Let’s look at a simple Lojban bridi. The place structure of the gismu “tavla” is
5.1) x1 talks to x2 about x3 in language x4where the “x”es with following numbers represent the various arguments that could be inserted at the given positions in the English sentence. For example:
5.2) John talks to Sam about engineering in Lojban.has “John” in the x1 place, “Sam” in the x2 place, “engineering” in the x3 place, and “Lojban” in the x4 place, and could be paraphrased:
5.3) Talking is going on,
with speaker John
and listener Sam
and subject matter engineering
and language Lojban.
The Lojban bridi corresponding to Example 5.1 will have the form
5.4) x1 [cu] tavla x2 x3 x4
The word “cu” serves as a separator between any preceding sumti and the selbri. It can often be omitted, as in the following examples.
5.5) mi tavla do zo'e zo'e I talk to you about something in some language. 5.6) do tavla mi ta zo'e You talk to me about that thing in a language. 5.7) mi tavla zo'e tu ti I talk to someone about that thing yonder in this language.(Example 5.7 is a bit unusual, as there is no easy way to point to a language; one might point to a copy of this book, and hope the meaning gets across!)
When there are one or more occurrences of the cmavo “zo'e” at the end of a bridi, they may be omitted, a process called “ellipsis”. Example 5.5 and Example 5.6 may be expressed thus:
5.8) mi tavla do I talk to you (about something in some language). 5.9) do tavla mi ta You talk to me about that thing (in some language).Note that Example 5.7 is not subject to ellipsis by this direct method, as the “zo'e” in it is not at the end of the bridi.