Chapter 16. Advanced Connectives & Tenses#

Forethought Connectives: geks and guheks#

Chapter 8 introduced the basic connective forms. This chapter covers the complete system and edge cases.

Forethought bridi connectives (geks) signal the connection before either bridi. The separator gi appears between them:

ge la .alis. cu klama gi la .djan. cu cadzu Both Alice comes and John walks.

ganai mi klama gi do klama If I go, then you go.

Note the order: with ganai…gi, the first bridi is the antecedent (the "if" part).

Forethought selbri connectives (guheks) work inside selbri:

gu'e blanu gi xunre gerku a both-blue-and-red dog

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Termsets: Connecting Parallel Sumti#

When two bridi differ in multiple sumti simultaneously, you can use a termset to connect them all in parallel. The termset brackets are nu'i … nu'u (start/end):

nu'i ge mi gi do nu'u klama Both I and you go. (simplified: mi .e do cu klama)

More complex termsets arise when multiple slots change together:

nu'i mu'igi la .djan. lei jdini mi gi la .alis. le cukta do nu'u Connecting: John gave me money ←→ Alice gave you the book (by motivation)

Termsets ensure the logical connection applies to all the listed sumti simultaneously rather than distributing one sumti at a time. This is discussed in detail when dealing with modal connections (Chapter 10).

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giheks: Bridi-Tail Connectives#

A gihek connects two bridi-tails — the selbri plus following sumti, sharing the same x₁:

mi citka gi'e pinxe I eat and drink. (mi = shared x₁)

mi citka gi'a pinxe I eat or drink.

mi klama le zarci gi'enai cadzu I go to the store, but not walking. (I go but don't walk there)

Giheks are the most natural connective form when the subject is shared — they're much more concise than full .ije connectives.

Gihek forms:

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Tense and Aspect: The Full ZAhO System#

Chapter 9 covered the basic ZAhO aspect particles. Here's the complete system with their precise meanings:

An event has an internal structure: pre-start phase → start → middle → end → post-end phase.

mi pu'o klama — I am about to go. mi co'a klama — I start going. mi ca'o klama — I am in the process of going. mi co'u klama — I stop going. mi mo'u klama — I finish going (reached the destination). mi za'o klama — I keep going (past when I should have stopped). mi ba'o klama — I have gone (am in the resultant state). mi co'i klama — I went (the event of going, viewed as a whole point).

Combining tense and aspect:

Tense (pu/ca/ba) comes before aspect:

mi pu co'a klama — I started going [in the past]. mi ba mo'u citka — I will finish eating [in the future]. mi ca za'o tavla — I am still talking [now]. (past the appropriate time)

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Tense Intervals: Anchoring#

The interval particle (ze'i/ze'a/ze'u) can be further anchored with a following direction:

mi ca ze'ica cusku dei I [now] [short-interval-centered-on-now] say this. → I am now saying this sentence.

mi pu ze'iba klama A short time ago, I went [and the going extended forward toward now].

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When Tenses Stack#

Multiple tense elements in sequence describe a compound imaginary journey:

mi pu ba klama I [past-then-future] go → At some past moment, I was going to go.

le nanmu puzu vu batci le gerku Long ago and far away, the man bit the dog.

Each tense element adds a leg of the journey: pu (go back in time), zu (long distance in that direction), vu (long distance in space).

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Connected Tenses in Discourse#

Tense can be set for a whole passage using ki, the tense bookmark:

puki mi klama le zarci .i le zarci cu barda [Setting: past.] I go to the store. The store is big. (both sentences understood as past)

ki attaches to a tense, making it a reference point that persists:

puki — set "past" as current reference caki — set "present" as current reference baki — set "future" as current reference

Any subsequent bridi without an explicit tense is interpreted relative to the ki-set reference. Reset with caki to return to speaker-now.

