Vocative phrases are not sumti, but are explained in this chapter because their syntax is very similar to that of sumti. Grammatically, a vocative phrase is one of the so-called “free modifiers” of Lojban, along with subscripts, parentheses, and various other constructs explained in Chapter 19 . They can be placed after many, but not all, constructions of the grammar: in general, after any elidable terminator (which, however, must not then be elided!), at the beginnings and ends of sentences, and in many other places.
The purpose of a vocative phrase is to indicate who is being addressed, or to indicate to that person that he or she ought to be listening. A vocative phrase begins with a cmavo of selma'o COI or DOI, all of which are explained in more detail in Section 13.14 . Sometimes that is all there is to the phrase:
In these cases, the person being addressed is obvious from the context. However, a vocative word (more precisely, one or more cmavo of COI, possibly followed by doi , or else just doi by itself) can be followed by one of several kinds of phrases, all of which are intended to indicate the addressee. The most common case is a cmevla (name-word):
Using doi instead is like just saying someone's name to attract his or her attention:
In place of a cmevla, a description may appear, lacking its descriptor, which is understood to be le :
The listener need not really be a xunre pastu nixli , as long as she understands herself correctly from the description. (Actually, only a bare selbri can appear; explicit quantifiers are forbidden in this form of vocative, so the implicit quantifiers su'o le ro are in effect.)
Finally, a complete sumti may be used, the most general case.
Example 6.66 is thus the same as:
and Example 6.65 is the same as:
Finally, the elidable terminator for vocative phrases is do'u (of selma'o DOhU), which is rarely needed except when a simple vocative word is being placed somewhere within a bridi. It may also be required when a vocative is placed between a sumti and its relative clause, or when there are a sequence of so-called “free modifiers” (vocatives, subscripts, utterance ordinals – see Chapter 18 – metalinguistic comments – see Section 19.12 – or reciprocals – see Chapter 19 ) which must be properly separated.
The meaning of a vocative phrase that is within a sentence is not affected by its position in the sentence: thus Example 6.70 and Example 6.71 mean the same thing:
As usual for this chapter, the full syntax of vocative phrases has not been explained: relative clauses, discussed in Chapter 8 , make for more possibilities.