Lesson 13 pacimoi seltadni Modification Pairs tanru If you are current in your vocabulary study, you have worked with a little more than *** gismu so far, and thus know how to express *** basic concepts; we have studied about 50 cmavo as well. Using conversion operators (selma'o SE), you can access the non-x1 sumti, effectively multiplying that number by 2 to 4 times. Using the abstraction operators (selma'o NU), you can access the event/state, property, and amount abstracts of each gismu and each converted gismu, multiplying that total by an additional 3 times. You thus can feel some amount of control over the equivalent of about *** 'vocabulary words'. In this lesson, we will add another *** gismu, and increase the total to ***. Using just 2-term tanru, you can square this number. Did you think you would have a Lojban vocabulary of *** million after just *** lessons? get ready to have fun and creatively explore the power of Lojban vocabulary. 13.1 What is a tanru? loi tanru du ma A tanru is a Lojban metaphor. tanru are something like English adjective-noun and adverb-verb combinations. They go beyond these concepts by combining and expanding upon them. In this, they are similar to Chinese metaphor more than to English. Since all Lojban brivla can act as 'adjectives' or 'adverbs', any of them can be used to modify another brivla acting as a 'noun' or 'verb'. There are no restrictions at all. You can take a pair of words, a modifier and a modificand, and attach still another brivla as a modifier to the pair, or you can use the pair to express a modification to the single word. The process can continue indefinitely. There is no reason why you can't have a 100-brivla string of modifiers and modificands, grouped successively in pairs. The concept of tanru expresses exactly that: the combination of Lojban concepts in pairs such that the first concept modifies the second. A tanru is made up of brivla representing concepts that are related to the concept you are attempting to communicate. The relationship is not necessarily unambiguous. A blue-nest in some way nests someone or something. It could be a nest for blue eggs, or blue people, or it could be a house painted blue either partially or completely. It takes a more elaborate tanru to distinguish these less ambiguously (if such is important), or you can use non-tanru methods to expand your communication unambiguously. Most of the time you won't: it is long-winded, and unnecessary to most understanding. (Before proceeding with the explanation of tanru, a special note is needed concerning "zdani". In English, we make distinctions between "lair", used for animals, "nest", usually used for birds, and "house", used only for humans and domesticated animals (such as dogs and birds). However, we often metaphorically interchange the terms, and Lojban thus uses "zdani" to refer to that essence that all of these hold in common. You can be more specific using tanru, where this is important. Note also that the distinction between "house" and "home" that is often referred to by English poets is conveyed by the distinction between "zdani" and "se xabju".) The order of modification in tanru is from left to right: zdani vitke is a nest(house)-guest, while: vitke zdani is a guest-nest(house). This can be kept clear by imagining the resulting tanru as a selbri. The place structure of any tanru is the place structure of its final brivla. Thus the following place structures: x1 is a zdani vitke (house-guest) of host x2 at location x3 x1 is a vitke zdani (guest-house) for x2 All tanru are ambiguous in meaning. zdani vitke could refer to the unlikely event of a 'house which visits'. While visiting, it might be considered a vitke zdani, saying nothing of who might live in it. But note that the place structure convention limits interpretation of the latter tanru. The x2 place of the second tanru always refers to the house-dwellers. The concept of a house that visits a location is better expressed by the first tanru, which has the place structure of "vitke". Checking the place structure of the final unit of a tanru may often help you determine which is the correct order. The most common mistake in making tanru is to put them in the wrong order, often because idiomatic English expresses the words in the reverse order. So remember the desired place structure. Reversing the following tanru could be embarrassing: le mamta patfu The mother's father. (The maternal grandfather, a