The following cmavo is discussed in this section:

The cmavo du has the place structure:

and appears in selma'o GOhA for reasons of convenience: it is not a pro-bridi. du serves as mathematical “=” , and outside mathematical contexts is used for defining or identifying. Mathematical examples may be found in Chapter 18 .

The main difference between

and

is this defining nature. Example 7.74 presumes that the speaker is responding to a request for information about what ko'a refers to, or that the speaker in some way feels the need to define ko'a for later reference. A bridi with du is an identity sentence, somewhat metalinguistically saying that all attached sumti are representations for the same referent. There may be any number of sumti associated with du , and all are said to be identical.

Example 7.75 , however, predicates; it is used to make a claim about the identity of ko'a , which presumably has been defined previously.

Note: du historically is derived from dunli , but dunli has a third place which du lacks: the standard of equality.