A Quick Tour of Lojban Grammar, With Diagrams
2.1 The concept of the bridi
This chapter gives diagrammed examples of basic Lojban sentence structures. The most general pattern is covered first, followed by successive variations on the basic components of the Lojban sentence. There are many more capabilities not covered in this chapter, but covered in detail in later chapters, so this chapter is a “quick tour” of the material later covered more slowly throughout the book. It also introduces most of the Lojban words used to discuss Lojban grammar.
Let us consider John and Sam and three statements about them:
- Example 2.1
- John is the father of Sam.
- Example 2.2
- John hits Sam.
- Example 2.3
- John is taller than Sam.
These examples all describe relationships between John and Sam. However, in English, we use the noun “father” to describe a static relationship in Example 2.1 (p. 15), the verb “hits” to describe an active relationship in Example 2.2 (p. 15), and the adjective “taller” to describe an attributive relationship in Example 2.3 (p. 15). In Lojban we make no such grammatical distinctions; these three sentences, when expressed in Lojban, are structurally identical. The same part of speech is used to represent the
