4.2 cmavo
In addition, there is the cmavo .y. (remember that y is not a V), which must have pauses before and after it.
A simple cmavo thus has the property of having only one or two vowels, or of having a single consonant followed by one or two vowels. Words consisting of three or more vowels in a row, or a single consonant followed by three or more vowels, are also of cmavo form, but are reserved for experimental use: a few examples are ku'a'e, sau'e, and bai'ai. All CVV cmavo beginning with the letter x are also reserved for experimental use. In general, though, the form of a cmavo tells you little or nothing about its grammatical use.
“Experimental use” means that the language designers will not assign any standard meaning or usage to these words, and words and usages coined by Lojban speakers will not appear in official dictionaries for the indefinite future. Experimental-use words provide an escape hatch for adding grammatical mechanisms (as opposed to semantic concepts) the need for which was not foreseen.
The cmavo of VV-form include not only the diphthongs and vowel pairs listed in Section 4.1 (p. 49), but also the following ten additional diphthongs:
.ia .ie .ii .io .iu .ua .ue .ui .uo .uu
In addition, cmavo can have the form Cy, a consonant followed by the letter y. These cmavo represent letters of the Lojban alphabet, and are discussed in detail in Chapter 17 (p. 397).
Compound cmavo are sequences of cmavo attached together to form a single written word. A compound cmavo is always identical in meaning and in grammatical use to the separated sequence of simple cmavo from which it is composed. These words are written in compound form merely to save visual space, and to ease the reader's burden in identifying when the component cmavo are acting together.
Compound cmavo, while not visually short like their components, can be readily identified by two characteristics:
- They have no consonant pairs or clusters, and
- They end in a vowel.
For example:
- Example 4.1
- .iseci'i
- .i se ci'i
- Example 4.2
- punaijecanai
- pu nai je ca nai
- Example 4.3
- ki'e.u'e
- ki'e .u'e
The cmavo u'e begins with a vowel, and like all words beginning with a vowel, requires a pause (represented by .) before it. This pause cannot be omitted simply because the cmavo is incorporated into a compound cmavo. On the other hand,
- Example 4.4
- ki'e'u'e
is a single cmavo reserved for experimental purposes: it has four vowels.
- Example 4.5
- cy.ibu.abu
- cy. .ibu .abu
Again the pauses are required (see Section 4.9 (p. 66)); the pause after cy. merges with the pause before .ibu.
