[Wikineurotic] Wiki page leçons wave en français p3 created by lomicmenes

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!Les leçons Wave continuées (troisième partie):

!!!Fait par la klaku avec l'aide de divers lojbanists. Basé sur le travail de la .kribacr. Printemps 2013. Traduit par lomicmenes avec l'aide des utilisateurs de duolingo.com, en particulier gourlaouen.



Bienvenue dans la troisième partie des "Leçon Wave continuées". Si vous souhaitez retourner à ((wavelessonscontinued|la première)) ou ((wavelessonscontinuedp2|seconde partie)), il faut juste cliquer sur les mots qui les représentent dans cette phrase. Cette troisième partie traite du lojban avancé. Le lojban  dans cette partie est rarement pertinent lorsque l'on parle lojban  dans un contexte normal, mais il est souvent employé pour parler de la langue et de logique.



Ces aspects du lojban sont en grande part expérimentaux, nouveaux ou complexes, donc vous devriez vous attendre à beaucoup de définitions changeantes, de définitions obsolètes, de désaccords et de malentendus de la part de l'auteur de ce texte. Désolé pour cela.



!!Leçons de lojban - Leçon vingt-sept (logique lojban : da, bu'a zo'u et termes)



Le sujet exposé dans cette leçon nécessite quelques justifications: cette leçon ne traite pas vraiment de comment faire de la logique en lojban, puisque premièrement, on peut supposer que la logique est la même dans toutes les langues, et deuxièmement, enseigner effectivement la logique serait tout à fait impossible en une leçon. Au lieu de ça, cette leçon explique certaines constructions qui ressemblent à celles que les logiciens utilisent. Il s'avère qu'elles ont un éventail remarquable d'utilisations en lojban.



Être engagé dans les plus obscurs détails de ces constructions logique peut être difficile au point de tordre les neurones, et il y aura toujours quelque discordances sur les détails de cette section de la langue.



Apprendre ces constructions logiques nécessite d'en apprendre un peu sur des constructions qui ne sont pas logiques par nature. Commençons par ''zo'u''



__''zo'u''__ sépare le prénex du bridi



Devant chaque ''zo'u'' il y a le prénex, le bridi vient après. En gros, un prénex est un emplacement devant le bridi, où l'on place une flopée de termes. Un terme est un mot français donné à certains genres de constructions lojbanes : sumti, sumtcita avec ou sans sumti lié, ''na ku'' et une abomination appelée ensemble de termes, que je refuse d'inclure dans ces leçons. Le prénex ne fait pas partie du bridi, mais tout les terme qui s'y trouvent nous donnent des informations concernant le bridi. On peut, par exemple, l'utiliser pour définir un sujet comme suit :



''lo pampe'o je nai speni zo'u mi na zanru'' - « Concernant les amants qui ne sont pas époux : je n'approuve pas ». Les bénéfices de ce genre de structure de phrase sont discutables, mais c'est toujours bon d'avoir quelques variantes sous la main. De plus, cette façon de construire des phrases ressemble de près au mandarin (et à d'autres langues), et pourrait donc sembler plus intuitive pour les locuteurs de cette langue.



__''pampe'o''__ x1 est un amant de x2

__''zanru''__ x1 approuve x2 (plan, évènement ou action)



Bien sûr, la relation entre les termes du prénex et le bridi est vague. On peut imaginer que les sumti du prénex confèrent le même rapport au bridi que s'ils étaient à l'intérieur du bridi après un sumtcita ''do'e'', et que les sumtcita du prénex ont à peu près le même effet que s'ils étaient dans le bridi. Il est tout à fait possible de mettre des termes dans des prénexs sans aucun indice clair sur la façon dont le terme peut être relier au bridi.

''le vi gerku zo'u mi to'e nelci lo cidjrpitsa'' - « Concernant ce chien ici : je n'aime pas la pizza ». Il vous appartient de deviner la raison de mentionner le chien.



__''cidjrpitsa''__ x1 est de la pizza avec la garniture/les ingrédients x2



Si le prénex contient ''na ku'', c'est assez simple: le bridi entier est nié, de même que si le bridi lui-même commence par ''na ku''.



Alors combien de temps dure un prénex ? Il dure jusqu'à ce que le bridi le suivant soit terminé. Si ce n'est pas ce qu'on veut, il y a deux moyens de faire qu'il s'applique à plusieurs bridi : l'un est de mettre quelque sorte de connecteur après le ''.i'' séparant les bridi, et l'autre méthode est de simplement mettre tout le texte entre des parenthèses ''tu'e… tu'u''. Ces parenthèses agissent essentiellement en collant tous les bridi ensemble et font s'appliquer toutes sortes de constructions à plusieurs bridi.



Maintenant que nous avons traité de ''zo'u'', les premiers mots "logiques" que nous pouvons utiliser avec lui sont ceux-ci :



__''da''__ sumka'i existentiel logiquement quantifié 1

__''de''__ sumka'i existentiel logiquement quantifié 2

__''di''__ sumka'i existentiel logiquement quantifié 3



Ces mots sont tous les mêmes, comme les variables mathématiques x,y et z. Cependant, une fois que vous les avez définis, ils font toujours référence à la même chose. Ces mots sont définis dans le prénex du bridi, ce qui signifie que quand le prénex cesse de s'appliquer, la définition de ces trois mots est annulée.



Les mots ''da'', ''de'' et ''di'' peuvent faire référence à absolument n'importe quel sumti, ce qui les rend assez inutiles, si on ne leur applique aucune restriction. La première façon (et la plus répandue) de les restreindre est de les quantifier : on les appelle pas « sumka'i existentiels logiquement quantifiés » sans raisons. Ce sont des sumka'i, ils sont plus utiles quand ils sont quantifiés, et ils sont existentiels. Qu'est-ce que ça veut dire être « existentiel » ? Ça signifie que s'ils sont utilisés, ça implique qu'ils font référence à quelque chose qui existe effectivement. Un exemple :



La déclaration ''pa da zo'u da gerku a pa da'' dans le prénex, qui signifie « concernant une chose existante : », et le ''da'' ainsi défini est utilisé dans le bridi da gerku. Traduit en français cela signifie : « Il existe une chose, qui est un chien ». C'est évidemment faux, il y en a environ 400 000 000 dans le monde. Si ''da'' et ses soeurs ne sont pas quantifiées, le nombre ''su'o'' est là par défaut. Ainsi ''da zo'u da gerku'' signifie « il existe au moins une chose qui est un chien », ce qui est vrai. Remarquez ici qu'une quantification doit être plus ou moins exacte pour être vrai : bien sûr qu'il existe un chien, mais en lojban, ''pa da zo'u da gerku'' signifie non seulement qu'il existe un chien, mais aussi qu'il n'en existe pas plus d'un.



