Lojban grammar From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lojban is a constructed language based on predicate logic. It was created by the Logical Language Group between 1987 and 1997. Lojban is designed to be spoken by humans, but is also theoretically computer-speakable. The majority of its grammar is borrowed from the first "logical language," Loglan, and some of its features come from Láadan. Most of Lojban's root words derive from the six most widely spoken natural languages, Arabic, Chinese,English, Hindi, Russian, and Spanish. The characteristic regularity, unambiguity, and versatility of Lojban grammar owes much to scientific linguistics and computer programming—resources that were unavailable to the designers of earlier languages. Lojban's advantage over Esperanto and other auxlangs was summarized as follows: "Lojban moves beyond the restrictions of European grammar. It overtly incorporates linguistic universals, building in what is needed to support the expressivity of the whole variety of natural languages, including non-European ones."

[1]

Contents

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1 Phonology

o 1.1 Basic sounds

o 1.2 Diphthongs

o 1.3 Allophones

o 1.4 Buffering of consonant clusters

2 Orthography

o 2.1 Latin/Roman mode

o 2.2 Cyrillic mode

o 2.3 Tengwar mode

o 2.4 Japanese mode

3 Morphology

o 3.1 brivla (bridi valsi) "part of speech: content word"

3.1.1 gismu "part of speech: content word: root word"

3.1.2 lujvo "part of speech: content word: compound word"

3.1.3 fu'ivla (fukpi valsi) "part of speech: content word: loan word, borrowed word"

3.1.3.1 Stage 1 fu'ivla

3.1.3.2 Stage 2 fu'ivla

3.1.3.3 Stage 3 fu'ivla

3.1.3.4 Stage 4 fu'ivla

3.1.4 lujvo + fu'ivla

3.1.5 tanru "part of speech: content word: phrasal bridi, binary metaphor"

o 3.2 cmavo "part of speech: structure word"

o 3.3 cmevla "part of speech: name word"

o 3.4 rafsi "affix, suffix, prefix, combining-form, word fragment"

4 Syntax and semantics

o 4.1 bridi "predication: claims and allegations"

o 4.2 sumti "predication: argument"

4.2.1 description

o 4.3 selbri "predication: logical predicate"

o 4.4 tanru "part of speech: content word: phrasal bridi, binary metaphor"

o 4.5 cmavo

4.5.1 articles

4.5.2 connectives

4.5.3 attitudinals

4.5.4 prepositions

4.5.5 tenses

4.5.6 grammatical nonsense

5 Notes

Phonology[edit]

6 vowels and 21 consonants exist in Lojban. The phonemes are to be commensurate with graphemes, which means Lojban is to have 27 letters (lerfu) corresponding to each piece of sound in the language. Lojbanic graphemes can vary in mode; this article employs the Latin alphabet version, which is currently in the most common usage (see Orthography for more detail). The phonemes, on the other hand, are defined solely by International Phonetic Alphabet.

The tables below show typical realizations of sounds and the Latin alphabets in Lojban. In all cases except the rhotic consonant the first phoneme represents the preferred pronunciation, while the rest are the permitted variants intended to cover dissimilitude in pronunciation by speakers of different linguistic backgrounds.

Basic sounds[edit]

Phoneme Grapheme Pronunciation example

vowels

open vowel a (ɑ) a as in father, not as in hat

front mid vowel ɛ (e) e as in bet, not as in beep

front close vowel i i as in machine, not as in ink

back mid vowel o (ɔ) o as in open, not as in opera

back close vowel u u as in moon, not as in cup

central mid vowel ə y as in sofa, not as in yellow

fricatives

unvoiced labial

fricative

f (ɸ) f as in fan

voiced labial fricative v (β) v as in van

unvoiced velar fricative x x as in the Scottish loch, the German Bach, the

Spanish José, or the Arabic Khaled

unvoiced glottal spirant h ' as in hat

sibilants

unvoiced alveolar

sibilant

s s as in sing

voiced alveolar sibilant z z as in zero

unvoiced coronal

sibilant

ʃ (ʂ) c as in shoe

voiced coronal sibilant ʒ (ʐ) j as in vision

stops

unvoiced bilabial stop p p as in pip

voiced bilabial stop b b as in bib

unvoiced alveolar stop t t as in tap

voiced alveolar stop d d as in dance

unvoiced velar stop k k as in kink

voiced velar stop ɡ g as in girl, not as in gel

glottal stop ʔ . as in uh-oh

approximants

voiced labio-velar

approximant

w u- as in winter

palatal approximant j i- as in you

voiced lateral

approximant

( ) l as in luck

nasals

voiced labial nasal ( ) m as in minimum

voiced alveolar nasal ( ) n as in noon

rhotic

rhotic consonant

(

) r

as in red; or as in Spanish pero or perro, or

French rendez-vous

Diphthongs[edit]

Lojban has 16 diphthongs (a kind of sound which consists of a vowel plus a glide, always constituting a single syllable). The combinations <ai>, <au>, <ei> and <oi>, for instance, are all realized as the corresponding falling diphthongs. To force these sounds to be pronounced separately as monophthongs, a comma can be put between them. Triphthongs do not exist in Lojban.