male.) le patfu mamta The father's mother. (The paternal grandmother, a female.) Some further examples of tanru will show the wide variety in meanings that can be extracted from various tanru, if you are imaginative. tanru are more specific than gismu they restrict the domain of meaning being referred to, and provide additional information that isn't carried in a single brivla; however, because the relationship between the two terms is semantically ambiguous, tanru are thus metaphorically vague. klama jubme one-who-goes table. Could be: The table is the one-who-goes; e.g. a wheeled table. The table is owned by the go-er; i.e. the go-er's table. The table is used for go-ers; a sports-doctor's examining table? It is a table for use in a go-er; e.g. a ship's table. It is a table when it is a go-er (otherwise it's a chair?) sutra daspo fast one-who-destroys. Could be: The destroyer is fast. It is a destroyer of fast-things. It destroys things by use of a fast-thing. The destroyer is owned by a fast-thing. It destroys when it is fast. karce kukte car tasty-thing. Could be: The tasty-thing is a car. It is tasty to a car. It is tasty with the flavor of a car. The tasty-thing is for use in a car. The tasty-thing is shaped like a car. To learn the essence of tanru interpretation, you must learn to imaginatively think of possible meanings (using some simple conventions to limit the possibilities), and then determine why the speaker used this particular tanru as opposed to some other to help weed out the interpretations that are not intended by the speaker. tanru interpretation is thus an exercise in "creative plausibility analysis". You should choose the most plausible interpretation given the known context, and be prepared to be wrong if the context is uncertain. For the essence of tanru making, the reverse process is used. Think of a few possibilities, then try to analyze how a listener might misinterpret each possibility. Thus, making tanru gets to the true essence of human communication: putting yourself in the mind of the other person, and figuring out what that mind is thinking. It's a neat concept. It is obvious, though, that no Lojbanist will be good at tanru-making for a while. Until we have many people thinking Lojbanically - seeing the world through tanru - we won't have the variety of thought needed for fluency in this form of mind-reading. When we have people from a variety of cultures involved in communication, the making and interpreting of tanru will be even more challenging. Both German and Chinese use a form of metaphor-making similar to tanru to express complex notions. In many cases, a native Chinese or German speaker will each choose tanru for many concepts that differ from one another, and which also differ from those an English-speaker would choose. For Lojban to bridge multiple cultures, it must in some way build its own culture, which cannot be too alien to those of other languages, but rather a true blend or hybrid culture. Alternatively, speakers from different cultures will have to be more specific in their tanru, adding in extra terms that clarify how one concept modifies the other. We slipped something into the definition of tanru by using the word 'concept'. In addition to using the brivla as 'units' in a tanru, you can use simple tanru as units for more complex tanru. Moreover, you can use conversions and abstractions and negations of brivla as units. In tanru, you should use the x1 place in building your meanings. If you want to use another place, use the brivla converted with selma'o SE: ve mrilu tanxe mail-origin box (a mailbox where you deposit mail to be delivered) te mrilu tanxe mail-destination box (a mailbox where mail is delivered to) One problem/mistake that may come up in tanru-making is the use of the x1 place of a gismu when you really want an event, property, or, quantity abstraction. le bajra terpa The runner fear-er (One who fears runners.) le terpa nu bajra [kei] The fearing/fearful act-of-running. (What you do when you meet an axe-murderer.) Note that you can use a tanru as the selbri inside of a "nu ... kei" abstraction clause; you can even specify places for the bridi, resulting in a very complex tanru: le nu mi bajra kei terpa The act-of-me-running fear-er. (One who fears my running) tanru of the last sort are permitted in descriptions, as shown in the examples, or in selbri. It is difficult to convey the sense of some of the latter expressions