[lojban-beginners] bo

["Karl Naylor" <karl.org@gmail.com>]

Having read through Lojban for Beginners and up to Chapter 10 of the
Reference Grammar, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with 'bo'.  I
gather that there must be some kind of unified theory of 'bo' which
explains all its behaviours, otherwise we'd use different words for
the (apparently) different applications of 'bo'.

As I understand it, in tanru it binds the two nearest brivla (or
bracketed groups of brivla).  Between sentences it makes the preceding
connective connect the two sentences.  When used this way, it causes
its connective to swallow up the whole following sentence, not just a
single sumti.  Also it apparently reverses the meaning of tenses when
used between sentences.

My problem is that I don't see why these apparently disparate effects
all follow from the same word.  Is there any help to be found on this?