[lojban-beginners] Re: simple question

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 1:30 PM, Ryan Leach <rsw.leach@gmail.com> wrote:

My confusion with connectives stems from the way the chapter in CLL on
connectives was laid out. To be honest, I didn't understand most of
it. The chapter made me feel as though I was reading an advanced paper
on physics rather than information about a language. My confusion is
at that dangerous level where I'm not sure what I don't know, much
less what I know.

If Luke Bergen's description is accurate, then I have a better idea
now. But if not then I'm at the point that a toddler learning to talk
is at. I know that I need a way to express connections, and I have
seen some used, but I have little to now idea about the rules.

Luke's description (taking into account the corrections by Minimiscience & Pierre) is accurate. It might be worth mentioning selma'o GIhA, the commonly-used afterthought connectives for bridi-tails:

{ta sipna ca lo nicte gi'e gunka ca lo donri}
He sleeps by night and works by day.

Moreover, members of selma'o JA, besides joining tanru, are also used to join full bridi as follows:

{le mlatu cu jinvi lo du'u ri mencre .i je mi tugni fi le se go'i}
The cat thinks she's clever, and I agree with that.

I would say those four afterthought usages are the most common, & cover the majority of current connective usage.

I agree with you btw that connectives are tricky.

mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan

[Previous discussion follows:]

On Mon, May 4, 2009 at 12:46 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
> On Thursday 30 April 2009 15:17:24 Luke Bergen wrote:
>> correct me if I'm wrong anybody but...
>>
>> the way I understand it is that ja/je/jo/ju are used in connecting words in
>> a tanru. ÂSo "lo gerku je nakni" is a tanru (treated as a single sumti in
>> the bridi) that means "the thing that is a dog and male" whereas if you had
>> just said "lo gerku nakni" you're being vague and are saying something more
>> like "the dog type-of male".
>
> Correct. "lo nakni gerku" most likely means "a male dog", but "lo gerku nakni"
> doesn't have an obvious meaning.
>
>> .a/.e/.o/.u is for saying "these two sumti fall into this place" but keeps
>> them seperate. ÂSo "lo gerku .e nakni" would be "the dog and the male" not
>> speaking of 1 thing but of two things.
>
> "lo gerku .e nakni" is ungrammatical. "lo gerku .e lo nakni" does not refer
> necessarily to two things. "lo gerku .e lo nakni cu nenri le kumfa" would be
> true if the room contains me and a female dog, but would be equally true if
> the room contains one male dog and nothing else. "jo'u" may exclude the
> single male dog, but I'm not sure.
>
> By the way, the missing member of the selma'o is "ji", which is a question.
>
>> finally ga/ge/gi/go/gu are just used for giving a reader/listener the
>> knowledge that a logical connective is coming up, like "either A or B" is
>> "ga .abu gi by"
>
> True.
>
> Pierre
>
>> I'm not sure if in all these cases there should have been a descriptor
>> before the second element in the connective.
>>
>> - Luke Bergen
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 3:07 PM, Ryan Leach <rsw.leach@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I'm afraid that chapter just made me more confused when I first read it.
>> >
>> > On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 11:54 AM, komfo,amonan <komfoamonan@gmail.com>
>> >
>> > wrote:
>> > > On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Ryan Leach <rsw.leach@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > >> I want to say "lemons and also oranges are both citrus fruits"
>> > >>
>> > >> The connective word system for lojban is still messing with my brain.
>> > >>
>> > >> I think it would go like this
>> > >>
>> > >> "le najnimre ja le pelnimre cu grute"
>> > >>
>> > >> but I'm not sure. Any help on the ands and such for lojban or a place
>> > >> to look them up even?
>> > >
>> > > lo najnimre .e lo pelnimre cu nimre
>> > >
>> > > Connectives are covered in chapter 14 of the Complete Lojban Language <
>> > > http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter14.html >.
>> > >
>> > > mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan