[Wikineurotic] Wiki page leçons wave en français changed by daeldir

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The page leçons wave en français was changed by daeldir at 12:54 CEST
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You can view the page by following this link:
 
http://lojban.org/tiki/le%C3%A7ons%20wave%20en%20fran%C3%A7ais

You can view a diff back to the previous version by following this link: 
http://lojban.org/tiki/tiki-pagehistory.php?page=le%C3%A7ons%20wave%20en%20fran%C3%A7ais&compare=1&oldver=36&newver=37


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- {BOX(title="Travail en cours")}<br />Cette page est une traduction en cours de ((wavelessonscontinued)) en franais. La majeure partie de la page est encore en anglais. Au fur et  mesure de la traduction, cette note sera mise  jour pour indiquer l'tat d'avancement des leons. 
+ {BOX(title="Travail en cours")}Cette page est une traduction en cours de ((wavelessonscontinued)) en franais. La majeure partie de la page est encore en anglais. Au fur et  mesure de la traduction, cette note sera mise  jour pour indiquer l'tat d'avancement des leons. 

- tat actuel: Leon zro traduite. Ncessite une validation par des lojbanistes confirms.
+ tat actuel: Leon zro et un traduites. Ncessitent une validation par des lojbanistes confirms.
{BOX} 





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{BOX(title="Travail en cours")}Cette page est une traduction en cours de ((wavelessonscontinued)) en français. La majeure partie de la page est encore en anglais. Au fur et à mesure de la traduction, cette note sera mise à jour pour indiquer l'état d'avancement des leçons. 



État actuel : Leçon zéro et un traduites. Nécessitent une validation par des lojbanistes confirmés.

{BOX} 



!Les leçons Wave continuées :

!!!Rédigées par la klaku, avec l'aide de lojbanistes variés. Basée sur le travail de la .kribacr. Printemps 2013.

Traduites de l'anglais vers le français par Daeldir.



!!Leçons de lojban – leçon zéro: avant propos

Ces leçons sont une tentative de développer les « Leçons de Google Wave », un excellent didacticiel consacré au lojban, écrit par kribacr, xalbo, et d'autres, qui, hélas, ne couvrait que les quatres premiers chapitres du présent didacticiel. Il traite des règles les plus récentes du lojban, qui ne sont pas couvertes par de plus anciens cours tels que « What is Lojban? », et « Lojban for Beginners ».



Si le lojban est totalement nouveau pour vous, je vous recommande d'écouter tout les enregistrement de lojban parlé que vous pourrez trouver, tant avant que pendant la lecture de ce didacticiel, afin de vous familiariser avec les sons et les mots du langage. De plus, essayez de prononcer ce que vous lisez avec l'accent lojban si vous le pouvez. Ceci vous aidera à prononcer le lojban. 



En suivant ce didacticiel, il est conseillé de prendre des pauses entre les leçons afin de digérer ce que vous avez appris. J'ai essayé de construire ces leçons du simple au complexe, et d'exclure tout mot ou concept qui n'a pas été expliqué dans les leçon précédente. Une fois expliqués, ils sont utilisés librement tout au long du reste du didacticiel. J'exhorte le lecteur à ne pas faire l'impasse sur un contenu incompris : si vous avez une question ou n'êtes pas certains d'une chose, n'ayez pas de complexe à demander à la communauté lojban, qui peut être trouvée sur #lojban sur le réseau IRC Freenode (en anglais), ou sur la [http://mail.lojban.org/mailman/listinfo/lojban-fr|mailing-list francophone]. Elle sera heureuse d'aider.



Dans ce didacticiel, le texte en lojban est écrit en ''italiques''. Les mots empruntés du lojban au français ne sont toutefois pas soumis à cette emphase. Les réponses des exercices sont affichées comme une barre grise. Sélectionnez cette barre pour voir le texte.



Enfin, j'ai autant que possible essayé d'utiliser les mots du lojban pour désigner les constructions grammaticales – ''sumka'i'' au lieu de pro-sumti, ''sumtcita'' au lieu de modal, et ''jufra'' au lieu d'énoncé – parce que j'ai l'impression que les mots français sont souvent soit arbitraires – juste des mots en plus à apprendre –, soit trompeurs – donc pire qu'inutiles. Dans les deux cas, puisque ces mots sont de toute façon spécifiques à l'apprentissage du lojban, il n'ont pas de raison d'exister comme des mots français distinct.



!!!Préface. Sons

La première chose à faire quand vous apprenez une langue étrangère est de vous familiariser avec les sons du langage et leur écriture. Il en va de même pour le lojban. Heureusement, les sons du lojban (__phonèmes__) sont plutôt simples.



!!!!Voyelles

Il y a six voyelles en lojban.



||''a'' |comme dans « p__a__p__a__ »

''e'' |comme dans « b__e__rg__è__re »

''i'' |comme dans « mach__i__ne »

''o'' |comme dans « __o__méga », « __au__t__o__mobile »

''u'' |comme dans « __ou__ », « l__ou__p »

''y'' |comme dans « mat__e__lot »||



La sixième voyelle, ''y'', est appelée un __schwa__ en linguistique. C'est un « e » très léger, non accentué, juste milieu entre le « e » marseillais (« mat__eu__lot ») et le « e » muet parisien (« mat'lot »).



Deux voyelles ensemble sont prononcées comme un son (__diphtongue__). Par exemple :



||''ai'' |comme dans « can__ai__lle »

''au'' |comme dans « c__aou__tchouc »

''ei'' |comme dans « ab__ei__lle »

''oi'' |comme dans « g__oy__ »

''ia'' |comme dans « p__ia__no »

''ie'' |comme dans « h__ie__r »

''iu'' |comme dans « ca__illou__ »

''ua'' |comme dans « q__uoi__ »

''ue'' |comme dans « br__oue__tte »

''uo'' |comme dans « dr__ouo__t »

''ui'' |comme dans « __oui__ » ||



Les voyelles doublées sont rares. Les seuls exemples sont ''ii'', prononcé comme dans « fa__illi__ », et ''uu'', prononcé comme dans « __Ou__h__ou__ ! » (quand on appelle quelqu'un, mais pas comme dans « Houhou » : dans le premier exemple, le ''h'' est muet, dans le deuxième, le ''h'' est aspiré – ce qui se transcrirait en lojban ''u'u'')



!!!!Consonnes

La plupart des consonnes sont les mêmes qu'en français, à quelque exceptions prêt :



||''g'' |se prononce toujours comme dans « __g__âteau », jamais comme dans « __g__enoux » (on utilise alors le « ''j'' »)

''s'' |se prononce toujours comme dans « __s__erpent », jamais comme dans « ro__s__e » (on utilise alors le « ''z'' »)

''c'' |se prononce ''ch'', comme dans « __ch__ateau »

''x'' |se prononce comme dans l'allemand « Ba__ch__ », l'espagnol « __J__ose » ou l'arabe « __Kh__aled »

''r'' |se prononce comme dans « arrivederci ». « ''r'' » accepte beaucoup de prononciations (à la française, à l'anglaise…) mais la prononciation italienne (''r'' roulé) est préférée||



Le lojban n'utilise pas les caractères « H », « Q » ou « W », et il n'y a pas de caractères accentués en lojban.



!!!!Caractères spéciaux



Le lojban ne requière aucune ponctuation, mais certain caractères, habituellement utilisés comme ponctuation dans d'autre langues, affectent la manière dont le lojban est prononcé.



Le seul de ces caractères qui soit obligatoire en lojban est l'apostrophe. En fait, l'apostrophe est considérée comme une lettre du lojban. Une apostrophe sépare deux voyelles, empêchant celles-ci d'être prononcées ensemble comme une __diphtongue__. Elle est elle même prononcée comme un « h ». Par exemple, « ''ui'' » est normalement prononcé comme « __oui__ », mais « ''u'i'' » est prononcé comme « __ou-hi__ ».



Un point est une courte pause évitant à deux mots de se confondre l'un dans l'autre. Les règles du lojban rendent facile la fusion de deux mots quand le second commence par une voyelle, et donc, par convention, chaque mot commençant par une voyelle est précédé par un point.



Les virgules sont rare en lojban, mais peuvent être utilisées pour empêcher deux voyelles de se fondre l'une dans l'autre quand vous ne voulez pas utiliser d'apostrophe, ce qui ajouterais un « h » entre elles. Aucun mot lojban n'a de virgule, mais elle est parfois utilisée dans l'écriture des noms d'autres langues. Par exemple, « ''pi,ER.'' » (Pierre), au lieu de « ''pier.'' » (P-yerr), « ''pi.ER.'' » (Pi; Ehr), ou « ''pi'ER'' » (Piherr).



Les lettres capitales ne sont normalement pas utilisées en lojban. Nous les utilisons dans des mots non lojban (comme « Pierre »), quand l'accent tonique d'un mot est différent de celui de la norme lojban. La norme consiste à mettre un accent tonique sur l'avant dernière syllabe. Par exemple, ''kujmikce'' (infirmière), est « kuj__MIK__ce », et non pas « __KUJ__mikce ». Le nom « Juliette » s'écrirait « ''juLIET.'' » si prononcé comme en français, mais « ''DJUli,et.'' » si prononcé comme en anglais.

!!!!Alphabet



Dans la plupart des manuels, lors de l'apprentissage d'une langue, vous apprenez l'alphabet du langage, et sa prononciation. Les lettres (''lerfu'') étant plus importantes en lojban qu'à l'accoutumée, autant apprendre leur noms rapidement.



Les consonnes sont simples : le nom d'une consonne est cette lettre, suivie de « y ». Ainsi, les consonnes du lojban, « b », « c », « d », « f », « g »… sont appelées « ''by.'' » (beu), « ''cy.'' » (cheu), « ''dy.'' » (deu), « ''fy.'' » (feu), « ''gy.'' » (gueu)… en lojban (en utilisant un point, comme décrit dans la partie précédente).



Les voyelles __seraient__ appelées « ''.ay'' », « ''.ey'' », « ''.iy'' »…, si c'était moins difficile à prononcer. Au lieu de ça, elles sont nommée en suivant le son de la voyelle par le mot ''bu'', qui signifie simplement « lettre ». Ainsi, les voyelles du lojban sont :  « ''.abu'' » (abou), « ''.ebu'' » (aibu), « ''.ibu'' » (ibou), « ''.obu'' » (aubou), « ''.ubu'' » (oubou), « ''.ybu'' » (eubou).



L'apostrophe est considérée comme une vrai lettre en lojban, et est nommée « ''.y'y.'' » (« euheu »… Un peu comme une petite toux).



Le lojban a un moyen de se référer à la plupart des lettres auxquelles vous pouvez penser. Si vous désirez dès maintenant épeler votre nom en lojban, et que celui ci possède un « H », « Q » ou « W », vous pouvez utiliser « ''.y'y.bu'' », « ''ky.bu'' » et « ''vy.bu'' ». Ainsi, « Schwarzenegger » est épelé en lojban :

''sy. cy. .y'ybu vybu. .abu ry. zy. .ebu ny. .ebu gy. gy. .ebu ry.''



Et épeler __ça__ est une tâche digne du Terminator !



Maintenant, épelez votre nom en lojban (le cas échéant, de la manière la plus proche que vous pouvez avec les 26 lettres que nous venons d'apprendre, et l'apostrophe).

!!!! Prononciation « correcte »



''Cette page est à la fois une traduction de la version anglaise, et une adaptation aux problèmes rencontrés par les francophones plutot que par les anglophones. Par manque d'expérience dans l'enseignement du lojban à des francophones, cette partie peut donc manquer de conseils ou rester inadaptée, voire confuse. N'hésitez pas à demander sur la [http://mail.lojban.org/mailman/listinfo/lojban-fr|mailing-list] francophone si vous avez un problème – ceci pourrait nous aider à améliorer cette page !''



Vous n'avez pas à avoir une prononciation précise du lojban, car chaque phonème est distribué de manière à ce qu'il soit difficile de confondre deux sons. Ceci signifie que, pour une lettre, plutôt qu'une prononciation « correcte », il y a une gamme de sons acceptés – le principe général étant qu'un son est bon tant qu'il ne ressemble pas trop à une autre lettre. Par exemple, le « r » lojban peut être prononcé comme en anglais, italien, français… 



Cependant, bien que le [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonne_fricative_uvulaire_vois%C3%A9e|« r » français] soit considéré comme un « ''r'' », celui-ci est aussi proche du [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonne_fricative_uvulaire_sourde|« ''x'' »] lojban. Pour comprendre la différence entre ces deux sons, observez la différence entre le son « ''d'' » et le son « ''t'' » : l'un est vocalisé, l'autre non. La même distinction s'opère entre le « ''r'' » français et le « ''x'' ». Je vous conseille donc d'opter pour un « r » moins ambigu. Concernant le « r » roulé, deux prononciations sont possible : le [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonne_roul%C3%A9e_alv%C3%A9olaire_vois%C3%A9e|« r »] espagnol, situé à l'avant du palais, et un [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonne_roul%C3%A9e_uvulaire_vois%C3%A9e|« r »] plus proche de la gorge, comme celui d'Edit Piaf. Choisissez la prononciation qui vous pose le moins de problème, tant qu'elle ne se confond pas avec une autre lettre du lojban.



Faites aussi attention à bien appuyer les voyelles – mis à part le « ''y'' » qui ''doit'' être court. La raison en est que les voyelles « non-lojban » peuvent être utilisées pour séparer les consonnes par les personnes qui n'arrivent pas à les prononcer. Par exemple, si vous avez un problème avec le « ''zd'' » de « ''zdani'' » (maison), vous pouvez dire « zɪdani », avec un « ɪ » très court, mais le « i » final long. 

