People don't always say just one sentence. Lojban has a specific structure for talk or writing that is longer than one sentence. The entirety of a given speech event or written text is called an utterance. The sentences (usually, but not always, bridi) in an utterance are separated by the cmavo ``ni'o'' and ``.i''. These correspond to a brief pause (or nothing at all) in spoken English, and the various punctuation marks like period, question mark, and exclamation mark in written English. These separators prevent the sumti at the beginning of the next sentence from being mistaken for a trailing sumti of the previous sentence.

The cmavo ``ni'o'' separates paragraphs (covering different topics of discussion). In a long text or utterance, the topical structure of the text may be indicated by multiple ``ni'o''s, with perhaps ``ni'oni'oni'o'' used to indicate a chapter, ``ni'oni'o'' to indicate a section, and a single ``ni'o'' to indicate a subtopic corresponding to a single English paragraph.