to an English speaker (we just don't phrase things in that way), though examples can be found: le nanmu [ku] cu nu le ninmu [ku] cu klama le zdani [ku] kei kurji le cifnu (le nanmu [ku]) cu ({nu kei} kurji) le cifnu The man is an event-of-the-women-coming-to-the-house type-of caretaker of the baby. The (male) babysitter has women over to the house (he's sitting at) a lot. A tordu bajra is a short-runner, not a short-run. To get the 'verb' as in the latter, use nu bajra [kei] (the event of x1 running) in the tanru, giving tordu nu bajra. You can also get an 'adjective' which is otherwise hard to convey by using the quality abstractor cmavo 'ka' (This is a little harder to come up with good English-translatable examples for, so we won't. Let it be an exercise...). Now that you have learned many gismu as part of your vocabulary studies, you have a lot of potential uses for them in tanru. Some of the gismu are primarily intended for tanru use, such as "mabla" and "zabna" from the last lesson. These turn a brivla or tanru into an insult or derogative, or into a compliment or ameliorative, respectively. This is important since most insults and compliments are highly cultural. Expressions which might be compliments in one culture or context might be insults in another, and vice versa. In Lojban, by convention, an expression is not presumed to be intended as an insult unless it contains "mabla" in some form, nor is it presumed to be a compliment without "zabna". If you omit "mabla", you might be perceived as culturally insensitive in your choice of expression, but you should not be perceived as insulting. Since Lojban must be relatively insensitive to culture in order to be culturally neutral, this convention is vital to understanding. Look over the various gismu that have been presented in the last few lessons. Try to imagine how they could be used in tanru. After one more topic, we will have an exercise that will stretch your mind Lojbanically and give you ideas on how tanru are made and used. 13.2 3-or-more place tanru su'ocimei terbridi tanru tanru are composed of pairs of modifiers and modificands. We have discussed using brivla, converted brivla and abstracted bridi as components of either position. You can also fill either position with tanru. Let us first discuss the use of tanru in the modifier position. Assuming you are in a class studying Lojban, to describe that class, you might use: le nu le lojbo tadni cu penmi [kei] [ku] the event of (the lojbanic-studiers meet(ing)) You can drop the "le" to make this a selbri: nu le lojbo tadni cu penmi [kei] but the structure is complex and a bit convoluted for comfortable speech. So why not move the "nu" to mark only "penmi", and use the x1 sumti that has been exposed as a modifying tanru: lojbo tadni nu penmi [kei] lojbanic-studier-meeting The result is shorter, and almost certainly will not be misinterpreted. Given one assumption, that is. You have to know which way to group the tanru. If you group the tanru as: (lojbo tadni) nu penmi [kei] Lojbanic-studier type-of meeting you will get the intended meaning. If, on the other hand, you group the tanru (incorrectly, as marked with the asterisk): *lojbo (tadni nu penmi [kei]) Lojbanic type-of studier-meeting which could easily be referring to a class in philosophy which happens to be taught in Lojban. (The first tanru might possibly be taken with this meaning, but only by jumping to the conclusion that the speaker is referring to students who are Lojbanic in that they attend classes taught in Lojban. Without the modificand of "nu penmi [kei]", you would be unlikely to choose this less plausible alternative for "lojbo tadni". But in interpreting tanru, you should be presuming the most plausible interpretation.) Why is the second interpretation incorrect? How can you pick the grouping which is uniquely intended? The answer lies in Lojban's unambiguous grammar. Only one possible grouping structure can be permitted for the tanru that was given. You need to be able to uniquely determine which words have the modifier role, and which words have the modificand role in a tanru. In 3-or-more-place-tanru that is otherwise unmarked, you always assume 'left grouping'. This is easiest to describe by showing the result with nested parenthesis. In a longer tanru, the grouping is: [{(brivla1 brivla2) brivla3} brivla4] brivla5 What the parentheses mean is that you first take the tanru "brivla1 brivla2", determine its meaning, and use it to modify brivla3. This three-place tanru is then used as the modifier, while brivla4 is the modificand. This can be repeated for brivla5, using the 4-place tanru as the modifier unit. If the tanru were longer, you could extend the process indefinitely. In any group of three-or-more units without any grouping markers as described below, you presume that the first unit modifies the second unit in a modifier-modificand tanru pair. This tanru in turn serves as a modifier unit for the third term, forming a new tanru. This tanru then is a modifier for the fourth term, and so forth. But this isn't always the interpretation that you want. What if you want the non-left-grouped interpretation that was marked with the asterisk above. We now explore how to use a tanru as the modificand unit of another tanru. 13.3 On ke and ke'e me zo ke .e zo ke'e The secret lies in the grouping cmavo "ke" and "ke'e". The use of "ke" and "ke'e" overrides left grouping. You first determine the interpretation of the contents of the inside of the 'parentheses' using left-grouping rules, then use the result as a unit in further left-grouping of tanru. Thus: brivla1 ke brivla2 brivla3 ke'e is grouped as: brivla1 (ke brivla2 brivla3 ke'e) and the tanru formed by "brivla2 brivla3" becomes the modificand, while brivla1 becomes the modifier. To get the asterisked interpretation from the last section, use a ke/ke'e pair to force the grouping you want: lojbo {ke (tadni nu penmi [kei]) ke'e} Lojbanic type-of studier-meeting You can see that "ke" is well-translated as "type-of". We will see later in this lesson that in most cases the right parenthesis "ke'e" can be elided. It usually occurs at the end of the tanru, and the word that comes after the tanru usually makes it clear that the scope of the "ke" has ended along with the tanru. We will thus mark these elidable "ke'e"s with brackets, as we have been for the NU-clause-closing "kei"s. Let us look at the possible groupings of four terms that can be expressed with "ke" and "ke'e", noting that you can use these cmavo multiple times to achieve nested parentheses: {(brivla1 brivla2) brivla3} brivla4 brivla1 (ke {brivla2 brivla3} brivla4 ke'e) (brivla1 brivla2) (ke brivla3 brivla4 ke'e) {(brivla1 brivla2) brivla3} (ke brivla4 ke'e) is the same as the unmarked form (it is legal, though wasteful, to surround a single brivla with a ke/ke'e pair) brivla1 (ke brivla2 {ke brivla3 brivla4 ke'e} ke'e) {brivla1 (ke brivla2 brivla3 ke'e)} brivla4 We will let you work out the possibilities for 5-unit tanru in the exercise that follows, as well as show the interaction between NU-clauses and ke/ke'e pairs. Before doing that, however, let us give a couple of examples, which incidentally will show why "cu" is sometimes necessary. We will show the sentences with elidable terminators removed to make comparison easier. 13.3.1 mi gleki prenu xebni mi (gleki prenu) xebni I happy-person hate. (I hate happy people.) mi gleki ke prenu xebni mi gleki ke prenu xebni [ke'e] mi gleki (ke prenu xebni [ke'e]) I happily person-hate. (I am happy in my hatred of people.) le gleki prenu xebni le (gleki prenu) xebni The happy-person hater. (The one who hates happy people.) le gleki prenu cu xebni le gleki prenu [ku] cu xebni (le gleki prenu [ku]) cu xebni The happy person hates. (The one who is a happy-person hates.) le gleki cu prenu xebni le gleki [ku] cu prenu xebni (le gleki [ku]) cu prenu xebni The happy-one person-hates. (The one who is happy hates people.) le nu le gleki cu prenu cu se xebni le nu le gleki [ku] cu prenu [kei] [ku] cu se xebni (le {nu cu prenu [kei]} [ku]) cu se xebni The-act-of the happy-one's being-a-person is hated. (What is hated is that the happy-one is a person.) le nu gleki prenu cu se xebni le nu gleki prenu [kei] [ku] cu se xebni (le {nu [kei]} [ku]) cu se xebni The-act-of happily being-a-person is hated. (What is hated is that someone is a happy at being a person.) le nu le gleki prenu cu se xebni le nu le gleki prenu [ku] [kei] [ku] cu se xebni (le {nu [kei]} [ku]) cu se xebni The-act-of the happy-person's being hating. 13.3.2 le sutra cenba karce stizu le ({sutra cenba} karce) stizu The (quickly-varying)-car type-of seat. (The seat is in a quickly-varying car - a convertible that can be quickly converted perhaps.) le sutra ke cenba karce stizu le sutra ke cenba karce stizu [ke'e] le sutra (ke {cenba karce} stizu [ke'e]) The quick type of (varying-car)-seat. (It is a quick seat for a varying-car - still a convertible, but it is the seat that is fast, whatever that means. Perhaps the seat is self-propelled and moves fast while removed from the car.) le sutra ke cenba karce ke'e stizu le {sutra (ke cenba karce ke'e)} stizu The quick type-of varying-car, seat. (It is a seat in a quick type of varying-car - the seat is in a fast convertible) le sutra cenba ke karce stizu le sutra cenba ke karce stizu [ke'e] le (sutra cenba) (ke karce stizu [ke'e]) The quickly-varying type-of car-seat. (The car-seat is quickly varying - probably with a lever under the seat, but this needn't be in a convertible.) le sutra ke cenba ke karce stizu le sutra ke cenba ke karce stizu [ke'e] [ke'e] le sutra (ke cenba {ke karce stizu [ke'e]} [ke'e]) The quick type-of varying type-of (car-seat). (It is a quick car-seat-that-varies - this is another adjustable car-seat, but it really moves, not necessarily while in a car.) 13.4 Grouping in Longer tanru ve fendi fe lo tanru The following three-part and four-part tanru illustrate in more detail the uses of ke and ke'e. blanu botpi tanxe ta1 is a <(exhibiting the color blue) kind-of bottle containing bo2, and made of material bo3> kind-of box/carton containing ta2, and made of material ta3 blanu ke botpi tanxe ke'e ta1 is a (exhibiting the color blue) kind-of containing ta2, and made of material ta3 ke/ke'e grouping first groups the last two terms as a tanru ("botpi tanxe") forcing the blanu to modify this unit. In short, "blanu botpi tanxe" is a "blue-bottle type of box", while "blanu ke botpi tanxe ke'e" is a "blue type of bottle-box". When tanru are extended to four or more terms, left grouping precedence makes ke/ke'e grouping even more valuable. If we wanted to precede the above with "cmalu", the result becomes: cmalu cm1 is small in property/dimension cm2 blanu botpi tanxe ta1 is a <(exhibiting the color blue) kind-of bottle containing bo2, and made of material bo3> kind-of box/carton containing ta2, and made of material ta3 cmalu blanu botpi tanxe ta1 is a <[(small in property cm2) kind-of (exhibiting the color blue)] kind-of bottle containing bo2, and made of material bo3> kind-of box/carton containing ta2, and made of material ta3 schematically: <[cmalu blanu] botpi> tanxe More simply, the 4-place tanru translates roughly as a smallishly-blue-bottle box, necessitating one to figure out what smallishly-blue might mean, especially when applied to bottles. ke/ke'e grouping can produce several variations on this grouping, and hence on the resulting meaning (although in all cases, the place structure of the entire relation is that of "tanxe", the final term). With one ke/ke'e pair, we can produce three variations of the original grouping. Compare the marked and unmarked forms: cmalu blanu botpi tanxe schematically: <[cmalu blanu] botpi> tanxe or smallishly-blue bottle type-of box cmalu ke blanu botpi ke'e tanxe ta1 is a <(small in property cm2) kind-of [(exhibiting the color blue) kind-of bottle containing bo2, and made of material bo3]> kind-of box/carton containing ta2, and made of material ta3 schematically: tanxe or small blue-bottle kind-of box In this example, the ke/ke'e pair forces "blanu botpi" to group first, then normal grouping from the left takes over, and "cmalu" modifies the 2-part tanru. Then this 3-part tanru is the modifier for "tanxe". cmalu blanu ke botpi tanxe ke'e ta1 is a <(small in property cm2) kind-of (exhibiting the color blue)> kind-of containing ta2, and made of material ta3 schematically: or smallishly-blue type-of bottle-box In (1.8-4b), the ke/ke'e pair forces "botpi tanxe" to group first. Then, normal left-grouping determines the rest. The priority pairing does not prevent the two left terms ("cmalu blanu") from grouping as they normally would, but it does force this tanru as the left term to modify the right two terms as a single unit. cmalu ke blanu botpi tanxe ke'e ta1 is a (small in property cm2) kind-of [<(exhibiting the color blue) kind-of bottle containing bo2, and made of material bo3> kind-of box/carton] containing ta2, and made of material ta3 schematically: cmalu [blanu botpi] tanxe or small blue-bottle kind-of box In this example, the ke/ke'e pair forces the three terms to the right to be evaluated first. Within that unit, "blanu botpi" groups first by normal left-grouping, and this pair modifies "tanxe". Then "cmalu" modifies the 3-part tanru. A single ke/ke'e pair can be placed