!!!!Noms lojban (cmevla)



Dans les films où les protagonistes n'ont pas de langue commune, ils commencent souvent par dire des choses telles que « Moi Tarzan », ce qui est une manière comme une autre de débuter en lojban. Et donc :



__''mi'e .rafael.''__

« Je-suis-nommé Rafael »

« Je suis Rafael »



''mi'e'' est apparenté à ''mi'', qui signifie « moi », « je »… C'est un bon exemple de l'apostrope séparant deux voyelles, prononcé « mi hai ». 



Ce Rafael est chanceux : son nom se transcrit directement en lojban, sans changement. Il y a toutefois des règles pour les noms lojban, ce qui signifie que certains noms doivent êtres « lojbanisés ». Cela peut sembler étrange. Après tout, un nom est un nom… En fait, tout les langages font ce genre d'adapation à un certain niveau. Par exemple, les anglais tendent à prononcer « Jose » comme « Hozay », et « Margaret » devient « Magelita » en chinois.



Prenons le nom « Cyril ». Si Cyril essaye d'imiter Rafael, les lojbanistes vont l'appeler « cheuril », ce qui n'est pas très joli. Ici, le « C » est en fait un « ''s'' », et le « y » un « ''i'' ». Cyril devient, en lojban, « ''.siril.'' ».



Certains sons n'existent pas dans certains langages. Ainsi, la première chose à faire est de réécrire votre nom de manière à ce qu'il ne contienne que des sons lojban, et soit écrit comme un mot lojban.



En français, Robin se prononce « raubain ». Et « ain » n'existe pas en lojban. Généralement, on utilisera le « ''n'' » pour obtenir la nasalisation. Ainsi, Robin s'écrira « ''.robin.'' », Jean « ''.jan.'' », et Dupond « ''.dupon.'' ». Notez aussi que dans ce dernier cas, le « u » sera prononcé « ou » : « douponne ». Comme le prononcerait un italien !



La langue d'origine du nom est aussi importante : un Michael français transcrira son nom « ''.mikael.'' », mais un Michael anglais transcrira son nom « ''.maikyl.'' », ou « ''.maik,l'' ». Ou encore, pour Robin, en anglais, les voyelles anglaises et américaines sont assez différentes. Le Robin anglais peut être raisonnablement approximé par « ''.robin.'' », mais la version américaine est plus proche de « ''.rabyn.'' » ou « ''.rab,n.'' ». Et à l'intérieur d'un même pays, de nombreuses variations sont possibles. Aussi devriez vous prendre les transliterations données ici avec des pincettes.



Notez aussi que pour les noms de villes, par exemple, on préférera la version locale du nom à la version française. Ainsi, Londre ne sera pas transcrit « ''.londr.'' », mais « ''.london.'' », et Belgrade sera « ''.beograd.'' » plutôt que « ''.belgrad.'' ».



Vous avez peut-être noté les deux points qui apparaissent dans chaque nom lojban… Ceux-ci sont nécessaires car sans pause, il peut être difficile de savoir quand le mot précédent finit, et quand le mot suivant débute.



Vous devriez aussi placer un point entre le nom et le prénom d'une personne (bien que ce ne soit pas obligatoire). Ainsi, « Joseph Benard » devient « ''.jozef.benar.'' ».



Une règle importante dans la lojbanisation des noms est que la dernière lettre d'un ''cmevla'' (nom lojban) doit toujours être une consonne. Encore, ceci a pour but d'éviter la confusion quant à savoir où est la fin d'un mot, et si un mot est ou n'est pas un nom (tout les autres mot lojban finissant par une voyelle). Dans le cas où un mot finit par une voyelle, « ''s'' » est souvent ajouté à la fin. Ainsi, « Marie » devient en lojban « ''.maris.'' », « Joe » devient « ''.djos.'' », et ainsi de suite. Une alternative consiste à supprimer la dernière voyelle, « Marie » devenant « ''.mar.'' ».



Une dernière chose : comme nous l'avons vu, l'accent tonique des mots lojban est situé sur l'avant dernière syllabe. Si l'accent tonique d'un nom se trouve ailleurs, des lettres majuscules sont utilisées. Ceci signifie que le nom « Robert » sera écrit différemment suivant qu'il soit anglais ou français : « ''.roBER.'' » en français, « ''.robyt.'' » en anglais et « ''.rab,rt.'' » en américain.



Afin de vous donner une idée de comment tout ceci fonctionne, voici une liste de noms de quelque personnages célèbres dans leur propre langue et en lojban.



||__Français__

Napoleon Bonaparte |''.napole,ON.bonaPART.''

Juliette Binoche |''.juLIET.binOC.'' ||

||__Anglais__

Margaret Thatcher |''.magryt.tatcyr.''

Mick Jagger |''.mik.djagys.'' ||

||__Chinois__

Lao Tseu |''.laudz.''

Mao Zedong |''.maudzyDYN.'' (Le « ng » final est conventionellement tranformé en « ''n'' » en lojban.) ||

||__Turc__

Mustafa Kemal |''.MUStafas.keMAL.''

Erkin Koray |''.erkin.korais.'' ||

||__Allemand__

Friedrich Nietzsche |''.fridrix.nitcys.''

Clara Schumann |''.klaras.cuman.'' ||

||__Espagnol__

Isabel Allende |''.izaBEL.aiendes.''

Che Guevara |''.tcegevaras.'' ||



__Exercice :__

Où sont ces lieux ?

#.nu,IORK.

#.romas.

#.xavanas.

#.kardif.

#.beidjin.

#.ANkaras.

#.ALbekerkis.

#.vankuver.

#.keiptaun.

#.taibeis.

#.bon.

#.diliys.

#.nis.

#.atinas.

#.lidz.

#.xelsinkis.



Réponses:

~~gray,gray:~~

#~~gray,gray:New York: États-Unis d'Amérique~~

#~~gray,gray:Rome: Italie~~

#~~gray,gray:Havana: Cuba~~

#~~gray,gray:Cardiff: Pays de Galles (Le gallois pour « Cardiff » est « Caerdydd », se qui se lojbaniserait comme « ''.kairdyd.'' ».)~~

#~~gray,gray:Beijing: Chine~~

#~~gray,gray:Ankara: Turkie~~

#~~gray,gray:Albequerque: Nouveau-Mexique, États-Unis d'Amérique~~

#~~gray,gray:Vancouver: Canada~~

#~~gray,gray:Cape Town: Afrique du sud~~

#~~gray,gray:Taipei: Taiwan (Note : on utilise « ''b'' », et non « ''p'' ». Bien qu'en fait, le b en Pinyin soit prononcé p… Mais nous ne sommes pas dans un cours de mandarin !)~~

#~~gray,gray:Bonn: Allemagne~~

#~~gray,gray:Delhi: Inde (L'hindi pour « Delhi » est « Dillî », ce qui donne « ''.diliys.'' » ou « ''.dili'is.'' ».)~~

#~~gray,gray:Nice: France~~

#~~gray,gray:Athens: Grèce (« Athina » en grecque)~~

#~~gray,gray:Leeds: Angleterre~~

#~~gray,gray:Helsinki: Finlande~~



__Exercise :__

Lojbanisez les noms suivant :

#John

#Melissa

#Amanda

#Matthew

#Mathieu

#Michael

#David Bowie

#Jane Austen

#William Shakespeare

#Sigourney Weaver

#Richard Nixon

#Istanbul

#Madrid

#Tokyo

#San Salvador



Réponses :

~~gray,gray:Il y a souvent d'autres épellations pour les noms, soit parce que les gens prononcent l'original différemment, soit parce que le son exact n'existe pas en lojban, et que l'on doit choisir entre deux lettres. Ce n'est pas important, du moment que tout le monde sait de qui ou quoi vous parlez.~~

#~~gray,gray:.djon. (ou .djan. avec certains accents, et parfois .jon. en français)~~

#~~gray,gray:.melisas. (.melisys. en anglais)~~

#~~gray,gray:.amandas. (En anglais, suivant les accents, le « ''a'' » final peut être un « ''y'' », de même pour le « ''a'' » initial, et le « ''a'' » du milieu peut être un « ''e'' ».)~~

#~~gray,gray:.matius.~~

#~~gray,gray:.maTIYS.~~

#~~gray,gray:.mikael. (.maikyl. ou .maik,l. en anglais.)~~

#~~gray,gray:.deivyd.bau,is. ou .bo,is. (pas .bu,is. — ce serait alors le ''couteau'' Bowie)~~

#~~gray,gray:.djein.ostin.~~

#~~gray,gray:.uiliam.cekspir.~~

#~~gray,gray:.sigornis.uivyr. ou .sygornis.uivyr.~~

#~~gray,gray:.ritcyrd.niksyn.~~

#~~gray,gray:.istanbul.~~

#~~gray,gray:.maDRID.~~

#~~gray,gray:.tokios.~~

#~~gray,gray:.san.salvaDOR. (avec l'accent tonique espagnol)~~

!!!!Mots lojban comme noms



À présent, vous devriez être capable de lojbaniser votre propre nom. Toutefois, si vous le préférez, vous pouvez traduire votre nom en lojban (si vous savez ce qu'il signifie, bien sûr), ou adopter une toute nouvelle identité lojbane. Les indiens d'amérique ont tendance à traduire leur nom en anglais, partiellement parce que leur nom signifie quelque chose, et partiellement parce qu'il ne s'attendent pas à ce que le « wasichu » soit capable de prononcer des mots en Lakota, Cherokee ou autre !



Les mots lojban (mis à part les cmevla) se terminent par une voyelle. Vous pouvez utiliser des mots lojban comme nom, mais si vous préférez que votre nom soit un cmevla et qu'il se termine par une voyelle, vous pouvez soit ajouter une consonne à la fin de celui-ci, soit tronquer la dernière voyelle.



Voici quelques exemples (nom original, signification, nom et nom comme cmevla) :

*Fish (Anglais = poisson) – finpe – ''.finp.''

*Björn (Scandinave = ours) – cribe – ''.crib.''

*Verdi (Italien = vert) – crino – ''.crin.''

*Mei Li (Chinois = beau) – melbi – ''.melb.''

*Ayhan (Turc = Seigneur Lune) – lunra nobli (= lurnobli) – ''.lurnoblis.''

!!Leçons de lojban – leçon un : bridi, jufra, sumti et selbri



Un ''bridi'' est le type d'expression le plus couramment rencontré en lojban. Le concept est très proche des propositions, dans la grammaire française. Un bridi est une déclaration qu'un objet est en relation avec un autre, ou que cet objet possède certaines propriétés. Il est a contraster avec les ''jufra'', qui représentent n'importe quelle expression lojbane, que ce soit des bridi ou d'autres types de phrases. La différence entre un bridi et un jufra est qu'un jufra ne spécifie pas forcément quelque chose, mais un bridi le fait. Ainsi, un bridi peut être vrai ou faux, mais un jufra peut ne pas être qualifié de la sorte.



Pour avoir quelques exemples, en français pour commencer, « Mozart était le meilleurs musicien de tout les temps » est un bridi, parce qu'il déclare quelque chose comme vrai, et qu'il implique un objet, Mozart, et une propriété, être le plus grand musicien de tout les temps. Au contraire, « Aïe ! Mon orteil ! » n'est pas un bridi, puisqu'il n'implique pas de relation, et ne déclare donc rien. Ces deux phrases sont toutefois des jufra.



Essayez d'identifier les bridi parmi ces jufra français :



# « Je déteste quand tu fais ça. »

# « Coure ! »

# « Mmmh ! Ça semble délicieux. »

# « Oh non, pas encore… »

# « Maintenant, je possède trois voitures. »

# « Huit heure et dix-neuf minutes. »

# « Ce samedi, oui. »



Réponse : ~~grey,grey:1, 3 et 5 sont des bridi. 2 ne contient pas d'objet, et les autres ne contiennent pas de relation ni de déclarent de propriétés.~~



Décomposé en termes lojban, un bridi est constitué d'un ''selbri'', et d'un ou plusieurs ''sumti''. Le selbri est la relation ou déclaration à propos des objets, et les sumti sont les objets impliqués dans la relation. Notez que « objet » n'est pas une traduction parfaite de « sumti », parce qu'un sumti peut se référer autant à un objet physique qu'à des choses purement abstraites comme « l'idée de la guerre ». Une meilleure traduction serait quelque chose comme « sujet, objet direct ou indirect » pour les sumti, et « verbe » pour les selbri, bien que, comme nous le verrons plus tard, ce n'est pas non plus optimal.



Nous pouvons maintenant écrire notre première leçon importante :

bridi = selbri + un ou plusieurs sumti



Dit d'une autre manière, un bridi définit qu'un ou plusieurs sumti sont/font quelque chose expliqué par un selbri.



Identifiez l'équivalent des sumti et du selbri dans ces jufra français :



« Je vais récupérer mes filles avec ma voiture. »



Réponse : ~~grey,grey:selbri: « vais récupérer (avec) ». sumti: « Je », « mes filles », « ma voiture »~~



« Il a acheté cinq nouveaux shirts à Mark pour à peine deux-cent euros ! »



Réponse : ~~grey,grey:selbri: « a acheté (à) (pour) » sumti: « Il », « cinq nouveau shirts », « Mark » et « deux-cent euros »~~



Puisque ces concepts sont si fondamentals en lojban, regardons un troisième exemple :

« Jusqu'à maintenant, l'EPA n'a rien fait à propos de la quantité de dioxide de soufre. »



Réponse : ~~grey,grey:selbri: « a fait (à propos de) » sumti: « l'EPA », « rien » et « la quantité de dioxide de soufre »~~



Maintenant, essayez de créer des bridi en lojban. Pour cela, vous aurez besoin de mots, qui peuvent faire office de selbri :

''__dunda__'' x1 donne x2 à x3 (sans paiement)

''__pelxu__'' x1 est jaune

''__zdani__'' x1 est une maison de x2



Notez que ces mots, « donner », « jaune » et « maison », seraient considérés comme un verbe, un adjectif et un nom, respectivement. En lojban, il n'y a pas ces catégories, et donc pas de distinction. ''dunda'' peut être traduit par « donner » (un verbe), « un donneur » (nom), « donnant » (adjectif), ou même comme un adverbe. Ils se comportent tous comme des selbri, et sont utilisés de la même manière.



Vous aurez aussi besoin de quelque mots, qui feront office de sumti :

''__mi__'' « moi », « je » ou « nous » – Celui ou ceux qui parle/parlent.

''__ti__'' « ceci » – Une chose ou un évènement proche, qui peut être pointé par le locuteur.

''__do__'' « tu » ou « vous » – Celui où ceux à qui l'on s'adresse.



Vous voyez la traduction bizarre des selbri ci-dessus — notamment le x1, x2 et x3 ? Ils sont appelés des emplacement de sumti. Ce sont des emplacement où l'on peut mettre un sumti pour compléter un bridi. Compléter un emplacement de sumti signifie que le sumti s'accorde à cet emplacement. Le second emplacement de ''dunda'', par exemple, x2, est la chose qui est donnée. Le troisième emplacement est l'objet recevant le don. Notez comme la traduction de ''dunda'' contient le mot « à ». Ceci est dû au fait qu'en français, « à » est utilisé pour signifier le receveur, qui est au troisième emplacement de ''dunda''. Ainsi, quand vous complétez le troisième emplacement de ''dunda'', le sumti que vous y placez est toujours le receveur, et vous n'avez pas besoin d'un équivalent au mot « à ».



Pour exprimer un bridi, vous utilisez simplement le sumti x1 en premier, puis le selbri, puis les autres sumti.



Un bridi habituel : {sumti x1} __{selbri}__ {sumti x2} {sumti x3} {sumti x4} {sumti x5} {et ainsi de suite}



L'ordre peut varier, mais pour le moment, nous nous contenterons de la forme habituelle. Pour dire « Je donne ceci à toi », vous dîtes juste : « ''mi dunda ti do'' », avec chaque sumti au bon emplacement.



Donc, comment diriez vous « Ceci est une maison de moi ” ?



Réponse : ~~grey,grey:''ti zdani mi''~~



Essayez de répondre à ces quelques autres questions pour vous familiariser avec l'idée de cette structure par emplacements :



Comment traduire « Tu donnes ceci à moi. » ?



Réponse : ~~grey,grey:''do dunda ti mi''~~



Et que veut dire « ''ti pelxu'' » ?



Réponse : ~~grey,grey:Ceci est jaune.~~



Plutôt facile une fois que l'on a compris, non ?



Plusieurs bridi les uns à la suite des autres sont séparés par « ''.i'' ». « .i » est l'équivalent lojban d'un point, mais se place en général avant le bridi, plutôt qu'après. Il est souvent omis avant le premier bridi, cependant, comme dans cet exemple :



''__.i__'' Séparateur de phrases. Sépare des jufra (et par conséquent des bridi aussi).



''ti zdani mi  .i ti pelxu'' « Ceci est une maison de moi. Ceci est jaune. »



Avant de continuer avec la leçon suivante, je vous recommande de faire une pause d'au moins sept minutes pour digérer ces informations.



!!Lojban Lessons – lesson two (FA and zo'e)

Most selbri have from one to five sumti places, but some have more. Here is a selbri with four sumti places:

''__vecnu__'' x1 sells x2 to x3 for price x4



If I want to say “I sell this”, it would be too much to have to fill the sumti places x3 and x4, which specify who I sell the thing to, and for what price. Luckily, I don't need to. sumti places can be filled with ''zo'e''. ''zo'e'' indicates to us that the value of the sumti place is unspecified because it's unimportant or can be determined from context.

''__zo'e__'' “something” Fills a sumti place with something, but does not state what.



So to say “I sell to you”, I could say ''mi vecnu zo'e do zo'e'' – I sell something to you for some price.

How would you say: “That's a home (for somebody)”?



Answer: ~~grey,grey: ''ti zdani zo'e''~~



How about “(someone) gives this to (someone)”?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''zo'e dunda ti zo'e''~~



Still, filling out three zo'e just to say that a thing is being sold takes time. Therefore you don't need to write all the ''zo'e'' in a bridi. The rule simply is that if you leave out any sumti, they will be considered as if they contained ''zo'e''. If the bridi begins with a selbri, the x1 is presumed to be omitted and it becomes ''zo'e''.

Try it out. What's Lojban for “I sell”?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi vecnu''~~



And what does ''zdani mi'' mean?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“Something is a home of me” or just “I have a home.”~~



As mentioned earlier, the form doesn't have to be {x1 sumti} {selbri} {x2 sumti} {x3 sumti} (ect.) In fact, you can place the selbri anywhere you want, just not at the beginning of the bridi. If you do that, the x1 is considered left out and filled with ''zo'e'' instead. So the following three jufra are all the exactly same bridi:

''mi dunda ti do''

''mi ti dunda do''

''mi ti do dunda''



Sometimes this is used for poetic effect. “You sell yourself” could be ''do do vecnu'', which sounds better than ''do vecnu do''. Or it can be used for clarity if the selbri is very long and therefore better be left at the end of the bridi.



There are also several ways to play around with the order of the sumti inside the bridi. The easiest one is by using the words ''fa'', ''fe'', ''fi'', ''fo'' and ''fu''. Notice that the vowels are the five vowels in the Lojban alphabet in order. Using one of these words marks that the next sumti will fill the x1, x2, x3, x4 and x5 respectively. The next sumti after that will be presumed to fill a slot one greater than the previous. To use an example:

''dunda fa do fe ti do'' – “Giving by you of this thing to you”. ''fa'' marks the x1, the giver, which is you. ''fe'' marks the thing being given, the x2. Sumti counting then continues from ''fe'', meaning that the last sumti fills x3, the object receiving.



Attempt to translate the following three sentences:



''mi vecnu fo ti fe do''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:”I sell, for the price of this, you”. or “I sell you for the price of this” (probably pointing to a bunch of money)~~



''zdani fe ti''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“This has a home”. Here, the fe is redundant.~~



''vecnu zo'e mi ti fa do''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“You sell something to me for this price”~~





!!Lojban Lessons – lesson three (tanru and lo)

In this lesson, you will become familiar with the concept of a ''tanru''. A tanru is formed when a selbri is put in front of another selbri, modifying its meaning. A tanru is itself a selbri, and can combine with other selbri or tanru to form more complex tanru. Thus ''zdani vecnu'' is a tanru, as well as  ''pelxu zdani vecnu'', which is made from the tanru ''pelxu zdani'' and the single brivla word ''vecnu''. To understand the concept of tanru, consider the English noun combination “lemon tree”. If you didn't know what a lemon tree was, but had heard about both lemons and trees, you would not be able to deduce what a lemon tree was. Perhaps a lemon-colored tree, or a tree shaped like a lemon, or a tree whose bark tastes like lemon. The only things you could know for sure would be that it would be a tree, and it would be lemon-like in some way.

A tanru is closely analogous to this. It cannot be said exactly what a ''zdani vecnu'' is, but it can be said that it is definitely a vecnu, and that it's zdani-like in some way. And it could be zdani-like in any way. In theory, no matter how silly or absurd the connection to zdani was, it could still truly be a ''zdani vecnu''. However, it must actually be a vecnu in the ordinary sense in order for the tanru to apply. You could gloss ''zdani vecnu'' as “home seller”, or even better but worse sounding “a home-type-of seller”. The place structure of a tanru is always that of the rightmost selbri. It's also said that the left selbri modifies the right selbri.

“Really?”, you ask, sceptically, “It doesn't matter how silly the connection to the left word in a tanru is, it's still true? So I could call all sellers for ''zdani vecnu'' and then make up some silly excuse why I think it's zdani-like?”

Well yes, but then you'd be a dick. Or at least you'd be intentionally misleading. In general, you should use a tanru when it's obvious how the left word relates to the right.



Attempt to translate the following: ''ti pelxu zdani do''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“That is a yellow home for you” Again, we don't know in which way it's yellow. Probably it's painted yellow, but we don't know for sure.~~



''mi vecnu dunda''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“I sell-like give”. What can that mean? No idea. It certainly doesn't mean that you sold something, since, by definition of ''dunda'', there can be no payment involved. It has to be a giveaway, but be sell-like in some aspect.~~



And now for something completely different. What if I wanted to say I sold to a German?

''__dotco__'' x1 is German/reflects German culture in aspect x2



I can't say ''mi vecnu zo'e dotco'' because that would leave two selbri in a bridi, which is not permitted. I could say ''mi dotco vecnu'' but that would be unnecessary vague - I could sell in a German way. Likewise, if I want to say “I am friends with an American”, what should I say?

''__pendo__'' 1x is a friend of x2

''__merko__'' x1 is American/reflect US culture in aspect x2



Again, the obvious would be to say ''mi pendo merko'', but that would form a tanru, meaning “I am friend-like American”, which is wrong. What we really want to is to take the selbri ''merko'' and transform it into a sumti so it can be used in the selbri ''pendo''. This is done by the two words ''lo'' and ''ku''.

__''lo''__ – generic begin convert selbri to sumti word. Extracts x1 of selbri to use as sumti.

__''ku''__ – end convert selbri to sumti process.



You simply place a selbri between these two words, and it takes anything that can fill the x1 of that selbri and turns it into a sumti.

So for instance, the things that can fill zdani‘s x1 are only things which are homes of somebody. So ''lo zdani ku'' means “a home or some homes for somebody.” Similarly, if I say that something is pelxu, it means it's yellow. So ''lo pelxu ku'' refers to something yellow.



Now you have the necessary grammar to be able to say “I am friends with an American.” How?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi pendo lo merko ku''~~



There is a good reason why the ''ku'' is necessary. Try to translate “A German sells this to me”



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''lo dotco ku vecnu ti mi'' If you leave out the ku, you do not get a bridi, but simply three sumti. Since lo…ku cannot convert bridi, the ti is forced outside the sumti, the lo-construct is forced to close and it simply becomes the three sumti of ''lo dotco vecnu {ku}'', ''ti'' and ''mi''.~~



You always have to be careful with jufra like ''lo zdani ku pelxu''. If the ''ku'' is left out the conversion process does not end, and it simply becomes one sumti, made from the tanru ''zdani pelxu'' and then converted with ''lo''.





!!Lojban Lessons – lesson four (attitudinals)

Another concept which can be unfamiliar to English speakers is that of attitudinals. Attitudinals are words that express emotions directly. The idea of attitudinals originated in the feminist constructed language Ladan, supposedly to enable true female emotions. The idea was that female emotional expression was hindered by male dominated language, and if only they were able to be expressed more freely, this would empower women through liberation of the language.

In Lojban, there is no such agenda, and attitudinals most probably have been designed into the language because they turned out to be incredibly awesome and useful. They all have a so-called free grammar, which means that they can appear almost anywhere within bridi without disrupting the bridi's grammar or any grammatical constructs.

In Lojban grammar, an attitudinal applies to the previous word. If that previous word is a word which begins a construct (like ''.i'' or ''lo''), it applies to the entire construct. Likewise, if the attitudinal follows a word which ends a construct like ''ku'', it applies to the ended construct.



Let's have two attitudinals to make some examples:

__''.ui''__: attitudinal: simple pure emotion: happiness - unhappiness

__''za'a''__: attitudinal: evidential: I directly observe



Note that in the definition of ''.ui'', there are listed two emotions, happiness and unhappiness. This means that ''.ui'' is defined as happiness, while its “negation”, means unhappiness. “Negation” might be the wrong word here. Technically, the other definition of ''.ui'' is another construct, ''.ui nai''. Most of the time, the second definition of attitudinals - the ones suffixed with ''nai'' - really is the negation of the bare attitudinal. Other times, not so much.

__''nai''__ misc. negation - attached to attitudinals, it changes the meaning into the attitudinal's "negation"



And some more selbri, just for the heck of it:

__''citka''__ – x1 eats x2

__''plise''__ – x1 is an apple of strain/type x2



The sentence ''do citka lo plise ku .ui'', means “You eat an apple, yay!” (especially expressing that it is the __apple__ that the speaker is happy about, not the eating, or the fact that it was you.) In the sentence ''do za'a citka lo plise ku'', the speaker directly observes that it is indeed the __“you”__, who eats an apple as opposed to someone else.



If an attitudinal is placed at the beginning of the bridi, it is understood to apply to an explicit or implicit ''.i'', thus applying to the entire bridi:

''.ui za'a do dunda lo plise ku mi'' – “Yay, I observe that you give an/some apple to me!”



''mi vecnu .ui nai lo zdani ku'' “I sell (which sucks!) a home”.



Try it out with a few examples. First, though, here are some more attitudinals:

__''.u'u''__ attitudinal: simple pure emotion: guilt - remorselessness - innocence.

__''.oi''__ attitudinal: complex pure emotion: complaint - pleasure.

__''.iu''__ attitudinal: miscellaneous pure emotion: love - hate.



Look at that, two words with three emotions in the definition! The middle one is accessed by suffixinng with ''cu'i''. It's considered the midpoint of the emotion.

__''cu'i''__ attitudinal midpoint scalar: attach to attitudinal to change the meaning to the "midpoint" of the emotion.



Try saying “I give something to a German, who I love”



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi dunda fi lo dotco ku .iu'' or ''zo'e'' instead of ''fi''~~



Now “Aah, I eat a yellow apple”

Answer: ~~grey,grey:''.oi nai mi citka lo pelxu plise ku''~~



Let's have another attitudinal of a different kind to illustrate something peculiar:

''.ei'' Attitudinal: complex propositional emotion: obligation - freedom.



