The Complete Lojban Language
are parallel tanru, in the sense that the relationship between barda and prenu is the same as that between cmalu and prenu. Section 5.14 (p. 101) and Section 5.15 (p. 108) contain a partial listing of some types of tanru, with examples.
5.3 Three-part tanru grouping with bo
The following cmavo is discussed in this section:
bo BO closest scope grouping
Consider the English sentence:
- Example 5.16
- That's a little girls' school.
What does it mean? Two possible readings are:
- Example 5.17
- That's a little school for girls.
- Example 5.18
- That's a school for little girls.
This ambiguity is quite different from the simple tanru ambiguity described in Section 5.2 (p. 80). We understand that “girls' school” means “a school where girls are the students”, and not “a school where girls are the teachers” or “a school which is a girl” (!). Likewise, we understand that “little girl” means “girl who is small”. This is an ambiguity of grouping. Is “girls' school” to be taken as a unit, with “little” specifying the type of girls' school? Or is “little girl” to be taken as a unit, specifying the type of school? In English speech, different tones of voice, or exaggerated speech rhythm showing the grouping, are used to make the distinction; English writing usually leaves it unrepresented.
Lojban makes no use of tones of voice for any purpose; explicit words are used to do the work. The cmavo bo (which belongs to selma'o BO) may be placed between the two brivla which are most closely associated. Therefore, a Lojban translation of Example 5.17 (p. 82) would be:
- Example 5.19
ta cmalu nixli bo ckule That is-a-small girl - school.
Example 5.18 (p. 82) might be translated:
- Example 5.20
ta cmalu bo nixli ckule That is-a-small - girl school.
The bo is represented in the literal translation by a bracketed hyphen (not to be confused with the bare hyphen used as a placeholder in other glosses) because in written English a hyphen is sometimes used for the same purpose: “a big dog-catcher” would be quite different from a “big-dog catcher” (presumably someone who catches only big dogs).
Analysis of Example 5.19 (p. 82) and Example 5.20 (p. 82) reveals a tanru nested within a tanru. In Example 5.19 (p. 82), the main tanru has a seltau of cmalu and a tertau of nixli bo ckule; the tertau is itself a tanru with nixli as the seltau and ckule as the tertau. In Example 5.20 (p. 82), on the other hand, the seltau is cmalu bo nixli (itself a tanru), whereas the tertau is ckule. This structure of tanru nested within tanru forms the basis for all the more complex types of selbri that will be explained below.
What about Example 5.21 (p. 82)? What does it mean?
- Example 5.21
ta cmalu nixli ckule That is-a-small girl school.
The rules of Lojban do not leave this sentence ambiguous, as the rules of English do with Example 5.16 (p. 82). The choice made by the language designers is to say that Example 5.21 (p.
