Lesson 11. Trickier topics#

Know your first language too#

When trying to express yourself in Lojban, it's important not to make it merely a copy of English.

Consider the phrase:

Terry, the tiger, visits the big city.

It might be tempting to use the relation

vitke

$x_1$ (guest) visits $x_2$ (someone) at $x_3$

However, the phrase visits the big city implies visiting a place, not someone at that place, which highlights the fact that the English verb to visit might have several meanings.

Indeed, for instance, if we consider French, we see separate solutions:

I would like to visit my friends.
J'aimerais rendre visite à mes amis.

I would like to visit this city.
J'aimerais visiter cette ville.

French uses rendre visite when visiting someone and visiter when visiting a place.

In Lojban, we translate the meaning, not just words.

Understanding the peculiarities of your own language is also important when trying to express something in Lojban.

The solutions to the example above might be:

la .teris. poi tirxu cu klama le barda tcadu Terry, the tiger, comes to the big city.

tirxu

$x_1$ is a tiger

la .teris. poi tirxu cu pa roi klama le barda tcadu Terry, the tiger, once comes to the big city.

la .teris. poi tirxu cu pa re'u mo'u klama le barda tcadu Terry, the tiger, for the first time arrives at the big city.

la .teris. poi tirxu cu co'a klama le barda tcadu Terry, the tiger, departs to the big city.

Four meanings of ‘you’ in English#

We've already seen two personal pronouns, mi (I or me) and do (you). However, you in English can have multiple meanings, which are translated to Lojban in specific ways:

• you as the one person I'm talking to:

le pa do
you one

We know that le re prenu means the two people. It's also possible to put numbers after le and before pronouns.

• you as all of the people I'm talking to:

ro do
each of you, all of you (or Southern U.S. y'all)

One can also use numbers with ko:

ro ko klama ti
All of you, get over here.

• you as a specific number of people I'm talking to:

le re do
you two

For example, one can start emails to their parents with coi le re do.

Notice that re do means two of you and re le ci do means two of you three.

• you as the person or people I'm talking to plus some other person or people:

do'o
you and someone else

• you as anyone (e.g., Money can't buy you love.):

It's typically expressed by:

ro da
all da

or

ro lo prenu
all persons

However, you can often omit it altogether or place zo'e in that position.

More about short relative clauses#

Short relative clauses with a pronoun following them can be placed immediately after le:

le gerku pe mi My dog

In such cases, pe can even be omitted:

le gerku pe mi le mi gerku My dog

le mi gerku means exactly the same as le gerku pe mi.

Thus, "le + argument + relation construct" is equivalent to "le + relation construct + pe + argument".

A few rules:

• if you want to use an argument converted from a relation (for example, with le) or if it's a name, it is advisable to use pe and place it after the argument: le gerku pe la .alis. (Alice's dog).
• omitting pe is acceptable only when using pronouns without numbers in front of them: le do gerku (your dog) but not le pa do gerku (= le pa do cu gerku = one of you is a dog).

It is much safer to use pe explicitly and place it after the argument to which it is attached: le gerku pe la .alis. and le gerku pe mi are the most intuitive constructs.

Quoting text in different languages#

zoi is a quotation mark for quoting non-Lojban text. Its syntax is zoi X. text .X, where X is a Lojban word (called the delimiting word) which is separated from the quoted text by pauses, and which is not found in the written text or spoken phoneme stream inside that quotation. It is common, but not required, to use the name of some letter, which corresponds to the Lojban name of the language being quoted:

zoi gy. John is a man .gy. cu glico jufra “John is a man” is an English sentence.

glico

$x_1$ is English

where gy. stands for glico. Other popular choices of delimiting words are the word zoi itself and a Lojban word suggesting the topic of the quotation.

Lojban strictly avoids any confusion between things and the names of things:

zo .bob. cmene la .bob. The-word “Bob” is-the-name-of the-one-named Bob.

zo .bob. is the word, whereas la .bob. is the thing named by the word. The short qualifier words la'e and lu'e placed before terms convert back and forth between references and their referents:

zo .bob. cmene la'e zo .bob. The-word “Bob” is-the-name-of the-referent-of the-word “Bob”.

lu'e la .bob. cmene la .bob. A-symbol-for Bob is-the-name-of Bob.

The last two examples mean the same. But this is different:

la .bob. cu cmene la .bob. Bob is the name of Bob.

and says that Bob is both the name and the thing named, an unlikely situation. People are not names.

la'o serves to mark non-Lojban names, for example, the Linnaean binomial names (such as "Homo sapiens"), which are the internationally standardized names for species of animals and plants.

Internationally known names which can more easily be recognized by spelling rather than pronunciation, such as Goethe, can also appear in Lojban text with la'o:

la'o dy. Goethe .dy. cu me la'o ly. Homo sapiens .ly. Goethe is a Homo sapiens.

Using la'o for all names rather than adapting them to Lojban, however, can make for a cumbersome text.

