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The Complete Lojban Language

This doesn't lead to ambiguity, as it might seem to. A given lujvo still has exactly one meaning and place structure. It is just that more than one tanru is competing for the same lujvo. But more than one meaning for the tanru was already competing for the “right” to define the meaning of the lujvo. Someone has to use judgment in deciding which one meaning is to be chosen over the others.

If the lujvo made by a shorter form of tanru is in use, or is likely to be useful for another meaning, the decider then retains one or more of the cmavo, preferably ones that set this meaning apart from the shorter form meaning that is used or anticipated. As a rule, therefore, the shorter lujvo will be used for a more general concept, possibly even instead of a more frequent word. If both words are needed, the simpler one should be shorter. It is easier to add a cmavo to clarify the meaning of the more complex term than it is to find a good alternate tanru for the simpler term.

And of course, we have to consider the listener. On hearing an unknown word, the listener will decompose it and get a tanru that makes no sense or the wrong sense for the context. If the listener realizes that the grouping operators may have been dropped out, he or she may try alternate groupings, or try inserting an abstraction operator if that seems plausible. (The grouping of tanru is explained in Chapter 5 (p. 79); abstraction is explained in Chapter 11 (p. 247).) Plausibility is the key to learning new ideas and to evaluating unfamiliar lujvo.

4.11 The lujvo-making algorithm

The following is the current algorithm for generating Lojban lujvo given a known tanru and a complete list of gismu and their assigned rafsi. The algorithm was designed by Bob LeChevalier and Dr. James Cooke Brown for computer program implementation. It was modified in 1989 with the assistance of Nora LeChevalier, who detected a flaw in the original “tosmabru test”.

Given a tanru that is to be made into a lujvo:

1. Choose a 3-letter or 4-letter rafsi for each of the gismu and cmavo in the tanru except the last.
2. Choose a 3-letter (CVV-form or CCV-form) or 5-letter rafsi for the final gismu in the tanru.
3. Join the resulting string of rafsi, initially without hyphens.
4. Add hyphen letters where necessary. It is illegal to add a hyphen at a place that is not required by this algorithm. Right-to-left tests are recommended, for reasons discussed below.
   1. If there are more than two words in the tanru, put an r-hyphen (or an n-hyphen) after the first rafsi if it is CVV-form. If there are exactly two words, then put an r-hyphen (or an n-hyphen) between the two rafsi if the first rafsi is CVV-form, unless the second rafsi is CCV-form (for example, saicli requires no hyphen). Use an r-hyphen unless the letter after the hyphen is r, in which case use an n-hyphen. Never use an n-hyphen unless it is required.
   2. Put a y-hyphen between the consonants of any impermissible consonant pair. This will always appear between rafsi.
   3. Put a y-hyphen after any 4-letter rafsi form.
5. Test all forms with one or more initial CVC-form rafsi – with the pattern “CVC ... CVC + X” – for “tosmabru failure”. X must either be a CVCCV long rafsi that happens to have a permissible initial pair as the consonant cluster, or is something which has caused a y-hyphen to be installed between the previous CVC and itself by one of the above rules.
   The test is as follows:
   1. Examine all the C/C consonant pairs up to the first y-hyphen, or up to the end of the word in case there are no y-hyphens.
      These consonant pairs are called "joints”.
   2. If all of those joints are permissible initials, then the trial word will break up into a cmavo and a shorter brivla. If not, the word will not break up, and no further hyphens are needed.
   3. Install a y-hyphen at the first such joint.