So, quite easy: “I have to give the apple away” is ''mi dunda .ei lo plise ku'', right? It is, actually! When you think about it, that's weird. Why is it that all the other attitudinals we have seen so far expresses the speaker's feeling about the bridi, but this one actually changes what the bridi means? Surely, by saying “I have to give the apple away”, we say nothing about whether the apple actually is being given away. If I had used ''.ui'', however, I would actually have stated that I gave the apple away, and that I was happy about it. What's that all about?



This issue, exactly how attitudinals change the conditions on which a bridi is true, is a subject of a minor debate. The official, “textbook” rule, which probably won't be changed, is that there is a distinction between “pure emotions” and “propositional emotions”. Only propostional emotions can change the truth conditions, while pure emotions cannot. In order to express a propositional emotional attitudinal without changing the truth value of the bridi, you can just separate it from the bridi with ''.i''. There is also a word for explicitly conserving or changing the truth conditions of a bridi:



__''da'i''__ attitudinal: discursive: supposing - in fact

Saying ''da'i'' in a bridi changes the truth conditions to hypothetical, which is the default using propositional attitudinals. Saying ''da'i nai'' changes the truth condition to the normal, which is default using pure attitudinals.



So, what's two ways of saying “I give the apple away”? (and feel obligation about it)



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi dunda lo plise .i .ei''  and ''mi dunda da'i nai .ei lo plise''~~



The feeling of an attitudinal can be subscribed to someone else using ''dai''. Usually in ordinary speech, the attitudinal is subscribed to the listener, but it doesn't have to be so. Also, because the word is glossed “empathy” (feeling others emotions), some Lojbanists mistakenly think that the speaker must share the emotion being subscribed to others.

__''dai''__ attitudinal modifyer: Empathy (subscribes attitudinal to someone else, unspecified)

Example: ''u'i .oi dai citka ti'' - “Ha ha, this was eaten! That must have hurt!”



What often used phrase could ''.oi u'i dai'' mean?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“Ouch, very funny.”~~



And another one to test your knowledge: Try to translate “He was sorry he sold a home” (remembering, that tense is implied and need not be specified. Also, “he” could be obvious from context)



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''u'u dai vecnu lo zdani ku''~~



Lastly, the intensity of an attitudinal can be specified using certain words. These can be used after an attitudinal, or an attitudinal with ''nai'' or ''cu'i'' suffixed. It's less clear what happens when you attach it to other words, like a selbri, must it's mostly understood as intensifying or weakening the selbri in some unspecified way:

|| Modifying word  | Intensity  

 cai|   Extreme

 sai|   Strong

 (none)|   Unspecified (medium)

 ru'e  |   Weak||



What emotion is expressed using ''.u'i nai sai'' ?

__''.u'i''__: attitudinal: simple pure emotion: amusement - weariness



Answer: ~~grey,grey:Strong weariness~~



And how would you express that you are mildly remorseless?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''.u'u cu'i ru'e''~~



!!Lojban lessons – lesson five (SE)

Before we venture into the territory of more complex constructs, you should learn another mechanism for reordering the sumti of a selbri. This, as we will show, is very useful for making description-like sumti (the kind of sumti with ''lo'').

Consider the sentence “I eat a gift”, which might be appropriate if that gift is an apple. To translate this, it would seem natural to look up a selbri meaning “gift” before continuing. However, if one looks carefully at the definition of ''dunda'', x1 gives x2 to x3, one realizes that the x2 of ''dunda'' is something given – a gift.

So, to express that sentence, we can't say ''mi citka lo dunda ku'', because ''lo dunda ku'' would be the x1 of ''dunda'', which is a donor of a gift. Cannibalism aside, we don't want to say that. What we want is a way to extract the x2 of a selbri.

This is one example where it is useful to use the word ''se''. What ''se'' does is to modify a selbri such that the x1 and x2 of that selbri trade places. The construct of ''se'' + selbri is on its own considered one selbri. Let's try with an ordinary sentence:

__''fanva''__ = “x1 translates x2 to language x3 from language x4 with result of translation x5”

''ti se fanva mi'' = ''mi fanva ti''

This is translated by me (= I translate this). Often, but not always, bridi with ''se''-constructs are translated to sentences with the passive voice, since the x1 is often the object taking action.

''se'' has its own family of words. All of them swap a different place with the x1.

||se	|swap x1 and x2

te	|swap x1 and x3

ve	|swap x1 and x4

xe	|swap x1 and x5||

Note that s, t, v, and x are consecutive consonants in the lojban alphabet.



So: Using this knowledge, what would ''ti xe fanva ti'' mean?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“This is a translation of this” (or ''fanva ti fu ti'')~~



''se'' and its family can of course be combined with ''fa'' and its family. The result can be very confusing indeed, if you wish to make it so:

__''klama''__ = “x1 travels/goes to x2 from x3 via x4 using x5 as transportation device”

''fu lo zdani ku te klama fe do ti fa mi'' = ''mi te klama do ti lo zdani ku'' and since ''te'' exchanges x1 and x3: = ''ti klama do mi lo zdani ku''

“This travels to you from me via a home.” Of course, no one would make such a sentence except to confuse people, or cruelly to test their understanding of Lojban grammar.

And thus, we have come to the point where we can say “I eat a gift.”. Simply exchange the sumti places of ''dunda'' to get the gift to be x1, then extract this new x1 with ''lo''...''ku''. So, how would you say it?

One (possible) answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi citka lo se dunda ku''~~

This shows one of the many uses for ''se'' and its family.





!!Lojban lessons – lesson six (abstractions)

So far we have only expressed single sentences one at a time. To express more complex things, however, you often need subordinate sentences. Luckily, these are much easier in Lojban than what one would expect.

We can begin with an example to demonstrate this: “I am happy that you are my friend.” Here, the main bridi is “I am happy that X.”, and the sub-bridi is “You are my friend.” Looking at the definition for “happy”, which is ''gleki'':

__''gleki''__ “x1 is happy about x2 (event/state)”

One sees that the x2 needs to be an event or a state. This is natural, because one cannot be happy about an object in itself, only about some state the object is in. But alas! Only bridi can express a state or an event, and only sumti can fill the x2 of ''gleki''!

As you might have guessed, there is a solution. The words ''su'u''...''kei'' is a generic “convert bridi to selbri” function, and works just like ''lo''…''ku''.

__''su'u''__ x1 is an abstraction of {bridi} of type x2

__''kei''__ end abstraction



Example:

__''melbi''__ x1 is beautiful to x2.

__''dansu''__ x1 dances to accompaniment/music/rhythm x2.

''melbi su'u dansu kei'' - “Beautifil dancing”/“Beautifil dance”



It's usually hard to find good uses of a bridi as a selbri. However, since ''su'u BRIDI kei'' is a selbri, one can convert it to a sumti using ''lo''...''ku''.

Now we have the equipment to express “I am happy that you are my friend”. Try it out!

__''pendo''__ “x1 is a friend of x2”



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi gleki lo su'u do pendo mi kei ku''~~



However, ''su'u''…''kei'' does not see much use. People prefer to use the more specific words ''nu''…''kei'' and ''du'u''…''kei''. They work the same way, but mean something different. ''nu…kei'' treats the bridi in between as an event or state, and ''du'u…kei'' treats it as an abstract bridi, for expressing things like ideas, thoughts or truths. All these words (except ''kei'') are called abstractors. There are many of them, and only few are used much. ''su'u…kei'' is a general abstractor, and will work in all cases.



Use ''nu'' to say “I'm happy about talking to you.”

__''tavla''__ x1 talks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4.



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi gleki lo nu tavla do kei ku'' (notice both the English and the Lojban is vague as to who is doing the talking).~~



Other important abstractors include: ''ka...kei'' (property/aspect abstraction), ''si'o...kei'' (concept/idea abstraction), ''ni...kei'' (quantity abstraction) among others. The meanings of these is a complicated matter, and will be discussed much later, in lesson twenty-nine. For now, you'll have to do without them.



It is important to notice that some abstractors have several sumti places. As an example, ''du'u'' can be mentioned. ''du'u'' is defined:

''du'u'' = “abstractor. x1 is the predicate/bridi of {bridi} expressed in sentence x2”.

The other sumti places besides x1 is rarely used, but ''lo se du'u {bridi} kei ku'' is sometimes used as a sumti for indirect quotation: “I said that I was given a dog” can be written ''mi cusku lo se du'u mi te dunda lo gerku ku kei ku'', if you will pardon the weird example.

__''cusku''__ x1 expresses x2 to x3 through medium x4

__''gerku''__ x1 is a dog of race x2

!!Lojban lessons – lesson seven (NOI)

While we're at it, there's another type of subordinate bridi. These are called relative clauses. They are sentences which add some description to a sumti. Indeed, the “which” in the previous sentence marked the beginning of a relative clause in English describing relative clauses. In Lojban, they come in two flavors, and it might be worth distinguishing the two kinds before learning how to express them.

The two kinds are called restrictive and non-restrictive (or incidential) relative clauses. An example would be good here:

“My brother, who is two meters tall, is a politician.” This can be understood in two ways. I could have several brothers, in which case saying he is two meters tall will let you know which brother I am talking about. Or I might have only one brother, in which case I am simply giving you additional information.



In English as well as Lojban we distinguish between these two kinds – the first interpretation is restrictive (since it helps restrict the possible brothers I might be talking about), the second non-restrictive. When speaking English, context and tone of voice (or in written English, punctuation) helps us distinguish between these two, but not so in Lojban. Lojban uses the constructs ''poi…ku'o'' and ''noi…ku'o'' for restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, respectively.

Let's have a Lojbanic example, which can also explain our strange gift-eating behaviour in the example in lesson five:

__''noi''__ begin non-restrictive relative clause (can only attach to sumti)

__''poi''__ begin restrictive relative clause (can only attach to sumti)

__''ku'o''__ end relative clause



''mi citka lo se dunda ku poi plise ku'o'' = “I eat a gift such that (something is) an apple”. 

Here the ''poi…ku'o'' is placed just after ''lo se dunda ku'', so it applies to the gift. To be strict, the relative clause does not specify what it is, which is an apple, but since the relative clause applies to the gift, we can safely assume that it means that the gift is an apple. After all, in the context of lesson five, this seems reasonable. If we want to be absolutely sure that it indeed was the gift that was an apple, we use the word ''ke'a'', which is a ''sumka'i'' (a Lojban pronoun, more on them later) representing the sumti which the relative clause is attached to.

__''ke'a''__ sumka'i; refers to the sumti, to which the relative clause it attached.



''.ui mi citka lo se dunda ku poi ke'a plise ku'o'' = “Yay, I eat a gift which is an apple”.

To underline the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses, here's another example:



__''lojbo''__ “x1 reflects Lojbanic culture/community is aspect x2; x1 is Lojbanic.”



''mi noi lojbo ku'o fanva fo lo lojbo ku'' = “I, who am a Lojbanic, translate from some Lojbanic language.” Here, there is not multiple things which ''mi'' could refer to, and the fact that I am lojbanic is merely additional information not needed to identify me. Therefore ''noi…ku'o'' is appropriate.

See if you can translate this: “I flirt with a man who is beautiful/handsome”.

__''nanmu''__ “x1 is a man”

__''melbi''__ “x1 is beautiful to x2 in aspect (ka) x3 by standard x4”

__''cinjikca''__ “x1 flirts/courts x2, exhibiting sexuality x3 by standard x4”



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi cinjikca lo nanmu ku poi {ke'a} melbi ku'o''~~



On a more technical side note, it might be useful to know that ''lo {selbri} ku'' is often seen defined as ''zo'e noi ke'a {selbri} ku'o''.





!!Lojban Lessons – Lesson eight (terminator elision)

''.au da'i mi djica lo nu le merko poi tunba mi __vau ku'o ku__ jimpe lo du'u mi na nelci lo nu vo'a darxi mi __vau kei ku vau kei ku vau kei ku vau__''

 -  “I wish the American, who is my sibling, would understand that I don't like that he hits me.”

Regardless of whether the above sentence is being understood, (it shouldn't, as it contains words we have not covered in these lessons yet) one thing stands out: As more complex Lojban structures are learned, more and more of the sentences get filled with ''ku'', ''kei'', ''ku'o'' and other of those words which by themselves carry no meaning.



The function of all these words is to signal the end of a certain grammatical construct, like for instance “convert selbri to sumti” in the case of ''ku''. The English word for this kind of word is “terminator”, the Lojban word is ''fa'orma'o''. They are written in bold in the example above.

Note: The ''vau'' in the above example are the fa'orma'o for “end bridi”. There is a good reason you have not yet seen it, stay tuned.

__''vau''__ fa'orma'o: Terminates bridi.



In most spoken and written Lojban, most fa'orma'o are skipped (elided). This greatly saves syllables in speech and space in writing, however, one must always be careful when eliding fa'orma'o. In the simple example ''lo merko ku klama'', removing the fa'orma'o ''ku'' would yield ''lo merko klama'', which is a single sumti made from the tanru ''merko klama''. Thus, it means “an American traveler” instead of “an American travels”. fa'orma'o elision can lead to very wrong results if done incorrectly, which is why you haven't learned about it until now.



The rule for when fa'orma'o can be elided is very simple, at least in theory: “You can elide a fa'orma'o, __if and only if__ doing so does not change the grammatical constructs in the sentence.”

