Turner Robin, Nicholas Nick. Lojban for beginners
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Chapter 8. Swapping things round
83
The donor gives the gift to the recipient.
Note: ‘gift’hereisanythinggivenwithoutpaymentorexchange—itdoesn’tneedtohavethe‘special
present’associationsoftheEnglishword.)
These conversions apply not only to gismu, but to any word acting as a selbri. Remember go’i, for
example, which stands in for the preceding sentence’s bridi. Just as we did with dunda, we can construct
a bridi like
le go’i cu go’i le se go’i le te go’i le ve go’i le xe go’i
On its own, this sentence doesn’t mean terribly much; it just repeats the previous sentence. But the
trick is, this version of the sentence repeats the previous sentence, with its sumti appearing explicitly.
This is how we can refer back to sumti in the previous sentence in general. For example,
.i la suzyn. zgana lo nanmu goi ko’a .i ko’a melbi
can also be expressed as
.i la suzyn. zgana lo nanmu .i le se go’i cu melbi
That’s because le se go’i refers to the second place (x
2
) of the preceding bridi, which is lo nanmu. (There
are even ways to refer back to sumti introduced by sumti tcita; but that’s an advanced topic.)
Even some abstraction cmavo can be modified by se. For example, du’u, which can be used to form a
selbri, has two sumti: x
1
, the thought described, and x
2
, the words used to express it:
le la jan. se pensi cu {du’u ri nelci la suzyn. kei} lu do dirba mi li’u
Zhang’s thing-thought (= what Zhang thought) is {the thought that he likes Susan}, put into the
words “You are dear to me.”
That’s why le se du’u refers to words rather than thoughts.
Exercise 2
Comeupwithsumtiforthefollowingconcepts,usingthefollowinggismu:
ciska
cmene
cpedu
fanva
klama
penmi
skicu
spuda
1. thedestination
2. theroute
3. thenamer
4. thetranslation
5. thetranslator
Chapter 8. Swapping things round
84
6. therequest
7. themeetingplace
8. thewritingimplement
9. thedescription
10. theresponse
lujvo
We’ve already seen quite a few lujvo, or compound words, in the exercises; but we haven’t actually
made any of our own yet. Lojban has strict rules for making lujvo; you can’t just crunch words together
like English brunch or edutainment, because this might result in a word which sounds like something
else, falls apart or makes intelligent computers repeat “Does not compute” in a tinny voice and blow
up in a cloud of blue smoke. However, one safe way of making acceptable lujvo is by using the
conversion cmavo we’ve just looked at.
se dunda, as we’ve seen, means ‘is given (by someone, to someone)’. We can turn this into a lujvo simply
adding l to the se, to give seldunda. The new word comes complete with its own place-structure—which
is, of course, the same as that of se dunda:
x
1
is a gift from x
2
to x
3
If we want to say ‘the gift’, le seldunda is not really an improvement on le se dunda. However, most
gismu have short combining forms (rafsi). These are never used on their own, only in lujvo. As it
happens, dunda has two short forms: dud and du’a. We can’t use dud, because that would give us a word
ending in a consonant, and, as we know, only cmene can end in a consonant. (Some cmene do in fact
use them for that reason.) The only candidate, then, is du’a, so ‘the gift’ is le seldu’a. (seldu’a has exactly
the same place structure as seldunda.)
The same is true for the other conversion cmavo, though their corresponding rafsi don’t all follow the
same pattern:
se sel-
te ter-
ve vel-
xe xel-
So ‘the recipient’ is le terdu’a.
Note: Youmightwonderwhetherstela‘lock’wasreallyimportantenoughtohavewrestedtherafsitel-
awayfromte—giventhatxel-,afterall,wassuccessfullywrestedawayfromxelso‘Greek’.Theansweris,
probablynot;butaftertheGreatrafsiReallocationof1993,it’sreallytoolatetodoanythingaboutitnow.
Consideritanendearingquirkofthelanguage...
In this way you can expand on the gismu list dramatically, to give equivalents of common English
words which are not included and, more interestingly, words which don’t have equivalents in English.