Allophones[edit]

The vowels can be either rounded or unrounded. The consonants can be either aspirated or unaspirated, although the voiceless stops /p/, /t/ and /k/ are usually aspirated to some degree. In general, consonants are notpalatalized. The affricates / /, / /, / /, and / / occur in Lojban. (Respectively, these are the sounds highlighted in the English words jar, chair, fads, and cats.) However, each is considered to be a combination of an appropriate stop and fricative phoneme: the sequences <dj>, <tc>, <dz> and <ts>, respectively. The rhotic sounds are all equally acceptable as an identical phoneme. <l>, <m>, <n>, and <r> may be syllabic.

[2]

Buffering of consonant clusters[edit]

For those who, given their native language background, may have trouble pronouncing (certain) consonant clusters, there is the option of inserting buffer vowels between them, as long as they differ sufficiently from the phonological vowels and are pronounced as short as possible. Possible choices include [ɪ], [ɨ], [ʊ] and [ʏ] (but not [y], which is the rounded counterpart of [i] and thus a valid realization of <i>). The resulting added syllables are completely ignored by the grammar, including for the purposes of stress determination.

Orthography[edit]

Lojban may be written in different orthography systems as long as it meets the required regularities and unambiguities. Some of the reasons for such elasticity would be as follows:

1. Lojban is rather defined by the phonemes (spoken form of words), therefore, as long as they are correctly rendered so as to maintain the Lojbanic audio-visual isomorphism, a representational system can be said to be an appropriate orthography of the language;

2. Lojban is meant to be as culturally neutral as possible, so it is never crucial or fundamental to claim that some particular orthography of some particular languages (e.g. the Latin alphabet) should be the dominant mode.

Some Lojbanist extends this principle so as to claim that even an original orthography of the language is to be sought.

[3]

Note: It is suggested that the Lojban term lerfu be used instead of the English so that confusion with letter, the kind one writes to someone, is avoided (James Cooke Brown's version was letteral by analogy with numeral).

[4] This section will be in accordance with that discernment.

Latin/Roman mode[edit]

Lojban's Latin alphabet consists of 23 lerfu a b c d e f g i j k l m n o p r s t u v x y z plus 3 semi-lerfu ' , . . They are intentionally ordered in accordance with that of ASCII characters.

Capitalization may be applied to mark a non-standard stressed syllable as in cmevla, but they are not considered separate lerfu. Whether a single vowel or the entire syllable is capitalized is a matter of preference; for example, the name "Josephine" can be rendered as either DJOzefin. or djOzefin. (without the capitalization, the ordinary rules of Lojban stress will cause the 'ze' syllable to be stressed instead).

Punctuation marks are not mandatory; such notions as question or exclamation are expressed with words rather than unpronounceable symbols.

[5]

Cyrillic mode[edit]

This mode was conceived when the introductory Lojban brochure was translated into Russian. 23 lerfu а б в г д е ж з и к л м н о п р с т у ф х ш ъ plus 3 semi-lerfu ', . are used. The hard sign ъ is assigned to the open-mid vowel. Diphthongs are written as vowel pairs, as in the Roman mode.

[6]

Tengwar mode[edit]

Kena[7]

argues for the Tengwar writing of Lojban, insisting that:

1. the Latin alphabet is too strongly related to western civilizations, and thus probably introduces some kind of cultural bias in Lojban. Lojban wants to be both logical and culturally neutral, the Tengwar already are;

2. the Tengwar system inherently contains some main Lojban morphology rules, making Lojban easier to learn when it is written with Tengwar.

Exemplary mappings between the Tengwar system and the Lojban sounds are provided as follows: [1], [2].

Advocates of this include Eric S. Raymond.

Japanese mode[edit]

A Japanese hiragana version of Lojban orthography has been proposed, in which case more than 80 lerfu may by used. This mode is not without certain technical issues since the hiragana (and katakana too) are always syllabic, indicating an open syllable (with the exception of the final "n" sound), requiring some special attention when representing the Lojbanic consonant clusters. Experimental transcription rules are given by Fa-Kuan's website. Examples of Lojban haiku compositions in the orthography can be found at following links: [3] [4].

Morphology[edit]

This section

requires expansion.(August 2007)

Lojban has 3 word-classes: brivla (predicate words), cmavo (structure words), and cmevla (name words). Each of them has uniquely identifying properties, so that one can unambiguously recognize which word is of which part of speech in a string of the language. They may be further divided in sub-classes (discussed respectively below). There also exists a special form called rafsi assigned to some of the brivla and cmavo.

[8][9]

brivla (bridi valsi) "part of speech: content word"[edit]

brivla carry the content (semantic information) of an expression, which means their function may be roughly analogous to common noun, verb, adjective, or adverb in natural languages

[10] (although

some modal cmavo too may have adverbial purposes[11]

). brivla may be identified by the following properties:

[12]

Have more than one syllable

Are penultimately stressed

Have a consonant cluster (at least two adjacent consonants) in the first 5 lerfu including the second consonant

Start with a consonant (except some fu'ivla), end with a vowel

Such a word like lobypei will still be considered as a brivla because the special gluing vowel y between b and p is to be ignored and therefore a consonant cluster (b-p) assumes its existence within it.

