The Complete Lojban Language
- Example 5.28
ta melbi cmalu bo nixli ckule That is-a-(pretty type-of (little type-of girl)) type-of school.
- That is a school for small girls who are beautiful.
- Example 5.29
ta melbi cmalu bo nixli bo ckule That is-a-pretty type-of (little type-of (girl type-of school)).
- That is a small school for girls which is beautiful.
Example 5.29 (p. 84) uses a construction which has not been seen before: cmalu bo nixli bo ckule, with two consecutive uses of bo between brivla. The rule for multiple bo constructions is the opposite of the rule when no bo is present at all: the last two are grouped together. Not surprisingly, this is called the “right-grouping rule”, and it is associated with every use of bo in the language. Therefore,
- Example 5.30
ta cmalu bo nixli bo ckule That is-a-little type-of (girl type-of school).
means the same as Example 5.19 (p. 82), not Example 5.20 (p. 82). This rule may seem peculiar at first, but one of its consequences is that bo is never necessary between the first two elements of any of the complex tanru presented so far: all of Example 5.26 (p. 83) through Example 5.29 (p. 84) could have bo inserted between melbi and cmalu with no change in meaning.
5.5 Complex tanru with ke and ke'e
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
ke KE start grouping ke'e KEhE end grouping
There is, in fact, a fifth grouping of “pretty little girls' school” that cannot be expressed with the resources explained so far. To handle it, we must introduce the grouping parentheses cmavo, ke and ke'e (belonging to selma'o KE and KEhE respectively). Any portion of a selbri sandwiched between these two cmavo is taken to be a single tanru component, independently of what is adjacent to it. Thus, Example 5.26 (p. 83) can be rewritten in any of the following ways:
- Example 5.31
ta ke melbi cmalu ke'e nixli ckule That is-a-( pretty little ) girl school.
- Example 5.32
ta ke ke melbi cmalu ke'e nixli ke'e ckule That is-a-( ( pretty little ) girl ) school.
- Example 5.33
ta ke ke ke melbi cmalu ke'e nixli ke'e ckule ke'e That is-a-( ( ( pretty little ) girl ) school ).
Even more versions could be created simply by placing any number of ke cmavo at the beginning of the selbri, and a like number of ke'e cmavo at its end. Obviously, all of these are a waste of breath once the left-grouping rule has been grasped. However, the following is equivalent to Example 5.28 (p. 84) and may be easier to understand:
- Example 5.34
ta melbi ke cmalu nixli ke'e ckule That is-a-( pretty type-of ( little type-of girl ) ) type-of school.
Likewise, a ke and ke'e version of Example 5.27 (p. 83) would be:
