Chapter 5
“Pretty Little Girls' School”: The Structure Of Lojban selbri
“Pretty Little Girls' School”: The Structure Of Lojban selbri
5.1 Lojban content words: brivla
At the center, logically and often physically, of every Lojban bridi is one or more words which constitute the selbri. A bridi expresses a relationship between things: the selbri specifies which relationship is referred to. The difference between:
- Example 5.1
do mamta mi You are-a-mother-of me
- You are my mother
and
- Example 5.2
do patfu mi You are-a-father-of me.
- You are my father.
lies in the different selbri.
The simplest kind of selbri is a single Lojban content word: a brivla. There are three different varieties of brivla: those which are built into the language (the gismu), those which are derived from combinations of the gismu (the lujvo), and those which are taken (usually in a modified form) from
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