Everything expressed in text should also be expressed in speech and vice versa. Therefore, there cannot be any punctuation which is not pronounced. This means that Lojban has a wide range of words to quote other words. All Lojban convert a text into an argument term.

lu … li'u quote only text that is grammatically correct. To quote any Lojban text, we use lo'u … le'u quotes instead.

— xu lo'u je le'u lojbo sumsmi — na ku sumsmi — Is "je" a term? — No.

ma xe fanva zoi gy.What's up?.gy. la .lojban. How to translate "What's up?" to Lojban?

Internal terms#

Using be, you can fill in not only slots of relations but also add modal terms:

le xatra be de'i li vo cu se mrilu de'i li ze This letter, dated the 4th, is mailed on the 7th

xatra

$x_1$ is a letter

A date tagged with de'i applies only to the xatra. Compare:

le xatra de'i li vo cu se mrilu de'i li ze The letter on the 4th is mailed on the 7th (whatever that can mean)

Without be, the term de'i li vo would apply to the whole relation, not to xatra. What we want to say is that the former date applies just to the letter, and the latter date applies to the mailing of the letter. This means that in le xatra be de'i li vo the part de'i li vo (the 4th, as a date), applies only to the argument le xatra, and not to the entire sentence.

Compound relations in detail#

The grouping of terms in Lojban grammar is particularly important when it comes to tanru (compound relations). The way relations group together in a tanru determines what that tanru means. For example,

the bad music magazine

has two interpretations in English: a bad magazine about music or a magazine about bad music. In Lojban, its equivalent

le xlali zgike karni

has only the interpretation a bad-music magazine, because the first two relations (xlali zgike — bad music) group together first. It is important to modify the grouping of relations to ensure the tanru conveys the intended meaning. For that reason, Lojban has a couple of mechanisms in place for making tanru group together properly.

In English, we use brackets to structure the text. Similarly, for tanru, we use ke for the left bracket and ke'e for the right bracket.

le xlali ke zgike karni means the bad (music magazine).

As you can see, we separated xlali from the rest of the tanru and made it apply to the whole tanru. There is no need for ke'e at the end of the tanru since we already know that it ends here.

.i mi pu zi te vecnu le xlali ke zgike karni .i to'e zanru la'o gy.Eurythmics.gy. I just bought a bad (music magazine). It dissed the Eurythmics.

That's one way of grouping together components in tanru. The other way is to use bo in a new role. When bo appears between two components, it means that those components group together more tightly than anything else. So an alternative way of saying bad (music magazine) is

le xlali zgike bo karni

the bad music-magazine

bo here is similar to the hyphen in the English translation. This means that zgike bo karni should count as a unit, to which xlali (bad) applies.

So bo makes the connections tighter:

la .doris. e la .alis. o nai bo la .bob. Doris and (either Alice or Bob)

ke can also be used with connectives (though not with sentences; they have their own kind of bracket, tu'e … tu'u). So we could also say

la .doris. e ke la .alis. o nai la .bob.

Remember that the right bracket ke'e can often be left out without changing the meaning (as in this case).

Forethought conjunctions are also frequently used because they can eliminate the need for right brackets:

ge la .doris. gi go nai la .alis. gi la .bob. Doris and either Alice or Bob

and

go nai ge la .doris. gi la .alis. gi la .bob. Either Doris and Alice, or Bob

There is no need for bo or ke with forethought conjunctions.

«co» for changing the order in compound relations#

There is another way of restructuring compound relations.

mi fanva se jibri I'm a professional translator

jibri

$x_1$ is a job of $x_2$

If I wanted to say that I'm a professional translator from English to German, I could use be and bei:

mi fanva be le dotco bei le glico be'o se jibri I'm a professional translator to German from English.

dotco

$x_1$ is German

The fact that it was a compound relation could quickly be lost in speech due to the complicated structure of the sentence. Here, we can use the word co:

co — inverts the compound relation, making the rightmost component modify the leftmost instead of the other way around. Any previous argument term fills the modified, any following argument term fills the modifier.

mi se jibri co fanva le dotco le glico

It is the same relation as the previous Lojban one, but much easier to understand. Notice that any argument before the compound relation fills se jibri, while any following it only fills the modifying component: fanva.

The strength by which two components are bound together with co is very weak — even weaker than normal compound relation grouping without any grouping words. This ensures that, in a co-construct, the leftmost component is always the component being modified, and the rightmost component always modifies, even if any of those parts are compound relations. This makes a co-construct easy to understand:

ti pelxu plise co kukte

is read as ti (pelxu plise) co kukte, which is the same as ti kukte pelxu bo plise. This also means that a ke … ke'e cannot encompass a co.

