No, you can't attach a BE clause to an article. You can attach a NOI phrase, for instance: "lo noi xamgu ku'o klama", a goer who's good, same as "lo klama noi xamgu". The reason you can attach a NOI phrase and not a BE clause is that NOI phrases attach to a sumti, but BE clauses attach to brivla.

It sort of looks like the BE clause is attaching to the end of a sumti a lot of times, doesn't it?! But it's not! For instance if you say: "lo sutra be lo nu cusku", someone who is quick to talk, it looks like you've hooked "lo nu cusku" to the sumti with "be", but really all that you've hooked it to is "sutra". For instance you can also say: "lo sutra be lo nu cusku be'o klama", a quick-to-speak goer. The "be" phrase is attached to the "sutra", and it can go anywhere along with "sutra", as a tertau or a seltau or anywhere.

Though it's somewhat senseless, it's even legal to use "be" to attach the x2 of the main bridi: "mi klama be la .ankoredj." means the same thing as "mi klama la .ankoredj." That's not especially useful, but it might give you clue as to how the grammar feels about "be"-- it just hooks sumti up to a brivla that wants to be the selbri of those sumti, and it will do so in just about any circumstance.

mu'o mi'e se ckiku

>>299

Wow, that is even more sensical/deeper/awesomer than I thought!

So a gadri makes a brivla that normally would be a selbri act as a sumti by filling in its first terbri with the meaning of the gadri (that described as, the mass of parts __ such that..., that named). Then the act of attaching {zo be], moves the relationship to a new level and therefore makes the sumti become a selbri again, relating the meaning of the gadri in the way specified by the brivla to the referent of {zobe]. Once this relationship is completed, the whole of that information is again compressed into a sumti, with a more detailed and define meaning, which will be related by the rest of the bridi. Pretty cool.

Is it grammatically correct to just say sumti? For example: {loi nanmu]. I think that it should, because it could be used to answer a question or fill in a blank.

>>301

Yes, you can say just a series of sumti with no selbri, and yes that's mostly for the purpose of answering questions. Personally I think of a sumti-only sentence as having an elided "co'e" for the selbri. There's some contention about whether a sumti only sentence is good practice in situations other than answering questions-- it's generally agreed that it's legal, I think, but it's not agreed whether it's quite proper. When in doubt, I put in an explicit "co'e".. I like "co'e"!

I think of brivla that are within gadri or sei clauses or any such thing as still being alive. I feel those unfilled secret places there, even if there's no "be" prying open the way into them. They're still in there tucked inside of the word, filling it with its meaning. If you have [lo klama] in your story, then you've by the very nature of "klama" as a brivla brought into your story [lo se klama] and [lo te klama] and so forth. Every [klama] comes with an attached inseperable [se klama] that fundamentally makes them what they are-- going to that [se klama] transformed them into a [klama], and nothing's ever a [klama] unless it has a [se klama] that it goes to.

So I think of the place as being there always, but it's hidden unless you unfurl it with a "be" so you can tuck something in there. In terms of the grammar as a tool that we use, this is a useful trick. Selbri-turned-sumti are still manageably unsticky-- they don't swallow up sumti that come after them, so you can easily keep going with the terbri of the level you're on-- yet when you do need to have a sumti stick to the inner selbri and not the outer one, "be" is a quick syllable.

In terms of the deep structure of a bridi, though, that's all just tricks and conveniences. Really all you have is various bridi which are tied together these various ways: a "lo" bridi is tied in by its x1 being used for a sumti, a "noi" bridi is tied in by its "ke'a" being the same as the sumti it tags, etc. It should seem less like an intimidating mess once you realize that all of the bridi are really just the same animal inside, with various plumbing on the outside to fit them conveniently into sentences.

>>320

I think of [zo co'e] as a selbri/bridi [zo zo'e]. If you elide a sumti, it is inherently [zo'e]. If you elide a selbri, it is inherently [co'e].

That is interesting, [zo'o .ui]. Sumti merely being toilets and sinks. I thoung of a headless wolf 9it is still alive though) with some miscellaneous pipes sticking out of its abdomen.

>>320

1) So [be(i)] can only apply to the immediately preceding word? So [lo mlatu belo jutsi be la'o latmo Felis latmo be'o be'o batci] means "a bite from a Felis cat"?

I changed my name, in case you were wondering. Can someone help me out with some of the following?

