First Steps in Lojban
Lesson 14. Sumtcita (tagged sumti)
We've seen how tense and aspect tags work before the selbri. But these tags have another major job: they can be placed before a sumti, acting much like prepositions in English.
A sumti with a tag in front of it is called a sumtcita (tagged sumti). You can place them anywhere a normal sumti can go—most often at the beginning or end of a sentence.
So far tags sat on the selbri — e.g. le nanmu ba zi ze'u ca'u vu ve'u bajra.
Right. You can also say things like:
pu lo nu do klama ti kei ra cliva ti Before you came here, they left here.
mi ctuca do fo lo lojbo ca lo bavlamdei I teach you Lojban tomorrow.
lo nanla cu cmila ti'a do A boy laughs behind you.
mi tavla lo pendo lo lojbo ba lo nu penmi do kei bu'u la .latcmatcad. After meeting you, I talk to my friend in Lojban in Latcmatcad.
I see. So these tags are versatile—they act like adverbs when they're on the selbri, and like prepositions when they're on a sumti.
Exactly. And here's a shorthand: if you want to use a tag with an unspecified place (zo'e), you can just use tag + ku. It turns out ku is a very busy word!
pu ku mi penmi do I meet you (at some time) before (now).
Does the tagged sumti modify the whole sentence, then?
Generally, yes. You can think of the tagged sumti as providing the context for the entire bridi. For example: "I meet you; and this whole event took place before some reference time."
We have another family of tags called BAI—these are modal tags derived directly from brivla. The meaning of the tag corresponds to the x1 slot of its source word. (And just like before, you can use se/te/ve/xe to swap those slots!)
ti grusi jubme fi'e lo patfu This grey desk, father created (it).
Ah, so fi'e means "by the creator" because it's derived from the x1 of finti (to create).
Precisely! BAI tags pull out the x1 of their source brivla. And if you use those swapping words (se, te, etc.), you can access the other slots, too. It's exactly the same logic we used with lo se klama.
Here are some common ones: bau (in language...), gau (done by agent...), ka'a (going with...), ka'ai (together with...), ki'u (for the reason...), pi'o (using tool...).
mi ciska bau lo ponjo I write in Japanese.
tu cu blanu gau le nanmu That is blue by the man’s doing.
mi lacpu lo bloti se ka'a lo xamsi I pull the boat toward the sea.
la .kocon. cu citka lo grute ka'ai lo nixli Koshon eats fruit with the girl.
mi cortu lo jamfu ki'u lo nu ze'u bajra kei My feet hurt because I ran a long time.
ra ca'o zbasu lo stizu sepi'o lo xance They’re making a chair using their hands.
Whew, that's a lot of new vocabulary to digest.
Sorry about that! I might have gotten a little carried away. Since we're officially at the halfway point, now is probably a perfect time to take a breather, review your notes, and try to commit some of these to memory.
True or false
Pick whether each statement is true or false according to the lesson.
Tags can attach to sumti.
Each tag is grounded in a brivla, and its meaning equals that brivla’s x2.
Tense tags cannot be used as sumtcita.