Il y a quelques règles spécifiques à ces sumka'i existentiels :



- Si le quantificateur ''ro'' est utilisé devant ''da'', il est fait référence à « tout ce qui existe ».



-  Un détail important : l'usage d'un sumka'i existentiel implique seulement qu'une telle chose existe dans le domaine de vérité dans lequel il est utilisé. Ainsi, la phrase ''so'e verba cu krici lo du'u su'o da crida'', n'implique pas ''da crida'', puisque son « domaine de vérité » est limité à l'intérieur de l'abstraction ''du'u''. D'une façon générale, les abstractions contiennent leur propre « domaine de vérité », et donc utiliser ''da'' et ses amis à l'intérieur d'une abstraction ne pose habituellement pas de problème.



Si la même variable est quantifiée plusieurs fois, la première quantification est la seule qui demeure : toute quantification postérieure de cette variable ne peut faire référence qu'à des choses qui sont déjà référées par la première instance de cette variable, et toute instance postérieure non quantifiée de cette variable se verra attribuer le premier quantificateur. Pour utiliser un exemple: ''ci da zo'u re da barda .ije da pelxu'' signifie « Il existe trois choses telles que deux d'entre elles sont grandes et toutes les trois sont jaunes ». ''re da'', venant après ''ci da'', ne peut faire référence qu'à deux des trois choses déjà exprimées. Quand ''da'' figure sans quantificateur, ci est implicite.



- Si il y a plusieurs termes dans le prénex, ces termes sont toujours à lire de gauche à droite. Parfois c'est important : ''ro da de zo'u da prami'' de signifie parfois « Concernant toutes les choses X qui existent, concernant au moins une chose Y: X aime Y ». C'est la même chose que « Toutes les choses aiment au moins une chose. » , où la (les) « chose(s) » peuvent être n'importe quoi, y compris la chose elle-même. Notez ici que ''de'' peut faire référence à différentes choses  pour chaque ''da'' – la chose à laquelle fait référence de est dépendante du ''da'', puisqu'il vient avant lui dans le prenex, donc chaque chose pourrait aimer quelque chose de différent. Si nous intervertissons les places de ''da'' et ''de'' dans le prénex, cela produit un résultat différent : ''de ro da ze'u da prami de'' = « Concernant au moins une chose Y, concernant tous les X qui existent : X aime Y », signifiant « Il existe au moins une chose que toute chose aime ».



Bien sûr, les deux affirmations sont complètement fausses. Il y a plein de choses qui n'aiment rien – les pierres ou les concepts abstraits par exemple. De même il est impossible de concevoir quelque chose que toute chose aime, puisque toute chose englobe aussi des choses non-sensibles. Nous avons besoin de meilleurs moyens pour limiter ce que ces variables peuvent indiquer. Un bon moyen de le faire est d'en faire le sujet d'une proposition relative :



''ri di poi remna zo'u birka di'' = « Concernant tout X existant, qui est humain : X a un ou plusieurs bras » ou « Tous les humains ont des bras », ce qui est vrai, au moins quand on parle dans un sens potentiel, intemporel.



__''birka''__ x1 est un bras de x2



Quand nous limitons les déclarations en utilisant cette sorte de variable « existentielle » logique, c'est très important de se souvenir qu'à moins d'avoir un ''no'' explicite comme quantificateur, ces sortes de propositions impliquent toujours qu'il existe effectivement quelque chose qui peut être mentionné par ''da''. En conséquence, toute sorte de proposition non négative, dans lesquelles ''da'' indique quelque chose qui n'existe pas est fausse, comme dans ce exemple: ''ro da poi pavyseljirna zo'u da se jirna'' – « Toutes les licornes ont des cornes ». C'est faux parce que, ''da'' étant existentiel, il implique aussi qu'il doit exister au moins une licorne.



Il est intéressant de noter que, quand on utilise une proposition relative, la variable devient limitée dans tous les cas que vous utilisiez ''poi'' ou ''noi.'' C'est parce que ''re da noi gerku'' ne peut toujours faire référence qu'à deux choses qui sont canines. Donc, ''noi'' n'a que peu de sens avec ''da/de/di''. Toute proposition est toujours restrictive, à moins d'être vraiment stupide et flagrante comme de ''noi gerku cu gerku''.



En fait, vous n'avez pas vraiment besoin du prénex pour définir les variables. Vous pouvez les utiliser directement comme un sumti dans le bridi, et les quantifier là. Même si vous n'avez besoin de les quantifier que la première fois qu'ils apparaissent. Par conséquent, la phrase sur les humains ayant des bras peut être transformée en ''birka ro di poi remna''. Néanmoins, l'ordre des variables reste  important, et le prénex peut donc être utilisé pour éviter de mettre le bazar dans votre bridi en plaçant les variables dans un ordre correct. Quand il y a davantage de variables, un prénex est habituellement une bonne idée.



Le second type de mots logiques fonctionne essentiellement comme les trois mots que nous avons déjà considéré, mais ils est constitué de brika'i au lieu de sumka'i.



__''bu'a''__ brika'i existentiel logiquement quantifié 1

__''bu'e''__ brika'i existentiel logiquement quantifié 2

__''bu'i''__ brika'i existentiel logiquement quantifié 3



Ceux-ci agissent plus ou moins de la même façon que les trois autres, mais ils y a quelques points important à mentionner:



Puisque seuls des termes peuvent aller dans le prénex, ces brika'i nécessitent un quantificateur pour en faire des sumti. Cependant, quand ils sont quantifiés dans le prénex, l'action des quantificateurs est très différente de celle des quantificateurs avec un selbri normal : au lieu de quantifier la quantité de chose qui correspondent au x1 du selbri variable, ils quantifient directement la quantité de selbri qui s'appliquent. Encore une fois, le quantificateur par défaut est ''su'o''. Par conséquent, au lieu de signifier « Concernant deux choses qui sont en relation X » ''re bu'a zo'u'' signifie « Concernant deux relations X ».



C'est sûrement bon de voir un exemple de ''bu'a'' mis en pratique:



''ro da bu'a la .bab.'' = « Considérant tous les X qui existent : X est dans au moins une relation avec Bob » = « Tout est lié à Bob d'au moins une façon ». Remarquez encore que l'ordre est important : ''su'o bu'a ro da zo'u da bu'a la .bab.'' signifie "il y a au moins une relation telle que toute chose qui existe est dans cette relation avec Bob". La première déclaration est vraie – pour n'importe quelle chose, on peut effectivement former un certain selbri qui comprend n'importe quel type appelé Bob et cette chose là. Mais je ne suis pas sûr que la dernière déclaration soit vraie – que l'on puisse former un selbri qui comprenne quoi que ce soit, peu importe ce que c'est et Bob.



Prenons un exemple qui quantifie le selbri:



''ci'i bu'e zo'u mi bu'e do'' – « Concernant une quantité infinie de relations : je suis dans toutes ces relations avec toi » ou « Il existe une infinité de relations entre nous ».



Néanmoins, vous ne pouvez pas quantifier les selbri variables dans le bridi lui-même. Car alors il agirait comme un sumti : ''mi ci'i bu'a do'' n'est pas un bridi. Il y a quelques situation où ça deviendra problématique - la leçon vingt-neuf enseignera comment surmonter ces problèmes.





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson twenty-eight (types)

This lesson along with the following three lessons will be on semantics - how to interpret the meaning of certain constructs. This lesson is on the meaning of different types of sumti, and will get philosophical and a bit hazy. The following two will be on abstractions, which, even though you already became familiar with them twenty-two lessons ago, will become more technical as I attempt to explain their semantic and grammatical properties.



Teaching (and learning) semantics is much more tricky than teaching grammar, especially in Lojban, where grammar is black-or-white, but semantics isn't. Therefore, I find it necessary to repeat the disclaimer from the beginning of the third part of Wavelessonscontinued: The following is not official, but rather an (educated) opinion on the language.



Bad grammar is easy to spot in Lojban - in fact it's unambiguously correct or not. In contrast, saying that a jufra is semantically wrong is the same as saying that the speaker is using Lojban to think wrongly about the world. It's not saying "You can't say X" as much as "You can't interpret X in this way. You should interpret it this way". Placing these restrictions on composing and understanding language is a slippery slope leading to restrictions on creativity, and even presupposing of certain metaphysical viewpoints while excluding others.



Then why include semantic standards in a textbook? Shouldn't any speaker be free to say anything, and any listener be free to let that speech mean whatever they want?

This is a matter of measure. Given that extreme, that is, if no semantic standards were set, everything could mean anything, and all communication would be meaningless. In any language which aims to facilitate communication, one must be able to express oneself in such a way that one can trust that one’s message is interpreted in the desired way. Semantic rules of Lojban do not exist in order to prevent people from saying A. They exist to prevent people from saying B and having others think they meant A.



This lesson is on types. The word __type__, informally translated to ''klesi'', is used by Lojbanists to describe the existential nature of the things sumti describe. This nature is, and must be, the same as the nature of the things described by other languages such as English. However, in Lojban, the different ways of making sumti denote which type a sumti belongs to, so while the exact natures of sumti can be ignored in English, Lojbanists have to deal with them.



When speaking of types, Lojbanists often mention what type a sumti __really is__. When beginning from the beginning, we have to remember that this certainty is not philosophically well grounded. Taking a materialistic viewpoint, the natural world of particles and waves does not correspond well with human understanding of say, hatred, which is not defined by any specific particles, nor any specific brain activity. It is a purely abstract concept. Similarly, in an extreme inductionist viewpoint, such as that taken by Hume, all we humans experience are subjective impressions over time - a long string of events, or, some people argue, a bunch of qualia (This is __green__. This is __crispy__. This is __round__. This is __tasty__. => "This is an apple".) This viewpoint, however, does not correspond well to human understanding of say, a cat, whose existence must be presumed to continue even when it invokes no qualia in humans, whose qualia vary among different cats, and whose death smoothly strips it of its catlike qualia.



In other words, while one can take philosophically consistent worldviews where objects and concepts don't exist, such world views are unfruitful for conducting human affairs: In our lives, we simply need to refer to objects, and pretend that they actually exist as such. One famous story tells of a philosopher, Samuel Johnson, who, frustrated about the philosophical soundness and un-refutability of a fellow philosopher's belief that the physical world does not exist, furiously kicks a rock yelling, "I refute it __thus!__"



In Lojban, most sumti are made from selbri one way or the other, which means that at the core of most sumti lies a selbri, an action, something which something __does__. The Sun is not usually referred to as {la solri}, "The Sun", but often {lo solri}, "Something which is being a sun". There are many confusing philosophical implications of this: As stated before, it's hazy at best what it means "to cat" and when something “begins catting” or "stops catting". A fictional language with similar properties is described in a neat short story, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" (where "The Moon rose over the ocean" is phrased using similar verb/adverb-derived nouns: "Upward behind the onstreaming it mooned"). In that short story, the language is about to lead to the collapse of society because the worldview which such a language implies is unfit for dealing with the realities of Earth.



The take home point of all this is: Precise definitions of the different types of sumti are impossible, because these categories do not correspond to the real world. Nonetheless, we need these categories when speaking.

There may possibly be an infinite amount of types, but I'll go through the ones which are dealt with most often in Lojban:



Material objects are perhaps the easiest to understand, even though they're hard to defend philosophically. They always have a place in both time and space, but they're considered to be a constant existing through time. That is, objects are not considered temporally: A banana carries with it its unchanging banana-ness even as it ages, until it begins breaking down and stop being a banana at all. If one could freeze time for all bananas, they would stay bananas during that frozen time.



Events are, like objects, places in space and time, but events are considered as unfolding over time: The temporal aspect is as important as the spacial. A banana can be considered an event, but in that case, the event of being a banana is composed of the changes the banana undergoes over time, whereas what makes a banana an object is all that which doesn't change. Freezing time would also freeze the event of being a banana.



Functions are a term used by a few Lojbanists to describe a group of types. All functions are abstract concepts and as such don't really exist in the real world on their own. The nuts and bolt of functions is the subject of lesson thirty; here, we focus on their semantics alone. There are a few types of functions:



Selbri are something you're already well familiar with. It describes an act of doing or being. ''crino'' understood as a selbri means "being green", ''darxi'' means "to hit". A selbri on its own is devoid of the sumti who's doing or being that selbri. As such, they're divorced from any particular instance of being green or hitting, and can therefore be understood as a kind of generalized events. They're used for sentences where no particular instance of that selbri being applied comes to mind. For instance, if I'm looking forward to my wedding next Wednesday, I'm thinking about some event placed in space and time (even if the wedding never actually takes place for some sad reason), whereas if I'm saying that I'd like to become married one day, I desire the act of marriage, and thus I desire the selbri, or rather, that the selbri be applied to me.



Amounts have almost the same grammatical properties as selbri, as you'll see in two lessons. Semantically, however, they're quite distinct. An amount is __how much something fits a selbri__, which is something completely different from the selbri itself. An amount is some kind of number, or can be represented by some number, exact or inexact, no matter whether what is quantified is practically measurable.

There is some disagreement about whether it's correct to use an amount abstraction to quantify something which is in principle unmeasurable. Thus, the amount of my greenness is certainly valid, since that could be measured by say, a digital camera, but speaking about the amount of me being Bob's friend may not be accepted philosophically. A great example which demonstrates the difference between amounts and selbri when applied to specific sumti is the following: "I change in blackness": When "blackness" is considered a selbri, it means that change from being black to not being black or the other way around. When "blackness" is considered an amount, it means my skin turns more or less black (as it does during the winter when there's little sunlight).



Concepts are maybe functions and maybe they're not, depending on who you ask. Their position as maybe-functions is explained in lesson thirty. Concepts, unlike selbri and amounts, cannot be applied to sumti. There can be no talk of “fitting a concept”, like there can be of whether or not you are “fitting a selbri” or measuring the amount of “fitting a selbri”. A concept does not exist in the real world. A concept is not even represented in the real world, like amounts or selbri can be when they’re applied to sumti. A concept, say “warfare”, exists only in the minds of people, and is understood as the meaning of the word “war”. Thus "love" understood as a concept is the idea of what love is, no matter who loves and who is being loved. 

Perhaps an example can demonstrate the difference between amounts, selbri and concepts:

In "I like loving" and "I like being loved", we are speaking of a selbri.

In the sentence "I like how much I love", I like an amount, and when saying "I like love", I refer to the concept of love.



Bridi is a type which you're also familiar with. A bridi is certainly not a function, but it does bear some relation to functions, as we'll see later. Bridi themselves are imaginary; they exist not in the real world, but inside texts, the next type to explain. However, bridi are not composed of whichever specific symbols are used to express them - because bridi are imaginary, different sentences may express the same bridi. It can be that the sentences are in different languages, that the word order is changed, or that different words are used to refer to the same sumti. Thus ''mi do prami''/''mi prami do'', "I love you", ''mi ko prami'' and ''do mi prami'' (when spoken by the person to which ''do'' refers in the first sentence) all refer to the same bridi. Bridi always have their full place structure filled by something with a non-zero value.



The concept of a text is close intertwined with the concept of a bridi. All bridi are contained in texts, though not all texts contain bridi. Indeed, one might define a text as something that can contain a bridi, but this can easily lead to circular definitions when attempting to define what bridi are. The current understanding of what things should be considered texts is vague at best. Like bridi, texts are something ethereal, something we can imagine exist in a realm outside the physical world. While these lessons certainly are a text, the text is not made of the paper these lessons are printed on, nor the magnetic fields which constitutes the bytes it's stored on. Those physical media only __represent__ the text. But what exactly can represent a text? Words, certainly. But what about body language? And do actions really speak __texts__ louder than words? This is not an issue I'll attempt to answer or even give a shot in these lessons.



Sets are much easier to deal with. They're a kind of meta-type: A imaginary box, in which a group of sumti is packed into. This box has very little to do with what's inside it. A big set does not mean that the things in the set are big, but that there are many things in the set. Sets have very few properties, therefore sets are only used when speaking about the number of things in a given category, the number of things shared between several categories, the criteria for including things in the category etc.



The last used type is the truth value. I've only seen it in use a handful of times, and only include it here because it'll be relevant when discussing a certain abstraction in the next lesson. A truth value is some verdict that a bridi is true, false, or anywhere in between. The nature of a truth value is a verdict, "True", "False", "Mostly true" or the like. It's often represented by a number, such as 0 (false), 1 (true) or 0.5 (halfway true), but this a simply a representation of the truth value, and not the value itself. One might as well represent it by a color, ranging from red to blue.



!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson twenty-nine (semantics of simple abstractions)

Having acquired a terminology suitable for the discussion of types, we can now more easily take on the semantics of abstractions. Most often, an abstraction is merely a bridi considered as a certain type. We begin with what I consider the simplest of abstractions:

''__nu__'': x1 is an event of BRIDI happening

You're already familiar with this word and how it's used. A ''nu''-abstraction is always an event, and as such, it's situated in one particular time and space. Thus:

''mi catlu lo nu lo prenu cu darxi lo gerku'' - "I watch a person hitting a dog" is a proper event, whereas

''mi kakne lo nu bajra fi lo mi birka'' - "I can running on my arms" is wrong, because no particular event of running is implied: The running you're able to do is a selbri - a generalized event, and the Lojban sentence above should sound as badly phrased as its English translation.



There are many ways to view an event, and so there are four other abstractors, which all also create events. The meaning of these abstractions are all covered by ''nu'', but more specific. I'll go through them all here:

''__mu’e__'': x1 is a point-like event of BRIDI happening

''__za’i__'' x1 is a state of BRIDI being true

''__pu’u__'' x1 is a process of BRIDI unfolding through stages x2

''__zu’o__'' x1 is an activity of BRIDI consisting of the repeated event of x2

The understanding of these abstractors is tied to the understanding of event contours. ''mu’e'' is akin to the event contour ''co’i'' in the sense that both treat the bridi as point-like in time and space:

''lo mu’e mi kanro binxo cu se djica mi'' – "Me becoming healthy is desired by me" has the semantic meaning that the process of becoming healthy is not being considered. If it consists of painful chemotherapy, it is plausible that this process is not desired at all. “Becoming healthy”, in a point-like sense is desired, however.

''za’i'' is like the event contour ''ca’o'' in the sense that ''lo za’i BRIDI'' begins to apply when the bridi begins and sharply ends when the bridi ceases to be true, much like ''ca’o''.

''za’o za’i mi kanro binxo'' means that the state of me becoming healthy took too much time; that the time between my health beginning to improve and be actually being healthy was long-winded.

The actual treatment is perhaps better caught by ''pu’u'', which, like event contours in general, puts emphasis on the entire event as unfolding through time. ''.ii ba zi co’a pu’u mi kanro binxo .oi'' expresses fear that the painful process of becoming healthy is about to begin. The x2 is filled by a sequence of stages, which can be made by interspacing the stages with the non-logical connective ''ce’o'': ''ze’u pu’u mi kanro binxo kei lo nu mi facki ce’o lo nu mi jai tolsti ce’o lo nu mi renvi'' means “something is a long process of me becoming healthy consisting of the stages A ) I find out B ) something about me begins C ) I endure.”

Finally, the semantics of ''zu’o'' treats the abstraction as consisting of a number of repeated actions: ''lo za'a zo'u darxi lo tanxe cu rinka lo ca mu'e porpi'' – "The observed activity of beating the box caused its current brokenness" is more accurate than the similar sentence using ''nu'', because ''zu'o'' makes it explicit that it was the repeating of the action of beating, not a particular instance of beating which broke the box.



The x2 of ''zu'o'' is either one event or a sequence which is repeated. To be unnecessarily explicit, we could have stated that the cause of the current brokenness was ''lo zo'u darxi lo tanxe kei lonu lafti lo grana kei ku ce'o lonu muvgau lo grana lo tanxe kei ku ce'o'' ... and so on.

Note the difference between ''mu’e bajra'', ''za’i bajra'', ''pu’u bajra'', ''zu’o bajra'' and ''nu bajra'': The point-like event of running puts emphasis on the event happening, but nothing else. The state of running begins when the runner begins and stops when the runner stops. The process of running consists of a warm-up, keeping a steady speed, and the final sprint. The activity of running consists the cycles of lifting one foot, moving it forward, dropping it down, repeat with the other foot. All of these aspects are simultaneously covered by the event of running, ''nu bajra''.



Another type of abstractor is the experience abstractor, ''li'i'':

''__li'i__'': Experience abstractor: x1 is x2's internal experience of BRIDI

An experience can be considered an event type. It has almost the same attributes: It's placed in space, there's focus on the time over which it unfolds, and it's not a function.

Unlike event abstractions, however, an experience is explicitly mental - a ''li'i''-abstraction cannot be said to exist outside the mind of a person. This difference is purely semantic, and exchanging event and experience abstractors would not be considered a type failure in the same sense as ''mi kakne lo nu...''. It might not make sense, as in ''lo kacma cu vreji lo li'i lo mi pendo cu cliva kei mi'' - "A camera recorded my experience of my friend leaving". But then again, cinema is dependent on cameras being able to record the actors' emotions.

It does, I think, make complete sense to write ''mi ciksi lo li'i lo mi pendo cu cliva kei mi'', ''lo li'i lo mi tunba cu morsi cu mukti lo nu mi catra'',  and the like.

''li'i'' is derived from ''lifri'', and is indeed a ''se lifri'' - an experience.



A ''du'u''-abstraction is probably the other kind of abstraction you're used to seeing, beside ''nu''.

''__du'u__'': Bridi abstractor: x1 is the bridi of BRIDI, as represented by text x2

According to the standard, abstractions like truths, lies, things being discovered or things being believed are all pure bridi:

''.ui sai zi facki lo du’u zi citka lo cidjrpitsa'' – “Yes! I just found out that pizza will be eaten soon!”

''mi krici lo du'u la turni cu zbasu pi ro lo munje zi'o'' - "I believe The Lord created all of the universe"

What is being discovered or believed is the truth of an abstract bridi, so ''du'u'' is appropriate.

As you can see from the definition of ‘’du’u’’, the x2 of ''du'u'' is used for the text in which the bridi is contained. As stated before, the nature of texts is hard to nail down, but in practice, ''du'u'''s x2 can be used to express indirect quotation:

''.ue do pu cusku ku'i lo se du'u do nelci lo ckafi'' - "Oh! But you said that you liked coffee!"



Out of obligation, this lesson will include the truth value abstractor, ''jei''. Let's see the definition:

''__jei__'': Truth abstraction: x1 is the truth value of BRIDI under epistemology x2

''jei'' is rarely used, not because truth abstractions are infrequently needed, but because most Lojbanists use other mechanisms to obtain them. The real use of ''jei'' is whenever a truth value which is not "true" or "false" is needed, i.e. practically never. I'll give a couple of examples:

''mi di'i pensi lo jei mi merko'' - "I often think about whether I am American or not" (contrast with "I often think about how American I am", which uses an amount abstraction, not a truth value)

''li pi bi jei la tinjin cu mikce'' - "It's 80% true that Tindjin is a doctor" (whatever that might mean)



To conclude this lesson, the abstractor ''su'u'' is a universal abstractor, whose x2 can be used to specify how the abstraction should be considered - for example, which type the abstraction is. It has already been defined, but we might as well do it again:

''__su'u__'': Universal abstractor x1 is the abstraction on BRIDI considered as x2 / x1 is the abstraction of BRIDI of type x2.

The idea of this abstraction is easy, so I'll just give a few examples of it in use and leave it at that:

The English phrase “that I love you” is definitely a sumti, since it’s meant to function as a subject or object in a sentence. It’s also clearly made from an abstraction. It can therefore be translated ''lo su’u mi do prami''. Without the context of the English sentence, though, it’s hard to guess what kind of abstraction was meant. “I will die happy by the time that I love you.” treats the abstraction as an event happening in time. “The truth is that I love you.” treats the abstraction like a bridi, which can be considered true or false. "You don't know how much I love you" treats the (nearly identical) abstraction as an amount. Using the second sumti place of su’u, these can be explicitly differentiated:

''lo su’u mi do prami kei be lo fasnu'' is an event.

''lo su’u mi do prami kei be lo bridi'' is a bridi.

''lo su’u mi do prami kei be lo klani'' is an amount.

Using ''su’u'' this way, the semantic (though not grammatical) range of all abstractors can be covered. More usually, though, other abstractors are used.

Finally, Lojbanist J. Cowan translated the title of the book The Crucifixion of Jesus Considered As A Downhill Bicycle Race as ''lo su'u la .iecuas. kuctai selcatra kei be lo sa’ordzifa'a ke nalmatma'e sutyterjvi''.





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson thirty (semantics of functions)

Functions are a group of two-three types of abstractions. The term's not official, but I'll use it here anyway.

The definition of functions is closely related to the neat little word ''ce'u''. ''ce'u'' is a sumka'i which fills one sumti place. It's only found usage inside abstractions which are also functions. All functions can have at least one ''ce'u'' somewhere in the abstraction - that's what makes them functions. The ''ce'u'' can be elided, in which case it's most often assumed to fill the first elided sumti place of the function, unless context provides a more reasonable alternative.

What does it actually do? Let's have a look at its definition:

''__ce'u''__: Pseudo-quantifier binding a variable within an abstraction that represents an open place.

Well, that wasn't very helpful, so let me try explaining it with another approach:

Putting ''ce'u'' in a sumti place leaves the sumti place empty. The place is not erased, like if you fill it with ''zi'o'', but the place is not filled with anything - not a specific thing, not a ''zu'i'', not a  ''zo'e'', nothing. In that manner, the empty sumti places are reminiscent of the x1, x2, and x3's we put in the sumti places of English definitions of brivla - marking "This is where something else can be put".

Thus ''mi citka lo ti badna'' is "I eat this banana", but ''mi citka ce'u'' is "I eat X".

Of course, "I eat X" is meaningless unless that X is filled by something, and indeed the sentence ''mi citka ce'u'' is senseless in Lojban as well.



In order to put it to use, we need a function abstraction. We'll begin with the most often-used: The selbri abstraction ''ka''. Let's see its official gloss:

''__ka__'' Property/quality abstractor (-ness); x1 is quality/property exhibited by BRIDI.

Under the understanding which I will teach, this gloss is mildly misleading. Instead, ''ka'' should probably be glossed such:

''__ka__'' Predicate/selbri abstractor: x1 is the predicate/selbri of BRIDI (needs at least one open variable i.e. a "ce'u")

Using a selbri abstraction, "I eat X" can make sense, as in the following example:

''__ckaji__'' x1 is characterized by selbri x2

''lo ti badna cu ckaji lo ka mi citka ce'u'' - "This banana is characterized by the selbri: "I eat X"", which may be rephrased as "This banana fits the selbri: "Being eaten by me"", which is of course equivalent to ''mi citka lo ti badna'' - "I eat this banana".

For the statement to make sense, the sumti place held open by ''ce'u'' usually, but not always, must be filled by something. The main selbri of the statement, in this case ''ckaji'', gives us a clue how to fill the open sumti place. Such selbri almost always fill it with a sumti from the main selbri. How ''ce'u'' is given a non-zero value has been a subject of minor debate in Lojbanistan, but the issue is more or less settled: ''ce'u'' keeps a sumti place open, and the main selbri then fills it with something, and what fills the place depends on the selbri in question.



Though it often is, the ''ce'u'' place need not always be filled by the selbri in order for the abstraction to make sense: On its own, ''lo ka ce'u te vecnu lo finpe'' means: "buying a fish", or "to buy a fish". This can be used in a sentence without the selbri filling the ‘’ce’u’’ in:

''lo se lisri cu srana lo ka ce'u te vecnu lo finpe'' - "The plot is about buying a fish". Here, ''srana'' does not apply anything to the ''ce'u''-place, and the abstraction is instead seen as the selbri on its own.



An alternative way of explaining ''ce'u'' is by regarding the word as representing variables in a lambda function. For instance, consider the sentence:

''la .alis. cu djica lo ka ce'u te vecnu lo finpe'' - "Alice wants to buy a fish"

Here, the first argument of ''djica'' is the one who wants something, namely Alice. The second argument is the selbri that Alice wants to fulfill: Buying a fish.

We can view ''ce'u'' as a free variable, which then becomes bound by a lambda abstraction, namely ''ka''.  Now, ''ka ce'u terve'u lo finpe'' can be seen as a lambda function:

    \ x -> te vecnu(x,lo finpe,zo'e,zo'e),

and in this case ''djica'' supplies the lambda function with Alice.



Lambdas can be stored, allowing them to be passed around and use them in various situations:

''ca'e ko'a ka ce'u dansu .i mi ko'a ckaji .i do ko'a djica .i ma'a ko'a kakne''  - “It is dancing. I am doing it. You want it. Everyone can do it."



Now, using ''ka'', you can correctly phrase "I can run on my arms". How?

Answer: ~~grey,grey:mi kakne lo ka {ce'u} bajra fi lo mi birka~~



A lot of often-used gismu take selbri as one of their sumti, which means ''lo ka'' is used quite often. A few notable examples are ''troci'', ''kakne'', ''djica'', ''zukte'', ''snada'' and ''fraxu'':

''lo kasli na’e kakne lo ka silcu la'e la'oi X-files'' - "The donkey cannot whistle the X-files song"



''.e'o ko lo jai se zgike cu fraxu lo ka darxi lo damri ca lo nu do sipna'' - "Please forgive the musician for striking the drum when you were sleeping!"



At least one selbri can fill two ''ce'u'' within a ka-abstraction, namely ‘’simxu’’. What does the following jufra mean?



''mi lo pampe'o cu simxu lo ka {ce'u ce'u} gletu''

Answer: ~~grey,grey:''Me and my lover have sex with each other mutually"~~



Of course, the ''ce'u'' need not be placed in the beginning of the ''ka''-abstraction, though it is by default. One could very well speak of:

''lo ka la .bab. melbi ce'u'' - "The selbri of: "Bob is beautiful according to X"", or in other words: "Thinking that Bob is beautiful".

Indeed, moving the ''ce'u'' around in an function creates very different meanings:

''lo ka ce'u panzi la .maik.'' - "The selbri: "X is a child of Mike"" = "Being Mike's child", versus

''lo ka la .maik. panzi ce'u'' - "The selbri: "Mike is a child of X"" = "Being the parent of Mike".

One could even imagine a statement in where the ''ce'u'' is placed in a very unconventional place, that nonetheless is quite intuitive:

''mi .e nai do ckaji lo ka lo bruna cu jbocre'', wherein the ''ce'u'' is elided, but most probably hiding in ''lo bruna be ce'u'', therefore meaning "I and not you is characterized by the selbri: "The brother of X is good at Lojban"", which is the same as "I have a brother who's good at Lojban, but you don't".



One can make a function, like a "ka"-abstraction, and fill all sumti places, leaving no place for a ''ce'u''. The resulting bridi are weird:

''mi kakne lo ka mi merko lo mi bangu'' - "I can my language is American". This is clearly a type error. Some people regard functions without any ''ce'u'' to be equivalent to bridi abstractions, so that:

''mi krici lo ka mi vrude la cevni'' is the same as ''mi krici lo du'u mi vrude la cevni'' - "I believe that I am good in the eyes of God", and is just as good a sentence in Lojban as its translation is in English. In my opinion, one should refrain from using any of the function abstractors if one doesn't want to use a function. If you mean ''du'u'', use ''du'u''.