Unlike its natlang counterparts mentioned earlier, brivla do not inflect for tense, person, or number.

Brivla's sub-classes are as follows, with some examples.

gismu "part of speech: content word: root word"[edit]

The simplest brivla which constitute the lexical base of the language is called gismu. They are invariably five-letter, which distinguishes it from the other types of brivla, and are in a form of either CVCCV or CCVCV (C stands for a consonant and V for a vowel). Being two syllables means that the general rule of gismu to be stressed penultimately will always cause the first syllable to be stressed.

viska (CVCCV)

prami (CCVCV)

They have been chosen or added as root words because they a) represent concepts that are very familiar and basic, b) represent concepts the usage of which is equally frequent among different languages, c) would be helpful in constructing more complex words, or d) represent fundamental grammatical concepts of Lojban like cmavo and gismu.

[13] The main

source languages from which they were drawn are Arabic, Chinese, English, Hindi, Russian, andSpanish. Here is further explanation of the nature of gismu by Cowan:

The gismu do not represent any sort of systematic partitioning of semantic space. Some gismu may be superfluous, or appear for historical reasons: the gismu list was being collected for almost 35 years and was only weeded out once. Instead, the intention is that the gismu blanket semantic space: they make it possible to talk about the entire range of human concerns. [...] For a given concept, words in the six languages that represent that concept were written in Lojban phonetics. Then a gismu was selected to maximize the recognizability of the Lojban word for speakers of the six languages by weighting the inclusion of the sounds drawn from each language by the number of speakers of that language. The Complete Lojban Language: 4.4

According to Robin Turner,[14]

the creation was done by computer.

Approximately 1350 gismu exist, which is a relatively small number when compared to that of English words ranging from 450,000 up to 1,000,000.

[15] Theoretically, by learning

only these root words, as well as their fragmental forms and some major structure words (cmavo), one will be able to communicate effectively in Lojban. A list of picturable gismu with images is available on the Lojban Wikipedia.

lujvo "part of speech: content word: compound word"[edit]

The compound form of brivla is called lujvo.

pazvau (panzi + vasru)

bavlamdei (balvi + lamji + djedi)

seljgi (se + jgira)

fu'ivla (fukpi valsi) "part of speech: content word: loan word,

borrowed word"[edit]

A borrowed-word type of brivla. They usually refer to things that are culture-specific or to kinds of plants or animals, concepts which cannot be easily expressed as mere modifying-modified combinations of Lojban's internal root words.

fu'ivla can be subdivided into four types according to the extent to which they are modified, namely Stage 1, 2, 3, and 4 fu'ivla.

Stage 1 fu'ivla[edit]

The longest form, quoting a foreign word/phrase while preserving its original spelling with particular structure words.

me la'o ly. spaghetti ly. (la'o indicates that a non-lojbanic text follows. ly. are delimiters of that foreign text. And me turns the whole sequence into a selbri so that the word/phrase can form a bridi with its given place structure. In this example, "x1 is a quantity of spaghetti" is a possible place structure.)

It should be noted that a "hybrid" stage sometimes is enlisted. In this case, it would take the above sentence but Lojbanize "spaghetti" to be phonetic to a (native) Lojban without changing the ending. Therefore, stage "1.5" fu'ivla for "spaghetti" is "me la'o ly. spageti ly."

Stage 2 fu'ivla[edit]

This stage involves lojbanizing the sound and spelling of the word.

me la .spagetis. (me is still needed since la spagetis. cannot by itself work as a brivla.)

Stage 3 fu'ivla[edit]

At this stage a borrowed word is fully turned into a single brivla, having its own place structure. Since no brivla may have more than one meaning, it is often the case that they are attached by a rafsi (with a hyphen like "-r-", "-n-", or "-l-") categorizing or limiting the semantic scope of the word (such are called "rafsi classifier"). Again they always start with a consonant and end with a vowel.

cidjrspageti (using longer rafsi: cidj + r + "spaghetti")

djarspageti (using shorter rafsi: dja + r + "spaghetti")

zgikrtekno (zgike + "techno")

runrxorigami (rutni + "origami")

Stage 4 fu'ivla[edit]

These are the borrowings which are so common or so important that have become as short as possible, having no rafsi classifier. Unlike other brivla, they may begin with a vowel (preceded by a pause mark separating it from the previous word). Also the word must not be of a form that one can remove all the initial vowels (and apostrophes) and have a valid word.

skalduna ("Basque" from "euskaldun")

frangula ("buckthorn" from a species name)

vombatu ("wombat")

.alba'aka ("basil" from Spanish)

lujvo + fu'ivla[edit]

It is possible to absorb a fu'ivla into a lujvo, with principles varying among Lojbanists. Notable proponents are Pierre Abbat and Jorge Llambías. Here are some comparisons of their methods drawn from the Lojban mailing list (as of July 2007):

me'andi + skari me'andyska (Abbat) me'andi'yska (Llambías)

gurnrtefi + nanba gurnrtefynanba (Abbat) gurnrtefi'ynanba (Llambías)

mikri + enri miky'enri (Abbat) miky'enri (Llambías)

tanru "part of speech: content word: phrasal bridi, binary

metaphor"[edit]

