lo selma'o ca'irvei (selma'o Documentation)

Purpose of this document

To explain each of the selma'o; to give a detailed, readable explanation of each selma'os purpose, syntax, and scope.

Glossary

bridi: Clause. Each bridi represents a particular predicate relation.

cmavo: Structure/function word. cmavo in Lojban may begin with a consonant or a vowel, but have no consonants otherwise. They perform many purposes, including but not limited to articles, prepositions, pronouns, and numbers. Each cmavo belongs to a selma'o, which defines its grammatical nature.

selbri: Predicate; roughly "verb / verb phrase". Each bridi is centered around exactly one selbri, but may contain other bridi that have their own selbri. The selbri defines how the sumti are related to each other.

selma'o: cmavo class. All cmavo in each selma'o are grammatically interchangeable -- a cmavo can be replaced by another cmavo in the same selma'o without affecting the syntax of the sentence. selma'o are each named after an archetypical member cmavo, and conventionally is written in all caps, e.g. BAI. Apostrophes are "capitalized" to small h, e.g. ZAhO.

sumti: Argument; roughly "noun / noun phrase". sumti are the subjects and objects of the bridi-clause.

BAI

Description

Roughly equivalent to prepositions. More specifically, it adds a new place for a sumti/argument/noun to the current bridi/clause.