Negation is too large and complex a topic to explain fully in this chapter; see Chapter 15. In brief, there are two main types of negation in Lojban. This section is concerned with so-called “scalar negation”, which is used to state that a true relation between the sumti is something other than what the selbri specifies. Scalar negation is expressed by cmavo of selma'o NAhE:

meaning that Alice's relationship to the market is something other than that of walking there. But if the ke were omitted, the result would be:

meaning that Alice does go there in some way (klama is not negated), but by a means other than that of walking. Example 5.116 negates both cadzu and klama, suggesting that Alice's relation to the market is something different from walkingly-going; it might be walking without going, or going without walking, or neither.

Of course, any of the simple selbri types explained in Section 5.9 may be used in place of brivla in any of these examples:

Since only pamoi is negated, an appropriate inference is that he is some other kind of speaker.

Here is an assortment of more complex examples showing the interaction of scalar negation with bo grouping, ke and ke'e grouping, logical connection, and sumti linked with be and bei. Note that both bo and be bind less tightly than NAhE.

In Example 5.119, na'e negates only sutra. Contrast Example 5.120:

Now consider Example 5.121 and Example 5.122, which are equivalent in meaning, but use bo grouping and ke grouping respectively:

However, if we place a na'e at the beginning of the selbri in both Example 5.121 and Example 5.122, we get different results:

The difference arises because the na'e in Example 5.124 negates the whole construction from ke to ke'e, whereas in Example 5.123 it negates sutra alone.

Beware of omitting terminators in these complex examples! If the explicit ke'e is left out in Example 5.124, it is transformed into:

And if both ke'e and be'o are omitted, the results are even sillier:

In Example 5.126, everything after be is a linked sumti, so the place structure is that of cadzu, whose x₂ place is the surface walked upon. It is less than clear what an “arm-type goer” might be. Furthermore, since the x₃ place has been occupied by the linked sumti, the le zarci following the selbri falls into the nonexistent x₄ place of cadzu. As a result, the whole example, though grammatical, is complete nonsense. (The bracketed Lojban words appear where a fluent Lojbanist would understand them to be implied.)

Finally, it is also possible to place na'e before a gu'e … gi logically connected tanru construction. The meaning of this usage has not yet been firmly established.