<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>
To Speak Of Many Things: The Lojban sumti - The Lojban Reference Grammar
</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../cll.css" />
<meta content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="content-type" />
</head>
<body>
<table class="nav" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="15%" valign="top">
<a href="../c5/s16.html">
Previous
</a>
<br />
<em>
``Pretty little girls' school'': forty ways to say it
</em>
</td>
<td align="center">
<strong>
To Speak Of Many Things: The Lojban sumti
</strong>
<br />
<a href="../">
<em>
<small>
The Lojban Reference Grammar
</small>
</em>
</a>
</td>
<td width="15%" valign="top">
<a href="../c6/s2.html">
Next
</a>
<br />
<em>
The three basic description types
</em>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr />
<div align="center">
<img src="pixra.gif" alt="[Cartoon]" class="noborder"
width="405" height="405" />
</div>
<h2>Chapter 6<br />
To Speak Of Many Things: The Lojban sumti</h2>
<h3><a id="s1" name="s1">1. The five kinds of simple sumti</h3>
<p>If you understand anything about Lojban, you know what a
sumti is by now, right? An argument, one of those things that
fills the places of simple Lojban sentences like:</p>
<pre>
<a id="e1d1" name="e1d1">1.1)</a> mi klama le zarci
I go-to the market
</pre>
In <a href="#e1d1">Example 1.1</a>, ``mi'' and ``le zarci'' are
the sumti. It is easy to see that these two sumti are not of
the same kind: ``mi'' is a pro-sumti (the Lojban analogue of a
pronoun) referring to the speaker, whereas ``le zarci'' is a
description which refers to something described as being a
market.
<p>There are five kinds of simple sumti provided by Lojban:</p>
<p></p>
<dl>
<dt>1)</dt>
<dd>descriptions like ``le zarci'', which usually begin with
a descriptor (called a ``gadri'' in Lojban) such as
``le'';</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt>2)</dt>
<dd>pro-sumti, such as ``mi'';</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt>3)</dt>
<dd>names, such as ``la lojban.'', which usually begin with
``la'';</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt>4)</dt>
<dd>quotations, which begin with ``lu'', ``le'u'', ``zo'', or
``zoi'';</dd>
</dl>
<dl>
<dt>5)</dt>
<dd>pure numbers, which usually begin with ``li''.</dd>
</dl>
<p>Here are a few examples of each kind of sumti:</p>
<p></p>
<pre>
<a id="e1d2" name="e1d2">1.2)</a> e'osai ko sarji la lojban.
Please support Lojban!
</pre>
<a href="#e1d2">Example 1.2</a> exhibits ``ko'', a pro-sumti;
and ``la lojban.'', a name.
<p></p>
<pre>
<a id="e1d3" name="e1d3">1.3)</a> mi cusku lu e'osai li'u le tcidu
I express ``Please!'' to-the reader.
</pre>
<a href="#e1d3">Example 1.3</a> exhibits ``mi'', a pro-sumti;
``lu e'osai li'u'', a quotation; and ``le tcidu'', a
description.
<p></p>
<pre>
<a id="e1d4" name="e1d4">1.4)</a> ti mitre li ci
This measures-in-meters the-number three.
This is three meters long.
</pre>
<a href="#e1d4">Example 1.4</a> exhibits ``ti'', a pro-sumti;
and ``li ci'', a number.
<p>Most of this chapter is about descriptions, as they have the
most complicated syntax and usage. Some attention is also given
to names, which are closely interwoven with descriptions.
Pro-sumti, numbers, and quotations are described in more detail
in <a href="../c7/s1.html">Chapter 7</a>, <a
href="../c18/s1.html">Chapter 18</a>, and <a
href="../c19/s1.html">Chapter 19</a> respectively, so this chapter
only gives summaries of their forms and uses. See <a
href="s13.html">Section 13</a> through <a href="s15.html">Section
15</a> for these summaries.</p>
<hr />
<table class="nav" width="100%">
<tr>
<td width="15%" valign="top">
<a href="../c5/s16.html">
Previous
</a>
<br />
<em>
``Pretty little girls' school'': forty ways to say it
</em>
</td>
<td align="center">
<strong>
To Speak Of Many Things: The Lojban sumti
</strong>
<br />
<a href="../">
<em>
<small>
The Lojban Reference Grammar
</small>
</em>
</a>
</td>
<td width="15%" valign="top">
<a href="../c6/s2.html">
Next
</a>
<br />
<em>
The three basic description types
</em>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
