Re: [lojban-beginners] Request

[Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>]

On Saturday, November 24, 2012 17:13:00 Jonathan Jones wrote:
>> For example, Lojban does not have nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc., it has
> only gismu, which can act as any of those. For example, {bajra} can be a
> noun: {lo bajra} "a runner", or a verb: {mi bajra} "I run", an adjective:
> {mi bajra klama} "I running type-of go".

The gismu is one kind of brivla. The others are lujvo (compound words, such as 
{gimste} "list of gismu") and fu'ivla (borrowed words, such as {arxokuna} 
"raccoon"; both the English and the Lojban words are of Algonquian origin). 
The brivla covers verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and common nouns.

The other open part of speech is the cmevla, which is equivalent to a proper 
noun. For instance {fasygug} "France" (which is also called {frans}). Most 
cmevla denote people's names, countries, or other things usually denoted by 
proper nouns in other languages. Diseases (when named, not predicated) are 
also named with cmevla, e.g. {zukám} "cold" (from Hindi and Arabic).

Other things that don't match up:
* Tenses, which are marked with particles such as {pu}, indicate space as well 
as time. {mo'ini'a xance ko} "move your hand downward" has "hand" as the 
"verb", with a spatial tense.
* Several words for "and" and "or" connect different kinds of phrases. There is 
no single way to translate "if".
* There is a predicate marker, {cu}. The only natlangs I know of with such a 
word are Bislamic languages such as Tok Pisin.
* There is no grammatical number. Rather, there is a mass-count distinction in 
the article.
* There's a part of speech (consisting of several selma'o, each with a single 
cmavo) called "terminator", which serves to terminate grammatical constructs. 
This contributes to the unambiguously parsable grammar.

Pierre
-- 
li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa

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