5.6 Logical connection within tanru
- Example 5.35
ta melbi cmalu ke nixli ckule [ke'e] That is-a-(pretty type-of little) ( girl type-of school ).
The final ke'e is given in square brackets here to indicate that it can be elided. It is always possible to elide ke'e at the end of the selbri, making Example 5.35 (p. 85) as terse as Example 5.27 (p. 83).
Now how about that fifth grouping? It is
- Example 5.36
ta melbi ke cmalu nixli ckule [ke'e] That is-a-pretty type-of ( ( little type-of girl ) type-of school ).
- That is a beautiful school for small girls.
Example 5.36 (p. 85) is distinctly different in meaning from any of Example 5.26 (p. 83) through Example 5.29 (p. 84). Note that within the ke…ke'e parentheses, the left-grouping rule is applied to cmalu nixli ckule.
It is perfectly all right to mix bo and ke…ke'e in a single selbri. For instance, Example 5.29 (p. 84), which in pure ke…ke'e form is
- Example 5.37
ta melbi ke cmalu ke nixli ckule [ke'e] [ke'e] That is-a-pretty type-of ( little type-of ( girl type-of school ) ).
can equivalently be expressed as:
- Example 5.38
ta melbi ke cmalu nixli bo ckule [ke'e] That is-a-pretty type-of ( little type-of-( girl type-of school )).
and in many other different forms as well.
5.6 Logical connection within tanru
The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
je JA tanru logical “and” ja JA tanru logical “or” joi JOI mixed mass “and” gu'e GUhA tanru forethought logical “and” gi GI forethought connection separator
Consider the English phrase “big red dog”. How shall this be rendered as a Lojban tanru? The naive attempt:
- Example 5.39
barda xunre gerku (big type-of red) type-of dog
will not do, as it means a dog whose redness is big, in whatever way redness might be described as “big”. Nor is
- Example 5.40
barda xunre bo gerku big type-of (red type-of dog)
much better. After all, the straightforward understanding of the English phrase is that the dog is big as compared with other dogs, not merely as compared with other red dogs. In fact, the bigness and redness are independent properties of the dog, and only obscure rules of English adjective ordering prevent us from saying “red big dog”.