A lot of these are words you would probably never want to say, like terna’e ‘x
1
is the rule/logic by
which proposition x
2
contradicts/denies/refutes/negates proposition x
3
.’ However, you sometimes find
Chapter 8. Swapping things round
85
interesting and/or useful words which don’t exist as single words in English. Here are a few of my
own creations:
lo tertcu
a purpose/activity for which something is needed (from nitcu ‘need’)
lo ternu’e
a person to whom a promise is made (from nupre ‘promise’)
lo selvu’e
a moral standard (from vrude ‘be virtuous’)
lo selte’a
a scary thing (from terpa ‘fear’)
lo selcta
something/someone that is looked at (from catlu ‘look, examine’)
lo selta’i
something which wears you out (from tatpi ‘be tired/fatigued’)
lo veltu’i
an area of agreement (from tugni ‘agree with’)
lo selzi’e
something you are free to do (from zifre ‘be free’)
lo selxei
an object of hate (from xebni ‘hate’)
lo selpa’i
an object of devotion (from prami ‘love, be devoted to’)
Warning
Thismethodwillalwaysgiveyouanacceptablelujvo—exceptinonecase.Lojbandoesnotallowdouble
consonants,becausetheyaredifficulttopronounce,andcanbeheardincorrectlyasoneconsonant.This
meansthatwecan’thavelujvolikevellu’i(‘cleansingagent’,fromthex
4
oflumci‘wash’).Thewayoutof
thisproblemistoputybetweenthetwols,givingusvelylu’i.
Infact,ifyouseeyinaLojbanword,itcannotbeagismuoracmavo(withtwoexceptionswe’vealready
seen:.y.‘er...’andlettersofthealphabetlike.y’y.anddy.)Suchawordcanonlybeeitheralujvoora
name(cmene).ywaspurposefullyavoidedin‘normal’Lojbanwords.
Negative lujvo
Just as se has the combining form sel, the negative na’e has the combining form nal, and we can use this
to make lujvo in exactly the same way.
Note: nahasitsownrafsi,nar;butna’eismoreusefulincreatingnewwords.na’einaselbristillindicates
anexistingkindofrelationship,whichyouwouldwanttodescribewithasinglelujvo;whilenacould
meananything,includingnon-existence—makingittoobroadaconceptformostuses.
For example, jdice means ‘decide’ and has the short combining form jdi. naljdi therefore means ‘not de-
cide’ or ‘be indecisive’. Some other examples:
lo naljmi
one who does not understand (from jimpe ‘understand’)
lo naljvi
a non-competitor (from jivna ‘compete’)
lo nalkri
a non-believer/skeptic (from krici ‘believe’)
lo nalyla’e
an unlikely event (from lakne ‘be likely’)
lo nalre’a
a non-human (from remna ‘be human’)
We can see that nal is like the English non-, but we need to remember that non- sometimes has other
meanings or associations that nal does not have. lo naljvi is simply someone who is not taking part in a
competition, not a ‘non-contender’ in the sense of someone who competes but doesn’t stand a chance
of winning. Similarly lo nalre’a is someone who is not a member of the species homo sapiens (e.g. a
chimpanzee or Klingon), and cannot be applied to someone who is inhumane or perceived as
subhuman in some way.
Chapter 8. Swapping things round
86
We can also use nal with sel and its relatives; for example,
lo naltertcu
not a purpose/activity for which something is needed; something which has no
requirements (from nitcu ‘x
1
needs/requires/is dependent on/[wants] necessity x
2
for purpose/action/stage of process x
3
’)
lo nalveltu’i
an area of disagreement; a controversial issue (from tugni ‘x
1
[person] agrees with
person(s)/position/side x
2
that x
3
(du’u) is true about matter x
4
’)
lo nalselzi’e something you are not free to do (from zifre ‘x
1
is free/at liberty to do/be x
2
(event/state) under conditions x
3
’)
lo nalselsanji something you are unaware of (from sanji ‘x
1
is conscious/aware of x
2
(ob-
ject/abstract); x
1
discerns/recognizes x
2
(object/abstract)’; this gismu has no suitable
short combining form)
lo nalselse’i
someone who lacks a self/ego; an enlightened person according to
Hindu/Buddhist philosophy (from sevzi ‘x
1
is a self/ego/id/identity-image of x
2
’)
As you’ll have guessed, the companions of na’e, namely to’e and no’e, have rafsi of their own: tol- and
nor-, respectively. So ‘disinterested’, ‘uninterested’ and ‘bored’ in Lojban are norselci’i, nalselci’i and
tolselci’i.
