The Complete Lojban Language
- Example 4.42
- .cerman. zei jamkarce
- “Sherman war-car”
- Sherman tank
Example 4.41 (p. 59) is particularly noteworthy because the phrase that would be produced by removing the zeis from it doesn't end with a brivla, and in fact is not even grammatical. As written, the example is a tanru with two components, but by adding a zei between by. and livgyterbilma to produce
- Example 4.43
- na'e zei .a zei na'e zei by. zei livgyterbilma
- non-A-non-B-hepatitis
the whole phrase would become a single lujvo. The longer lujvo of Example 4.43 (p. 60) may be preferable, because its place structure can be built from that of bilma, whereas the place structure of a lujvo without a brivla must be constructed ad hoc.
Note that rafsi may not be used in zei phrases, because they are not words. CVV rafsi look like words (specifically cmavo) but there can be no confusion between the two uses of the same letters, because cmavo appear only as separate words or in compound cmavo (which are really just a notation for writing separate but closely related words as if they were one); rafsi appear only as parts of lujvo.
4.7 fu'ivla
The use of tanru or lujvo is not always appropriate for very concrete or specific terms (e.g. “brie” or “cobra”), or for jargon words specialized to a narrow field (e.g. “quark”, “integral”, or “iambic pentameter”). These words are in effect names for concepts, and the names were invented by speakers of another language. The vast majority of words referring to plants, animals, foods, and scientific terminology cannot be easily expressed as tanru. They thus must be borrowed (actually “copied”) into Lojban from the original language.
There are four stages of borrowing in Lojban, as words become more and more modified (but shorter and easier to use). Stage 1 is the use of a foreign name quoted with the cmavo la'o (explained in full in Section 19.10 (p. 458)):
- Example 4.44
- me la'o ly. spaghetti .ly.
is a predicate with the place structure “x1 is a quantity of spaghetti”.
Stage 2 involves changing the foreign name to a Lojbanized name, as explained in Section 4.8 (p. 63):
- Example 4.45
- me la spagetis.
One of these expedients is often quite sufficient when you need a word quickly in conversation. (This can make it easier to get by when you do not yet have full command of the Lojban vocabulary, provided you are talking to someone who will recognize the borrowing.)
Where a little more universality is desired, the word to be borrowed must be Lojbanized into one of several permitted forms. A rafsi is then usually attached to the beginning of the Lojbanized form, using a hyphen to ensure that the resulting word doesn't fall apart.
The rafsi categorizes or limits the meaning of the fu'ivla; otherwise a word having several different jargon meanings in other languages would require the word-inventor to choose which meaning should be assigned to the fu'ivla, since fu'ivla (like other brivla) are not permitted to have more than one definition. Such a Stage 3 borrowing is the most common kind of fu'ivla.
Finally, Stage 4 fu'ivla do not have any rafsi classifier, and are used where a fu'ivla has become so common or so important that it must be made as short as possible. (See Section 4.16 (p. 76) for a proposal concerning Stage 4 fu'ivla.)
The form of a fu'ivla reliably distinguishes it from both the gismu and the cmavo. Like cultural gismu, fu'ivla are generally based on a word from a single non-Lojban language. The word is “borrowed” (actually “copied”, hence the Lojban tanru fukpi valsi) from the other language and Lojbanized – the
