# The Complete Lojban Language (2016)

The Complete Lojban Language
John Woldemar Cowan

### Table of ContentsTable of Contents

| 1. Lojban As We Mangle It In Lojbanistan: About This Book | 9 |
| 1.1. What is Lojban? | 9 |
| 1.2. What is this book? | 10 |
| 1.3. What are the typographical conventions of this book? | 10 |
| 1.4. Disclaimers | 11 |
| 1.5. Acknowledgements and Credits | 11 |
| 1.6. Informal Bibliography | 12 |
| 1.7. Captions to Pictures | 12 |
| 1.8. Boring Legalities | 13 |
| 2. A Quick Tour of Lojban Grammar, With Diagrams | 15 |
| 2.1. The concept of the bridi | 15 |
| 2.2. Pronunciation | 16 |
| 2.3. Words that can act as sumti | 17 |
| 2.4. Some words used to indicate selbri relations | 17 |
| 2.5. Some simple Lojban bridi | 18 |
| 2.6. Variant bridi structure | 19 |
| 2.7. Varying the order of sumti | 20 |
| 2.8. The basic structure of longer utterances | 21 |
| 2.9. tanru | 21 |
| 2.10. Description sumti | 23 |
| 2.11. Examples of brivla | 24 |
| 2.12. The sumti di'u and la'e di'u | 24 |
| 2.13. Possession | 25 |
| 2.14. Vocatives and commands | 25 |
| 2.15. Questions | 26 |
| 2.16. Indicators | 28 |
| 2.17. Tenses | 29 |
| 2.18. Lojban grammatical terms | 30 |
| 3. The Hills Are Alive With The Sounds Of Lojban | 33 |
| 3.1. Orthography | 33 |
| 3.2. Basic Phonetics | 34 |
| 3.3. The Special Lojban Characters | 35 |
| 3.4. Diphthongs and Syllabic Consonants | 36 |
| 3.5. Vowel Pairs | 38 |
| 3.6. Consonant Clusters | 38 |
| 3.7. Initial Consonant Pairs | 39 |
| 3.8. Buffering Of Consonant Clusters | 40 |
| 3.9. Syllabication And Stress | 42 |
| 3.10. IPA For English Speakers | 44 |
| 3.11. English Analogues For Lojban Diphthongs | 46 |
| 3.12. Oddball Orthographies | 47 |
| 4. The Shape Of Words To Come: Lojban Morphology | 49 |
| 4.1. Introductory | 49 |
| 4.2. cmavo | 50 |
| 4.3. brivla | 52 |
| 4.4. gismu | 53 |
| 4.5. lujvo | 54 |
| 4.6. rafsi | 56 |
| 4.7. fu'ivla | 60 |
| 4.8. cmene | 63 |
| 4.9. Rules for inserting pauses | 66 |
| 4.10. Considerations for making lujvo | 67 ​ |
| 4.11. The lujvo-making algorithm | 68 |
| 4.12. The lujvo scoring algorithm | 69 |
| 4.13. lujvo-making examples | 70 |
| 4.14. The gismu creation algorithm | 71 |
| 4.15. Cultural and other non-algorithmic gismu | 73 |
| 4.16. rafsi fu'ivla: a proposal | 76 |
| 5. “Pretty Little Girls' School”: The Structure Of Lojban selbri | 79 |
| 5.1. Lojban content words: brivla | 79 |
| 5.2. Simple tanru | 80 |
| 5.3. Three-part tanru grouping with bo | 82 |
| 5.4. Complex tanru grouping | 83 |
| 5.5. Complex tanru with ke and ke'e | 84 |
| 5.6. Logical connection within tanru | 85 |
| 5.7. Linked sumti: be-bei-be'o | 88 |
| 5.8. Inversion of tanru: co | 91 |
| 5.9. Other kinds of simple selbri | 94 |
| 5.10. selbri based on sumti: me | 95 |
| 5.11. Conversion of simple selbri | 97 |
| 5.12. Scalar negation of selbri | 98 |
| 5.13. Tenses and bridi negation | 100 |
| 5.14. Some types of asymmetrical tanru | 101 |
| 5.15. Some types of symmetrical tanru | 108 |
| 5.16. “Pretty little girls' school”: forty ways to say it | 109 |
| 6. To Speak Of Many Things: The Lojban sumti | 115 |
| 6.1. The five kinds of simple sumti | 115 |
| 6.2. The three basic description types | 116 |
| 6.3. Individuals and masses | 119 |