A group of two or more brivla (possibly with associated cmavo) is called tanru. They are always divisible into parts without any morphological breakage; they are a mere sequence of multiple gismu or lujvo or fu'ivla rather than a single distinctive morphological unit. See also: Syntax and semantics

cmavo "part of speech: structure word"[edit]

Lojban structure words, cmavo, are recognized by following properties:

may be a single syllable

never contain a consonant cluster of any type, whether or not y is counted

end in a vowel

need not be penultimately stressed, though they often are if they have more than one syllable

And they display one of the following letter patterns: V, VV, V'V, CV, CVV, CV'V. The form generally does not indicate anything about its grammatical function.

cmavo can be sequenced without spaces and without any change to its meaning:

pa re ci (123) = pareci (123)

se pi'o (using ...) = sepi'o (using ...)

As far as the stress rules of Lojban are concerned, such compound cmavo are still separate words, so penultimate stress (e.g. paREci) is not obligatory.

Some cmavo have rafsi, which may help converting tanru into lujvo:

ve detri --> veldetri

se ke cpacu djica --> selkemcpadji

cmevla "part of speech: name word"[edit]

cmevla are mostly used for names of things (including people) in descriptions or in direct address (cf. proper nouns). They can be in any form as long as they end in a consonant. The practi

ce by which names in natural languages are modified to be used in Lojban is known as "lojbanization".

la .bionses.nolz., (a possible realization of the name "Beyoncé Knowles")

rafsi "affix, suffix, prefix

, combining-form, word fragment"[edit]

A special frag

mentary form of gismu and cmavo, from which a new word may be cr

eated, is called rafsi. brivla such as lujvo or fu'ivla are usually de

rived from them (this, in turn, means that lujvo and fu'ivla have n

o rafsi form of their own). rafsi cannot by themselves function as

an individual word; they need to be in a combined form to be use

d.

solri (original gismu): sol, solr, solri (assigned rafsi): solxrula (derivative lujvo)

ke (original cmavo): kem (assigned rafsi): selkemcpadji (derivative lujvo)

sam, pli (component rafsi, from skami and pilno respectively): sampli (derivative lujvo)

The unambiguity of Lojban morphology, according

to John Woldemar Cowan, gives rise to "significant c

lues to the meaning and the origin of the word, even

if you have never heard the word before". He further

says: "The same principle allows you, when speaking o

r writing, to invent new brivla for new concepts 'on

the fly'; yet it offers people that you are trying to

communicate with a good chance to figure out your me

aning. In this way, Lojban has a flexible vocabulary

which can be expanded indefinitely."

Syntax and

semantics[edit] According to What Is Lojban?,[

1

6

]

the language's grammatical structures are "defined

by a set of rules that have been tested to be unambig

uous using computers", which is called the "machine g

rammar". Hence the characteristics of the standard sy

ntactic (not semantic) constructs in Lojban:

each wor

d has exactly one grammatical interpretation;

the word

s relate grammatically to each other in exactly one w

ay.

Such standards, however, are to be attained with c

ertain carefulness:

It is important to note that new Lo

jbanists will not be able to speak 'perfectly' when firs

t learning Lojban. In fact, you may never speak perfectl

y in 'natural' Lojban conversation, even though you achi

eve fluency in the language. No English speaker always s

peaks textbook English in natural conversation; Lojban s

peakers will also make grammatical errors when talking q

uickly. Lojbanists will, however, be able to speak or wr

ite unambiguously if they are careful, which is difficul

t if not impossible with a natural language. Nick Nicho

las and John Cowan.

What Is Lojban? II.3

The computer-

tested, unambiguous rules also include grammar for 'i

ncomplete' sentences e.g. for narrative, quotational,

or mathematical phrases.

Lojbanic expressions are mod

ular; smaller constructs of words are assembled into

larger phrases so that all incorporating pieces manif

est as a possible grammatical unity. This mechanism a

llows for simplistic yet infinitely powerful phrasing

s; "a more complex phrase can be placed inside a simp

le structure, which in turn can be used in another in

stance of the complex phrase structure".

bridi "pred

ication: claims and allegations"[edit]

Being de

rived from predicate logic, the basic unit of Lojban

expression is predication, a claim that some objects

stand in some relationship, or that some single objec

t has some property. bridi is the Lojban term for thi

s type of unit. Just as a predication is formed by a

predicate and arguments in formal logic, bridi are fo

rmed by selbri and sumti in Lojban. A construct of se

lbri and sumti produces a claim that something stands

in a specified relationship to something else or has

a specified property.

do | viska | mi (Two sumti and one selbri, making up one bridi, claiming that a relation viska exists between do and mi. The selbri needs not be literally between sumti. The example can also be rendered as do mi viska. A more detailed discussion on Lojban word order below.)

