro-sumti of the ko'a-series. (In Example 6.9, note the
required terminator ``boi'' after each ``xy.'' cmavo; this terminator allows
the subscript to be attached without ambiguity.)
6.10) la djan. xipa cusku lu mi'enai do li'u la djan. xire
John1 expresses ``I-am-not you'' to John2.
6.11) li pimu jei mi ganra
The-number .5 is-the-truth-value-of my being-broad
6.12) mi ja'a xipimu ganra
I truly-sub-.5 am-broad
7. Utterance ordinals: MAI
mai MAI utterance ordinal, -thly
mo'o MAI higher order utterance ordinal
7.1) mi klama pamai le zarci .e remai le zdani
I go-to (firstly) the store and (secondly) the market.
8. Attitude scope markers: FUhE/FUhO
fu'e FUhE open attitudinal scope
fu'o FUhO close attitudinal scope
8.1) mi viska le blanu .ia zdani [ku]
I see the blue [belief] house.
I see the house, which I believe to be blue.
8.2) mi viska le blanu zdani .ia [ku]
I see the blue house [belief].
I see the blue thing, which I believe to be a house.
8.3) mi viska le .ia blanu zdani [ku]
I see the [belief] blue house
I see what I believe to be a blue house.
8.4) mi viska le blanu zdani ku .ia
I see (the blue house ) [belief]
I see what I believe to be a blue house.
8.5) [.i] .ia mi viska le blanu zdani
[belief] I see the blue house
I believe I see a blue house.
or to an explicit ``vau'' placed at the end of a bridi.
8.6) mi viska le fu'e .ia blanu zdani fu'o ponse
I see the [start] [belief] blue house [end] possessor
I see the owner of what I believe to be a blue house.
9. Quotations: LU, LIhU, LOhU, LEhU
lu LU begin quotation
li'u LIhU end quotation
lo'u LOhU begin error quotation
le'u LEhU end error quotation
9.1) mi pu cusku lu mi'e djan [li'u]
I [past] express [quote] I-am John [unquote]
I said, ``I'm John''.
9.2) lo'u mi du do du la djan. le'u
na tergerna la lojban.
[quote] mi du do du la djan. [unquote]
is-not a-grammatical-structure-in Lojban.
9.3) lu le mlatu cu viska le finpe li'u zo'u
lo'u viska le le'u
cu selbasti .ei
lo'u viska lo le'u
[quote] le mlatu cu viska le finpe [unquote] :
[quote] viska le [unquote]
is-replaced-by [obligation!]
[quote] viska lo [unquote].
In the sentence ``le mlatu viska le finpe'',
``viska le'' should be replaced by ``viska lo''.
9.4) la tcarlis. cusku lu le ninmu cu morsi li'u
.iku'i ri jmive
Charlie says [quote] the woman is-dead [unquote].
However, the-last-mentioned is-alive.
Charlie says ``The woman is dead'', but she is alive.
9.5) la tcarlis. cusku lo'u le ninmu cu morsi le'u
.iku'i ri jmive
Charlie says [quote] le ninmu cu morsi [unquote].
However, the-last-mentioned is-alive.
Charlie says ``le ninmu cu morsi'', but he is alive.
10. More on quotations: ZO, ZOI
zo ZO quote single word
zoi ZOI non-Lojban quotation
la'o ZOI non-Lojban name
10.1) zo si cu lojbo valsi
``si'' is a Lojbanic word.
10.2) zoi gy. John is a man .gy. cu glico jufra
``John is a man'' is an English sentence.
where ``gy'' stands for ``glico''. Other popular choices of delimiting words are
``.kuot.'', a Lojban name which sounds like the English word ``quote'', and the
word ``zoi'' itself. Another possibility is a Lojban word suggesting the
topic of the quotation.
10.3) ?mi djuno fi le valsi po'u zoi gy. gyrations .gy.
I know about the word which-is ``gyrations''.
10.4) ?mi djuno fi le valsi po'u zoi jai. gyrations .jai
I know about the word which-is ``gyrations''.
10.5) zoi ry. sku .ry. cu rafsi zo cusku
``sku'' is a rafsi of ``cusku''.
10.6) zo .bab. cmene la bab.
The-word ``Bob'' is-the-name-of the-one-named Bob.
10.7) zo .bab. cmene la'e zo .bab.
The-word ``Bob'' is-the-name-of
the-referent-of the-word ``Bob''.
10.8) lu'e la bab. cmene la bab.
A-symbol-for Bob is-the-name-of Bob.
Examples 10.6 through 10.8 all mean approximately the same thing, except for
differences in emphasis. Example 10.9 is different:
10.9) la bab. cmene la bab.
Bob is the name of Bob.
and says that Bob is both the name and the thing named, an unlikely situation.
People are not names.
10.10) la'o dy. Goethe .dy. cu me la'o ly. Homo sapiens .ly.
Goethe is a Homo sapiens.
11. Contrastive emphasis: BAhE
ba'e BAhE emphasize next word
za'e BAhE next word is nonce
11.1) I saw George.
is quite different from
11.2) I saw George.
11.4) It was George whom I saw.
11.4) mi viska la ba'e .djordj.
I saw the-one-named [emphasis] ``George''.
I saw George.
11.5) mi viska ba'e la djordj.
I saw [emphasis] the-one-named ``George''.
I saw George.
11.6) ba'e mi viska la djordj.
I, no one else, saw George.
11.7) mi ba'e viska la djordj.
I saw (not heard or smelled) George.
11.8) mi klama la za'e. .albeinias
I go-to so-called Albania
12. Parenthesis and metalinguistic commentary: TO, TOI, SEI
to TO open parenthesis
to'i TO open editorial parenthesis
toi TOI close parenthesis
sei SEI metalinguistic bridi marker
12.1) doi lisas. mi djica le nu
to doi frank. ko sisti toi
do viska le mlatu
O Lisa, I desire the event-of
( O Frank, [imperative] stop! )
you see the cat.
Lisa, I want you to (Frank! Stop!) see the cat.
Example 12.1 implicitly redefines ``do'' within the parentheses: the listener
is changed by ``doi frank.'' When the context sentence resumes, however,
the old listener, Lisa, is automatically restored.
12.2) la frank. cusku lu mi prami do
to'isa'a do du la djein. toi li'u
Frank expresses ``I love you
[you = Jane]''
12.3) la frank. prami sei la frank. gleki la djein.
Frank loves (Frank is happy) Jane.
12.4) la frank. prami sei gleki la djein.
Frank loves (he is happy) Jane.
12.5) la frank. prami sei gleki be fa la suzn. la djein.
Frank loves (Susan is happy) Jane.
12.6) la djan. cusku lu mi klama le zarci li'u
John expresses ``I go to-the store''.
which literally claims that John uttered the quoted text. If the central
claim is that John made the utterance, as is likely in conversation, this
style is the most sensible. However, in written text which quotes a
conversation, you don't want the ``he said'' or ``she said'' to be considered
part of the conversation. If unmarked, it could mess up the anaphora
counting. Instead, you can use:
12.7) lu mi klama le zarci
seisa'a la djan. cusku be dei li'u
`` I go to-the store
( John expresses this-sentence ) ''
``I go to the store'', said John.
12.8) lu seisa'a la djan. cusku be dei mi klama le zarci
John said, ``I go to the store''.
12.9) lu mi klama seisa'a la djan cusku le zarci
``I go'', John said, ``to the store''.