History: Lojban Tutorial: Lesson 7

Source of version: 1 (current)

!Lesson 7: Getting Personal: Pro-''sumti'' So far we've been referring to everybody by name, which can get very repetitive if you want to tell a story, or even string two sentences together. Consider the following: ;''la suzyn. klama le barja .i la suzyn ze'e pinxe loi vanju .i la suzyn. zgana lo nanmu .i le nanmu cu melbi .i caku le nanmu cu zgana la suzyn.'':Susan goes to the bar. Susan drinks some wine for a while. Susan notices [[sees, observes] a man. The man is beautiful. At that moment, the man notices Susan. Note the use of ''melbi'' ~--~ in English we usually describe men as "handsome" rather than "beautiful", but this rather sexist distinction doesn't apply in Lojban. However, if you really wanted a Lojban word for "handsome" (beautiful-kind-of-man) I suppose you could say ''melnau'' (''melbi'' + ''nanmu''). It is pretty tedious to have to keep repeating "Susan" and "man". English gets round this problem by using __pronouns__, like "she" or "he". This works OK in this case, because we have one female and one male in the story so far, but it can get confusing when more characters enter the scene (and it's even more confusing with languages that only have one word for "he", "she" and "it", like Turkish or spoken Chinese). Lojban has __pro-''sumti''__, which are like pronouns~--~sort of. In fact, we've already met some pro-''sumti'': ''mi'' and ''do'', and the ''ti/ta/tu'' group, but we still don't have he/she/it, which are a bit more complicated. One way of dealing with this is a group of ''cmavo'' which refer back to something we've just said. In fact we have met one of these in a different context: ''go'i''. Just as ''go'i'' on its own repeats the previous ''bridi'', ''__le__ go'i'' repeats the first ''sumti'' of the previous ''bridi''. So we can rewrite the first three sentences as ''la suzyn. klama le barja .i le go'i ze'e pinxe loi vanju .i le go'i zgana lo nanmu'' The system breaks down here, though, since ''nanmu'' is not in the first, but the second place of the previous ''bridi''. English doesn't bother with precision here~--~"he" just means "some male person mentioned earlier." This works in the example here, because there is only one man in the story, but what about Bill saw Rick. He hit him Did Bill hit Rick, or did Rick hit Bill? We don't know. Coming back to the man Susan saw, we can refer to him as ''ri'', which means "the most recent ''sumti''". So we can say ''.i le go'i zgana lo nanmu .i ri melbi'' ''ri'' is one of a series, ''ri/ra/ru'', meaning "the most recent/fairly recent/distant ''sumti''", but as far as I've noticed, ''ra'' and ''ru'' aren't very popular in Lojbanistan at the moment. ''ri'', on the other hand, is used a lot, since it's very common for the last thing in one sentence to be the subject of the next sentence. Another pro-''sumti'' is ''da'', which means "someone/something". You may remember ''zo'e'', which means also means "something", but with ''zo'e'' the something is unimportant - it's just a way of filling a ''sumti'' place. ''da'', on the other hand, is important~--~it is something or someone we are talking about. __Note for logicians__: ''da'' is the "existential ''x''", as in "There exists some ''x'' such that ''x'' is ..." Coming back to our story, we could start by saying ''da klama le barja''~--~"Someone came to the bar." ''da'' and its companions ''de'' and ''di'' are used a lot for talking __about__ language - you see them frequently on the Lojban e-mail list, for example. By the way, there are no ''do'' and ''du'' in this series, because these already have other meanings: "you" and "is the same thing as". !!Assigning pro-''sumti'' If we're telling a story in English, the meaning of, say, "she" keeps changing. At the moment, it means "Susan", but if Susan's friend Jyoti walks into the bar, "she" could very well mean "Jyoti". In Lojban, we can keep on using ''le go'i'', ''ri'' and their relatives, but there is an easier way of dealing with a