The other abstractor which clearly can provide a function is ''ni''. Like ''ka'', a ''ce'u'' can be placed in a ''ni'' abstraction, but unlike with ‘’ka’’, using a ‘’ce’u’’ with ‘’ni’’ is not mandatory. Thus, if no ''ce'u'' is placed in a ''ni''-abstraction, one cannot assume that it's elided - it might simply not be there. If the main selbri is not one which clearly tells us how to fill a ''ce'u''-place, such as ''zmadu'' or ''mleca'', there's probably no ''ce'u'' at all.

In all other aspects, the way ''ce'u'' works within the abstraction is just like ''ka'', so the difference is purely semantical. Whereas ''ka'' creates a selbri, ''ni'' creates an amount. Here's the definition of the word:



__''ni''__: Amount abstraction: x1 is the amount of BRIDI on scale x2

Being familiar with ''ka'', the usage of ‘’ni’’ should be straightforward:

''mi zmadu do lo ni {ce'u} xekri'' - "I exceed you in amount: "X is black"", or: "I'm blacker than you." As stated in lesson twenty-eight, all agree that this makes total sense because the brightness of one's skin could be measured by a camera. However, some people will not accept the unmeasurable:

''mi zmadu do lo ni mi pendo la .maik.'' - "I am more of a friend of Mike than you are". I think using amounts to quantify the unmeasurable is fine, but that is an issue I swept under the carpet two lessons ago, and I'm not gonna take it on here.



It's absolutely clear, however, that it's wrong to use ''ni'' as a way to enumerate how many objects fit a selbri - it's always about to which extent certain sumti fit a selbri. Thus:

''do mleca mi lo ni panzi ce'u'' means "You are less of a parent than I am", and not "You have fewer children than me".

In case you're curious (I was), the jufra ''zo'e panzi ce'u'' in the previous example actually refers to two distinct bridi, because the selbri fills the open ''ce'u''-place twice, once for ''do'', and once for ''mi'', making the two sub-bridi: ''zo'e panzi do'' and ''zo'e panzi mi''. Since these two bridi are considered different, the ''zo'e'' need not refer to the same object.



What does it mean if you don't use a ''ce'u'' inside a ''ni''-abstraction? Well, then the main selbri can't fill any of the sumti in the abstraction, so when using selbri like ‘’zmadu’’ and ‘’mleca’’, there's a good chance it won't make any sense. However, if ''ni'' itself is the main selbri, it's totally fine to avoid using any ''ce'u'' at all:

''li du'e ni do nelci lo vanju'' - "You like wine too much"



The last of the abstractors we treat in this lesson is ''si'o'', the concept abstractor. ''si'o'' may be considered a function, or it may not be considered a function. A ''si'o''-abstraction certainly contains a ''ce'u'' - in fact, under the understanding which I am teaching, a ''si'o''-abstraction always contains nothing but ''ce'u''s! These ''ce'u''s, unlike those of ''ka'' or ''ni'', remain open and cannot be filled by any selbri. In other words, the function cannot be applied to anything, which is what makes it a maybe-function.

''__si'o__'' Concept abstractor: x1 is x2's concept of BRIDI

Let's have a few examples:

''lo si'o xebni'', which, because all the sumti places are filled with ''ce'u'' is equivalent to:

''lo si'o ce'u xebni ce'u'' - "The concept of: "X hates Y"" = "The concept of hate" = “Hate”



The mythical creatures Balrog from Lord of the Rings are described as being "shadow and flame", the poesy of which appears much stronger in Lojban: ''la balrog cu si'o fagri joi manku'' is asserting not only that it’s made out of shadow and flame, but also suggesting that it’s the prototypical Shadow and Flame, from which all other shadow and flame derives.



For good measure, it should be stated that etymologically, "si'o" derives from "sidbo", "idea", but in current usage an idea is considered a text and not a concept.



The difference between the three abstractors ''ka'', ''ni'' and ''si'o'' can be illustrated with a few more examples for comparison:

''lo ka crino cu pluka mi'' - "Being green pleases me"

''lo ni crino cu pluka mi''  - "How much {zo'e} is green pleases me" (no ''ce'u''!)

''lo si'o crino cu pluka mi'' - "Greenness pleases me"



''mi nitcu lo ka sipna ku lo ka kanro'' - "I need sleep in order to be healthy"

''mi nitcu lo si'o sipna lo ka tavla fi lo sipna'' - "I need the concept of sleep in order to speak about sleeping things"

And I was tempted to write ''mi nitcu lo ni sipna ku lo ka vreji ri'' - "I need the amount of how much {zo'e} sleeps", but that doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.





!!Lojban Lessons - Lesson thirty-one (the not-so-cute assorted words)

Yes, this lesson is yet another which focuses on assorted words. This time, however, the content of the lesson is not chosen by common usage: Unlike words like ''jai'' and ''si'', most of the following words see little usage in ordinary conversation. Some of them are, however, important to understanding the following lessons, and so these words must be awkwardly placed before their usage in these lessons.



Before we venture to obscure words, there's one word which I think deserves a more thorough explanation than it has been given so far: ''kau''.

''kau'' was explained in lesson twelve, but the real implications of it was not. If you have forgotten what it means, I advice you to go back and see. Unfortunately, I can't present a theory on what ''kau'' does when it's present in the main bridi, only on what it does inside an abstraction.

A bridi with abstraction containing a ''kau'' makes two claims: The bridi itself makes one claim as usual, and implicit in the abstraction is furthermore the claim that the word ''kau'' is attached to has a real, nonzero meaning.

This should be demonstrated: The bridi ''mi pu viska lo nu ma kau cliva le salci'' (I saw who left the party) makes two claims. First, it makes an implicit claim that the ''ma'' refers to something real. That is, the bridi actually claims that ''da cliva le salci'' (X left the party). Secondly, the main bridi makes the claim that what the ''ma'' refers to is what was being seen, or in lojban ''mi pu viska lo nu da cliva le salci''. (I saw that X left the party)

This principle is not restricted to the abstractor ''nu'', or to the question word ''ma''. The same principle can be extended to any other abstractor and any other question word, as in the following bridi:

''la .bab. na'e birti lo du'u xu kau la .mias. pampe'o'' (Bob isn't sure whether or not Mia has a boyfriend) states firstly that ''xu'' applies, which means that a truth value correctly can be assigned to the bridi, and secondly that what Bob isn't sure about is the correct truth value for the bridi.