Another example:

mi merko limna co mutce certu I am a much experienced American swimmer.

merko

$x_1$ is American (the USA sense)

Here is the list of different kinds of groupers in compound relations ranked from the tightest to the most loose:

1. bo and ke … ke'e
2. logical connectives inside compound relations like je
3. not using grouping words
4. co

Explicit termination of arguments#

The small word ku can be used at the end of an argument to explicitly show its right border. ku is analogous to the right bracket in math.

tu du le badna ku ui tu du le ui badna That is the banana (yay!)

As opposed to:

tu du le badna ui That is the banana (yay that it's a banana and not something else in nature!)

Avoiding explicit termination#

Another style of speaking involves avoiding termination. Here are some common cases:

Elimination of li'u, the right quotation mark:

lu mi prami do li'u cu se cusku la .alis. lu mi prami do li'u se cusku la .alis. lu mi prami do cu se cusku la .alis. "I love you," said Alice.

li'u can be omitted here because there cannot be two main relation constructs in one sentence. Hence, we first read the lu mi prami do part, and then when we see the cu, we realize that we cannot continue this quoted sentence further. We assume that the quotation has ended and the outer sentence continues. Thus, no ambiguity arises.

Elimination of ku'o, the right border of relative clauses:

le prenu noi mi zgana ke'a ku'o ca tavla le pendo be mi le prenu noi mi zgana ke'a ca tavla le pendo be mi The person whom I'm observing is now talking to my friend.

ku'o can be omitted here when the relative clause that we need (mi zgana ke'a) ends in a term, ke'a in this case. After the relative clause, something other than a term starts, so the relative clause cannot be continued, and thus we know it successfully ends without any explicit right bracket words.

A similar trick would be to always place ke'a at the end of the relative clause:

le prenu noi ke'a melbi ku'o ca tavla le pendo be mi le prenu noi melbi fa ke'a ca tavla le pendo be mi The person who is pretty is now talking to my friend.

However, in the following case, termination is necessary:

le prenu noi mi zgana ke'a ku'o le pendo be mi ca tavla The person whom I'm observing is now talking to my friend.

because after the relative clause mi zgana ke'a, we chose to place another term (le pendo be mi) not belonging to the current relative clause.

A semi-trick here would be to use ce'e:

le prenu noi mi ke'a zgana ce'e le pendo be mi ca tavla The person whom I'm observing is now talking to my friend.

Here, we end the relative clause with the main relation construct zgana. Then we have the conjunction ce'e and a term afterward (le pendo be mi). Since ce'e can join only terms, we know that to the left of ce'e, we have a term, which can only be le prenu noi mi ke'a. Hence, the meaning is retained, and no ambiguity arises. Note that we still need a separate word, ce'e, in such cases, so although we eliminated the bright bracket word, we still had to introduce something else.

Elimination of kei, the right border of inner sentences:

mi cinmo le ka badri kei le tcini le ka badri cu se cinmo mi le tcini mi cinmo fi le tcini fe le ka badri mi cinmo le ka badri ce'e le tcini I feel sad regarding the situation.

mi stidi lo ka citka su'o da kei do mi stidi lo ka ce'u su'o da citka ce'e do I suggest that you eat something.

As you can see, no trick makes the result shorter than the original with kei, so for conciseness, you may wish to use kei.

Conversion from sets to masses#

le prenu cu pa moi le'i pendo be mi ku noi lu'o ke'a ca smaji He is the first among my friends who keep silence together. The person is the first among the set of my friends who are now, as a crowd, being silent.

The qualifier word lu'o placed before an argument converts it into a mass made of members of that argument. In this case, ke'a refers to the set of my friends le'i pendo be mi and then lu'o converts the members of the set into a mass, the crowd of my friends.

Sets and subsets#

Some infinitives may imply more than one ce'u:

le'i prenu cu simxu le ka prami le'i prenu cu simxu le ka ce'u prami ce'u The people love each other.

simxu

members of the set $x_1$ reciprocally do $x_2$

The relation simxu takes every possible pair from the set specified in place $x_1$ and asserts the relation specified within $x_2$.

If we have three people, then it would mean all of them love each other.

do ce la .alis. ce mi simxu le ka prami do ce la .alis. ce mi simxu le ka ce'u prami ce'u You, Alice, and I all love each other.

ce

conjunction: joins several arguments into a set

The conjunction ce merges arguments into a set. Thus, do ce la .alis. ce mi might be a more verbose way of le'i prenu from the previous example when we want to name the members of the set.

In total, we assert 6 relations:

1. You love Alice.
2. You love me.
3. Alice loves me.
4. Alice loves you.
5. I love Alice.
6. I love you.

Hence, simxu is a nice shortcut for expressing mutual relations.

Now consider the example:

le'i su'o cmima be le'i prenu cu simxu le ka prami Some of the people love each other.

cmima

$x_1$ is a member of set $x_2$

In this example, we show that a subset of the people in question (a subset of le'i prenu) has mutual love.

This allows us to convey even trickier ideas:

le'i su'o citno cmima be le'i stati prenu cu simxu le ka prami Some youngsters from those smart people love each other. Some young members of the set of smart people love each other.