Most fa'orma'o can be safely elided at the end of the bridi. Exceptions are the obvious ones like “end quote”-fa'orma'o and “end bridi grouping”-fa'orma'o. This is why ''vau'' is almost never used – simply beginning a new bridi with ''.i'' will almost always terminate the preceding bridi anyway. It has one frequent use, however. Since attitudinals always apply to the preceding word, applying it to a fa'orma'o applies it to the entire construct which is terminated. Using ''vau'', one can then use attitudinals afterthought and apply them to the entire bridi:

''za'a do dunda lo zdani {ku} lo prenu {ku}... vau i'e'' - “I see that you give a home to a person... I approve!”

__''prenu''__ x1 is a person; x1 has a personality.



Knowing the basic rules for fa'orma'o elision, we can thus return to the original sentence and begin removing fa'orma'o:



''.au da'i mi djica lo nu le merko poi tunba mi __vau ku'o ku__ jimpe lo du'u mi na nelci lo nu vo'a darxi mi __vau kei ku vau kei ku vau kei ku vau__''



We can see that the first ''vau'' is grammatically unnecessary, because the next non-fa'orma'o-word is ''jimpe'', which is a selbri. Since there can only be one selbri per bridi, ''vau'' is not needed. Since ''jimpe'' as a selbri cannot be in the relative clause either (only one bridi in a clause, only one selbri in each bridi), we can elide ''ku'o''. Likewise, ''jimpe'' cannot be a second selbri inside the construct ''le merko poi{...}'', so the ''ku'' is not needed either. Furthermore, all the fa'orma'o at the very end of the sentence can be elided too, since beginning a new bridi will terminate all of these constructs anyway.

We then end up with:

''.au da'i mi djica lo nu le merko poi tunba mi jimpe lo du'u mi na nelci lo nu vo'a darxi mi'' – with no fa'orma'o at all!



When eliding fa'orma'o, it is a good idea to be acquainted with ''cu''. ''cu'' is one of those words which can make your (Lojbanic) life a lot easier. What it does is to separate any previous sumti from the selbri. One could say that it defines the next word to be a selbri, and terminates exactly as much as it needs to in order to do that.

__''cu''__ elidable marker: separates selbri from preceding sumti, allows preceding fa'orma'o elision.



__''prami''__ = “x1 loves x2”



''lo su'u do cusku lo se du'u do prami mi __vau kei ku vau kei ku__ se djica mi'' =

''lo su'u do cusku lo se du'u do prami mi __cu__ se djica mi''

“That you say that you love me is desired by be” or “I wish you said you loved me”

note: ''cu'' is not a fa'orma'o, because it is not tied to one specific construct. But it can be used to elide other fa'orma'o.



One of the greatest strengths of ''cu'' is that it quickly becomes easy to intuitively understand. By itself it means nothing, but it reveals the structure of Lojban expressions by identifying the core selbri. In the original example with the violent American brother, using ''cu'' before ''jimpe'' does not change the meaning of the sentence in any way, but might make it easier to read.



In the following couple of lessons, ''cu'' will be used when necessary, and all fa'orma'o elided if possible. The elided fa'orma'o will be encased in curly brackets, as shown below. Try to translate it!

__''vajni''__ “x1 is important to x2 for reason x3”

__''jimpe''__ “x1 understands that x2 (du'u-abstraction) is true about x3”

__''a'o''__ - Attitudinal: Simple propositional emotion: Hope - despair



''a'o do noi ke'a lojbo .i'e {ku'o} {ku} cu jimpe lo du'u lo fa'orma'o {ku} cu vajni {vau} {kei} {ku} {vau}''

What do I state?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“I hope that you, a proud Lojbanist, understands that fa'orma'o are important”~~



Fun side note: Most people well-versed in fa'orma'o-elision do it so instinctively that they often must be reminded how important understanding fa'orma'o are to the understanding of Lojban. Therefore, each Tuesday have been designated “Terminator Day” or ''fa'orma'o djedi'' on the Lojban IRC chatroom. During Terminator Day, many people try (and often fail) to remember writing out all fa'orma'o with some very verbose conversations as a result.





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson nine (sumtcita)

So far we have been doing pretty well with the selbri we have had at hand. However, there is a finite amount of defined selbri out there, and in many cases the sumti places are not useful for what we had in mind. What if, say, i want to say that I am translating using a computer? There is no place in the structure of ''fanva'' to specify what tool I translate with, since, most of the time, that is not necessary. Not to worry, this lesson is on how to add additional sumti places to the selbri.



The most basic way to add sumti places are with ''fi'o SELBRI fe'u'' (yes, another example of a fa'orma'o, ''fe'u''. It's almost never necessary, so this might be the last time you ever see it.)

In between these two words goes a selbri, and like ''lo SELBRI ku'', ''fi'o SELBRI fe'u'' extracts the x1 of the selbri put into it. However, with ''fi'o SELBRI fe'u'', the selbri place is converted, not to a sumti, but to a ''sumtcita'', meaning “sumti-label”, with the place structure of the x1 of the selbri it converted. This ''sumtcita'' then absorbs the next sumti. One could say that using a ''sumtcita'', you import a sumti place from another selbri, and add it to the bridi being said.

Note: Sometimes, especially in older texts, the term “tag” or “modal” is used for ''sumtcita''. Ignore those puny English expressions. We teach proper Lojban here.



While it is hard to grasp the process from reading about it, an example can perhaps show its actual simplicity:

__''skami''__ “x1 is a computer for purpose x2”

__''pilno''__ “x1 uses x2 as a tool for doing x3”



''mi fanva ti fi'o se pilno {fe'u} lo skami {ku}{vau}'' - “I translate this with a computer” The x2 of ''pilno'', which is the x1 of ''se pilno'' is a place structure for a tool being used by someone. This place structure is captured by ''fi'o SELBRI fe'u'', added to the main selbri, and then filled by ''lo skami''. The idea of ''sumtcita'' is sometimes expressed in English using the following translation:

“I translate this with-tool: A computer”



A ''sumtcita'' can only absorb one sumti, which is always the following one. Alternatively, the ''sumtcita'' construct can be terminated with ''ku'', in which case a ''zo'e'' is implied to fill the ''sumtcita''. Or, one could imagine an elided sumti being terminated with the ''ku''.

__''zukte''__ “x1 is a volitional entity carrying out action x2 for purpose x3”



''fi'o zukte {fe'u} ku lo skami {ku} cu pilno lo lojbo {ku}{vau}'' - “With volition, a computer used something Lojbanic” (perhaps implying that a Lojbanic computer went sentient? Tough it does not specify who had volition. It could just be the programmer who programmed the computer - how boring.)



What does ''mi jimpe fi la lojban {ku} fi'o se tavla {fe'u} mi'' state?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“I understand something about Lojban, spoken to me”~~



Putting the ''sumtcita'' right in front of the selbri also makes it self-terminate, since sumtcita only can absorb sumti, and not selbri. This fact will be of importance in next lesson, as you will see.



Sadly, ''fi'o'' is not used very often despite its flexibility. What IS used very often, though, are BAI. BAI is a class of Lojban words, which in themselves act as ''sumtcita''. An example of this is ''zu'e'', the BAI for ''zukte''. Gramatically, ''zu'e'' is the same as ''fi'o zukte fe'u''. Thus, the above example could be reduced to:

''zu'e ku lo skami {ku} cu pilno lo lojbo {ku} {vau}''. There exist something like 60 BAI, and a lot of these are very useful indeed. Furtermore, BAI can also be converted with ''se'' and friends, meaning that ''se zu'e'' is equal to ''fi'o se zukte fe'u'', which results in a great deal more BAI.



!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson ten (PU, FAhA, ZI, VA, ZEhA, VEhA)

How unfamiliar to the English-speaker a language Lojban is when one can read through nine lessons of Lojban grammar without meeting a tense once. This is because, unlike many natural languages (most Indo-European ones, for instance), all tenses in Lojban are optional. Saying ''mi citka lo cirla {ku}'' can mean “I eat cheese” or “I ate the cheese” or “I always eat cheese” or “In a moment, i will have just finished eating cheese”. Context resolves what is correct, and in most conversation, tenses are not needed at all. However, when it's needed it's needed, and it must be taught. Furthermore, Lojban tenses are unusual because they treat time and space fundamentally the same - saying that I worked a long time ago is not grammatically different than saying I work far away to the north.

Like many other languages, the Lojban tense system is perhaps the most difficult part of the language. Unlike many other languages though, it's perfectly regular and makes sense. So fear not, for it will not involve sweating to learn how to modify the selbri or anything silly like that.



No, in the Lojban tense system, all tenses are sumtcita, which we have conveniently just made ourselves familiar with. Okay okay, technically, tenses are slightly different from other sumtcita, but this difference is almost insignificant, and will be won't be explained until later. In most aspects they are like all other sumtcita; they are terminated by ''ku'', making it explicit that PU is terminated by ''ku''.

There are many different kinds of tense-sumtcita, so let's start at the ones most familiar to English-speakers.

__''pu''__ - sumtcita: before {sumti}

__''ca''__ - sumtcita: at the same time as {sumti}

__''ba''__ - sumtcita: after {sumti}



These are like the English concepts “before”, “now” and “after”. In actuality though, one could argue that two point-like events can never occur exactly simultaneously, rendering ''ca'' useless. But ''ca'' extends slightly into the past and the future, meaning just “about now”. This is because human beings don't perceive time in a perfectly logical way, and the Lojban tense system reflects that.



Side note: It was actually suggested making the Lojban tense system relativistic. That idea, however, was dropped, because it is counter-intuitive, and would mean that to learn Lojban, one would have to learn the theory of relativity first.  



So, how would you say “I express this after I came here?” (pointing to a paper)



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''mi cusku ti ba lo nu mi klama ti {vau} {kei {ku} {vau}''~~



Usually when speaking, we do not need to specify which event this action is in the past relative to. In: “I gave a computer away”, we can assume that the action happened relative to “now”, and thus we can elide the sumti of the sumtcita, because it's obvious:

''pu ku mi dunda lo skami {ku} {vau}'' or

''mi dunda lo skami {ku} pu {ku} {vau}'' or, more commonly

''mi pu {ku} dunda lo skami {ku} {vau}''. The sumti which fills the sumtcita is an implied ''zo'e'', which is almost always understood as relative to the speaker's time and place (this is especially important when speaking about left and right). If speaking about some events that happened some other time than the present, it is sometimes assumed that all tenses are relative to that event which is being spoken about. In order to clarify that all tenses are relative to the speaker's current position, the word ''nau'' can be used at any time. Another word, ''ki'' marks a tense which is then considered the new standard. That will be taught way later.

__''nau''__ updates temporal and spacial frame of reference to the speaker's current here and now.



__''gugde''__ = “x1 is the country of people x2 with land/territory x3”



Also note that ''mi pu {ku} klama lo merko gugde {ku} {vau}'', “I went to America”, does not imply that I'm not still traveling to USA, only that it was also true some time in the past, for instance five minutes ago.



As mentioned, spacial and temporal time tenses are very much alike. Contrast the previous three time tenses with these four spacial tenses:

__''zu'a''__ sumtcita: left of {sumti}

__''ca'u''__ sumtcita: in front of {sumti}

__''ri'u''__ sumtcita: right of {sumti}

__''bu'u''__ sumtcita: at the same place as {sumti} (spacial equivalent of ''ca'')



__''o'o''__: attitudinal: complex pure emotion: patience - tolerance - anger



What would ''.o'onai ri'u {ku} nu lo prenu {ku} cu darxi lo gerku pu {ku} {ku} {vau} {kei} {vau}'' mean? (notice the first elided ku!)

__''darxi''__ x1 beats/hits x2 with instrument x3 at locus x4



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“{anger!} To the right (of something, probably me) and in the past (of some event), something is an event of a person beating a dog.” or “A man hit a dog to my right!”~~



If there are several tense sumtcita in one bridi, the rule is that you read them from left to right, thinking it as a so called “imaginary journey”, Where you begin at an implied point in time and space (default: the speaker's now and here), and then follow the sumtcita one at a time from left to right.

Example

''mi pu {ku} ba {ku} jimpe fi lo lojbo fa'orma'o {ku} {vau}'' = “At some time in the past, I will be about to know about fa'orma'os.”

''mi ba {ku} pu {ku} jimpe fi lo lojbo fa'orma'o {ku} {vau}'' “At some point in the future, I will have understood about fa'orma'os.”

Since we do not specify the amount of time we move back or forth, the understanding could in both cases happen in the future or the past of the point of reference.



Also, if spacial and temporal tenses are mixed, the rule is to always put temporal before spacial. If this rule is violated, it can sometimes result in syntactical ambiguity, which Lojban does not tolerate.



Suppose we want to specify that the a man hit a dog just a minute ago. The words ''zi'', ''za'' and ''zu'' specifies a short, unspecified (presumably medium) and long distance in time. Notice the vowel order ''i'', ''a'' and ''u''. This order appears again and again in Lojban, and might be worth to memorize. “Short” and “long” in are always context dependent, relative and subjective. Two hundred years is a short time for a species to evolve, but a long time to wait for the bus.

__''zi''__ sumtcita: Ocurring the small distance of {sumti} in time from point of reference 

__''za''__ sumtcita: Ocurring the unspecified(medium) distance of {sumti} in time from point of reference 

__''zu''__ sumtcita: Ocurring the far distance of {sumti} in time from the point of reference 



Similarly, spacial distance is marked by ''vi'', ''va'' and ''vu'' for short, unspecified (medium) and long distance in space.

__''vi''__ sumtcita: Ocurring the small distance of {sumti} in space from point of reference 

__''va''__ sumtcita: Ocurring the unspecified(medium) distance of {sumti} in space from point of reference 

__''vu''__ sumtcita: Ocurring the far distance of {sumti} in space from the point of reference 

__''gunka''__ “x1 works at x2 with objective x3”



Translate: ''ba {ku} za ku mi vu {ku} gunka {vau}''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“Some time in the future, I will work a place long away”~~

Note: People rarely use ''zi'', ''za'' or ''zu'' without a ''pu'' or ''ba'' in front of it. This is because most people always need to specify past or future in their native language. When you think about it Lojbanically, most of the time the time-direction is obvious, and the ''pu'' or ''ba'' superfluous!