larger cast of characters. What we do is assign pro-''sumti'' as and when we need them, using the ''cmavo __goi__'' (which I am told is like the Latin word ''sive''). The ''sumti'' assigned by ''goi'' are a series called KOhA, consisting of ''ko'a'', ''ko'e'', ''ko'i'' ... you get the idea? __Note for grammarians__: series of ''cmavo'' (called ''selma'o'' in Lojban) are referred to by the name of a typical member written in capitals (with a small "h" instead of the apostrophe). For example, the attitudinals we looked at in Lesson 1 are part of ''selma'o .UI'' . __Note for lawyers (and frustrated non-lawyers)__: the equivalent in legal documents of ''goi'' is "henceforth referred to as," and ''ko'a'' is something like "the party of the first part". Lojban has in fact been proposed as the ideal language for law, where precision is of utmost importance. It would also allow non-lawyers to understand legal documents, which would be something of a miracle. OK, let's go back to Susan's story. We start by saying ''la suzyn. __goi ko'a__ klama le barja'' This means that from now on, every time we use ''ko'a'', we mean "Susan". The man she sees can then be ''ko'e'', so we say ''.i ko'a zgana lo nanmu goi ko'e'' Now every time we use ''ko'e'' it means that particular man, so the full story so far reads: ''la suzyn. goi ko'a klama le barja .i ko'a ze'e pinxe loi vanju .i ko'a zgana lo nanmu goi ko'e .i ko'e melbi .i caku ko'e zgana ko'a'' (note how the ''cu''s have disappeared~--~''ko'a'', like ''mi'', doesn't need them). Assigning ''ko'e'' to ''lo nanmu'' is actually better than starting the next sentence with ''le nanmu''. This is because ''le nanmu'' simply means "the thing I have in mind which I call 'man'," which is not exactly the same as "the man" (it could, in theory, be something totally different). Some Lojbanists would even say that using ''le'' like this is a bit ''malglico''. __Note:__ if you combine ''ko'a/e/i/o/u'' with ''ri/ra/ru'', __don't__ count ''ko'a''-type pro-''sumti'' when you're counting back. For example ''la suzyn. rinsa ko'e .i ri cisma'' doesn't mean that ''ko'e'' (the man, in this context) smiles, but that __Susan__ smiles. This is because it is pointless to have a backwards-pointing (anaphoric) pro-''sumti'' referring to a fixed pro-''sumti'' like ''ko'e''~--~it's simpler just to re-use ''ko'e'' and keep ''ri/ra/ru'' for more important things. Let's continue by introducing Susan's friend Jyoti (if people are wondering where I get all these unusual names from, Jyoti is an old Gujarati friend of mine). We continue .... ''caku la djiotis. goi ko'i mo'ine'i .i ko'i cusku lu coi ranjit. li'u ko'e'' At that time, Jyoti henceforth third-thing-referred-to moving-inside. Third-thing-referred-to says "Hello Ranjeet" to second-thing-referred-to. Just then Jyoti comes in and says "Hello, Ranjeet" to the guy. ''mo'ine'i'' is another space "tense". ''mo'i'' indicates movement; ''ne'i'' means "inside" (from the ''gismu'', ''nenri''). The ''selbri'' is missed out because the way Jyoti moves is not important (''klama'' is possible, but unnecessary, but we could use ''bajra'', for example). This is creative Lojban~--~it's not exactly ungrammatical to leave a ''selbri'' out like this, but it means that this is a sentence-fragment, not a ''bridi''. Don't try this at home, kids. !!''lu'', ''li'u'', ''du'u'' and ''vo'a'' ''lu'' and ''li'u'' are like "quote" and "unquote"~--~they put something someone says into a ''sumti''. ''li'u'' is one of the few terminators that can almost never be missed out, since that would make everything else that follows part of the quotation. You can also nest quotations, e.g. ;''la ranjit. pu cusku lu la djiotis. pu cusku lu coi li'u mi li'u'':Ranjeet said "Jyoti said "Hello" to me." which is similar to ;''la ranjit. pu cusku lu la djiotis. pu rinsa mi li'u'':Ranjeet said "Jyoti greeted me." Both can also be expressed in a rather more subtle way: ;''la ranjit. pu cusku le du'u la djiotis. pu rinsa vo'a'':Ranjeet past-express the-predicate