John Woldemar Cowan

“ That’s a little school for girls. 3.3) That’s a school for little girls. This ambiguity is quite different from the simple tanru ambiguity described in Section 2. We understand that “girls’ school” means “a school where girls are the students”, and not “a school where girls are the teachers” or “a school which is a girl” (!) . Likewise, we understand that “little girl” means “girl who is small”. This is an ambiguity of grouping. Is “girls’ school” to be taken as a unit, with “little” specifying the type of girls’ school? Or is “little girl” to be taken as a unit, specifying the type of school? ”

“ Complex tanru grouping If one element of a tanru can be another tanru, why not both elements?
4.1) do mutce bo barda gerku bo kavbu You are-a- (very type-of large) (dog type-of capturer) . You are a very large dog-catcher. In Example 4.1, the selbri is a tanru with seltau “mutce bo barda” and tertau “gerku bo kavbu”. It is worth emphasizing once again that this tanru has the same fundamental ambiguity as all other Lojban tanru: the sense in which the “dog type-of capturer” is said to be “very type-of large” is not precisely specified. ”

“ It is always possible to elide “ke'e” at the end of the selbri, making Example 5.5 as terse as Example 4.3.
Now how about that fifth grouping? It is
5.6) ta melbi ke cmalu nixli ckule [ke'e] That is-a-pretty type-of ( ( little type-of girl ) type-of school ) . That is a beautiful school for small girls. Example 5.6 is distinctly different in meaning from any of Examples 4.2 through 4.5. Note that within the “ke ... ke'e” parentheses, the left-grouping rule is applied to “cmalu nixli ckule”.
It is perfectly all right to mix “bo” and “ke ... ke'e” in a single selbri. ”

“ You are John. It is common to use “me” selbri, especially those based on name sumti using “la”, as seltau. For example:
10.7) ta me lai kraislr. [me'u] karce That (is-a-referent of “the-mass-called ‘Chrysler’”) car. That is a Chrysler car. The elidable terminator “me'u” can usually be omitted. It is absolutely required only if the “me” selbri is being used in an indefinite description (a type of sumti explained in Chapter 6) , and if the indefinite description is followed by a relative clause (explained in Chapter 8) or a sumti logical connective (explained in Chapter 14) . ”

“ After all, the straightforward understanding of the English phrase is that the dog is big as compared with other dogs, not merely as compared with other red dogs. In fact, the bigness and redness are independent properties of the dog, and only obscure rules of English adjective ordering prevent us from saying “red big dog”. ”

“ As a result, there is a simple and mechanical rule for removing “co” from any selbri: change “A co B” to “ke B ke'e A”. (At the same time, any sumti following the selbri must be transformed into “be ... bei ... be'o” form and attached following B.) Therefore,
8.7) ckule co melbi nixli school of-type pretty girl school for beautiful girls means the same as:
8.8) ke melbi nixli ke'e ckule (pretty girl) school Multiple “co” cmavo can appear within a selbri, indicating multiple inversions: a right-grouping rule is employed, as for “bo”. ”

“ This “type of” relationship between the components of a tanru is fundamental to the tanru concept.
We may also say that the seltau modifies the meaning of the tertau:
2.6) That is a tree which is lemon-ish (in the way appropriate to trees) would be another possible translation of Example 2.1. In the same way, a more explicit translation of Example 2.2 might be:
2.7) John is a boy who is big in the way that boys are big. This “way that boys are big” would be quite different from the way in which elephants are big; big-for-a-boy is small-for-an-elephant. ”

“ The Lojban approach to this problem is to introduce the cmavo “je”, which is one of the many equivalents of English “and”. A big red dog is one that is both big and red, and we can say:
6.3) barda je xunre gerku (big and red) type-of dog Of course,
6.4) xunre je barda gerku (red and big) type-of dog is equally satisfactory and means the same thing. As these examples indicate, joining two brivla with “je” makes them a unit for tanru purposes. However, explicit grouping with “bo” or “ke ... ”

“ I go (to-the market from-the house) . means the same as
7.5) mi klama le zarci le zdani I go to-the market from-the house. No matter how complex a tanru gets, the last brivla always dictates the place structure: the place structure of
7.6) melbi je cmalu nixli bo ckule a (pretty and little) (girl school) a school for girls which is both beautiful and small is simply that of “ckule”. ”

“ The scope of the “gi” arm extends only to a single brivla or to two or more brivla connected with “bo” or “ke ... ke'e”.
Linked sumti: “be–bei–be'o” The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
be BE linked sumti marker bei BEI linked sumti separator be'o BEhO linked sumti terminator The question of the place structures of selbri has been glossed over so far. This chapter does not attempt to treat place structure issues in detail ”

“ That is a ship. 1.5) ta blotrskunri That is-a- (boat) -schooner. That is a schooner. illustrate the three types of brivla (gismu, lujvo, and fu'ivla respectively) , but in each case the selbri is composed of a single word whose meaning can be learned independent of its origins. ”

“ Example 6.20 is distinct from:
6.21) ti blanu xunre bolci This is a bluish-red ball which would be a ball whose color is some sort of purple tending toward red, since “xunre” is the more important of the two components. On the other hand,
6.22) ti blanu je xunre bolci This is a (blue and red) ball is probably self-contradictory, seeming to claim that the ball is independently both blue and red at the same time, although some sensible interpretation may exist. ”