The order in which direction-sumtcita and distance-sumtcita are said makes a difference. Remember that the meanings of several tense words placed together are pictured by an imaginary journey reading from left to right. Thus ''pu zu'' is “a long time ago” while ''zu pu'' is “in the past of some point in time which is a long time toward the future or the past of now”. In the first example, ''pu'' shows that we begin in the past, ''zu'' then that it is a long time backwards. In the second example, ''zu'' shows that we begin at some point far away in time from now, ''pu'' then, that we move backwards from that point. Thus ''pu zu'' is always in the past. ''zu pu'' could be in the future. The fact that these time tenses combine in this way is one of the differences between tense sumtcita and other sumtcita. The meanings of other sumtcita are not altered by the presence of additional sumtcita in a bridi.



As briefly implied earlier, all these constructs basically treat bridi as if they were point-like in time and space. In actuality, most events play out over a span of time and space. In the following few paragraphs, we will learn how to specify intervals of time and space.



__''ze'i''__ sumtcita: spanning over the short time of {sumti}

__''ze'a''__ sumtcita: spanning over the unspecified (medium) time of {sumti}

__''ze'u''__ sumtcita: spanning over the long time of {sumti}



__''ve'i''__ sumtcita: spanning over the short space of {sumti}

__''ve'a''__ sumtcita: spanning over the unspecified (medium) space of {sumti}

__''ve'u''__ sumtcita: spanning over the long space of {sumti}



Six words at a time, I know, but remembering the vowel sequence and the similarity of the initial letter z for temporal tenses and v for spacial tenses might help the memorizing.

__''.oi''__ - attitudinal: pain - pleasure



Translate: ''.oi dai do ve'u {ku} klama lo dotco gugde {ku} ze'u {ku} {vau}''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“Ouch, you spend a long time traveling a long space to Germany” ~~



Though most people are not familiar with spacial tenses, these new words can open up for some pretty sweet uses. One could, for instance, translate “That's a big dog” as ''ti ve'u {ku} gerku {vau}''. Saying: “This thing dogs for a long space” makes you sound retarded in English, but well-spoken in Lojban!



''ze'u'' and its brothers also combine with other tenses to form compound tenses. The rule for ''ze'u'' and the others are that any tenses preceding it marks an endpoint of the process (relative to the point of reference) and any tenses coming after it marks the other endpoint relative to the first. This should be demonstrated with a couple of examples:

''.o'ocu'i do citka pu {ku} ze'u {ku} ba {ku} zu {ku} {vau}'' - “{tolerance} you eat beginning in the past and for a long time ending at some point far into the future of when you started” or “Hmpf, you ate for a long time”. One can also contrast ''do ca {ku} ze'i {ku} pu {ku} klama {vau}'' with ''do pu {ku} ze'i {ku} ca {ku} klama {vau}''. The first event of traveling has one endpoint in the present and extends a little towards the past, while the second event has one endpoint in the past and extends only to the present (that is, slighty into the past or future) of that endpoint.

__''jmive''__ “x1 is alive by standard x2”



What does ''.ui mi pu {ku} zi {ku} ze'u {ku} jmive {vau}'' express?



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“{happiness!} I live from a little into the past and a long way towards the future or past (obviously the future, in this case) of that event” or “I am young, and have most of my life ahead of me :)”~~



Just to underline the similarity with spacial tenses, let's have another example, this time with spacial tenses:

__''.u'e''__ attitudinal: wonder - commonplace



''.u'e za'a {ku} bu'u {ku} ve'u {ku} ca'u {ku} zdani {vau}'' - What does it mean?



Answer: ~~grey,grey: “{wonder} {I observe!} Extending a long space from here to my front is a home.” or “Wow, this home extending ahead is huge!”~~



Before we continue with this syntax-heavy tense system, i recommend spending at least ten minutes doing something which doesn't occupy your brain in order to let the information sink in. Sing a song or eat a cookie very slowly - whatever, as long as you let your mind rest.



!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson eleven (ZAhO)

Though we won't go through all Lojban tense constructs for now, there is one other kind of tense that I think should be taught now. These are called “event contours”, and represent a very different way of viewing tenses that we have seen so far. So let's get to it:



Using the tenses we have learned so far, we can imagine an indefinite time line, and we then place events on that line relative to the “now”. With event contours, however, we view each event as a process, which has certain stages: A time before it unfolds, a time when it begins, a time when it is in process, a time when it ends, and a time after it has ended. Event contours then tells us which part of the event's process was happening during the time specified by the other tenses. We need a couple of tenses first:



__''pu'o''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi has not yet happened during {sumti}

__''ca'o''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is in process during {sumti}

__''ba'o''__ - sumtcita: event contour: The process of bridi has ended during {sumti}



This needs to be demonstrated by some examples. What's ''.ui mi pu'o {ku} se zdani {vau}'' mean?



Answer: “Yay, I'll begin to have a home”.



But hey, you ask, why not just say ''.ui mi ba {ku} se zdani {vau}'' and even save a syllable? Because, remember, saying that you will have a home in the future says nothing about whether you have a home now. Using ''pu'o'', though, you say that you are now in the past of the process of you having a home, which means that you don't have one now.

Note, by the way, that ''mi ba {ku} se zdani {vau}'' is similar to ''mi pu'o {ku} se zdani {vau}'', and likewise with ''ba'o'' and ''pu''. Why do they seem reversed? Because event contours view the present as seen from the viewpoint of the process, whereas the other tenses view events seen from the present.



Often, event contours are more precise that other kind of tenses. Even more clarity is achieved by combining several tenses: ''.a'o mi ba{ku} zi {ku} ba'o {ku} gunka {vau}'' - “I hope I've soon finished working.”



In Lojban, we also operate with an event's “natural beginning” and its “natural end”. The term “natural” is highly subjective in this sense, and the natural end refers to the point in the process where it should end. You can say about a late train, for instance, that its process of reaching you is now extending beyond its natural end. An undercooked, but served meal, similarly, is being eaten before that process' natural beginning. The event contours used in these examples are as follows:



__''za'o''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is in process beyond its natural end during {sumti}

__''xa'o''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is immaturely in process during {sumti}



__''cidja''__: “x1 is food, which is edible for x2”



Translate: ''.oi do citka za'o lo nu do ba'o {ku} u'e citka zo'e noi cidja do {vau} {ku'o} {vau} {kei} {ku}''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“Oy, you keep eating when you have finished, incredibly, eating something edible!”~~



{img fileId="2" thumb="y" rel="box[g]"}

Image above: ZAhO tenses (event contours). All tenses above the line of the event signify stages covering an amount of time. All tenses below the event line signify stages which are point-like.



All of these tenses have been describing stages of a process which takes some time (as shown on the graph above; those tenses above the event like). But many of the event contours describes point like stages in the process, like its beginning. As is true of ''ca'' and ''bu'u'', they actually extend slightly into the past and future of that point, and need not to be precise.



The two most important point-like event contours are:

__''co'a''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is at its beginning during {sumti}

__''co'u''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is at its ending during {sumti}



Furthermore, there is a point where the process is naturally complete, but not necessarily has ended yet:

__''mo'u''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is at its natural ending during {sumti}

Most of the time, though, processes actually end at their natural ending; this is what makes it natural. Trains are not usually late, and people usually retrain themselves to eat only edible food.



Since a process can be interrupted and resumed, these points have earned their own event contour also:

__''de'a''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is pausing during {sumti}

__''di'a''__ - sumtcita: event contour: Bridi is resuming during {sumti}



In fact, since ''jundi'' means “x1 pays attention to x2”, ''de'a jundi'' and ''di'a jundi'' are common Lojban ways of saying “BRB” and “back”. One could of course also say the event contours by themselves and hope the point gets across.



Finally, one can treat an entire event, from the beginning to the end as one single point using ''co'i'':

__''penmi''__ “x1 meets x2 at location x3”

''mi pu {ku} zi {ku} co'i {ku} penmi lo dotco prenu {ku} {vau}'' - “A little while ago, I was at the point in time where i met a German person”





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson twelve (orders and questions)

Phew, those two long lessons with syntax heavy Lojban gives the brain something to ponder about. Especially because it's so different from English. So let's turn to something a little lighter: Orders and questions.



What the... __sit up and focus!__



Since the way to express orders in English is to leave out the subject of the clause, why did you assume that it was you I was speaking to, and not ordering myself, or expressing the obligation someone else has? Because the English language understands that orders, by their very nature, are always directed towards the listener - the “you”, and so the subject is not necessary.

In Lojban, eliding the subject yields ''zo'e'', so that possibility is sadly not open to us. Instead, we use the word ''ko'', which is the imperative form of ''do''. Grammatically and bridi-wise, it's equivalent to ''do'', but it adds a layer of semantics, since it turns every statement with ''ko'' in it into an order. “Do such that this sentence is true for you=''ko''!” For the same reason we don't need the subject in English sentences, we don't need order-words derived from any other sumti than ''do''.



How could you order one to go far away for a long time (using ''klama'' as the only selbri?)



Answer: ~~grey,grey:ko ve'u ze'u klama~~

(''.i za'a dai a'o mi ca co'u ciska lo fa'orma'o .i ko jimpe vau .ui'') - look up ciska and work it out.



Questions in Lojban are very easy to learn, and they come in two kinds: Fill in the blank, and true/false questions. Let's begin with the true-false question kind - that's pretty overcomeable, since it only involves one word, ''xu''.

''xu'' works like an attitudinal in the sense that it can go anywhere, and it applies to the preceding word (or construct). It then transforms the sentence into a question, asking whether it is true or not. In order to affirm, you simply repeat the bridi:

''xu ve'u zdani do'' ''.i ve'u zdani mi'', or you just repeat the the selbri, which is the bridi with all the sumti and tenses elided: ''zdani''.

There is an even easier way to affirm using brika'i, but those are a tale for another time. To answer “no” or “false”, you simply answer with the bridi negated. That too, will be left for later, but we will return to question answering by then.



The other kind is fill in the blank. Here, you ask for the question word to be replaced for a construct, which makes the bridi correct. There are several of these words, depending on what you are asking about:

__''ma''__ - sumti question

__''mo''__ - selbri question

__''xo''__ - number question

__''cu'e''__ - tense question



As well as many others. To ask about a sumti, you then just place the question word where you want your answer: ''do dunda ma mi'' - asks for the x2 to be filled with a correct sumti. “You give what to me?”. The combination of ''sumtcita'' + ''ma'' is very useful indeed:

__''mu'i''__ - sumtcita: motivated by the abstraction of {sumti}



''.oi do darxi mi mu'i ma'' - “Oy, why do you hit me?!”



Let's try another one. This time, you translate:

''.ui dai do ca ze'u pu mo''



Answer: ~~grey,grey:“You're happy, what have you been doing all this long time until now?” Technically, it could also mean “what have you been?”, but answering with ''.ua nai li'a remna'' (Uh, human, obviously) is just being incredibly annoying on purpose.~~



Since tone of voice or sentence structure does not reveal whether a sentence is a question or not, one better not miss the question word. Therefore, since people tend to focus more on words in the beginning or at the end of sentences, it's usually worth the while to re-order the sentence so that the question words are at those places. If that is not feasable, ''pau'' is an attitudinal marking that the sentence is a question. Contrary, ''pau nai'' explicitly marks any question as being rhetorical.



While we are on the topic of questions, it's also appropriate to mention the word ''kau'', which is a marker for “indirect question”. What's an indirect question, then? Well, take a look at the sentence: ''mi djuno lo du'u ma kau zdani do'' - “I know what is your home.”

__''djuno''__ “x1 knows fact(s) x2 are true about x3 by epistemology x4”

One can think it as the answer to the question ''ma zdani do''. More rarely, one can mark a non-question word with ''kau'', in which case one still can imagine it as the answer to a question: ''mi jimpe lo du'u dunda ti kau do'' - “I know what you have been given, it is this.”





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson thirteen (morphology and word classes)

Back to more heavy (and interesting) stuff.

If you haven't already, I strongly suggest you find the Lojbanic recording called "Story Time with Uncle Robin", or listen to someone speak Lojban on Mumble, and then practice your pronunciation. Having an internal conversation in your head in Lojban is only good if it isn't with all the wrong sounds, and learning pronunciation from written text is hard. Therefore, this lesson will not be on the Lojban sounds, however important they might be, but a short introduction to the Lojban morphology.



What is morphology? The word is derived from Greek meaning “the study of shapes”, and in this context, we talk about how we make words from letters and sounds, as contrasted with syntax - how we make sentences with words. Lojban operates with different morphological word classes, which are all defined by their morphology. To make it all nice and systematic though, words with certain functions tend to be grouped by morphological classes, but exceptions may occur.

||   Class|Meaning|Defined By|Typical Function

   Words:|   |   |   

   Brivla|   bridi-word|   Among first 5 letters (excluding “ ‘ “) is a consonant cluster. Ends in vowel.   |   Acts as a selbri by default. Always has a place structure.

   --Gismu|   Root-word| 5 letters of the form CVCCV or CCVCV   |   One to five sumti places. Covers basic concepts.

   --Lujvo|  Compound word. Derived from from “lujvla”, meaning “complex word” |   Min. 6 letters. Made by stringing rafsi together with binding letters if necessary.|   Covers more complex concepts than gismu.

   --Fu'ivla|  Copy-word | As brivla, but do not meet defining criteria of gismu or lujvo, ex: ''angeli''  |   Covers unique concepts like names of places or organisms.