Multiple bridi can be eith

er sequenced across multiple sentences or compounded

in one sentence:

do | melbi | .i | do | xendo (Two sentences, each consisting of one sumti and one selbri. .i separates sentences.)

do | melbi | .ije | do | xendo (This sentence is syntactically identical to the last one but differs in meaning. .ije may be spelled as .i je.)

do | melbi | gi'e | xendo (One sentence, consisting of one sumti and two selbri. gi'e separates bridi as well as compounding them.)

do | melbi | gi'e | xendo | .iki'ubo | mi | nelci | do (Two sentences, one of which includes compound bridi. While .i simply marks a division of sentences, ki'u together with bo adds that there is a particular logical connection between the first and second sentence. .iki'ubo may be spelled as .i ki'u bo.)

A compound bridi can inc

ludes multiple tenses and sumti:

mi | puze'u gunka | gi'e | ca tatpi

mi | ca'o klama | ta | ti | le karce | gi'e | ba tavla | do | la .lojban.

The implicit gramm

atical divisions can be made explicit by separator wo

rds such as cu and vau, which are often elidable but

sometimes need to be present to avoid ambiguity:

le nixli cu melbi (This instance shows that the left-hand gismu is sumti and the right-hand gismu is selbri. Without cu the two gismu would be grammatically undistinguishable.)

mi dunda le cukta gi'e lebna lo rupnu vau do (vau indicates that the two bridi, dunda le cukta and lebna lo rupnu, sharing the same first

sumti mi, together terminate at that position, enabling them to have the subsequent do as their mutual second sumti. Compare it with its longer equivalent: mi dunda le cukta do .ije mi lebna lo rupnu do.)

The places of cu and vau in the previous examples

can be rendered as follows:

do (cu) viska le nixli (vau)

do (cu) melbi (vau) .i do (cu) xendo (vau)

do (cu) melbi (vau) gi'e xendo (vau) (vau) (The last vau marks the mutual termination of the two bridi.)

do (cu) melbi (vau) gi'e xendo (vau) (vau) .i do (cu) xendo (vau)

The ordered sets of

sumti assigned to every selbri are known as "place st

ructures". They are explicitly defined in dictionarie

s or word lists.

mi | tavla | do | la .lojban. | le glibau (Two sumti mi and do are fitting into the place structure of the selbri tavla, which is "x1 talks/speaks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4".)

Some lujvo formations usually ope

rate on the place structure in predictable ways. The

rafsi {gau}, for instance, inserts one place for the

agent and pushes all others down one. Thus brivla can

have indefinitely many places. This contrasts with t

he accusative alignment or ergative alignment that mo

st languages have, in which there is a small number o

f named places (subject, direct object, indirect obje

ct) and all others are expressed by prepositions.

The

typology of Lojban is basically subject–verb–object,

with subject–object–verb also common. However, it can

practically be anything:

mi | prami | do (SVO)

mi | do | prami (SOV)

do | se prami | mi (OVS)

do | mi | se prami (OSV)

prami | fa mi | do (VSO)

prami | fe do | fa mi (VOS)

Such flexibility has

to do with the language's intended capability to tran

slate as many expressions of natural languages as pos

sible, based on a unique positional case system. The

meaning of the sentence mi prami do is determined by

prami realizing, with its own predefined place struct

ure, a specific semantic relation between mi and do;

when the positional relation between mi and do change

s, the meaning of the sentence changes too. As shown

above, Lojban has particular devices to preserve such

semantic structure of words while altering their ord

er. Compare the followings:

mi | tavla | do | la .lojban. | le glibau ( 1 | selbri | 2 | 3 | 4 ) "x1 (mi) talks/speaks to x2 (do) about subject x3 (la lojban.) in language x4 (le glibau)"

do | se tavla | mi | fo le glibau | fi la .lojban. ( 2 | selbri | 1 | 4 | 3 ) "x2 (do) is talked/spoken to by x1 (mi) in language x4 (le glibau) about subject x3 (la lojban.)"

se converts the x1 an

d x2 sumti place. fo tags the x4 place, and fi the x3

. Such conversion and tagging is often used to emphas

ize particular sumti by bringing it forward.

Here are

some collations of natural languages and Lojban:

Labhraíonn Mícheál Gaeilge le Cáit (VSO - Irish) speaks | Mícheál | Irish | with Cáit tavla fa la .mixal. fo la sicko'o fe la .kat. speaks | Mícheál | in Irish | to/with Cáit

Mamaky boky ny mpianatra (VOS - Malagasy) reads | book | the student tcidu lo cukta fa le tadni reads | a book | the student

Âi ba, wa mo. (OSV - Xavante) to the-river | I | go fe le rirxe fa mi klama to the river | I | go

Ihtébani o'ílaci yawi-pó=ra (OVS - Guarijio) Esteban house-at | dance-[passive].[future]=[reportative] ti'e bu'u le zdani be la .esteban. ba nu dansu [I hear!] at the house of Esteban | [future] event-of dance

僕がこれを作ったんだよ。 (SOV - Japanese)

I | this | made-[assertive-calling] mi ti pu zbasu vau je'uju'i I | this | [past] make [bridi-terminator] [truth-attention]

It is important to note that Lojban

selbri is not a real equivalent of verb in natural la

nguages. A selbri can be either a verb, a noun, an ad

jective, or an adverb. Its function is determined syn

tactically, not morphologically. An analogy to natura

l language word orders by using such terms as "subjec

t", "verb", and "object" cannot accurately describe t

he nature of Lojban bridi.

sumti "predication: ar

gument"[edit]

There are five kinds of simple sumti:

1. descriptions, which usually begin with a descriptor s

uch as le;

2. pro-sumti, the Lojban analogue of pronouns,

such as mi;

3. names, which usually begin with la, such

as la .lojban.;

4. quotations, which begin with lu, lo'u,

zo, zoi;

5. pure numbers, which usually begin with li.