lujvo can be much more interesting than this; interesting enough, in fact, that we won’t be covering
them any further here. You can make lujvo out of pretty much any tanru you can devise; this is the
main way to introduce ‘new words’ into Lojban. But to make the lujvo you come up with work, you
need some background knowledge:
• how to make sure rafsi in a word stick together unambiguously in Lojban grammar (The Complete
Lojban Language, Chapter 4.5–4.6, 4.10–4.12.)
• how to make sure the gismu inside your tanru group together properly (The Complete Lojban Language,
Chapter 5.)
• how to derive the place structure of the lujvo from the place structures of the gismu that make it up
(The Complete Lojban Language, Chapter 12.)
It’s worth your while to look into these issues if you’ll be using the language seriously, and especially
if you’ll be writing in it. (lujvo are easier to deal with while writing than while speaking, because you
have the time to reflect on how you’ll be creating your new word.) At this stage, though, you don’t
need to go into all that just yet.
Exercise 3
Ifyouhaveaccesstoagismulist,useittolookupgismuandmakelujvomeaningthefollowing,usingshort
combiningformswherepossibleandnal-wherenecessary.
1. atelevision
2. asubjectofconversation
3. someonewhoisdeceivedorcheated
4. animmoraloramoral(notvirtuous)person
5. arailroad
Chapter 8. Swapping things round
87
6. aninsignificantevent
7. somethingunseen
8. somethingaboutwhichyouhavenofeelings/emotions
Reflexives and reciprocals
Let’s now look at a slightly embellished version of the plot-advancing example sentence from Lesson 7,
involving Zhang and Susan:
la suzyn. na djuno fi vo’a fe le du’u la jan. cinynei sy.
Susan doesn’t know about herself that Zhang fancies (‘sexually-likes’) her.
We have snuck into the sentence a new 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, where only the equivalent of vo’a is usual. Those equivalents are
reflexives—words like herself, itself, and so on; and vo’a is very handy for expressing them. As people
start thinking more in Lojban, the others could get used more.
Here are some more straightforward examples of its use:
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.
Now for something clever—which will also look slightly familiar.
la suzyn. zgana la djiotis. soi vo’a vo’e
Susan notices Jyoti and vice versa.
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. zgana la djiotis. soi vo’a, or even just ko’a zgana
ko’i soi vo’a. That is why you were able to use soi vo’a as ‘and vice versa’ in the previous lesson’s
exercises.
Note: vo’aisfixedinwhatitrefersbacktoand,unlikeri,canpointbacktoko’a—thoughyoucanalso
repeatko’aifyouprefer.
Chapter 8. Swapping things round
88
Tip: Thereisagismuthatdoesthesamejob,simxu:“x
1
(set)hasmemberswhomutually/reciprocallyx
2
.”
Yousawasneakpreviewofthis,too,inthepreviouslesson.Itismostlyusedincompoundselbri(tanru),
andfromthere,inlujvo(sim-, -si’u).Wehaven’tcoveredenoughgrammartouseitproperlyyet,butyou’ll
beseeingitagaintowardstheendofthelessons.
Summary
This lesson has introduced the following:
• Converting sentences (swapping round sumti) using se and its relatives;
• Making sumti from places other than x
1
by the same method;
• Making lujvo using sel-, vel- etc. and short combining forms (rafsi);
• Making negative lujvo using nal-.
• Expressing reflexives and reciprocals using vo’a and soi.
