John Woldemar Cowan

“ Each selbri (relation) has a specific rule that defines the role of each sumti in the bridi, based on its position. In the table above, that order was expressed by labeling the sumti positions as x1, x2, x3, x4, and x5.
Like the table in Section 3, this table is far from complete: in fact, no complete table can exist, because Lojban allows new words to be created (in specified ways) whenever a speaker or writer finds the existing supply of words inadequate. This notion is a basic difference between Lojban (and some other languages such as German and Chinese) and English ”

“ The book gives John Sam. seems strange to us merely because the places are being filled by unorthodox arguments. The relationship expressed by “give” has not changed. In Lojban, each selbri has a specified number and type of arguments, known collectively as its “place structure”. The simplest kind of selbri consists of a single root word, called a “gismu”, and the definition in a dictionary gives the place structure explicitly. The primary task of constructing a Lojban sentence, after choosing the relationship itself, is deciding what you will use to fill in the sumti places. ”

“ It is common to write “la'edi'u” as a single word; it is used more often than “di'u” by itself.
Possession “Possession” refers to the concept of specifying an object by saying who it belongs to (or with) . A full explanation of Lojban possession is given in Chapter 8. A simple means of expressing possession, however, is to place a sumti representing the possessor of an object within the description sumti that refers to the object: specifically, between the “le” and the selbri of the description:
13.1) le mi gerku cu sutra The of-me dog is fast. My dog is fast. ”

“ In Lojban, the converted selbri has a new place structure that is renumbered to reflect the place reversal, thus having effects when such a conversion is used in combination with other constructs such as “le selbri [ku] ”
The basic structure of longer utterances People don’t always say just one sentence. Lojban has a specific structure for talk or writing that is longer than one sentence. The entirety of a given speech event or written text is called an utterance. The sentences (usually, but not always, bridi) in an utterance are separated by the cmavo “ni'o” and “.i”. ”

“ See Chapter 4 and Chapter 12. fu'ivla: a borrowed word; a kind of brivla; may or may not appear in a dictionary; copied in a modified form from some non-Lojban language; usually refers to some aspect of culture or the natural world; does not have associated rafsi. See Chapter 4. rafsi: a word fragment; one or more is associated with each gismu; can be assembled according to rules in order to make lujvo; not a valid word by itself. See Chapter 4. tanru: a group of two or more brivla, possibly with associated cmavo, that form a selbri ”

“ It is perfectly permissible for the respondent to fill in other unspecified places in responding to a “mo” question. Thus, the respondent in Example 15.7 could have also specified an audience, a topic, and/or a language in the response. ”

“ I go to the beautiful-thing (and I am happy because it is the beautiful thing I’m going to) . Not all indicators indicate attitudes. Discursives, another group of cmavo with the same grammatical rules as attitudinal indicators, allow free expression of certain kinds of commentary about the main utterances. ”