Chapter 6. To Speak Of Many Things: The Lojban sumti

6.1. The five kinds of simple sumti

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:

Example 6.1.

mi	klama	le	zarci
I	go-to	the	market

In Example 6.1 , 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.

There are five kinds of simple sumti provided by Lojban:

descriptions like le zarci , which usually begin with a descriptor (called a gadri in Lojban) such as le ;
pro-sumti, such as mi ;
names, such as la .lojban. , which usually begin with la ;
quotations, which begin with lu , lo'u , zo , or zoi ;
pure numbers, which usually begin with li .

Here are a few examples of each kind of sumti:

Example 6.2.

e'osai	ko	sarji	la	.lojban.
[request] [!]	You [imperative]	support	that-named	Lojban.

Please support Lojban!

Example 6.2 exhibits ko , a pro-sumti; and la .lojban. , a name.

Example 6.3.

mi	cusku	lu	e'osai	li'u	le	tcidu
I	express	[quote]	[request] [!]	[unquote]	to-the	reader.

I express “Please!” to the reader.

Example 6.3 exhibits mi , a pro-sumti; lu e'osai li'u , a quotation; and le tcidu , a description.

Example 6.4.

ti	mitre	li	ci
This	measures-in-meters	the-number	three.

This is three meters long.

Example 6.4 exhibits ti , a pro-sumti; and li ci , a number.

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 Chapter 7 , Chapter 18 , and Chapter 19 respectively, so this chapter only gives summaries of their forms and uses. See Section 6.13 through Section 6.15 for these summaries.