Vocabulary
berti
x
1
istothenorth/northernside[right-hand-rulepole]ofx
2
accordingtoframeofreferencex
3
cinta
x
1
[material]isapaintofpigment/activesubstancex
2
,inabaseofx
3
cpina
x
1
ispungent/piquant/peppery/spicy/irritatingtosensex
2
ctebi
x
1
isa/thelip[body-part]/rimoforificex
2
ofbodyx
3
;(adjective:)x
1
islabial
fanza
x
1
(event)annoys/irritates/bothers/distractsx
2
jarbu
x
1
isasuburbanareaofcity/metropolisx
2
jmina
x
1
adds/combinesx
2
to/withx
3
,withresultx
4
;x
1
augmentsx
2
byamountx
3
jukpa
x
1
cooks/preparesfood-for-eatingx
2
byrecipe/methodx
3
(process)
kisto
x
1
reflectsPakistani/Pashtoculture/nationality/languageinaspectx
2
klaji
x
1
isastreet/avenue/lane/drive/cul-de-sac/way/alley/[road]atx
2
accessingx
3
minra
x
1
reflects/mirrors/echoesx
2
[object/radiation]toobserver/pointx
3
asx
4
;x
2
bouncesonx
1
nitcu
x
1
needs/requires/isdependenton/[wants]necessityx
2
forpurpose/action/stageofprocessx
3
snanu
x
1
istothesouth/southernsideofx
2
accordingtoframeofreferencex
3
Exercise 4
TranslatefromLojban;someoftheplacesusedherearecontortedintoquitenon-Englishforms,buttryandbeas
idiomaticaspossible.
1. .i le la djiotis. karce cu xe klama le gusta fu la djiotis .e la ranjit .e la suzyn.
2. .i la suzyn. catlu le vo’a ve minra
3. .i le go’i cu jmina fi le vo’a ctebi cinta
4. .i ca lenu go’i kei la suzyn. te minra la ranjit. soi vo’a
5. .i la suzyn. te preti fo la djiotis. fi lu .i ma te klaji fi ti li’u
6. .i la ranjit. cusku lu .i le kisto jarbu
7. .i le vu se jukpa cu mutce cpina li’u
8. .i la djiotis. se fanza cusku lu .i ma’a doi ranjit. klama lo berti lo snanu soi vo’e vo’i
9. .i pe’i le ve klama pe le gusta na te djuno fi do li’u
Chapter 8. Swapping things round
89
Answers to Exercises
Exercise 1
1. lenu jamna cu se fengu
2. la jan. te xatra [mi ti](Whetherornotyouincludethemiandtidependsonwhethertheyareimportantinthis
context—probablytheyareobviousandcanbemissedout.)
3. loi jdini cu ve xlura mi lenu cliva le gugde(“Moneyisaninducementformetoemigrate.”)
4. la lojban. ve tavla fo lo prenu(“ThereisaconversationinLojban.”Wedon’tneedlo prenu,though,sincewecan
assumethatitispeoplechattinginLojbanandnot,say,chimpanzees.)
5. mi te dunda le cukta lo prenu
Exercise 2
1. le se klama
2. le ve klama
3. le te cmene
4. le xe fanva
5. le fanva(Hopeyouweren’tfooled!)
6. le ve cpedu(le se cpeduiswhatyouaskfor,notyourrequest)
7. le te penmi
8. le ve ciska
9. le ve skicu
10. le te spuda
Exercise 3
1. lo veltivni
2. lo terta’a
3. lo seltcica
4. lo nalvu’e
5. lo teryre’e
6. lo nalvai
7. lo nalselvi’a
8. lo naltercni
Exercise 4
1. Jyoti’scaristhemeansbywhichJyoti,RanjeetandSusangettotherestaurant.
2. Susanlooksatherreflection.(ThisisthemoreLojbanicversionof“looksatherselfinthemirror.”Thereare
otherwaystosaythis,butwehaven’tcoveredtherequisitegrammaryet.)
3. Sheputsonmorelipstick.(Literally,“Sheaddstoherlippaint.)”
Chapter 8. Swapping things round
90
4. Whenthisishappening,SusanandRanjeetseeeachother’sreflection.
5. SusanasksJyoti,“Wheredoesthisstreetgoto?”
6. Ranjeetsays,“ThePakistanisuburb.”
7. “Thecuisinethereisveryspicy.”