   Cmevla|  Name-word |   Beginning and ending with pause (full stop). Last sound/letter is a consonant.|   Always acts as a name or as the content of a quote.

   Cmavo|   Grammar-word. From “cmavla”, meaning “small word”| One consonant or zero, always at the beginning. Ends in a vowel.  |   Grammatical functions. Varies

   Word-fragments:|   |   |

   Rafsi|   Affix|  CCV, CVC, CV'V, -CVCCV, -CCVCV, CVCCy- or CCVCy-  | Not actual words, but can be stringed together to form lujvo ||





__''cmevla''__ are very easy to identify because they begin and end with a pause, signaled by a full stop in writing, and the last letter is a consonant. cmevla can't have any other function besides acting as a name. On the other hand, names which are not selbri cannot appear in Lojban without them being cmevla, or encased by certain quote words. One can mark stress in the names by capitalizing the letters which are stressed. Examples of cmevla are: ''.iohAN.'' (Johan, h is capital apostrophe), ''.mat.'' (Matt) and ''.lutciMIN.'' (Lui-Chi Min). Names which do not end in consonants have to have one added: ''.ivyn.'' (Eve), or (probably better in this case) removed: ''.iv.''



__''brivla''__ are called “bridi-words” because they by default are selbri, and therefore almost all Lojban words with a place structure are brivla. This has also given them the English nickname “content-words”. It's nearly impossible to say anything useful without brivla, and almost all words for concepts outside lojban grammar (and even most of the words for things in the language) are captured by brivla. As shown in the table, brivla has three subcategories:

__''gismu''__ are the root words of the language. Only about 1450 exists, and very few new ones are added. They cover the most basic concepts like “circle”, “friend”, “tree” and “dream”. Examples include ''zdani'', ''pelxu'' and ''dunda''

__''lujvo''__ are made by combining rafsi (see under rafsi), respresenting gismu. By combining rafsi, one narrows down the meaning of the word. lujvo are made by an elaborate algorithm, so making valid lujvo on the fly is near impossible, with few exceptions like ''selpa'i'', from ''se prami'', which can only have one definition. Instead, lujvo are made once, its place structure defined, and then that definition is made official by the dictionary. Examples include brivla (bridi-word), ''cinjikca'' (sexual-socializing = flirting) and ''cakcinki'' (shell-insect = beetle).

__''fu'ivla''__ are made by making up words which fit the definition for brivla, but not for lujvo or gismu. They tend to cover concepts which it's hard to cover by lujvo, for instance names of species, nations or very cultural specific concepts. Examples include ''gugdrgogurio'' (Korea) ''cidjrpitsa'' (pizza) or ''angeli'' (angel).



__''cmavo''__ are small words with one or zero consonants. They tend to not signify anything in the exterior world, but to have only grammatical function. Exceptions occur, and it's debatable how much attitudinals exists for their grammatical function. Another weird example are the words of the class GOhA, which act as brivla. It is valid to type several cmavo in a row as one word, but in these lessons, that won't be done. By grouping certain cmavo in functional units, though, it is sometimes easier to read. Thus, ''.uipuzuvukumi citka'' is valid, and is parsed and understood as ''.ui pu zu vu ku mi citka''. Like other Lojban words, one should (but need not always) place a full stop before any words beginning with a vowel.

cmavo of the form xVV, CV'VV or V'VV are experimental, and are words which are not in the formal grammar, but which have been added by Lojban users to respond to a certain need.



__''rafsi''__ are not Lojban words, and can never appear alone. However, several (more than one) rafsi combine to form lujvo. These must still live up to the brivla-definition, for instance ''lojban'' is invalid because it ends in a consonant (which makes it a cmevla), and ''ci'ekei'' is invalid because it does not contain a consonant cluster, and is thus read as two cmavo written as one word. Often, a 3-4 letter string is both a cmavo and a rafsi, like ''zu'e'', which is both the BAI and the rafsi for ''zukte''. Note that there is nowhere that both a cmavo and a rafsi would be grammatical, so these are not considered homophones. All gismu can double as rafsi, if they are prefixed with another rafsi. The first four letter of a gismu suffixed with an "y" can also act as a rafsi, if they are suffixed with another rafsi. The vowel "y" can only appear in lujvo or cmevla. Valid rafsi letter combinations are: CVV, CV'V, CCV, CVCCy- CCVCy-, -CVCCV and -CCVCV.



Using what you know now, you should be able to answer the test i thus present:

Categorize each of the following words as cmevla (C), gismu (g), lujvo (l), ''fu'ivla'' (f) or cmavo (c):

A ) jai        G ) mumbl

B ) .irci        H ) .i'i

C ) bostu        I ) cu

D ) xelman        J ) plajva

E ) po'e        K ) danseke

F ) djisku        L ) .ertsa



Answer: ~~grey,grey:a-c, b-f, c-g, d-C, e-c, f-l, g-C, h-c, i-c, j-l, k-f, l-f. I left out the full stops before and after names so it wouldn't be too easy.

Note: some of these words, like ''bostu'' do not exist in the dictionary, but this is irrelevant. The morphology still makes it a gismu, so it's just an undefined gismu. Similarly with ''.ertsa''~~





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson fourteen (the Lojban sumti 1: LE and LA)

If you have read and understood the content of all the lessons until now, you have amassed a large enough knowledge of Lojban so that it doesn't matter in which order you learn the rest. As a result, the order of the next lessons will be a mixture of sorted by increasing difficulty and sorted by importance in ordinary Lojban conversation.



One of the biggest constrains on your speak now is your limited knowledge on how to make sumti. So far, you only know ''ti'' and ''lo SELBRI'', which doesn't take you far considering how important sumti are in Lojban. This lesson as well as the following two will be about the Lojban sumti. For now, we focus on the descriptive-like sumti, the ones made with articles like ''lo''

Articles are in lojban called ''gadri'', and all the ones discussed in this lesson are terminated by ''ku'', except the combinations ''la CMEVLA'', ''lai CMEVLA'' and ''la'i CMEVLA''. We will begin by describing three simple kinds of descriptive sumti, and then immediately find that they are not so simple after all:

__''lo''__ - gadri: Generic veridical “convert selbri to sumti”. Result is vague with regard to individuality/mass-ness.

__''le''__ - gadri: Generic descriptive “convert selbri to sumti”. Result is vague with regard to individuality/mass-ness.

__''la''__ - gadri: Naming article: Conventional, “convert selbri or cmevla to sumti”. Treat result as individual(s).



You are already familiar with ''lo'' and what it does. But what does it mean, “veridical” and “vague with regard to individuality/mass-ness”? The latter about individuals and masses, I'll come back to later. For now, “veridical” in this context means that in order for a thing to qualify begin labelled as ''lo klama'', it has to actually ''klama''. Thus, veridical gadri makes a claim which may be true or false - that the object(s) in question are actually the x1 of the selbri after ''lo''. 



This may be contrasted with ''le'', which is descriptive, and thus not veridical. Saying ''le gerku'' says that you have one or more specific objects in mind, and you use the selbri ''gerku'' to describe it, so that the listener may identify those specific objects. This means that ''le'' haves two important differences from ''lo'': Firstly, it cannot refer to objects in general, but always refers to specific objects. Secondly, while ''lo gerku'' definitely is one or more dogs, ''le gerku'', because it's not veridical, can be anything, as long as the speaker thinks the description will help identifying the correct objects. Perhaps the speaker is referring to a hyena, but are not familiar with them and think “dog” is a good enough approximation to be understood. This non-veridicality is perhaps over-emphasised in most many texts; The best way to describe a dog is usually to describe it as being a dog, and unless there is a good reason not to, ''le gerku'' is usually presumed to refer to something which is also ''lo gerku''.

In translation, ''lo gerku'' is usually “a dog” or “some dogs”, while ''le gerku'' is “the dog” or “the dogs”. Even better for ''le gerku'' would be “the “dog(s)” ”



Last of the three basic ''gadri'', there is ''la'', the naming ''gadri'', which I have unconventionally called “conventional”. What I mean by this is that it's neither descriptive nor veridical, since it refers to a proper name. If I in English refer to a person called Innocent by her name, I neither describe her as being innocent, nor do I state that she is. I only state that by convention, that object is referred to by that selbri or cmevla. Note that ''la'' and the gadri derived from it can convert cmevla to sumti unlike any other ''gadri''. Also: Be cautious: Other texts do not mention that names can be formed from ordinary selbri using the gadri ''la''. But those heretics must burn; selbri names are as good as they get, and many a proud Lojbanist have them.

''la'', as well as ''lai'' and ''la'i'' are a bit eccentric, since they __always__ marks the beginning of a name. Unlike the other gadri, anything that can be grammatically placed after ''la'' and its sisters are considered part of the name. For example, ''le mi gerku'' is "my dog", but ''la mi gerku'' is someone called "My Dog".



These three basic ''gadri'' can be expanded with three more, which corresponds to the previous:



__''loi''__ - gadri: veridical “convert selbri to sumti”. Treat result as mass(es).

__''lei''__ - gadri: Descriptive “convert selbri to sumti”. Treat result as a mass(es).

__''lai''__ - gadri: Naming article: Conventional, “convert selbri or cmevla to sumti”. Treat result as mass(es).



These are the same in all aspects except for one: They treat the sumti explicitly as masses. If there is only one object in question, an individual and a mass consisting of one object are equivalent. The difference between these two concepts lie in which selbri can be ascribed to a group of individuals versus a mass. A group of individuals can be said to fit a certain selbri if, and only if, all members of the group each fit the selbri. It is correct to describe a pack of ''lo gerku'', considered individually, as being black, if for each of the dogs it's true that they are black. A mass, on the other hand, fits only those selbri which its components fit as a whole, as a team, so to speak. However, all the members of a mass ''loi gerku'' must be dogs in order for ''loi'' to be applicable. The notion of "masses" are sophisticated, and requires some examples to demonstrate which properties it can have:

__''sruri''__: “x1 flanks/encircles/encloses x2 in line/plane/directions x3”

''lei prenu cu sruri lo zdani'' - “The people surrounded the home.” is plausible, even though, yo moma jokes not considered, it's completely implausible that it could be true for any one of the members alone. An English analogy could be: “Humans defeated smallpox in the 20th century”. Surely no human did so, but the mass of humans did, and that makes the sentence true in English, as well as in Lojban if “humans” are a mass. Just like the Lojban mass, the English mass “humans” can only refer to individuals each of which are human. Another example:

__''mivysle''__: "x1 is a biological cell of organism x2"

__''remna''__: "x1 is a human"

''loi mivysle cu remna'' - "Some masses of cells are human". Again, none of the cells are human. Indeed, the cells have very few human traits, but the cells considered as a whole makes up a human.



A mass made with ''lei'', such as ''lei gerku'', refers to a mass formed by a group of specific individuals, each of which the speaker refers to as ''le gerku''.

Mass names as describes by ''lai'' are only appropriate if the group as a whole is named such, and not just if any of the members are. It can, however be used if the bridi is true for only a fraction of that group.



It is important to remember that ''lo'' and ''le'' can be used to describe both individuals and masses. Let's say a pack of dogs, considered as a mass needs description. I might describe it as either ''loi gerku'' or ''lo gerku''. If I use ''lo'', this allows me to correctly state something which looks like a contradiction, but really isn't: ''lo gerku na gerku'' - "Some dogs are not dogs". Since it's being considered a mass of dogs, the many dogs consideres as a whole is not a dog, but rather a pack of dogs.

You might have noticed that there is no word which unambiguously converts selbri to individual(s). In order to be explicit about individualness, one needs ''lo'', ''le'' or ''la'' with an outer quantifier. The subject of quantifiers will be considered later, in lesson twenty-two. What is the reason that ''lo'' and ''le'' vague, and not explicitly individual? It is because their vagueness enables them to be used in any context, without the speaker having to think about whether is behaves as a mass or a group of individuals.



Third in this series, there are three set-forming ''gadri'':



__''lo'i''__ - gadri: veridical “convert selbri to sumti”. Treat result as a set.

__''le'i''__ - gadri: Descriptive “convert selbri to sumti”. Treat result as a set.

__''la'i''__ - gadri: Naming article: Conventional, “convert selbri or cmevla to sumti”. Treat result as a set.



Unlike groups of individuals or, sometimes, masses, sets does not take any of the properties from the objects from which the set is formed. A set is a purely mathematical or logical construct, and has properties like cardinality, membership and set inclusion. Again, note the difference between a set of things, and the things of which the set is formed:

__''tirxu''__ “x1 is a tiger/leopard/jaguar of species/breed x2 with coat markings x3”

''lo'i tirxu cu cmalu'' says nothing about whether big cats are small (which is, by the way, obviously false), but instead say that the set of big cats is small; that is - there are few of them.



Lastly, there are the (only two) generalizing ''gadri'':

__''lo'e''__ - gadri: veridical “convert selbri to sumti”. Sumti refers to the archetype of ''lo {selbri}''.

__''le'e''__ - gadri: Descriptive “convert selbri to sumti”. Sumti refers to the described/perceived archetype of ''le {selbri}''.

Of which there is no ''la''-equivalent.



So, what is actually meant by the archetype? For ''lo'e tirxu'', it is an ideal, imagined big cat, which has all the properties which best exemplifies big cats. It would be wrong to say that this includes having a striped fur, since a big systematic subgroup of the members of the set of big cats do not have striped fur, the leopards and the jaguars. Likewise, the typical human does not live in Asia even though a lot of humans do. However, if sufficiently many humans have a trait, for instance being able to speak, we can say:

__''kakne''__: “x1 is capable of doing/being x2 under circumstance x3”

''lo'e remna cu kakne lo nu tavla'' - “The typical human being can speak”.