| 6.4. Masses and sets | 121 |
| 6.5. Descriptors for typical objects | 122 |
| 6.6. Quantified sumti | 123 |
| 6.7. Quantified descriptions | 124 |
| 6.8. Indefinite descriptions | 127 |
| 6.9. sumti-based descriptions | 127 |
| 6.10. sumti qualifiers | 128 |
| 6.11. The syntax of vocative phrases | 130 |
| 6.12. Lojban names | 132 |
| 6.13. Pro-sumti summary | 134 |
| 6.14. Quotation summary | 136 |
| 6.15. Number summary | 136 |
| 7. Brevity Is The Soul Of Language: Pro-sumti And Pro-bridi | 139 |
| 7.1. What are pro-sumti and pro-bridi? What are they for? | 139 |
| 7.2. Personal pro-sumti: the mi-series | 140 |
| 7.3. Demonstrative pro-sumti: the ti-series | 141 |
| 7.4. Utterance pro-sumti: the di'u-series | 142 |
| 7.5. Assignable pro-sumti and pro-bridi: the ko'a-series and the broda-series | 144 |
| 7.6. Anaphoric pro-sumti and pro-bridi: the ri-series and the go'i-series | 146 |
| 7.7. Indefinite pro-sumti and pro-bridi: the zo'e-series and the co'e-series | 150 |
| 7.8. Reflexive and reciprocal pro-sumti: the vo'a-series | 152 |
| 7.9. sumti and bridi questions: ma and mo | 153 |
| 7.10. Relativized pro-sumti: ke'a | 154 |
| 7.11. Abstraction focus pro-sumti: ce'u | 154 |
| 7.12. Bound variable pro-sumti and pro-bridi: the da-series and the bu'a-series | 155 |
| 7.13. Pro-sumti and pro-bridi cancelling | 155 |
| 7.14. The identity predicate: du | 156 ​ |
| 7.15. lujvo based on pro-sumti | 156 |
| 7.16. KOhA cmavo by series | 157 |
| 7.17. GOhA and other pro-bridi by series | 158 |
| 7.18. Other cmavo discussed in this chapter | 159 |
| 8. Relative Clauses, Which Make sumti Even More Complicated | 161 |
| 8.1. What are you pointing at? | 161 |
| 8.2. Incidental relative clauses | 163 |
| 8.3. Relative phrases | 165 |
| 8.4. Multiple relative clauses: zi'e | 168 |
| 8.5. Non-veridical relative clauses: voi | 169 |
| 8.6. Relative clauses and descriptors | 170 |
| 8.7. Possessive sumti | 172 |
| 8.8. Relative clauses and complex sumti: vu'o | 173 |
| 8.9. Relative clauses in vocative phrases | 175 |
| 8.10. Relative clauses within relative clauses | 176 |
| 8.11. Index of relative clause cmavo | 177 |
| 9. To Boston Via The Road Go I, With An Excursion Into The Land Of Modals | 179 |
| 9.1. Introductory | 179 |
| 9.2. Standard bridi form: cu | 180 |
| 9.3. Tagging places: FA | 182 |
| 9.4. Conversion: SE | 185 |
| 9.5. Modal places: FIhO, FEhU | 187 |
| 9.6. Modal tags: BAI | 188 |
| 9.7. Modal sentence connection: the causals | 189 |
| 9.8. Other modal connections | 192 |
| 9.9. Modal selbri | 194 |
| 9.10. Modal relative phrases; Comparison | 195 |
| 9.11. Mixed modal connection | 198 |
| 9.12. Modal conversion: JAI | 199 |
| 9.13. Modal negation | 200 |
| 9.14. Sticky modals | 201 |
| 9.15. Logical and non-logical connection of modals | 201 |
| 9.16. CV'V cmavo of selma'o BAI with irregular forms | 202 |
| 9.17. Complete table of BAI cmavo with rough English equivalents | 203 |
| 10. Imaginary Journeys: The Lojban Space/Time Tense System | 207 |
| 10.1. Introductory | 207 |
| 10.2. Spatial tenses: FAhA and VA | 209 |
| 10.3. Compound spatial tenses | 210 |
| 10.4. Temporal tenses: PU and ZI | 211 |
| 10.5. Interval sizes: VEhA and ZEhA | 213 |
| 10.6. Vague intervals and non-specific tenses | 215 |
