lo lojbo panci Lojban Smells

Pronouns

Lojban has two types of root words, cmavo (shma-vo) and gismu (gees-moo).

Cmavo are used to form the structure of Lojban sentences. They are between two and four letters long, and may include apostrophes. They are used for things like pronouns.

mi me

do you

Gismu are used to form the content of Lojban sentences. They are five letters long, and are used for things like verbs.

tavla talk to

klama come to

Lojban sentences have two major components: The arguments, and the predicate. Lojban statements use a predicate to describe a relationship between some arguments. In a simple Lojban statement, the arguments are made of cmavo, and the predicate is made of gismu.

mi klama do I come to you

Predicates can consist of multiple gismu. The relationship between the arguments is described by the last gismu in the predicate. The former gismu modify the latter.

mi sutra klama do I swiftly come to you

Descriptors

By using the cmavo lo, we can construct an argument using gismu. The cmavo lo means "that which does this verb."

mi sutra klama lo tavla I switfly come to that which talks

To avoid ambiguity, when the first argument is constructed using gismu, we put the cmavo cu (shoo) before the predicate.

lo sutra tavla cu klama mi That which swiftly talks does come to me

To describe a noun by what it is called instead of what it does, we can use the cmavo la. In Lojban, names are surrounded by the pause symbol, the period.

la .alis. tavla mi Alice talks to me

We can also construct arguments using cmavo and gismu together.

lo mi karce cu sutra My car is swift

The cmavo loi and lai are used to refer to a kind rather than a thing iteslf.

loi bakni cu mabru Bovines are mammals

The cmavo lo'i and la'i are used to refer to a set itself, rather than its members.

lo'i cenre cu barda The amount of sand is big

We can use the cmavo zo to refer to a word itself, instead of its meaning.

nandu bacru zo rirxe The word "rirxe" is hard to utter

If we need to quote multiple words in a row, we can use the cmavo lu to begin a quote, and li'u to end it.

do cusku lu ko tavla mi li'u You say "talk to me!"

By default, numbers in Lojban are used cardinally. We use the cmavo li to refer to an ordinal or variable number.

lo karce cu megdo grake li pa The car, of mega-grams, is one

Numbers

In addition to gismu, we can sometimes place cmavo at the beginning of a predicate to modify its meaning.

Lojban has no default plurality. To express plurality, we begin a predicate with a number cmavo, such as re, meaning "two."

lo pa badna cu bunre Those two bananas are brown

To express plurality the same way we would in English, we can preface re with the cmavo su'o (soo-ho), meaning "at least."

lo su'o re badna cu bunre At least two of those bananas are brown

Numbers in Lojban are interpreted the way they are written out. There are no special symbols for multi-digit numbers.

lo pa re badna cu bunre Twelve of those bananas are brown

There are cmavo for the mathematical symbols which enable us to describe numbers more accurately, such as pi for the decimal place.

lo pa pi re badna cu bunre One and one fifth a banana is brown

Temporal Tense

As with plurality, Lojban has no default tense. We can preface a predicate with the cmavo pu (poo) to express that relationship applied in the past.

mi pu tavla do I talked to you

In addition to direction, we can use modifiers like zu (zoo) to suggest temporal distance.

loi jmive pu zu cfari Life, long ago, did begin

We can also use modifier to express duration.

lo cmana ba ze'u banro The mountain will, over a long time, rise

We can use event contours like ca'o (sha-ho), meaning "continuing," to express aspect in the same way as English words like "already" and "still."

tu pu ca'o bajra He continued to run

Spatial Tense

In addition to temporal tense, Lojban uses cmavo to express spatial tense. The cmavo vu (voo) means "that which is far away."

do klama vu You come to something far away

Just as with temporal tense, there are ways of expressing distance in spatial tense. The cmavo ve'u is the spatial equivalent to the temporal cmavo ze'u.

ta pu ve'u renro lo bolci He, a long way, threw the ball

There are also cmavo to express spatial directionality.

tu ri'u bajra She rightwardly runs

Interjections

Indicators are a type of cmavo used to describe a statement itself. They occur at the beginning of a statement.

The indicator xu (khoo) is used to indicate that a statement is a yes or no question.

xu do tavla mi Is it true that you talk to me?

Attitudinals are used to indicate the emotion around a statement. The attitudinal ui (ooee) is used to indicate that a statement is happy.

ui mi dansu I'm happy that I dance

Evidentials are used to indicate how a statement is known. The evidential ti'e (tee-heh) is used to indicate that a statement is known by hearsay.

ti'e do nelci lo cakla I hear you like chocolate

Vocatives

Vocatives are a type of indicator which are used to address a person directly.

coi la .alis. Hello, Alice

If the person addressed is not specified, it is assumed to be the recipient of the message.

ki'e Thank you

Statements can be made after indicators even after the addressee is stated.

pe'u la .bab. mi troci Please, Bob, may I try?

Order

Gismu may define a relationship between up to five arguments. The order or the arguments is a vital part of a gismu's definition.

By the defintion of klama, the first argument goes to the second argument from the third argument.

klama Something comes to something from something via something using something

mi klama la .bastn. la .nuiork. I come to Boston from New York

If we want to invert the relationship of the first two arguments in a statement, we can use a conversion cmavo at the beginning of a predicate, such as se, which switches the first and second arguments.

la .bastn. se klama mi la .nuiork. Boston is come to by me from New York

To skip over an argument and discuss a later argument, we can use a tagging cmavo, like fi (fee), which skips to the third argument. We can use this to describe that something comes from somewhere, but omit where it goes to.

mi klama fi la .nuiork. I come from New York

Logic

To state that two arguments do not have a relationship, we can put the cmavo na before a gismu in the predicate.

mi na tavla la .alis. I don't talk to Alice

We can use logical connectives to suggest a set of possibilities. Cmavo like .a express that either or both arguments may apply.

do .a mi klama lo skina You, I, or both of us come to the cinema

The cmavo ja applies to predicates in the same way that .a applies to arguments.

mi klama ja viska lo skina I come to the cinema, view the cinema, or both

Lojban uses different words for sentence separation depending on the relationship between the sentences being separated. The cmavo .i separates sentences which have no relationship, like the period in English.

mi nelci lo ladru .i do nelci lo cakla I like milk. You like chocolate

We can use the cmavo .ija (ee-sia) to express that either or both sentences are true.

mi nelci lo ladru .ija do nelci lo cakla I like milk, or you like chocolate, or both.

Abstractors

Sometimes we want to treat an entire statement as if it were a noun. To do this, we preface it with an abstractor, such as the event abstractor cmavo, nu (noo).

mi djica lo nu mi sipna I desire that which is the event of "I sleep"

If we need to use an abstractor in the middle of a statement, we can use the cmavo kei (keii) to close it.

mi klama lo nu mi tavla do kei lo karce I come to that which is the event of "I talk to you" from the car

Modals

Sometimes we need to attach extra information to a statement when there is no place in the gismu definition for the information to go. For this, we can use modals at the end of a statement.

We can use the cmavo fi'o (fee-ho) to express what we are going to describe, and fe'u (fe-hoo) to describe it. If we want to express that we are talking in sign language, we might say that we are going to describe what we employ, and that it is hands.

mi tavla do fi'o pilno fe'u xanse I talk to you, employing: hands

There exist shorthand words for commonly used modals, such as pi'o (pee-ho) for pilno, meaning "employing."

mi tavla do pi'o xanse I talk to you using hands

Some of the most common modals are used to describe the reason for things happening, such as ki'u (kee-hoo), meaning "physically caused by."

mi na klama ki'u snime I do not come, because snow

Another common use for modals is to describe likelihood and possibility.

xu do ka'e tavla fo lo lojbo bangu Can you talk in the lojbanic language?