1) What do [jai]/[fai] do? How do they operate.

2) How would one say "the last two"? Can two even be last?

3) If I was to refer to the fourth terbri of [klama] in the language Lojban, how would I do it?

4) Is mekso thought of as a bridi? Can I say [xu 2+2=5] (using some abbreviation)? What about (in response to the above math-question): [na go'i].

5) Could someone please describe to me how a prenex works? Can I say "x+y=z, where x, y, and z are (treated individually) an integer"? Or do I have to say "where x, y, and z are (treated individually) an integer: x+y=z"? Could I say "x=y=z. (prenex: Where x, y, and z are (treated individually) an integer) [go'i]". (Did I get that prenex thing correct? Was it terribly confusing to understand?)

6) In [coi doi ro jbopre .ebo banpre], does "[ro]" apply to just "[jbopre]" or both types of people because of "[.ebu]"?

7) Do multiple occurances of the word "[ma]" in the same bridi mean the same thing?

Thanks.

>>324

Sorry, I meant to make it a different post- but now I do not know how to delete it! Sorry.

>>324

>> "7) Do multiple occurances of the word "[ma]" in the same bridi mean the same thing?"

No they do not. Think about [ma ma klama ma]. If they meant the same thing then some confusion would occur. First, a place typically does not go, especially not to itself from itself. Or if it does, no-one cares to talk about it and it basically is meaningless. Also, if one moves from some location to the same location (an unspecified route here means, to me, that there really is none (it would be different if their was a route)), it is not really going ([klama]). Last, it is more useful to have them as possibly different.

I am most certain, based on past experiences with Lojban, that there is a way to make certain "[ma]"'s mean the same thing. Maybe a [to FA ... toi] type of thing?

>>326

Of course, this does not mean that they cannot be the same thing- just that they may not be.

>>324

2) Here's one possibility for "the last two": "le bi'u nai re mei", the aforementioned pair. Depending on context, you can refer very explicitly to recently mentioned things with "ri". For instance: "lo badna cu kukte .i lo plise cu kukte .i ri .e ri xi re cu gleki se citka mi" A banana is delicious. An apple is delicious. The last thing mentioned and the second to last thing mentioned are happily eaten by me.

3) I haven't seen much discussion of gismu places in Lojban, so I don't know that there's an idiom. Here's an attempt: "le vo moi te gismu be fi zo klama"

6) That doesn't seem grammatical to me. What you connect with ".e" is two sumti. A brivla by itself tries to be a selbri, not a sumti, so ".e" should be followed by a pro-sumti or an article, not a brivla.

The form "ro broda" is short for "ro lo broda". Any number can be used in place of "lo", so you can say "mi citka rau plise", I ate enough apples, or "so'i prenu ca klama", many people are going. You could put a sumti made from a number + selbri on either side of an ".e", like: "mi nelci so'i cinri .e ro melbi", I like many interesting things and all beautiful things, or "mi citka pa plise .e re perli", I eat one apple and two pears.

I'm going to make a new top level post for jai/fai, because that's definitely a FAQ!

mu'o mi'e se ckiku

>>324

(4) Yes, assuming you read "2+2=5" as "li re su'i re du li mu" or as "li mu sumji li re li re", for example. "du" works just like any brivla.

(5) A prenex (with "zo'u") always precedes its bridi. There is a proposed 'postnex' cmavo "zo'au", see:
<http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Experimental+anaphorics>
but I don't think it has ever been used.

(2) "lo ro moi re mei" would be a direct translation. "lo re boi ro moi" would be "the two last ones". (The terminator "boi" is needed here so that "re" doesn't form a single number with "ro".)

It is logically possible for two to tie for the last place. It's also possible that we don't care about any difference between the last two and so they are, together if not individually, the last ones, i.e. they come after all the others.

>>344

It must be asked: what would [le/li reromoi] mean?

>>347

"li re ro moi" is ungrammatical. You get the sumti "li re ro" followed by "moi", but "moi" can't follow just a sumti. ("me li re ro moi" OTOH is grammatical.)

"le re ro moi" would be "the second and last".

More generally "re ro" is "two which is all", at least that's my take for doubled quantifiers.

>>350

>>350

I figured that [li rero moi] was ungrammatical, but I just had to make sure.

That is an interesting expression, indeed. I see potential religious uses for such a structure!

Thank you.