8. Jyotiirritatedlysays,“We,Ranjeet,havebeengoingfromsouthtonorthandback”(i.e.fromsouthtonorthand
fromnorthtosouth.Thisisprobablyoneofthefewtimesyou’llseesoi vo’einsteadofsoi vo’a.)
9. “Ithinkthewayof(=to)therestaurantisunknowntoyou.”
91
Chapter 9. Let me qualify that: internal sumti and
relative clauses
Internal sumti
The business of a selbri (as you hopefully remember from Lesson 2) is to point out a relationship
between one or more things (its sumti.) So when you say dunda, you mean that there’s a giver, a
receiver, and a gift involved. When you say klama, you mean that there’s a traveller, a destination, an
origin, a route, and a means of transportation involved. When you say mensi, you mean that there’s
someone who is a sister, and someone that she’s a sister of. And so on.
Now, when we put an article in front of a selbri, we turn it into a sumti. But the selbri within a sumti
remains a selbri: it still indicates that there’s a relationship between some sumti of its own. If you say le
dunda, you still mean that there is something the ‘donor’ is giving, and someone they are giving it to. If
you say lo xe klama, you still mean that there is someone going in the ‘vehicle’, somewhere they are
going to, somewhere they are coming from, and some route they are taking. And as we’ve already
hinted, it is meaningless just to say le mensi, just as we don’t say the sister in English: a sister is always a
sister of someone.
Previously, we have used pe to attach sumti to other sumti, in order to narrow things down. But that
doesn’t necessarily mean that what follows pe is a sumti of what comes before it. So if I describe my
sister as le mensi pe mi ‘my sister’, for example, that might be the same as saying zo’e (= my sister) mensi
mi. But if I say le jdini pe mi ‘my money’, I certainly do not mean zo’e jdini mi—that I am the mint which
issued the money! Obviously pe won’t do as a general solution to filling in the selbri you might need.
If you have a selbri contained inside a sumti, the way to give it a sumti of its own (an internal sumti) is to
add it in with be. You’ll remember (we hope!) that, when a selbri gets an article, its meaning is the x
1
place of that selbri. By default, be fills in the x
2
place of the sumti. So:
la renas. mensi mi
Rena is my sister
le mensi be mi
My sister
la renas. te dunda le cukta
Rena is given the book
le te dunda be le cukta
The recipient of the book
la renas. klama la sidnis.
Rena is going to Sydney
le klama be la sidnis.
Chapter 9. Let me qualify that
92
The one going to Sydney
As you can see, be can translate—often but not always—to English of. In fact, it covers surprisingly
many of the functions of of. And because it is tied to a specific place of the sumti, its relation to the main
sumti is unambiguous (another one of Lojban’s ‘selling points’!)
Exercise 1
WhatdothesesumtimeaninEnglish?
1. le vecnu be le cukta
2. le cliva be la sanfransiskos.
3. le xe klama be la sanfransiskos.
4. le se xabju be la renas.
5. le detri be lenu mi cliva
6. le pendo be le penmi be la ranjit.
More internal sumti
If you want to add a sumti to a place other than x
2
, you can use a FA tag. So:
la renas. klama fi la melbn.
Rena is going from Melbourne
le klama be fi la melbn.
The one going from Melbourne
ti xatra fo lei dinske
This is a letter about economics
le xatra be fo lei dinske
The letter about economics
If you want to be really thorough, you can add more than one sumti to the selbri in your sumti. The extra
sumti are added in with bei, not be. This (like many things in Lojban) is to avoid ambiguity: if we just
used be again, the new sumti would be considered a sumti of the sumti you just added, rather than the
original sumti!
OK, that wasn’t terribly clear. Let me illustrate:
la renas. klama {le jarbu be la melbn.}
Rena is going to a suburb of Melbourne
le klama {be le jarbu be la melbn.}
The one going to a suburb of Melbourne
la renas. klama {le jarbu} {la melbn.}
Rena is going to a suburb, from Melbourne
le klama {be le jarbu} {bei la melbn.}