Lesson 7. Letters, referring to relations, dates#

Names of letters in Lojban#

Each letter has a name in Lojban.

The following table represents the basic Lojban alphabet and how to pronounce letters (below each letter):

As you can see:

• to get the name for a vowel, we add the word bu.
• to get the name for a consonant, we add y. to the consonant.
• the word for ' (apostrophe) is .y'y.

We can spell words using these names. For example, CNN will be cy. ny. ny.

Letters instead of ‘he’ and ‘she’#

A string of one or more letter names can function as a pronoun, providing an alternative method for referring to previously mentioned arguments in speech.

la .alis. pu klama le nurma .i le nurma cu melbi la .alis. la .alis. pu klama le nurma .i ri melbi la .alis. la .alis. pu klama le nurma .i ny. melbi la .alis. la .alis. pu klama le nurma .i ny. melbi .a bu Alice went to the country. The rural area is beautiful to Alice. Alice went to the country. It is beautiful to her.

All the Lojban variants above have the same meaning.

Since the first letter in .alis. is a (ignoring the dot) and the first letter in nurma is n, we can use letter words to refer to those arguments correspondingly:

• .a bu refers to la .alis.
• ny. refers to le nurma

This method might be more convenient than English he or she, or even Lojban ri or ra. It allows us to make speech more concise yet precise, without having to repeat potentially long names or other argument terms repeatedly.

However, it's important to note that there may be situations where we want to refer back to, for example, le nurma, but another argument starting with n appears in the meantime, making ny. unable to refer to the rural area. In such cases, the quickest solution is to repeat the entire argument, i.e., say le nurma:

bu'u le nurma la .alis. pu penmi la .nik. i ri se zdani bu'u le nurma In the country, Alice met Nick. He has his home in the country.

zdani

… is a home to …

se zdani

… has a home …, … lives in …

If a name consists of several cmevla, you can use the first letters of them to refer to that name. The same applies to compound relations:

la .djan.smit. cu citka le glare stasu .i dy.sy. nelci fy.sy. John Smith is eating the hot soup. He likes it.

glare

… is hot

dy.sy. is a single pronoun. The same applies to fy.sy..

If you need to put several pronouns one after another, separate them with the word boi:

mi klama la .paris. la .moskov. I go to Paris from Moscow.

mi klama py. boi my. I go to P from M.

The sentence mi klama py. my. would mean I go to PM, which would mean something different.

la .tom.silver. pu zvati .i je'u ty. sy. boi .ui pu sidju mi Tom Silver was present. And actually, TS (yay!) helped me.

If you put an interjection after such letters, separate them with boi. Without boi, interjections will refer to the last letter.

Different ways of saying ‘we’ in Lojban#

In Lojban, there are several pronouns close in meaning to we:

mi'o

you and I

mi'a

we without you

ma'a

you, I, and others

So, when speaking, you have to be more careful about which meaning of we you need.

And finally:

mi

I or the speakers

mi can also mean we! Lojban makes no distinction between singular and plural by default. So, if several people are speaking together, mi (which refers to one or more speakers) is perfectly correct for we. In practice, you'll usually find mi used like this when one person is presuming to speak (or more often, to write) on behalf of others.

Some examples:

mi prami do I love you.

mi'a ba penmi do We'll meet you.

ma'a remna We are all human.

mi djica le nu do cliva We want you to go away.

cliva

$x_1$ leaves

«ri» instead of ‘he’ and ‘she’#

Earlier, we learned about the pronoun ri:

ri

pronoun: refers to the previous argument that just finished (skipping stable pronouns like mi, do, words for we)

mi catlu le nanmu .i ri melbi I look at the man. He is handsome.

melbi

$x_1$ is beautiful / pretty / handsome to someone $x_2$

ri refers to the previous completed argument used in text or someone's speech:

la .alis. cu sipna bu'u le sledi'u pe la .alis. Alice sleeps in Alice's room. Alice sleeps-in the of-Alice room.

la .alis. cu sipna bu'u le sledi'u pe ri Alice sleeps in her room. Alice sleeps in the room of [previous argument term].

sledi'u

$x_1$ is a room for purpose $x_2$ (proposition)

The ri is equivalent to repeating the last argument, which is la .alis. here.

One aspect to notice is that ri does not repeat le sledi'u pe ri (which is also an argument), because ri is a part of that argument and therefore that argument is not "previous", not finished yet when ri appears. This prevents ri from making it recursively refer to itself.

Another example:

le du'u le prenu cu melbi cu se djuno ri That the person is pretty is known to herself.