around other pieces of the 4-part tanru with no effect. For example, placing the words around the first two terms forces them to be evaluated first, but this is what left-grouping requires anyway. We note in passing that a ke/ke'e pair is grammatically permitted but totally meaningless when surrounding the entire 4-part tanru, or when surrounding an individual word. You can put two ke/ke'e pairs into a tanru as well. With two "ke"s in a tanru, the result is like nested parentheses in a mathematical expression. In a 4-term tanru, only one nested grouping is truly productive; the others simplify into a single pair of ke/ke'e, or into the totally unmarked form. The one useful form is: cmalu ke blanu ke botpi tanxe ke'e ke'e ta1 is a (small in property cm2) kind-of < (exhibiting the color blue) kind-of [bottle containing bo2, and made of material bo3 kind-of box/carton] > containing ta2, and made of material ta3 schematically: cmalu or small kind-of blue bottle-box In this construction, the two explicit groupings both take precedence over left-grouping. The innermost parenthesis takes precedence over the outermost. Since we read (and, in effect, hear) Lojban from left-to-right, this type of nesting may prove cumbersome for a listener to interpret. Other techniques in tanru grouping, discussed later in this text, are simpler than nested ke/ke'e constructs, reducing the chance of errors in interpretation. 4- part tanru are uncommon in spoken Lojban anyway, since a speaker has to build such tanru mentally before saying them. You can explore the groupings possible in 5-or-more part tanru on your own. You will seldom have a need to use such complex tanru, but you can get used to the effects of ke/ke'e grouping as opposed to unmarked left-grouping by such 'word-play'. 13.5 Family Relationship Words lanzu gismu This section gives a variety of terms used in family relationships. The expression of such relationships is a rich avenue for exploration of the power of tanru. The primary Lojban words for family relationships do not refer to genetic relationship, but rather to culturally defined roles. In English, your father is usually your male genetic parent, but might be an adoptive parent or even someone else who assumes a father-like role. It is also a general principle that there are three sets of words for major family relationships: one sexually neutral, one specifically female, and one specifically male. This structure is paralleled in the words for human beings generally, without reference to family. Where there are no separate gismu for specifically sexed relatives, tanru can be formed using fetsi (female) or nakni (male). The major family relationship words can be summarized in the following table: Category Sexually Neutral Female Male or Female Role or Male Role human being remna fetsi prenu nakni prenu adult makcu ninmu nanmu (adult, mature) child (young human) verba nixli nanla parent rirni mamta patfu (raise/rear) sibling tunba mensi bruna offspring panzi tixnu bersa grandparent/ancestor dzena fetsi dzena nakni dzena aunt/uncle famti fetsi famti nakni famti cousin tamne fetsi tamne nakni tamne Aunts, uncles, and cousins are defined more loosely in Lojban than in English; an aunt/uncle is a relative of one's parent's generation, and a cousin is a relative of one's own generation who is not a sibling. The general word for "family" in Lojban is "lanzu", which is not limited to the nuclear family. It can be used to refer to an extended family (lanzu ckini or darno lanzu), a social family-like structure (jikca lanzu), or a tribe (cecmu lanzu, with "cecmu" meaning "community"), using appropriate tanru. There are also gismu which are explicitly tied to genetic relationships, specifically "rorci", whose place structure is: x1 engenders, procreates, or begets x2 with co-parent x3 and is specific to sexual reproduction. Similarly, "panzi" has the place structure: x1 is the offspring of x2 and can be used both for human beings and animals, and also for plants, microbes, or other creatures that don't require two individuals to reproduce. The relationship of birth is represented by "jbena": x1 is born to x2 at time x3 and place x4 In the modern world, it is very possible for all of these relationships to be distinct. A child may have A as his genetic mother (fetsi rorci or fetsi se panzi), B as his birth mother (se jbena), and C as his adoptive/rearing mother (fetsi rirni). Probably C will be mamta as well.