I forgot. What are the bridi afterthought connectives like ".ije" used for? Also, what is the "gi" of a forethought connective called? The afterthought-part of the forethought connective: (insert connective)?

I see that the definition of many gismu says that something is a "[body-part]". If I was to use such a word, would I have to put something in the bridi that says "body-part"? Kind of like "du'u"? When does "du'u" end, also?

1) Yes: djuno vs. se slabu

2) Not completely, as there's lujvo that consist of more than one morpheme.

3) (terbri) Yes. "le jai (sumtcita) go'i". "jai". It takes a single sumti. A single sumti folloing the sumtcita. rafsi always form part of lujvo, they can't be confused with cmavo. No, but "fi'o" converts a selbri into a sumtcita. Yes, a sumti can contain a bridi, that's what the cmavo of NU are for.

4) Which connectives? There are many types. "joi" will connect the preceding sumti with the following one. Yes.

5) Numbers are cardinal by default. That means they tell you how many of something there are. Ordinal numbers tell you the position of something in a sequence.

6) "mi mi mipri ni'a lo ckana gacri noi snura bu'u ke'a". bu'u ma, bu'u da, bu'u ro da, bu'u no da, ca ma, ca da, ca ro da, ca no da (among other possibilities).

7) Yes. "fa xi xa".

8) Pass.

9) I wouldn't use la'i/lo'i/le'i, they are supposed to be for mathematical sets. No, "barda blabi bo bakni" is "barda (blabi bo bakni)" as opposed to "(barda blabi) bakni".

10) Only for mekso. There's ke-ke'e for tanru and some connectives.

Wow. That was more than I expected and more than I expected any one person would do at one time. Sorry for putting you out of your way, but it was very helpful.

I know this is going to sound like it is in conflict with the previous, and I suppose that it is, but I have more questions. :)

B1) I do not understand the ungrouping command. Could someone explain to me its purpose and when it is to be used?

B2) I think someone else mentioned this already, but how does one respond to a response here?

B3) Last, for now at least :) , if I said "la .sandis. joi la .crlis. jmive .i ri klama la .kalifornias." does "ri" apply just to Shirley, or does it apply to both Sandy and Shirley?

>>161

B1) What's that?

B2) I clicked on "No. 161" and got the above ">>161"

B3) "ri" would seem to be la .crlis., as that is the completed sumti that started last.

B1) It is "lu'o" or something. Apparently, it splits a mass into a group - but I still do not know what it means when it is used (or when to even use it). Thanks for the other answers. I am currently using a Blackberry, so a lot of the normal capabilities of the site cannot be used (such as responding as you described). I was not sure that the website was compatible during my last few posts, so I accidently posted the same comment several times. I will delete them as soon as possible.

>>164

Ah! {lu'o} is basically short for {lo cmima be}. It's not used very much. You can use it when you want to say something about each of some or all the members of a group rather than about the group as a whole, but you have a reference to the group as a whole.

{lei cukta noi ro lu'o ke'a cu linto cu tilju}
"The books (together), each of which (individually) is light, are heavy."

The definition of "tcika" is "X1 [hours, {minutes}, {seconds}]...". My question is, if I did not want to mention the hour, for some hypothetical reason, how would I be able to easily do this? I can only think of "li zo'e pi'e MINUTE cu tcika..."

>>166

No, {li zo'e pi'e ci no} is not grammatical, but you can say {li no'o pi'e ci no} or just {li pi'e cino}. I expect this type of initial elision to be more common with detri than with tcika though.

Do fu'ivla have place structures? I ask this because I wanted a word for "black hole" that was more scientifically accurate than "black hole". I came up with "narlivyke'arca'u" for "black hole" and "narlivyke'acalkoi" for "outermost boundary of the event-horizon of a black hole". However, all the useful terbri for "black hole" (such as the measures for mass, angular momentum, charge, and (possibly) magnetic charge. And/or the dimensions of the (near-)infinite/great curvature for the volume) do not exist in the individual gismu that make up these lujvo. This defeats the purpose of the lujvo. I reasoned that a fu'ivla probably would be better, but they probably cannot operate as selbri (like I would like them to). So, if fu'ivla do not have a place structure, what word(s)/word type(s) should I use?

>>173

Yes, fu'ivla do have place structures, like all brivla.

Personally, I rarely use a lujvo with more than three rafsi. Remember that lujvo are not definitions, you don't need to cram all the components of a definition into it. In the case of "black hole", I would go with a direct calque "xekyke'a". That's not to say that calques are always a good idea, but in the particular case of "black hole", from what I can tell from the wikipedia articles in different languages, that's what all languages seem to do. That's an indication that a fu'ivla (blakolo? trunuaro? cfarzesloxo?) might not be such a good idea. No language seems to do direct borrowing in this case.

As for the place structure, the components of "xekyke'a" would give something like "x1 is a black hole in (space region) x2". Of course it's not a literal "hole", but you did use "ke'a" in your lujvo too, a metaphor is a metaphor.

If mass, angular momentum, charge, etc. really really need to be part of the place structure they can be, even if no component of the lujvo accounts for them. But I find it unlikely that they would be adopted. To talk about the mass I would rather use another more general word with place structure "x1 is the mass of x2", for the charge "x1 is the charge of x2", and so on. More general and more useful than having a place for mass in every thing that has a mass (and having to remember which place it is, as it might vary from one thing to another).

>>177

That makes sense. i was actually debating whether to use "ke'a" or "ka'e". I chose "ke'a" because of the analogy, but "ka'e" is more appropriate. I now actually stand by "ka'e", but iff I were to use that lujvo.

I still go with what you said. Thanks.

>>177
By the way, I do not think that [xekri kevna] is good lujvo for "black hole". And the fact that in most languages black holes are called in the same way, has no relation to lujvo correctness.

First of all, black hole is a star of special type. So, tertau would obviously be [tarci].

Choice of seltau is not so obvious though. I think that [hekri tarci]=[hektar] (huh, sounds funny) or [kevna tarci]=[kevtar] would be suitable.

Btw, long time ago analogous question was discussed in maillist. It was about concept of (numerical) rounding.