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na'o and ta'e: Habitual and Iterative#

Two special tense-like particles express habituality and custom:

na'o — typically/usually (in the relevant context, events of this type usually occur)

mi na'o citka lo plise I typically eat apples. (not every time, but usually)

ta'e — habitually (as a regular habit of the x₁)

mi ta'e klama le zarci I habitually go to the store. (it's what I do)

ru'i — continuously (without break)

mi ru'i cadzu I walk continuously (without stopping).

These combine with the ordinary PU tenses:

mi pu ta'e klama le zarci I used to habitually go to the store.

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All 16 Truth Functions#

A logical connective is fully described by its truth table — what happens in each of the four cases (T+T, T+F, F+T, F+F). With four slots, each can be true or false independently, giving 16 possible functions.

Lojban encodes all 16 using the vowel (A/E/I/O/U) plus optional na (negate first) and nai (negate second). The core four vowels:

The others are derived by negating one or both inputs:

In practice, the most used are A (or), E (and), O (iff), and naA (if-then). The others arise in careful logical writing.

How nonstandard truth functions are spelled: The same na / nai recipe applies everywhere — ijek, jek, ek, gek, etc. na before the connective core negates the first piece; nai after the vowel negates the second. So .inaja = if-then; .ijanai = A or not-B; .inaje = not-A and B; .jenai = A and-not-B. The tables above name the 16 functions; the morphology is uniform once you know the base vowel (A/E/O/U).

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Tenses and Logical Connectives#

Chapter 8 gives bare .ije / gi'e; this section is about where tense and modals sit when they scope the connection itself.

Two bridi, sequential: put the tense (or modal) between the connective and bo (or tu'e):

mi viska pa nanmu .ije babo mi viska pa ninmu I see a man, and [later] I see a woman.

Here ba between .ije and bo says the second bridi is after the first (relative time), while pu on each bridi can still anchor both to the speaker’s past if you add it.

Forethought with one tense on the whole compound: a tense before ge … gi can apply to both tails at once:

mi pu ge klama le zarci gi tervecnu lo cidja I, in the past, both went to the market and bought food. (both events past; order between them not specified)

That differs from .ije babo, which asserts an explicit later-than relation between the two.

Modals + connectives: mixed BAI + .ije (e.g. .ijeki'ubo) — Chapter 10. Full CLL-style rules (ek + bo, gihek + bo, mekso parallels) are in CLL Ch.14 § “Tenses, modals, and logical connection”.

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Summary#

Forethought connectives:

• ge…gi (both), ga…gi (or), go…gi (iff), ganai…gi (if-then)
• Add forethought guheks inside selbri: gu'e…gi

Giheks (bridi-tail connectives, shared x₁):

• gi'e (and), gi'a (or), gi'o (iff), gi'enai (but not)

Full ZAhO aspect system:

• pu'o (about to), co'a (starts), ca'o (ongoing), co'u (stops), mo'u (completes), za'o (goes on too long), ba'o (resultant state), co'i (whole event)

Habitual/iterative:

• na'o (typically), ta'e (habitually), ru'i (continuously)

Tense bookmark:

• puki / caki / baki — sets reference point for subsequent bridi

Termsets (nu'i … nu'u):

• Connect multiple sumti in parallel across two bridi
• Ensure logical connective applies to all listed sumti simultaneously

All 16 truth functions:

• Built from 4 vowels (A/E/O/U) + optional na (negate first) and nai (negate second)
• Most useful: A (or), E (and), O (iff), naA (if-then = A implies B)

Tense + connective stacking:

• .ije babo — tense (e.g. ba) between .ije and bo relates the two bridi in time
• pu ge … gi — one leading tense can apply to both forethought-connected bridi
• Plain .ije with a tense on each bridi — often the clearest
• Mixed modal + .ije — Ch.10 .ijeki'ubo etc.

Nonstandard truth functions:

• Build with na / nai on the same vowel skeleton as Ch.8 — see How nonstandard truth functions are spelled above