''kau'' can also be applied to a non-question word. This doesn't really change the meaning of the word. The same procedure still applies:

''do ca'o djuno lo du'u la krestcen kau cu cinba la an'' = "You already know that it was Kristian, who kissed Anne." states firstly that ''la krestcen cu cinba la an'' and then that ''do ca'o djuno lodu'u la krestcen cu cinba la an''.



Moving on to the more obscure words, we can begin with ''xi''; it's easy.

__''xi''__: Subscript. Converts any following number string to a subscript, which has the grammar of an attitudinal (ie. placable practically anywhere).

There are few officially encouraged uses of ''xi'', but precisely because the construct ''xi''+number has the free grammar of an attitudinal, the possible uses of ''xi'' are almost endless. In general, it's used to enumerate any word, variable or grammatical construct, as opposed to what it refers to. Let's see some examples.

la tsani cu cusku zo coi  .i ba bo la .triliyn. cusku lu .ui coi la tsani coi la klaku li'u  .i ba bo la klaku cu spuda fi lu coi ty. xi pa .e ty. xi re do'u zo'o li'u - "Tsani said "hi", then Triliyn said "Hey Tsani, hey Klaku :)", then Klaku answered "Hello T1 and T2 :P""

Because it's the standard that ''ty.' refers to the last sumti which began with T, ''ty'' by itself as said by Klaku would have referred to Tsani. Two __different__ ''ty.'' can be made by subscripting with ''xi''.

If the rare situation arises that we need more variables of the type ''da'' or ''bu'a'' that there are in the language, an infinite number can be made by simply subscripting any existing with a number. Note that a non-subscripted variable is not defined af being eqiuvalent to any subscripted one. That is: ''ty'' is not always equal to ''ty xi pa'' or ''ty xi no'' or anything of the sort. I expect this to be rarely used, because any sentence with more than 3 ''da''-like words or more than 10 ''ko'a''-like words would be hard to keep track of.



Second, we have ''ki'', of which I am not aware of a singe usage in my time on IRC; probably not because the word's useless, but because few Lojbanic texts are of the kind where you need it.

__''ki''__ "Sticky tense". Set/use tense default; establishes new open scope space/time/modal reference base.

Any row of tense words can be suffixed with ''ki'' to make the tense(s) apply to all following bridi. When, for instance, telling a story, this can be used to make explicit that the default time - the time as meant without any tense words - is the time the story is placed in. Usually, this will not be necessary; beginning a fairytale with ''pu zu vu ku'', one can assume that the entire tale is happening a long time ago and far away. Let's have an example:

''pu zu vu ki ku zasti fa lo pukclite je cmalu nixli goi ko’a  .i ro da poi ''[''pu zu vu'']'' viska ko’a cu nelci ko’a'' - "Once upon a time there was a sweet, little girl. Everyone who saw her liked her". The ''ki'' allows us to elide the three tenses in the second bridi, and in all the bridi to follow.

So, if a bunch of tenses have been make sticky with ''ki'', how do we unstick them? Simple use ''ki'' bu itself, and all sticky tenses are made unsticky.

Lastly, several sets of tenses can be made sticky by subscripting ''ki''. If there are several of such sets in usage at any given time, one can use the subscripted ''ki''s to make the corresponding set of tenses apply. Unsubscripted ''ki'' alone still makes all tense stickiness disappear, so you have to be careful not to use ''ki'' unsubscripted if you plan on using several sets of tenses.



Changing subject. There's a set of sumtcita which are often used, but which I dare not try to define if not under the disclaimer of part three. Let's see official definitions for two of them first.

__''ca'a''__: modal aspect: actuality/ongoing event. Bridi has/is/will happen during under the circumstances of {sumti}

__''ka'e''__: modal aspect: innate capability; possibly unrealized. Bridi is possible under the circumstances of {sumti}

Let's first contrast ''ca'a'' with ''ka'e''. ''ka'e'' means that the bridi is "possible if the event of SUMTI has/is/will occur". ''ca'a'' by contrast, means that the bridi "has, is, or will happen if the event of SUMTI has/is/will occur". 

Like all sumtcita, their corresponding sumti can be elided if the sumtcita is placed before the selbri:

''le vi sovda ka'e fulta .i ja'o bo ri fusra'' - "This egg floats. Therefore, it's rotten".

By using ''ka'e'', this sentence does not state that the egg has floated, or ever will float, but rather that it could float.



__''pu'i''__: modal aspect: can and has; demonstrated potential. Bridi could or could not happen, but in fact it is/did/will happen under the circumstance of {sumti}

__''nu'o''__: modal aspect: can but has not; unrealized potential. Bridi is possible, but is/will/have not happened under {sumti}



Understanding ''ka'e'' and ''ca'a'', ''nu'o'' simply means ''ka'e je na ku ca'a'', and ''pu'i'' means ''ca'a je ka'e na ku''. 

Historically, these four words was tense sumtcita - therefore the "modal aspect" in their definitions. All tense sumtcita was then not considered sumtcita at all, but rather "selbri tcita". A modern understanding of Lojban is gaining popularity, wherein the tense sumtcita are considered sumtcita, almost exactly like the BAI, and in where selbri tcita are not used. 

Because of these four words' history as selbri tcita, they can be freely elided - indeed, since one of the four words always applies, one is always assumed to be elided. This is most often ''ca'a''. Indeed, it's so often ''ca'a'' that one could wonder why ''ca'a'' is not the default.

One reason is that some selbri has two useful definitions, one which implies ''ka'e SELBRI'' and one which implies ''ca'a SELBRI''. For an example, see ''fasnu'', which can mean "x1 is happening" or "x1 is an event", where the first implies ''ca'a fasnu'' and the second ''ka'e fasnu''

Another use of "implied ''ka'e''" is as a way to escape an annoying philosophical problem in the language. A selbri only applies if all its places apply too. For some selbri, like ''kabri'', that's a problem.

__''kabri''__ x1 is a cup containing contents x2 and of material x3

The definition suggests that if the content of the cup is removed, the x2 no longer applies and it stops being ''lo kabri''. Implied ''ka'e'', or more fittingly, ''nu'o'', let us escape that problem.





!!!End of lessons

Sorry, but as of now, there are no more lessons in this series. Perhaps more will be added later. Meanwhile, feel free to visit ((wavelessonscontinued|the first part of Wavelessonscontinued)) or ((wavelessonscontinuedp2|The second part of Wavelessonscontinued)).


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