The Lojban pro-sumti are the cmavo of selma'o KOhA. They fall into several classes: personal, definable, quantificational, reflexive, back-counting, indefinite, demonstrative, metalinguistic, relative, question. More details are given in Chapter 7 ; this section mostly duplicates information found there, but adds material on the implicit quantifier of each pro-sumti.

The following examples illustrate each of the classes. Unless otherwise noted below, the implicit quantification for pro-sumti is ro (all). In the case of pro-sumti which refer to other sumti, the ro signifies “all of those referred to by the other sumti” : thus it is possible to restrict, but not to extend, the quantification of the other sumti.

Personal pro-sumti ( mi , do , mi'o , mi'a , ma'a , do'o , ko ) refer to the speaker or the listener or both, with or without third parties:

The personal pro-sumti may be interpreted in context as either representing individuals or masses, so the implicit quantifier may be pisu'o rather than ro : in particular, mi'o , mi'a , ma'a , and do'o specifically represent mass combinations of the individuals (you and I, I and others, you and I and others, you and others) that make them up.

Definable pro-sumti ( ko'a , ko'e , ko'i , ko'o , ko'u , fo'a , fo'e , fo'i , fo'o , fo'u ) refer to whatever the speaker has explicitly made them refer to. This reference is accomplished with goi (of selma'o GOI), which means “defined-as” .

Quantificational pro-sumti ( da , de , di ) are used as variables in bridi involving predicate logic:

(This is not the same as “All persons love a certain fish” ; the difference between the two is one of quantifier order.) The implicit quantification rules for quantificational pro-sumti are particular to them, and are discussed in detail in Chapter 16 . Roughly speaking, the quantifier is su'o (at least one) when the pro-sumti is first used, and ro (all) thereafter.

Reflexive pro-sumti ( vo'a , vo'e , vo'i , vo'o , vo'u ) refer to the same referents as sumti filling other places in the same bridi, with the effect that the same thing is referred to twice:

Back-counting pro-sumti ( ri , ra , ru ) refer to the referents of previous sumti counted backwards from the pro-sumti:

Indefinite pro-sumti ( zo'e , zu'i , zi'o ) refer to something which is unspecified:

The implicit quantifier for indefinite pro-sumti is, well, indefinite. It might be ro (all) or su'o (at least one) or conceivably even no (none), though no would require a very odd context indeed.

Demonstrative pro-sumti ( ti , ta , tu ) refer to things pointed at by the speaker, or when pointing is not possible, to things near or far from the speaker:

Metalinguistic pro-sumti ( di'u , de'u , da'u , di'e , de'e , da'e , dei , do'i ) refer to spoken or written utterances, either preceding, following, or the same as the current utterance.

The implicit quantifier for metalinguistic pro-sumti is su'o (at least one), because they are considered analogous to lo descriptions: they refer to things which really are previous, current, or following utterances.

The relative pro-sumti ( ke'a ) is used within relative clauses (see Chapter 8 for a discussion of relative clauses) to refer to whatever sumti the relative clause is attached to.

The question pro-sumti ( ma ) is used to ask questions which request the listener to supply a sumti which will make the question into a truth:

The implicit quantifier for the question pro-sumti is su'o (at least one), because the listener is only being asked to supply a single answer, not all correct answers.

In addition, sequences of lerfu words (of selma'o BY and related selma'o) can also be used as definable pro-sumti.