De

scriptions have the most complicated syntax and usage

. Closely interwoven with this kind are names.

descrip

tion

[edit]

Basic descriptions in Lojban consist of tw

o units, LE/LA descriptors and a selbri:

le zarci

Although le

is quite close in meaning to English "the", it has p

articularly unique implications. In this example, le

creates an argument which might occur in the x1 place

of the belonging selbri zarci, namely a "market". le

also specifies that the speaker 1) has one or more s

pecific markets in mind (whether or not the listener

knows which ones they are) and 2) is merely describin

g the things he/she has in mind as markets, without b

eing committed to the truth of that description. Wher

eas English-speakers must differentiate between "the

market" and "the markets", Lojban-speakers are not re

quired to make such a choice (this rule does not mean

that Lojban has no way of specifying the number of m

arkets in such a case):

le zarci cu barda The market is big. / The markets are big.

Since the construct le + se

lbri merely describes something or other which the sp

eaker chooses to represent based on his/her observati

on, such an expression as follows is possible:

le nanmu cu ninmu one-or-more-specific-things-which-I-describe as "men" are women

Whil

e le is specific, lo is not:

lo zarci cu barda one-or-more-of-all-the-things-which-really are-markets is/are-big A market is big. / Some markets are big.

lo refers generally t

o one or more markets, without being specific about w

hich. Unlike le zarci, lo zarci must refer to somethi

ng which actually is a market (that is, which can app

ear in the x1 place of a truthful bridi whose selbri

iszarci). le morsi cu jmive is false as there are no

objects in the real world which are both dead and ali

ve.

la dissociates the subsequent selbri from its norm

al meaning, usually making a name (this usage should

not be confused with the other usage before regular L

ojbanized names). Like le descriptions, la descriptio

ns are implicitly restricted to those the speaker has

in mind:

la cribe pu finti le lisri the-one-named "bear" [past] creates the story. Bear wrote the story.

All descriptions implicitly terminate wi

th ku, which can almost always be omitted with no dan

ger of ambiguity. The main exceptions are a) when rel

ative clauses are involved and b) when a description

immediately precedes the selbri (in which case using

an explicit cu before the selbri makes the ku unneces

sary). Other usages of ku include making a compound n

egator (naku) and terminating place-structure/tense/m

odal tags (puku, baiku).

selbri "predication: log

ical predicate"[edit]

The selbri is the logical pr

edicate of a bridi. This is not to be confused with t

he meaning of predicate in terms of the English Langu

age, but as a logical predicate. Whereas a predicate

in English contains everything that the subject is do

ing, a logical predicate is simply the relation betwe

en all involved parties. In this context, the selbri

is roughly the equivalent of a verb in English. For i

nstance:

mi nelci le gerku

I like the dog. / I like the dogs.

The gismu nelci is being used as the selbr

i in this bridi. It is describing the relationship be

tween the sumtis mi (I) and le gerku (the dog). The r

elationship is that of a liker and that which is like

d. The roles in the relationship are determined by th

e sumti placements inherent in the word being used as

the selbri. The cmavo se/te/ve/xe are used to swap t

he first sumti placement of the selbri with the secon

d, third, fourth, and fifth sumti placement, respecti

vely. This functionality allows for the flexibility i

n bridi. For instance, the gismu klama has the sumti

of:

x1: One which goes

x2: The destination of a goer

x3

: The source of a goer

x4: The route taken by a goer

x5

: The vehicle used by a goer

Thus:

ti klama ta

x1 = ti

x2 = ta

This goes to that.

ti se klama ta

x2 = ti

x1 = ta

This is the destination of that.

ti te klama ta

x3 = ti

x2 = ta

This is the source of something that goes to that.

ti ve klama ta

x4 = ti

x2 = ta

This is the route of something that goes to that.

ti xe klama ta

x5 = ti

x2 = ta

This is the vehicle of something that goes to that.

Selbri can also be tanru, where the sumti placem

ents are determined by the last brivla that is part o

f the tanru. For instance:

mi gleki klama ta

I am a happy-goer that is going to that.

mi klama gleki ta

I am a going-happy-thing that is happy about that.

tanru "part of spe

ech: content word: phrasal bridi, binary meta

phor"[edit]

This section

requires expansion.(August 2007)

Multiple brivla may be linked up tog

ether so as to more specifically conceptualize the in

tended meaning. The tanru in lo skami pilno "computer

user(s)", the modifying brivla skami narrows the sen

se of the modified brivla pilno to form a more specif

ic concept (in which case the modifier may resemble E

nglish adverbs or adjectives). Without skami, lo piln

o will just mean "user". Other examples:

ti mutce xajmi ("This is very funny.")

do melbi se kanla ("You have beautiful eye(s).")