| 10.7. Dimensionality: VIhA | 215 |
| 10.8. Movement in space: MOhI | 216 |
| 10.9. Interval properties: TAhE and roi | 217 |
| 10.10. Event contours: ZAhO and re'u | 219 |
| 10.11. Space interval modifiers: FEhE | 222 |
| 10.12. Tenses as sumti tcita | 223 |
| 10.13. Sticky and multiple tenses: KI | 225 |
| 10.14. Story time | 227 |
| 10.15. Tenses in subordinate bridi | 229 |
| 10.16. Tense relations between sentences | 230 |
| 10.17. Tensed logical connectives | 232 |
| 10.18. Tense negation | 234 |
| 10.19. Actuality, potentiality, capability: CAhA | 235 ​ |
| 10.20. Logical and non-logical connections between tenses | 237 |
| 10.21. Sub-events | 238 |
| 10.22. Conversion of sumti tcita: JAI | 239 |
| 10.23. Tenses versus modals | 240 |
| 10.24. Tense questions: cu'e | 242 |
| 10.25. Explicit magnitudes | 243 |
| 10.26. Finally (an exercise for the much-tried reader) | 244 |
| 10.27. Summary of tense selma'o | 244 |
| 10.28. List of spatial directions and direction-like relations | 245 |
| 11. Events, Qualities, Quantities, And Other Vague Words: On Lojban Abstraction | 247 |
| 11.1. The syntax of abstraction | 247 |
| 11.2. Event abstraction | 248 |
| 11.3. Types of event abstractions | 250 |
| 11.4. Property abstractions | 251 |
| 11.5. Amount abstractions | 253 |
| 11.6. Truth-value abstraction: jei | 254 |
| 11.7. Predication/sentence abstraction | 255 |
| 11.8. Indirect questions | 256 |
| 11.9. Minor abstraction types | 258 |
| 11.10. Lojban sumti raising | 259 |
| 11.11. Event-type abstractors and event contour tenses | 260 |
| 11.12. Abstractor connection | 261 |
| 11.13. Table of abstractors | 262 |
| 12. Dog House And White House: Determining lujvo Place Structures | 263 |
| 12.1. Why have lujvo? | 263 |
| 12.2. The meaning of tanru: a necessary detour | 264 |
| 12.3. The meaning of lujvo | 266 |
| 12.4. Selecting places | 267 |
| 12.5. Symmetrical and asymmetrical lujvo | 267 |
| 12.6. Dependent places | 269 |
| 12.7. Ordering lujvo places. | 271 |
| 12.8. lujvo with more than two parts. | 272 |
| 12.9. Eliding SE rafsi from seltau | 273 |
| 12.10. Eliding SE rafsi from tertau | 274 |
| 12.11. Eliding KE and KEhE rafsi from lujvo | 274 |
| 12.12. Abstract lujvo | 275 |
| 12.13. Implicit-abstraction lujvo | 277 |
| 12.14. Anomalous lujvo | 279 |
| 12.15. Comparatives and superlatives | 280 |
| 12.16. Notes on gismu place structures | 283 |
| 13. Oooh! Arrgh! Ugh! Yecch! Attitudinal and Emotional Indicators | 285 |
| 13.1. What are attitudinal indicators? | 285 |
| 13.2. Pure emotion indicators | 287 |
| 13.3. Propositional attitude indicators | 289 |
| 13.4. Attitudes as scales | 292 |
| 13.5. The space of emotions | 294 |
| 13.6. Emotional categories | 294 |
| 13.7. Attitudinal modifiers | 295 |
| 13.8. Compound indicators | 298 |
| 13.9. The uses of indicators | 299 |
| 13.10. Attitude questions; empathy; attitude contours | 300 |
| 13.11. Evidentials | 302 |
| 13.12. Discursives | 304 |
| 13.13. Miscellaneous indicators | 307 ​ |
| 13.14. Vocative scales | 309 |
| 13.15. A sample dialogue | 312 |
| 13.16. Tentative conclusion | 314 |
| 14. If Wishes Were Horses: The Lojban Connective System | 317 |
| 14.1. Logical connection and truth tables | 317 |
| 14.2. The Four basic vowels | 319 |