''le'e'' then, is the ideal object as perceived or described by the speaker. This need not be factually correct, and is often translated as the “stereotype”, even though the English phrase have some unpleasant negative connotations, which the Lojban does not. In fact, everyone has a stereotypical archetypichal image of any category. In other words, ''lo'e remna'' is the archetype which best exemplifies all ''lo remna'', while the archetype ''le'e remna'' best exemplifies all ''le remna''.



The eleven gadri can be seen in the diagram below.

|| |Generic|Masses|Sets|Generalizing

veridical|lo|loi|lo'i|lo'e

Descriptive|le|lei|le'i|le'e

Name|la|lai|la'i|does not exist||



Note: Earlier, there was a word ''xo'e'' for the generic gadri. However, the rules and definitions for gadri were changed in late 2004, and the current set of rules on this topic, nicked “xorlo” has replaced the old way. Now, ''lo'' is generic, and ''xo'e'' is used as a elliptical digit (lesson nineteen).





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson fifteen (the Lojban sumti 2: KOhA3, KOhA5 and KOhA6)

See what happens if I try to translate the sentence: “Stereotypical people who can speak Lojban speak to each other about the languages they can speak”:

__''bangu''__ “x1 is a language used by x2 to express x3 (abstraction)”

''le'e prenu poi ke'a kakne lo nu tavla fo la .lojban. cu tavla le'e prenu poi ke'a kakne lo nu tavla fo la .lojban. lo bangu poi lo prenu poi ke'a tavla fo la .lojban. cu se bangu ke'a''



What we see is that the Lojban version is much longer than the English. This is primarily because the first, ridiculously long sumti is being repeated two more times in the Lojban text, while the English can refer to it by “each other” and “they” - much more efficiently. Wouldn't it be clever if Lojban somehow had mechanisms for doing the same?



It turns out it does, what a surprise! Lojban has a range of words called ''sumka'i'' meaning “sumti-representatives”. In English, we refer to them as pro-sumti, because they are essentially the same as the English pronouns, but with sumti instead of nouns. In fact, you already know ''ti'', ''do'' and ''mi'', but there are many more, so let's get learning. First, we want to put it into system. We can begin with the ones most familiar to English, and what you've already learned:



__''ti''__ - sumka'i: “immediate ‘it': represents a sumti physically near the speaker”

__''ta''__ - sumka'i: “nearby ‘it': represents a sumti some physical distance from the speaker OR close to the listener”

__''tu''__ - sumka'i: “distant ‘it': represents a sumti physically far from the speaker and the listener.”



You can again recognize the “i, a, u”-sequence which pops up over and over. Some things might take some clearing up, though. Firstly, these sumti can represent anything which can be said to occupy a physical space. Objects, certainly. Ideas, certainly not. Events are accepted, but only to the extent they are restricted to a specific place - the Jasmin Revolution cannot be pointed at, but some bar-fight or a kiss might. Secondly, note that the distance is relative to different things for the different words: ''tu'' only applies if it's distant from both the speaker and the listener. In cases where the speaker and listener is far apart and the listener cannot see the speaker talking, ''ta'' refers to something close to the listener. Thirdly, it's all relative and context dependent. These three words are all problematic in written text, for instance, because the position of the speaker and listener is unknown to each other, and changes as time goes by. Furthermore, the author of a book cannot point to an object and express the pointing in the book.



Then there is a series called KOhA3, to which ''mi'' and ''do'' (and ''ko'', but I won't write that here) belongs:

__''mi''__ - sumka'i: The speaker(s).

__''mi'o''__ - sumka'i: The mass of the speaker(s) and the listener(s) .

__''mi'a''__ - sumka'i: The mass of the speaker(s) and others.

__''ma'a''__ - sumka'i: The mass of the speaker(s), the listener(s) and others.

__''do''__ - sumka'i: The listener(s).

__''do'o''__ - sumka'i: The mass of the listener(s) and others.



These six sumka'i are more easily grasped in the below Venn diagram:



{img fileId="3" thumb="y" rel="box[g]"}

Venn diagram of KOhA3 (''ko'' excluded). ''le drata'' is not a KOhA3, but means “the other(s)”



It is possible for several people to be “the speakers”, if one statement is made on the behalf of all of them. Therefore, while “we” can be translated as either ''mi'', ''mi'o'', ''mi'a'' or ''ma'a'', what one quite often means is really just ''mi''. All of these six, if they refer to more than one individual, represent masses. Within bridi-logic, the bridi ''mi gleki'' said by speaker A is exactly equivalent to ''do gleki'' said by speaker B to speaker A, and are considered the same bridi. We will come back to this later, in the ''brika'i'' (pro-bridi) lesson.



All of these ''sumka'i'' are very content-specific, and cannot be used, for instance, to help us with the sentence which this lesson began with. The following series can in principle be used to refer to any sumti:

__''ri''__ - sumka'i: “Last sumti mentioned”

__''ra''__ - sumka'i: “A recent, but not the last sumti mentioned”

__''ru''__ - sumka'i: “A sumti mentioned long ago”



These sumti will refer to any terminated sumti except most other ''sumka'i''. The reason that most other ''sumka'i'' cannot be referred to by these sumti, is that they are so easy to just repeat by themselves. The exception to the rule are ''ti'', ''ta'' and ''tu'', because you could have changed what you point at, and thus cannot just repeat the word. They will only refer to terminated sumti, and thus cannot, for instance, be used to refer to an abstraction if the word in is that abstraction: ''le pendo noi ke'a pendo mi cu djica lo nu ri se zdani'' - here ''ri'' cannot refer to the abstration, since it is not terminated, nor to ''mi'' or ''ke'a'', since they are sumka'i, so it refers to ''le pendo''.

''ra'' and ''ru'' are context-dependent in what they refer to, but they follow the rules mentioned above, and ''ru'' always refer to a more distant sumti than ''ra'', which is always more distant than ''ri''.



''ri'' and it's brothers are pretty well suited for dealing with the original sentence. Try saying it using two instances of ''sumka'i''!



Answer: ~~grey,grey:''le'e prenu poi ke'a kakne lo nu tavla fo la .lojban. cu tavla ru lo bangu poi ru cu se bangu ke'a''. ''ri'' is not correct, because it refers to ''la .lojban.''. ''ra'' could be used, but could be mistakenly be thought to refer to ''lo nu tavla fo la .lojban.'', but ''ru'' is assumed to refer to the most distant sumti - the most outer one.~~



Lastly, there a sumtcita which represent utterances: So called utterance variables. They need not be restricted to one sentence (jufra), but can be several sentences, if the context allows it:

__''da'u''__ Utterance variable: Remote past sentence

__''de'u''__ Utterance variable: Recent sentence

__''di'u''__ Utterance variable: Previous sentence

__''dei''__ Utterance variable: This sentence

__''di'e''__ Utterance variable: Next sentence

__''de'e''__ Utterance variable: Near future sentence

__''da'e''__ Utterance variable: Remote future sentence

__''do'i''__ Utterance variable: Elliptical utterance variable: “Some sentence”

These represents sentences as sumti, and refer only to the spoken words or the letters, not to the meaning behind them.



There are more Lojban ''sumka'i'', but for now you probably need a break from them. The next lesson will be on derived sumti, sumti made from other sumti.





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson sixteen (the Lojban sumti 3: derived sumti)

You can probably see that the sumti ''le bangu poi mi se bangu ke'a'' is a less than elegant expression for “my language”. This is because it's really a work around. A language which I speak can be said to fill into the x1 of the bridi ''bangu mi''. We can't convert that to a sumti using a gadri: ''le bangu {ku} mi'' is two sumti, because ''bangu mi'' is a bridi, not a selbri. Neither can we convert it using ''le su'u'', because the su'u gives the bridi a new x1, the abstraction, and the ''le'' then extracts that. That makes an abstraction sumti meaning something like “that something is my language”.

Enter ''be''. ''be'' is a word which binds constructs (sumti, sumtcita and others) to a selbri. Using it in ordinary selbri has no effect: in ''mi nelci be do'', the ''be'' does nothing. However, when a sumti is bound to a selbri this way, you can use a gadri on the selbri without the sumti splitting off: ''le bangu be mi'' is a correct solution to the problem above. Likewise, you can attach a sumtcita: ''le nu darxi kei be gau do'': “The event of hitting, which is caused by you”. Note that the presence or absence of ''kei'' makes it parse differently: With the fa'orma'o present, ''be'' attaches to ''nu'', without the fa'orma'o, it attaches to ''darxi''. So it decides what is being emphasised: Is the hitting, or the event of hitting caused by you? In this specific case, though, that's just about the same thing.



What if I want to attach several sumti to a selbri inside a gadri? “The giver of the apple to you” is ''le dunda be lo plise be do'', right? Nope. The second ''be'' attaches to the apple, meaning ''le plise be do'' - “The apple of the strain of you”, which makes no sense. In order to string several sumti to a selbri, the all the ones following the first must be bound with ''bei''. The “binding” can be terminated with ''be'o'' - one instance of ''be'o'' for each selbri which has sumti bound by ''be''.

To list them:

__''be''__ binds sumti or sumtcita to selbri

__''bei''__ binds a second, third, fourth (ect) sumti or sumtcita to a selbri

__''be'o''__ ends binding to selbri



There is also ways to loosely associate a sumti with another. ''pe'' and ''ne'' for restrictive and non-restrictive association. Actually, ''le bangu pe mi'' is a better translation of “my language”, since this phrase, like the English, is vague as to how the two are associated with each other.

''pe'' and ''ne'' are used as loose association only, like saying “my chair” about a chair which you sit on. It's not really yours, but has something do to with you. A more intimate connection can be established with ''po'', which makes the association unique and binding to a person, as in “my car” for a car that you actually own. The last kind of associator is ''po'e'', which makes a so-called "inalienable" bond between sumti, meaning that the bond is innate between the two sumti. Some examples could be "my mother", "my arm" or "my home country"; none of these "possesions" can be lost (even if you saw off your arm, it's still __your__ arm), and are therefore inalienable. Almost all of the times a ''po'e'' is appropriate, though, the x2 of the selbri contains the one to which the x1 is connected, so ''be'' is better.

__''ne''__ non-restrictive relative phrase. "which is associated with..."

__''pe''__ restrictive relative phrase. "which is associated with..."

__''po''__ possesive relative phrase. "which is specific to..."

__''po'e''__ inalienable relative phrase. "which belongs to..."



A very useful construct to know is ''{gadri} {sumti} {selbri}''. this is equivalent to ''{gadri} {selbri} pe  {sumti}''. For instance ''le mi gerku'' is equivalent to ''le gerku pe mi''. One could have description sumti inside description sumti, saying ''le le se cinjikca be mi ku gerku'', = ''le gerku pe le se cinjikca be mi'' =“the dog of the man I'm flirting with”, but that's not very easy to read (or to understand when spoken), and is often being avoided.



One need also to learn ''tu'a'', since it will make a lot of sentences much easier. It takes a sumti and converts it to another sumti - an elliptical abstraction which has something to do with the first sumti. For example, I could say ''mi djica lo nu mi citka lo plise'', or I could let it be up to context what abstraction about the apple I desire and just say ''mi djica tu'a lo plise''. One always has to guess what abstraction the speaker means by ''tu'a SUMTI'', so it should only be used when context makes it easy to guess. Another example:

__''gasnu''__ “x1 does/brings about x2 (volition not implied)”

''za'a do gasnu tu'a lo skami'' - “I see that you make the computer do something”. Officially, ''tu'a SUMTI'' is equivalent to ''le su'u SUMTI co'e''. Vague, but useful. There are situations where you cannot use ''tu'a'', even though it would seem suitable. These situations are when I don't want the resulting sumti to be an abstraction, but a concrete sumti. In this case, one can use ''zo'e pe''.

__''tu'a''__ convert sumti to vague abstraction involving the sumti. Equivalent to ''le su'u SUMTI co'e kei ku''



Finally, one kind of sumti can be turned into another by the words of the class LAhE.

__''lu'a''__ - Convert individual(s)/mass/sequence/set to individuals.

__''lu'i''__ - Convert individual(s)/mass/sequence/set to a set.

__''lu'o''__ - Convert individual(s)/mass/sequence/set to mass.

__''vu'i''__ - Convert individual(s)/mass/sequence/set to sequence; the order is not stated.

The use of these words is straight-forwardly: Placing them before a sumti of a certain type makes a new sumti of a new type. Notice, though, that as a fourth kind of sumti, a sequence has been introduced. This is not used very often (it doesn't have its own gadri, for instance), but just included here for completion.

The last two members of LAhE do not convert between types of sumti, but allows you to speak of a a sumti by only mentioning something which references to it:

If one sumti A refers to a sumti B, for instance because sumti A is a title of a book, or a name, or a sentence (which always refer to something, at least a bridi), ‘'la'e SUMTI A'' refers to sumti B. For instance, ‘'mi nelci la'e di'u'' for “I like what you just said” (not ''mi nelci di'u'' which just means "I like your previous sentence") or ‘'la'e le cmalu noltru'' for the book “The Little Prince”, and not some little prince himself. The cmavo ‘'lu'e'' does the exact reverse – ‘'lu'e SUMTI'' refers to an object which refers to the sumti. 

__''la'e''__ - “the thing referred to by” - extracts a sumti A from a sumti B which refers to A. 

__''lu'e''__ - “the thing referring to” - extracts a sumti B from a sumti A, when B refers to A.





!!!End of part one

Due to the impractically large size of these lessons, the second and third installment can be found on pages dedicated to ((wavelessonscontinuedp2|the former)) and ((wavelessonscontinuedp3|the latter)). No worries, though, clicking on "the former" or "the latter" will take you there painlessly.




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