The Complete Lojban Language
can be answered with
- Example 2.75
| mi | kanro |
- I am healthy.
or
- Example 2.76
| go'i |
- I am healthy.
(Note that do to the questioner is mi to the respondent.)
or
- Example 2.77
| le tavla | cu | kanro |
- The talker is healthy.
or
- Example 2.78
| le tavla | cu | go'i |
- The talker is healthy.
A general negative answer may be given by na go'i. na may be placed before any selbri (but after the cu). It is equivalent to stating “It is not true that ...” before the bridi. It does not imply that anything else is true or untrue, only that that specific bridi is not true. More details on negative statements are available in Chapter 15 (p. 353).
2.16 Indicators
Different cultures express emotions and attitudes with a variety of intonations and gestures that are not usually included in written language. Some of these are available in some languages as interjections (i.e. “Aha!”, “Oh no!”, “Ouch!”, “Aahh!”, etc.), but they vary greatly from culture to culture.
Lojban has a group of cmavo known as “attitudinal indicators” which specifically covers this type of commentary on spoken statements. They are both written and spoken, but require no specific intonation or gestures. Grammatically they are very simple: one or more attitudinals at the beginning of a bridi apply to the entire bridi; anywhere else in the bridi they apply to the word immediately to the left. For example:
- Example 2.79
| .ie | mi | [cu] | klama |
| Agreement! | I | - | go. |
- Yep! I'll go.
- Example 2.80
| .ei | mi | [cu] | klama |
| Obligation! | I | - | go. |
- I should go.
- Example 2.81
| mi | [cu] | klama | le melbi | .ui | [ku] |
| I | - | go | to-the beautiful-thing | and I am happy because it is the beautiful thing I'm going to | - |