| 14.3. The six types of logical connectives | 319 |
| 14.4. Logical connection of bridi | 320 |
| 14.5. Forethought bridi connection | 322 |
| 14.6. sumti connection | 324 |
| 14.7. More than two propositions | 325 |
| 14.8. Grouping of afterthought connectives | 326 |
| 14.9. Compound bridi | 328 |
| 14.10. Multiple compound bridi | 330 |
| 14.11. Termset logical connection | 332 |
| 14.12. Logical connection within tanru | 333 |
| 14.13. Truth questions and connective questions | 335 |
| 14.14. Non-logical connectives | 338 |
| 14.15. More about non-logical connectives | 341 |
| 14.16. Interval connectives and forethought non-logical connection | 343 |
| 14.17. Logical and non-logical connectives within mekso | 346 |
| 14.18. Tenses, modals, and logical connection | 347 |
| 14.19. Abstractor connection and connection within abstractions | 350 |
| 14.20. Constructs and appropriate connectives | 351 |
| 14.21. Truth functions and corresponding logical connectives | 351 |
| 14.22. Rules for making logical and non-logical connectives | 352 |
| 14.23. Locations of other tables | 352 |
| 15. “No” Problems: On Lojban Negation | 353 |
| 15.1. Introductory | 353 |
| 15.2. bridi negation | 354 |
| 15.3. Scalar Negation | 357 |
| 15.4. selbri and tanru negation | 360 |
| 15.5. Expressing scales in selbri negation | 363 |
| 15.6. sumti negation | 365 |
| 15.7. Negation of minor grammatical constructs | 366 |
| 15.8. Truth questions | 367 |
| 15.9. Affirmations | 369 |
| 15.10. Metalinguistic negation forms | 370 |
| 15.11. Summary – Are All Possible Questions About Negation Now Answered? | 373 |
| 16. “Who Did You Pass On The Road? Nobody”: Lojban And Logic | 375 |
| 16.1. What's wrong with this picture? | 375 |
| 16.2. Existential claims, prenexes, and variables | 376 |
| 16.3. Universal claims | 378 |
| 16.4. Restricted claims: da poi | 379 |
| 16.5. Dropping the prenex | 380 |
| 16.6. Variables with generalized quantifiers | 381 |
| 16.7. Grouping of quantifiers | 382 |
| 16.8. The problem of “any” | 384 |
| 16.9. Negation boundaries | 385 |
| 16.10. bridi negation and logical connectives | 388 |
| 16.11. Using naku outside a prenex | 389 |
| 16.12. Logical Connectives and DeMorgan's Law | 392 |
| 16.13. selbri variables | 394 |
| 16.14. A few notes on variables | 395 ​ |
| 16.15. Conclusion | 395 |
| 17. As Easy As A-B-C? The Lojban Letteral System And Its Uses | 397 |
| 17.1. What's a letteral, anyway? | 397 |
| 17.2. A to Z in Lojban, plus one | 398 |
| 17.3. Upper and lower cases | 399 |
| 17.4. The universal bu | 400 |
| 17.5. Alien alphabets | 400 |
| 17.6. Accent marks and compound lerfu words | 402 |
| 17.7. Punctuation marks | 403 |
| 17.8. What about Chinese characters? | 403 |
| 17.9. lerfu words as pro-sumti | 404 |
| 17.10. References to lerfu | 405 |
| 17.11. Mathematical uses of lerfu strings | 406 |
| 17.12. Acronyms | 407 |
| 17.13. Computerized character codes | 408 |
| 17.14. List of all auxiliary lerfu-word cmavo | 409 |
| 17.15. Proposed lerfu words – introduction | 409 |
| 17.16. Proposed lerfu words for the Greek alphabet | 409 |
| 17.17. Proposed lerfu words for the Cyrillic alphabet | 410 |
| 17.18. Proposed lerfu words for the Hebrew alphabet | 410 |
| 17.19. Proposed lerfu words for some accent marks and multiple letters | 411 |