.ue.oi le mabla bebna cu zvati ti ("Oh my gosh the damn idiot is here.")

cmavo[ed

it]

Part of speech: structure word

articles

[edit]

The

re are five articles: lo, le, la, li, and me'o; of wh

ich the first three inflect to show individual, mass,

or set (though as far as the formal grammar is conce

rned, the inflected forms are separate words, not inf

lected forms).

Ind

ivi

du

al

M

a

ss

S

e

t

T

yp

ic

al

Inde

finit

e

lo lo

i

l

o

'i

lo'

e

Defi

nite le

le

i

l

e

'i

le'

e

Nam

e la

la

i

l

a

'i

-

Num

ber li - - -

Mat

hem

atica

l

expr

essio

n

me'

o - - -

The individual/mass distinction is similar to the dis

tinction between mass nouns and count nouns, but thin

gs that are normally counted can be considered as a m

ass. The set articles consider the mathematical set o

f the referents.

lo'i jurme bene'i mi cu bramau lo'i mi mivysle ("The set of bacteria inside me is bigger than the set of my cells." With loi this would be false, as the bacteria, though more in number, have less mass.)

lo mi kerfa cu jdari .iku'i loi mi kerfa cu ranti ("My hairs are hard, but my hair is soft.")

The number and mathematical expr

ession articles are used when talking about numbers a

nd numerals or letters as themselves.

bi jgena ("eight knots")

lo me li bi jgena ("an eight knot", whatever that is; perhaps it has eight loops)

lo me me'o bi jgena ("a figure-eight knot")

connectives

[

edit]

T

h

i

s

s

e

c

t

i

o

n

r

e

q

u

i

r

e

s

e

x

p

a

n

s

i

o

n

.

(

A

u

g

u

s

t

2

0

0

7

)

As befits a logical language, there is a la

rge assortment of conjunctions.

There exist 16 possibl

e different truth functions, the four fundamental one

s of which are assigned four vowels in Lojban. These

vowels are a component sound from which actual logica

l-connective cmavo are built up.

A FIRST is true and/or SECOND is true (TTTF)

E FIRST is true and SECOND is true (TFFF)

O FIRST is true if and only if SECOND is true (TFFT)

U FIRST is true whether or not SECOND is true (TTFF)

With t

he four vowels, the ability to negate either sentence

, and the ability to exchange the sentences, as if th

eir order had been reversed, Lojban can create all of

the 16 possible truth functions except TTTT and FFFF

(which are fairly useless anyway). In order to remai

n unambiguous, each place in the grammar of the langu

age where logical connection is permitted has its app

ropriate set of connectives. If the connective suitab

le for sumti were used to connect selbri, ambiguity w

ould result. Here are examples of connectives suitabl

e for sumti:

la .djekl. .a la .xaid. zvati ti Jekyll and/or Hyde is/are here.

la .djekl. .e la .xaid. zvati ti Jekyll and Hyde is here.

la .djekl. .o la .xaid. zvati ti Jekyll if-and-only-if Hyde is here.

la .djekl. .u la .xaid. zvati ti Jekyll whether-or-not Hyde is here.

Variations of these truth functions can be made as follows:

la .djekl. na.a la .xaid. zvati ti Jekyll only-if Hyde is here.

la .djekl. .enai la .xaid. zvati ti Jekyll and-not Hyde is here.

la .djekl. .onai la .xaid. zvati ti Jekyll either/or Hyde is here.

la .djekl. se.u la .xaid. zvati ti Regardless of Jekyll, Hyde is here.

Connections between components other than sumti can be expressed as follows (note that their functions are in accordance with the assigned vowels):

la .djekl. tavla .ija la .xaid. tavla (between sentences) Jekyll speaks. And/or Hyde speaks.

la .djekl. mikce la xaid. gi'e nanmu (between bridi) Jekyll is a doctor of Hyde and is a man.

la .djekl. sipna je cadzu (between gismu) Jekyll sleeps-and-walks."

Connections can be questioned:

la .djekl. ji la .xaid. tavla Jekyll [what?] Hyde speaks. Does Jekyll or Hyde speak?

la .djekl. sipna je'i cadzu Jekyll sleeps [what?] walks. Does Jekyll sleep or walk?

Besides the logical connectives, there are several non-logical connectives. These do not change form depending on what they are connecting:

lo lanme [ku] fa'u lo guzme cu danlu fa'u spati Sheep and melons are animals and plants, respectively.

la .treid. ku'a la .traian. midju la .carlyt. Trade intersect Tryon is the center of Charlotte.

lo rukygu'e cu xazdo joi ropno Russia is Asian together with European.

The ku is required by the LALR parser, but not by the PEG parser, which however is not official yet.

attitudinals[edit]

Attitudinals are a set of cmavo which allow the speakers to express their emotional state or source of knowledge, or the present stage of discourse. In natural languages, attitudes are usually expressed by the tone of voice when speaking, and (very imperfectly) by punctuation when writing; in Lojban, such information are extensively expressible in words. And the meanings are to be understood separately from the main predicate.

