PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS AN OLD VERSION. The current version is linked from The Complete Lojban Language.
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Truth questions and connective questions

12. Logical connection within tanru

As noted at the beginning of Section 9, there is no logical connective in Lojban that joins selbri and nothing but selbri. However, it is possible to have logical connectives within a selbri, forming a kind of tanru that involves a logical connection. Consider the simple tanru ``blanu zdani'', blue house. Now anything that is a blue ball, in the most ordinary understanding of the phrase at least, is both blue and a ball. And indeed, instead of ``blanu bolci'', Lojbanists can say ``blanu je bolci'', using a jek connective within the tanru. (We saw jeks used in Section 11 also, but there they were always prefixed by ``pe'e''; in this section they are used alone.) Here is a pair of examples:

12.1)    ti blanu zdani
    This is-a-blue type-of house.

12.2) ti blanu je zdani
    This is-blue and a-house.
But of course Example 12.1 and Example 12.2 are not necessarily equivalent in meaning! It is the most elementary point about Lojban tanru that Example 12.1 might just as well mean 
12.3)    This is a house for blue inhabitants.
and Example 12.2 certainly is not equivalent in meaning to Example 12.3.

A full explanation of logical connection within tanru belongs rather to a discussion of selbri structure than to logical connectives in general. Why? Because although Example 12.2 happens to mean the same as

12.4)    ti blanu gi'e zdani
and therefore as 
12.5)    ti blanu .ije ti zdani
the rule of expansion into separate bridi simply does not always work for tanru connection. Supposing Alice to be a person who lives in blue houses, then 
12.6)    la .alis. cu blanu je zdani prenu
    Alice is-a (blue and house) type-of-person.
would be true, because tanru grouping with a jek has higher precedence than unmarked tanru grouping, but: 
12.7)    la .alis. cu blanu prenu
        .ije la .alis. cu zdani prenu
    Alice is-a blue person,
        and Alice is-a house person.
is probably false, because the blueness is associated with the house, not with Alice, even leaving aside the question of what it means to say ``Alice is a blue person''. (Perhaps she belongs to the Blue team, or is wearing blue clothes.) The semantic ambiguity of tanru make such logical manipulations impossible.

It suffices to note here, then, a few purely grammatical points about tanru logical connection. ``bo'' may be appended to jeks as to eks, with the same rules:

12.8)    la teris. cu ricfu je nakni jabo fetsi
    Terry is rich and (male or female).
The components of tanru may be grouped with ``ke'' both before and after a logical connective: 
12.9)    la .teris. cu [ke] ricfu ja pindi [ke'e]
        je ke nakni ja fetsi [ke'e]
    Terry is (rich or poor)
        and (male or female).
where the first ``ke ... ke'e'' pair may be omitted altogether by the rule of left-grouping, but is optionally permitted (as in bridi connection). In any case, both instances of ``ke'e'' may be elided.

The syntax of jeks is:

[na] [se] JA [nai]
parallel to eks and giheks.

Forethought tanru connection does not use geks, but uses guheks instead. Guheks have exactly the same form as geks:

[se] GUhA [nai]
Using guheks in tanru connection (rather than geks) resolves what would otherwise be an unacceptable ambiguity between bridi-tail and tanru connection: 
12.10)  la .alis. gu'e ricfu gi fetsi
    Alice is both rich and female.
Note that giks are used with guheks in exactly the same way they are used with geks. Like jeks, guheks bind more closely than unmarked tanru grouping does: 
12.11)  la .alis. gu'e blanu gi zdani prenu
    Alice is-a-(both blue and a-house) type-of-person.
is the forethought version of Example 12.6.

A word of caution about the use of logically connected tanru within descriptions. English-based intuition can lead the speaker astray. In correctly reducing

12.12)  mi viska pa nanmu .ije mi viska pa ninmu
    I see a man, and I see a woman.
to 
12.13)  mi viska pa nanmu .e pa ninmu
    I see a man and a woman.
there is a great temptation to reduce further to: 

12.14)  mi viska pa nanmu je ninmu
    I see a man and woman.

But Example 12.14 means that you see one thing which is both a man and a woman simultaneously! A ``nanmu je ninmu'' is a manwoman, a presumably non-existent creature who is both a ``nanmu'' and a ``ninmu''.

Previous
Termset logical connection 		If Wishes Were Horses: The Lojban Connective System
The Lojban Reference Grammar 		Next
Truth questions and connective questions