5.4 Complex tanru grouping
82) means the same as Example 5.20 (p. 82). This is true no matter what three brivla are used: the leftmost two are always grouped together. This rule is called the “left-grouping rule”. Left-grouping in seemingly ambiguous structures is quite common – though not universal – in other contexts in Lojban.
Another way to express the English meaning of Example 5.19 (p. 82) and Example 5.20 (p. 82), using parentheses to mark grouping, is:
- Example 5.22
ta cmalu nixli bo ckule That is-a-small type-of (girl type-of school).
- Example 5.23
ta cmalu bo nixli ckule That is-a-(small type-of girl) type-of school.
Because “type-of” is implicit in the Lojban tanru form, it has no Lojban equivalent.
Note: It is perfectly legal, though pointless, to insert bo into a simple tanru:
- Example 5.24
ta klama bo jubme That is-a-goer - table.
is a legal Lojban bridi that means exactly the same thing as Example 5.13 (p. 81), and is ambiguous in exactly the same ways. The cmavo bo serves only to resolve grouping ambiguity: it says nothing about the more basic ambiguity present in all tanru.
5.4 Complex tanru grouping
If one element of a tanru can be another tanru, why not both elements?
- Example 5.25
do mutce bo barda gerku bo kavbu You are-a-(very type-of large) (dog type-of capturer).
- You are a very large dog-catcher.
In Example 5.25 (p. 83), the selbri is a tanru with seltau mutce bo barda and tertau gerku bo kavbu. It is worth emphasizing once again that this tanru has the same fundamental ambiguity as all other Lojban tanru: the sense in which the “dog type-of capturer” is said to be “very type-of large” is not precisely specified. Presumably it is his body which is large, but theoretically it could be one of his other properties.
We will now justify the title of this chapter by exploring the ramifications of the phrase “pretty little girls' school”, an expansion of the tanru used in Section 5.3 (p. 82) to four brivla. (Although this example has been used in the Loglan Project almost since the beginning – it first appeared in Quine's book Word and Object (1960) – it is actually a mediocre example because of the ambiguity of English “pretty”; it can mean “beautiful”, the sense intended here, or it can mean “very”. Lojban melbi is not subject to this ambiguity: it means only “beautiful”.)
Here are four ways to group this phrase:
- Example 5.26
ta melbi cmalu nixli ckule That is-a-((pretty type-of little) type-of girl) type-of school.
- That is a school for girls who are beautifully small.
- Example 5.27
ta melbi cmalu nixli bo ckule That is-a-(pretty type-of little) (girl type-of school).
- That is a girls' school which is beautifully small.
