Lojban 4: Modals and Events

Lojban is a constructed language. One of its features that really attracted me was its unambiguous parsing when written or spoken. This means that it could be used as a natural human/machine interlingua.
Part 4 goes into how to add places to a selbri that doesn't have the place you need. Also, event sumti.
Errata:
This sentence is ungrammatical:
lo nu mlatu kei krinu lo nu la .internet.
Cats are the justification for the Internet.
It should be:
lo nu mlatu kei krinu lo nu la .internet. zasti
Cats are the justification for the Internet existing.
Or, this:
lo nu mlatu kei krinu lo nu mujysamseltcana
Cats are the justification for the Internet.
All the modals: mw-live.lojban.org/papri/Cate...
Why cats are the justification for the Internet: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_ca...
The Complete Lojban Language (1997): lojban.github.io/cll/
Online dictionary: vlasisku.lojban.org/
Online parser: lojban.github.io/ilmentufa/cam...
Latest version of Lojban reference: mw.lojban.org/papri/Category:...

[@davutsauze8319]

Hi, Robert! I am a young guy interested in Math and Programming I am glad that I have been introduced to linguistics (and then Lojban) and I am thankful for the work you put into your videos, they surely are very useful and engaging!

[@larsk6348]

Thank you for making these, they really help!

[@tomaszcichocki8281]

I hope that the plan is to give a video in Lojban on working 6800 CPU (on FPGA, using nmigen) ;-). I also enjoy watching these videos. I even started reading about Lojban, but learning natural languages is not my strength. Learning conlangs too, it seems.

[@RobertBaruch]

LOL! And, writing a program on that 6800 CPU that parses and executes Lojban instructions.

[@davutsauze8319]

Language learning is a skill, you just need a bit of practice (and to spend some time on it) Good luck!

[@acegravity5685]

In the example "lo nu mlatu kei krinu lo nu la .internet."/"Cats are the justification for the Internet." I think you made two mistakes since the parser spits out an error when I input it. First "kei" closes "nu", but you still need to have "cu" to separate the sumti from the selbri, and "cu" automatically closes any open "nu" so you can replace "kei" with "cu." Second, as far as I understand, "nu" requires a bridi to work and "la .internet." can't fill that role unless you put "me" before it. In summary: "lo nu mlatu kei krinu lo nu la .internet." Should be (I think) "lo nu mlatu cu krinu lo nu me la .internet."

[@RobertBaruch]

Absolutely correct, well spotted. Thank you for the correction.

[@FinaISpartan]

Thanks for another great video! A friend of mine is working on a conlang called `conlang0` (it's open source) which is heavily based on Lojban but has a completely re-written orthography which is similar to Hangul but is vastly improved and I think you'd find it interesting.

[@66LordLoss66]

The one modal that always comes to mind is *"pi'o"* (pilno). However, I often forget that x1 is the user and x2 is the tool. le xunre karce *pi'o* la bab. klama fo lo dargu (The red car, used by Bob, goes via the highway.) la bab. *sepi'o* le xunre karce cu klama le ckule (Bob, using the red car, goes to the school.)

[@NoahNobody]

lo nu jamna kei krinu lo nu panpi

[@RobertBaruch]

"We had to destroy the village to save it": lo nu panpi cu krinu lo nu jamna :)

[@davutsauze8319]

@@RobertBaruch May I ask why you are using "cu" and not "kei"?

[@RobertBaruch]

@@davutsauze8319 Either could be used. 'cu' implicitly terminates any subphrase, so 'kei' is unnecessary. And, I think people are more used to seeing 'cu'.

[@davutsauze8319]

@@RobertBaruch Got it, thanks!