9.8. Other modal connections

Like many Lojban grammatical constructions, sentence modal connection has both forethought and afterthought forms. (See Chapter 14 for a more detailed discussion of Lojban connectives.) Section 9.7 exemplifies only afterthought modal connection, illustrated here by:

Example 9.44.

mi	jgari	lei	djacu
I	grasp	the-mass-of	water

.iri'abo	mi	jgari	le	kabri
with-physical-cause	I	grasp	the	cup.

Causing the mass of water to be grasped by me, I grasped the cup.

I grasp the water because I grasp the cup.

An afterthought connection is one that is signaled only by a cmavo (or a compound cmavo, in this case) between the two constructs being connected. Forethought connection uses a signal both before the first construct and between the two: the use of “both” and “and” in the first half of this sentence represents a forethought connection (though not a modal one).

To make forethought modal sentence connections in Lojban, place the modal plus gi before the first bridi, and gi between the two. No i is used within the construct. The forethought equivalent of Example 9.44 is:

Example 9.45.

ri'agi	mi	jgari	le	kabri	gi
With-physical-cause	I	grasp	the	cup	,

mi	jgari	lei	djacu
I	grasp	the-mass-of	water.

Because I grasp the cup, I grasp the water.

Note that the cause, the x1 of rinka is now placed first. To keep the two bridi in the original order of Example 9.44, we could say:

Example 9.46.

seri'agi	mi	jgari	lei	djacu	gi
With-physical-effect	I	grasp	the-mass-of	water	,

mi	jgari	le	kabri
I	grasp	the	cup.

In English, the sentence “Therefore I grasp the water, I grasp the cup” is ungrammatical, because “therefore” is not grammatically equivalent to “because”. In Lojban, seri'agi can be used just like ri'agi.

When the two bridi joined by a modal connection have one or more elements (selbri or sumti or both) in common, there are various condensed forms that can be used in place of full modal sentence connection with both bridi completely stated.

When the bridi are the same except for a single sumti, as in Example 9.44 through Example 9.46, then a sumti modal connection may be employed:

Example 9.47.

mi	jgari	ri'agi	le	kabri	gi	lei	djacu
I	grasp	because	the	cup	,	the-mass-of	water.

Example 9.47 means exactly the same as Example 9.44 through Example 9.46, but there is no idiomatic English translation that will distinguish it from them.

If the two connected bridi are different in more than one sumti, then a termset may be employed. Termsets are explained more fully in Section 14.11, but are essentially a mechanism for creating connections between multiple sumti simultaneously.

Example 9.48.

mi	dunda	le	cukta	la	.djan.
I	gave	the	book	to-that-named	John.

.imu'ibo	la	.djan.	dunda	lei	jdini	mi
Motivated-by	that-named	John	gave	the-mass-of	money	to-me.

I gave the book to John, because John gave money to me.

means the same as:

Example 9.49.

nu'i	mu'igi	la	.djan.	lei	jdini	mi	gi
[start]	because	that-named	John,	the-mass-of	money,	me	;

mi	le	cukta	la	.djan.	nu'u	dunda
I,	the	book,	that-named	John	[end]	gives.

Here there are three sumti in each half of the termset, because the two bridi share only their selbri.

There is no modal connection between selbri as such: bridi which differ only in the selbri can be modally connected using bridi-tail modal connection. The bridi-tail construct is more fully explained in Section 14.9, but essentially it consists of a selbri with optional sumti following it. Example 9.37 is suitable for bridi-tail connection, and could be shortened to:

Example 9.50.

mi	mu'igi	viska	le	cukta	gi	lebna	le	cukta
I,	because	saw	the	book,		took	the	book.

Again, no straightforward English translation exists. It is even possible to shorten Example 9.50 further to:

Example 9.51.

mi	mu'igi	viska	gi	lebna	vau	le	cukta
I	because	saw,	therefore	took,		the	book.

where le cukta is set off by the non-elidable vau and is made to belong to both bridi-tails – see Section 14.9 for more explanations.

Since this is a chapter on rearranging sumti, it is worth pointing out that Example 9.51 can be further rearranged to:

Example 9.52.

mi	le	cukta	mu'igi	viska	gi	lebna
I,	the	book,	because	saw,	therefore	took.

which doesn't require the extra vau; all sumti before a conjunction of bridi-tails are shared.

Finally, mathematical operands can be modally connected.

Example 9.53.

li	ny.	du	li	vo
the-number	n	=	the-number	4.

.ini'ibo	li	ny.	du	li	re	su'i	re
Entailed-by	the-number	n	=	the-number	2	+	2.

n = 4 because n = 2 + 2.

can be reduced to:

Example 9.54.

li	ny.	du	li
the-number	n	=	the-number

ni'igi	vei	re	su'i	re	[ve'o]	gi	vo
because	(	2	+	2	)	therefore	4.

n is 2 + 2, and is thus 4.

The cmavo vei and ve'o represent mathematical parentheses, and are required so that ni'igi affects more than just the immediately following operand, namely the first re. (The right parenthesis, ve'o, is an elidable terminator.) As usual, no English translation does Example 9.54 justice.

Note: Due to restrictions on the Lojban parsing algorithm, it is not possible to form modal connectives using the fi'o-plus-selbri form of modal. Only the predefined modals of selma'o BAI can be compounded as shown in Section 9.7 and Section 9.8.