Jyoti past-greet the-first-place OR Ranjeet said that Jyoti greeted him. ''du'u'' is a tricky but very useful ''cmavo'' meaning, in logical terms, "the predicate". What this means in ordinary language is something like "the statement that X is true". Sorry, that wasn't really ordinary language. The closest equivalent in English is "that", as in "Ranjeet said __that__ ...". Here's another example of ''du'u'': ;''la suzyn. na djuno le du'u la jang. cinynei vo'a'':Susan doesn't know that Zhang fancies ("sexually-likes") her. And here we have another pro-''sumti'': ''vo'a''. This means "the first ''sumti'' of this ''bridi''", and like the others, comes in a series~--~''vo'e'' refers to the second ''sumti'', ''vo'i'' to the third and so on. In practice, ''vo'a'' is used quite a lot, while the others are rarer, but that could be because people still tend to think in terms of natural languages (notably English), and as people start thinking more in Lojban, the others could get used more. ''vo'a'' is very useful to give the sense of "herself", "itself" and so on. For example ;''la meilis. pensi vo'a'':Mei Li thinks about herself. ;''le gerku cu batci vo'a'':The dog bites itself. You can also say ;''mi nelci vo'a'': I like myself. but this is the same as ''mi nelci mi'', which is simpler and more aesthetic. Now for something clever. ;''la suzyn. zgani la djiotis. soi vo'a vo'e'':Susan notices Jyoti and vice versa. OR Susan and Jyoti notice each other. ''soi'' is a ''cmavo'' meaning something like "you can change these ''sumti'' round and the ''bridi'' will still be true". If there is only one ''sumti'' after the ''soi'', the other one is taken to be the one immediately __before__''soi''. So we can say the same thing more briefly as ''la suzyn. zgani la djiotis. soi vo'a'', or even just ''ko'a zgani ko'i soi vo'a'' (''vo'a'' is fixed, and, unlike ''ri'' can point back to ''ko'a'', though you can also repeat ''ko'a'' if you prefer). !!!Exercise 1 Translate the following. Assume the same values for ''ko'a/e/i'' that we have been using so far (i.e. ''ko'a'' is Susan, and so on). __Note:__''doi'' is used to show who you're talking to (without ''doi'' the ''cmene'' might become the first ''sumti'' of the ''bridi''). It's a bit like English "O" (as in "O ye of little faith") or the Latin vocative (as in "Et tu, Brute"). ''.i ko'a ca cusku lu .ue coi li'u ko'i soi vo'a .i ko'a .e ko'i xanka cmila .i caku le go'i catlu ko'e .i ko'e cusku lu doi djiotis. le do pendo mo li'u .i ko'i cusku lu la suzyn. li'u .i ko'e cusku .ui lu lo do pendo du lo mi pendo li'u .i ko'i fengu catlu ko'e .i ko'a xunfirbi'o'' __Vocabulary: __''xanka''~--~nervous, worried; ''catlu''~--~look at [[compare with ''zgani'']; ''pendo''~--~friend; ''fengu''~--~ angry; ''xunfirbi'o''~--~blush [[''xunre'' (red) + ''flira'' (face) + ''binxo'' (become) ] !!Some more personal pro-''sumti'' We've already seen two personal pro-''sumti'', ''mi'' and ''do'', meaning "I" (or "me") and "you". However, "you" in English can mean four different things: # The one person I'm talking to. # A number of people I'm talking to. # The person or people I'm talking to and some other person or people. # Anyone (as in "Money can't buy you love."). Lojban gets round the confusion between 1. and 2. by using numbers. The most common way to express 2. is ''rodo'', "all of you" (or U.S. "Y'all") and, as we've seen, ''coi rodo'' is "Hello all"~--~a common way to start an e-mail to a list. You can also use specific numbers~--~''redo'' would mean "the two of you" or "you two" (for example, I start e-mails to my parents with ''coi redo''). You can also use numbers with ''doi'' e.g. ''rodoi ko klama ti''. 