| 17.20. Proposed lerfu words for radio communication | 412 |
| 18. lojbau mekso: Mathematical Expressions in Lojban | 413 |
| 18.1. Introductory | 413 |
| 18.2. Lojban numbers | 414 |
| 18.3. Signs and numerical punctuation | 414 |
| 18.4. Special numbers | 416 |
| 18.5. Simple infix expressions and equations | 417 |
| 18.6. Forethought operators (Polish notation, functions) | 419 |
| 18.7. Other useful selbri for mekso bridi | 421 |
| 18.8. Indefinite numbers | 422 |
| 18.9. Approximation and inexact numbers | 424 |
| 18.10. Non-decimal and compound bases | 426 |
| 18.11. Special mekso selbri | 428 |
| 18.12. Number questions | 431 |
| 18.13. Subscripts | 431 |
| 18.14. Infix operators revisited | 432 |
| 18.15. Vectors and matrices | 433 |
| 18.16. Reverse Polish notation | 434 |
| 18.17. Logical and non-logical connectives within mekso | 435 |
| 18.18. Using Lojban resources within mekso | 437 |
| 18.19. Other uses of mekso | 438 |
| 18.20. Explicit operator precedence | 440 |
| 18.21. Miscellany | 440 |
| 18.22. Four score and seven: a mekso problem | 441 |
| 18.23. mekso selma'o summary | 442 |
| 18.24. Complete table of VUhU cmavo, with operand structures | 443 |
| 18.25. Complete table of PA cmavo: digits, punctuation, and other numbers | 443 |
| 18.26. Table of MOI cmavo, with associated rafsi and place structures | 444 |
| 19. Putting It All Together: Notes on the Structure of Lojban Texts | 447 |
| 19.1. Introductory | 447 |
| 19.2. Sentences: I | 447 |
| 19.3. Paragraphs: NIhO | 448 |
| 19.4. Topic-comment sentences: ZOhU | 449 ​ |
| 19.5. Questions and answers | 451 |
| 19.6. Subscripts: XI | 453 |
| 19.7. Utterance ordinals: MAI | 455 |
| 19.8. Attitude scope markers: FUhE/FUhO | 456 |
| 19.9. Quotations: LU, LIhU, LOhU, LEhU | 457 |
| 19.10. More on quotations: ZO, ZOI | 458 |
| 19.11. Contrastive emphasis: BAhE | 460 |
| 19.12. Parenthesis and metalinguistic commentary: TO, TOI, SEI | 461 |
| 19.13. Erasure: SI, SA, SU | 463 |
| 19.14. Hesitation: Y | 465 |
| 19.15. No more to say: FAhO | 465 |
| 19.16. List of cmavo interactions | 466 |
| 19.17. List of Elidable Terminators | 466 |
| 20. A Catalogue of selma'o | 467 |
| 20.1. A Catalogue Of selma'o | 467 |
| 21. Formal Grammars | 489 |
| 21.1. EBNF Grammar of Lojban | 489 |
| 21.2. EBNF Cross-Reference | 494 |
| Lojban Word Glossary | 505 |
| General Index | 527 |
| Lojban Words Index | 571 |
| Examples Index | 581 |
This work is free because according to the The Complete Lojban Language, Chapter 1, Section 8:
    Copyright © 1997 by The Logical Language Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this book, either in electronic or in printed form, provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.
    Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this book, provided that the modifications are clearly marked as such, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.
    Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this book into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation that has been approved by the Logical Language Group, rather than in English.
    The contents of Chapter 21 are in the public domain.
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