The ri refers to le prenu (and not le du'u le prenu cu melbi although both arguments are complete: le prenu starts last, after the start of le du'u le prenu cu melbi).

Relation inside sei forms a parallel text. ri skips arguments inside sei-relations:

mi viska la .lukas. sei la .doris. pu cusku .i ri jibni la .micel. I see Lucas, — Doris said. He is near Michelle.

In this example, ri cannot refer to la .doris. We simply skip the whole sei la .doris. pu cusku relation when deciding what ri should refer to.

Pronouns that are stable across the dialogue or story are ignored by ri. We just repeat them directly:

mi lumci mi I wash myself. I wash me

lumci

$x_1$ washes $x_2$

mi prami mi I love myself. I love me.

However:

• the pronouns ti, ta, tu are picked up by ri because you might have changed what you are pointing at, so repeating tu may not be effective.
• similarly, ri itself (or rather, its antecedent) can be repeated by a later ri. In fact, a string of ri words with no other intervening arguments will always repeat the same argument:

la .alis. cu catlu le nanmu .i ri melbi .i ri co'a zgana .a bu Alice notices a man. He is handsome. He notices Alice.

zgana

to observe

co'a zgana

to start observing, to notice

In this example, the second ri has the first ri as its antecedent, which in turn has le nanmu as its antecedent. All three refer to the same thing: the man.

Ultimately, you decide what, where, and when to use in speech: the method with le + relation, the method with letter names, or with ri.

«go'i» for the previous relation#

la .alis. cu klama le barja .i la .alis. cu viska le nanmu la .alis. cu klama le barja .i le go'i cu viska le nanmu Alice comes to the bar. She sees a man.

• le go'i refers to the first place of the previous relation.
  • go'i presents yet another way of referring back to an argument that we need.
• le se go'i refers to the second place of the previous relation.
• le te go'i refers to the third place, and so on.

Examples:

.i la .alis. cu zgana le nanmu .i ri melbi .i la .alis. cu zgana le nanmu .i le se go'i cu melbi Alice watches a man. He is handsome.

Here, le se go'i refers to the second place ($x_2$) of the preceding relation, which is le nanmu.

Another example:

Bill saw Nick. He hit him.

English doesn't bother with precision here — he just means some male person mentioned somewhere near in the text or deduced from context. Did Bill hit Bob, or did Bob hit Bill? We don't know. In Lojban, we can say:

la .bil. pu viska la .nik. .i le se go'i cu darxi le go'i Bill saw Nick. Nick hit Bill.

However, in most cases, ri or letter words can be used:

la .bil. cu viska la .nik. i ri darxi la .bil. la .bil. cu viska la .nik. i ny. darxi by. Bill saw Nick. Nick hit Bill.

go'i itself is a relation word, and it thus has a place structure:

mi tatpi .i do ji'a go'i I'm tired. And you too.

When we say do go'i, we repeat the previous relation but replace its first place with do. In other words, do ji'a go'i here is the same as saying do ji'a tatpi.

Time of day#

— ma tcika ti What's the time?

— li cacra bu pa pa Eleven hours

tcika

$x_1$ (hours, minutes, seconds) is the time of event $x_2$

In Lojban, times are always the times of something. So we ask what the time is of ti, meaning this event/thing, or, in other words, now.

li, a prefix for numbers, is used for timestamps too.

• cacra bu is a prefix signaling that the number of hours follows. 24-hour time is used almost always in Lojban.
• mentu bu is a prefix signaling that the number of minutes follows.
• snidu bu is a prefix signaling that the number of seconds follows.

li cacra bu pa pa mentu bu pa no 11:10 (Ten minutes past eleven)

li cacra bu pa pa mentu bu pa no snidu bu pa ci 11 hours, 10 minutes and 13 seconds.

li cacra bu pa no mentu bu mu no 10:50, ten to eleven

If we want to give the time of an event, rather than just tell the time, the second place is filled:

li cacra bu pa no tcika le nu mi klama Ten o'clock is the time that I come.

By using the term de'i we can get a more naturally sounding sentence:

mi klama de'i li cacra bu pa no I am coming at 10 o'clock.

de'i

at … (time), on … (date)

And one useful example:

ca tcika le nu .ei sipna It's time to sleep.

Dates#

— ma detri ti What's the date today?

— li mastu bu ze djedi bu pa It's July, 1.

detri

$x_1$ (year, month, day) is the date/time of event $x_2$

Another option:

— ma ca detri — What is the date now?

• nanca bu is a prefix signaling that the year follows.
• masti bu is a prefix signaling that the month follows.
• jefydei bu is a prefix signaling that the day of week follows.
• djedi bu is a prefix signaling that the day follows.