3. is expressed by ''do'o''~--~you and someone else, and 4. is completely different. It's normally expressed by ''roda'' or, more specifically ''ro le prenu'', but often you can just miss it out altogether. English "we" is almost as confusing, as it can mean the speaker and the listener(s), the speaker and some other people, or the speaker and the listener and some other people. Not surprisingly, Lojban has three pro-''sumti'' for "we": * ''mi'o''~--~you and I (but no-one else) * ''mi'a'' ~--~I and another / others (but not you) * ''ma'a''~--~you and I and another / others Some examples: ;''mi prami do'':I love you. ;''mi'a penmi do ti'u la cicac.'':We'll meet you at three o'clock. ;''ma'a remna'':We are all human. !!!Exercise 2 The story continues! For each of the pro-''sumti'' in __bold__ say who or what they mean. Just two other points: ''ka'' is like ''nu'', but while ''nu'' describes a state or event, ''ka'' describes a property or quality. ''na'e'' is like ''na'' but only negates the ''selbri''~--~it says that there is some relationship between the ''sumti'' other than that which the ''selbri'' describes. As we saw in Lesson 5, ''mi na nelci ro lo gerku'' means "It is not true that I like all dogs," (or "I don't like ''all'' dogs), while ''mi na'e nelci ro lo gerku'' is more like "I dislike all dogs." ''ko'a mliburna .i ko'a mo'ini'a clatu le kabri .i caku __ri__ simlu leka cinri ko'a .i ko'e cinba ko'i soi __vo'a__ .i ko'i cusku lu pe'i __redo__ puzi ninpe'i li'u .i le vanju cu simlu leka mutce cinri .i ko'a sutra pinxe __le go'i__ .i ko'e cusku lu .yyy. na __go'i__ .i __mi'a__ puze'e na'e penmi li'u .i baziku ko'a cmila .i ko'a cusku lu .u'i __redo__ bebna .i .e'u '' ''__ma'a__ klama lo dansydi'u '' __Vocabulary:__''mliburna''~--~mildly embarrassed [[''milxe'' (mild) + ''burna'' (embarrassed) ]; ''ni'a''~--~down, below (space "tense"); ''kabri''~--~cup, glass; ''vanju''~--~wine; ''simla''~--~seem [[x{SUB()}1{SUB} seems to have property x{SUB()}2{SUB} to observer x{SUB()}3{SUB}]; ''cinri''~--~interesting; ''pe'i''~--~"I think" (opinion attitudinal); ''ninpe'i''~--~meet for the first time [[''cnino'' (new) + ''penmi'' (meet)]; ''.y.''~--~"er" (hesitation); ''mutce''~--~much, very; ''bebna''~--~silly; ''.e'u''~--~suggestion (attitudinal); ''dansydi'u''~--~ disco [[''dansu'' (dance) + ''dinju'' (building)]. ---- !!Answers to Exercises !!!Exercise 1 Susan and Jyoti say "Oh! Hello!" to each other at the same time. They laugh nervously. At that moment, Jyoti looks at Ranjeet. He says "Who's your friend?" She says "Susan." He says "Delighted~--~any friend of yours is a friend of mine." She looks at him angrily. Susan blushes. Note that in order to get this into understandable English, we've had to change some of the pro-''sumti'' back into names. We could also make the translation sound more natural by changing the word order a bit more, changing "says" to "asks" when it's a question, and maybe putting the whole thing into the past tense. ''du'' here translates as "is", but don't use it for just any case of "is"~--~it is like the = sign in maths and can only be used for two expressions that describe the same thing. Using ''du'' to translate the "is" in, say, "Susan is a doctor" is __extremely__''malglico''. ''la suzyn. du lo mikce'' would mean that Susan is the same as each and every doctor (the correct Lojban would be simply ''la suzyn. mikce''). !!!Exercise 2 # ''ri'' = ''le kabri'' # ''vo'a'' = ''la ranjit.'' "Ranjeet and Jyoti kiss each other." # ''redo'' = ''la suzyn. .e la ranjit.'' "You two." # ''le go'i'' = ''le vanju'' "She drinks it quickly." # ''go'i'' = ''la suzyn. puzi ninpe'i la ranjit. soi vo'a'' Note that here ''go'i'' refers not to the previous sentence in the story, but to the previous sentence in the conversation. Obviously Susan wouldn't be talking about a story that hasn't been written yet! # ''ma'a'' = ''la suzyn. .e la ranjit. .e la djiotis.'' "Let's [[all] go to the disco." !!!!Very loose translation Susan felt a bit embarrassed. She looked down at her glass. Just then, she found it very interesting. Ranjeet and Jyoti kissed each other. "I think you two have just met," she said. The wine was somehow incredibly interesting, and she drank it quickly. "Errr, no, we've never met," said Ranjeet. A little later, Susan laughed. "Come on, you're both being silly," she said, "Let's go to the disco."