.iu (love)

.ui (happy)

They may be "scaled" by suffixes:

.uinai (happy-not = unhappy)

.uicai (happy-intense = very very happy)

.uicu'i (happy-neutral)

Combination is possible, and highly productive as well as creative:

.uinaicai (happy-not-intense)

.iu.uinai (love-happy-not = I am unhappily in love)

Evidentials, derived from those of American Indian languages and the constructed language Láadan, show how the speaker came to say the utterance, i.e. the source of the information or the idea:

ti'e la .uengas cu zergau [I hear!] Wenga is-a-crime-doer. I hear that Wenga is a crook.

ba'acu'i le tuple be mi cu se cortu [I experience!] The leg of me is-the-locus-of-pain. My leg hurts.

pe'i la .kartagos. .ei se daspo [I opine!] Carthage [obligation] is-destroyed. In my opinion, Carthage should be destroyed.

prepositions[edit]

There are two kinds of prepositions (sumtcita, which refers to adpositions in general) in Lojban: tense markers and proper prepositions. The syntactic difference is that a proper preposition can be converted with se, whereas a tense marker cannot. All proper prepositions (except the vague one do'e) are formed from a brivla and mark their object semantically as being in a place of that brivla. Thus the following are equivalent:

mi pilno lo me'andi lo nu skagau lei kerfa I use henna to color the hair.

mi skagau lei kerfa sepi'o lo me'andi I color the hair with henna.

Prepositions (including tense markers) can also be placed in .i ... bo to make sentence conjunctions. With most prepositions this makes no sense, but ki'u, ja'e, mu'i and ni'i are often used this way to express various kinds of "because" and "therefore":

la .djan. cpacu le pamoi se jinga .iki'ubo ri jinga John got the first prize because he won.

tenses[edit]

This section

requires expansion.(August 2007)

Lojban has 63 unique tense words to express various aspects of both space and time as well as event (such a system is unusual among other languages in that it deals with spatial and temporal aspects in the same term). They can be roughly subdivided as follows:

intervals: pu, ca, ba, bu'u, ri'u, ni'a ...

modifiers: ze'i, zi, ve'i, vi ...

contours: co'a, pu'o, de'a ...

converters: fe'e, roi, mo'i ...

Marking tenses is always optional in Lojban:

mi klama le zarci (default: no temporal tense) I went/have-gone/go/am-going/will-go/continually-go-to the-market.

mi ba'o klama le zarci I have-gone-to the-market.

mi capu'o klama le zarci I am-about-going-to the-market.

Where the tense information is not specified, the context resolves the interpretation.

Tense words are usually put right before the selbri:

mi [cu] pu klama le zarci (cu is the implicit separator between the first sumti mi and the selbri klama.)

They may be placed elsewhere with the additional terminator ku:

pu ku mi [cu] klama le zarci

mi [cu] klama pu ku le zarci

mi [cu] klama le zarci pu [ku] (ku is elidable at the end of the bridi)

The terminator is used so that the tense word do not directly run into the following sumti and modify it. Compare the next sentences:

baku le nunsalci cu cfari [At some point in the future] the festival will start.

ba le nunsalci cu cfari After the festival, [something unspecified] will start.

Tenses can be "layered up":

mi pu klama le zdani .i le zdani pupu se daspo I [past] go-to the house. The house [past][past] be-destroyed. I went to the house. The house had been destroyed.

Tenses can be "sticky" by being set with ki, continuing in effect over more than a single bridi, until it is unset:

mi puki fengu binxo .i le nixli cu klaku cfari .i mi ki xenru I [past]-[set this tense] angry-kind-of become. The girl crying-kind-of start. I [set this tense] regret. (Earlier) I got angry. The girl started crying. (Now) I regret.

The second ki resets the tense to the implicit default time from the speaker's point of view, which is "now" (this means that ki may be used as a tense word by itself).

Using ki, equivalents of the previous layering tenses can be produced:

mi puki klama le zdani .i le zdani pu se daspo

The second pu is to be counted from the tense set by the last ki, so in effect it is equivalent to pupu.

grammatical nonsense[edit]

Lojban has a formal grammar which does not proscribe all the strings of words that a human would consider ungrammatical. One can say things like "*Either he and I will go". Some of these grammatical, but nonsensical, constructions are:

Converting a conjunction other than u with se, or converting any conjunction with te, ve, or xe.

ko'a te.u mi klama le briju se.a le ckule

He (whether-or-not-3) I go to the office (or, arguments exchanged) the school.

Using ra'o with a member of selma'o go'a that does not take an antecedent.

le gerku cu du ra'o le mlatu

The dog is (update pronouns) the cat.

Using kau after a word that's not a question word, in a clause not abstracted with du'u.

mi pilno le skami kau

I am using the computer (indirect question).

Using a term that is not a sumti where only a sumti makes sense.

mi viska le gerku pe na ku

I saw the dog of not.

Joining two sentences with bi'i.

mi viska le xrula .ibi'i do klama le ckule

Between I see the flower and you go to school.