Prefixes with numbers after them can be used in any order (let's use digits to show numbers):

li djedi bu 2 ca detri It's the second day of the month now.

li masti bu 4 djedi bu 1 ca detri It's April, the first now.

li djedi bu 5 masti bu 7 nanca bu 2005 detri le nu mi jbena The fifth of July (seventh month), year 2005 is when I was born.

jbena

$x_1$ is born

We can also use de'i:

mi ba klama de'i li masti bu pano I will come in October.

Particles in Lojban can be written without spaces in between, like in this pano, which is the same as pa no.

For days of the week, usually, Monday is the first day:

mi gunka de'i li jefydei bu pa I work on Monday.

mi gunka ca ro se detri be li jefydei bu re I work every Tuesday.

xu do pu zvati la .paris. de'i li jefydei bu ci Were you in Paris on Wednesday?

Specifying time intervals#

mi nanca li re re I am 22 years old.

nanca

$x_1$ is of duration of $x_2$ (number) years

nanca specifies the duration, and to say two years long, fill the second place with a number prefixed by li.

le verba cu masti li re The child is two months old.

masti

$x_1$ is $x_2$ months long

le nu carvi cu djedi li ci It's raining for three days.

djedi

$x_1$ (event) is $x_2$ (number) full days long

New verbs from one scale: ‘other than’ — «na'e», ‘anti-’ — «to'e»#

mi na'e nelci do I other than like you.

"Left scalar" particles (to which na'e belongs) are placed to the left of constructs they affect, forming a scale:

The scale itself can be specified using the modal tag ci'u.

• je'a = indeed (the affirmative position on the scale). The word je'a confirms the meaning of a part of a sentence. Usually, it's just omitted.

mi je'a nelci do I indeed like you.

• na'e = non- (other than the affirmative position on the scale)

mi na'e nelci do I other than like you.

le stizu cu na'e xunre be ci'u le ka skari The chair is of a non-red color. The chair is other-than red on the scale of having a color

• no'e = not really (midpoint on the scale). The word no'e gives a part of a sentence a middle meaning.

mi no'e nelci do As for whether I love or hate you, I'm indifferent to you. I neither like nor hate you.

• to'e = anti-, dis-, mis- etc. (opposite on the scale). The word to'e gives a part of a sentence an opposite meaning. It's similar to the English prefix anti-.

mi to'e nelci do I hate you. I anti-like you

na'e is more vague than no'e and to'e; it can mean any of them when you don't care about the exact meaning.

Complex modal terms: ‘because’ — «ki'u», ‘despite’ — «to'e ki'u nai»#

Modal terms can be negated in two ways to obtain related meanings.

ki'u

modal term: because, due to explanation …, which can be explained by the fact that …

ki'u ma do cusku zo co'o Why do you say goodbye?

Adding the suffix nai changes the meaning:

ki'u nai

modal term: not because, which cannot be explained by the fact that …?!

mi se nabmi ki'u nai le nu mi laldo ce'e ki'u le nu mi na certu I'm in trouble not because I'm old but because I'm not an expert.

nabmi

$x_1$ is a problem to $x_2$

se nabmi

$x_1$ has a problem $x_2$

laldo

$x_1$ is old …

certu

$x_1$ is an expert, professional in property $x_2$

Adding to'e sets the negation of the meaning:

to'e ki'u

because not, which can be explained by the fact that it does not happen that …

mi jinga to'e ki'u le nu mi pu surla I won because I hadn't rested.

Combining both to'e and nai we get:

to'e ki'u nai

despite the reason …, not because not, which cannot be explained by the fact that it does not happen…,

.i to'e ki'u nai le nu le mamta cu sanga su'o melbi kei le verba na snada lo ka sipna Despite the mother singing beautifully, the child doesn't succeed in falling asleep.

Using se changes the order of arguments. Otherwise, the meaning is preserved.

se ki'u

therefore, which explains the fact that …

ra bilma se ki'u le nu ra na pu cusku zo coi do He is ill, which explains why he didn't say hello to you.

se ki'u nai

but it does not follow that …, which does not explain the fact that …

ra bilma se ki'u nai le nu ra klama le drata tcadu He is ill, which doesn't explain why he is going to another city.

se to'e ki'u

…, the absence of which explains the fact that …

ra bilma se to'e ki'u le nu ra klama le drata tcadu He is not ill, and that explains why he is going to another city.

se to'e ki'u nai

…, the absence of which does not explain the fact that …

ra bilma se to'e ki'u nai le nu ra penmi le mikce He is not ill, and that doesn't explain why he is meeting the doctor.

mikce

$x_1$ is a doctor