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The following cmavo are discussed in this section:
cll/c19/s2.html 0.i I sentence separator(No comment)
Since Lojban is audio-visually isomorphic, there needs to be a
spoken and written way of signaling the end of a sentence and
the start of the following one. In written English, a period
serves this purpose; in spoken English, a tone contour (rising
or falling) usually does the job, or sometimes a long pause.
Lojban uses a single separator: the cmavo ``.i'' (of selma'o
I):
name="e2d1">2.1) mi klama le zarci .i do cadzu le bisli
I go to-the store. You walk on-the ice.
The word ``separator'' should be noted. ``.i'' is not normally
used after the last sentence nor before the first one, although
both positions are technically grammatical. ``.i'' signals a
new sentence on the same topic, not necessarily by the same
speaker. The relationship between the sentences is left vague,
except in stories, where the relationship usually is temporal,
and the following sentence states something that happened after
the previous sentence.
Note that although the first letter of an English sentence
is capitalized, the cmavo ``.i'' is never capitalized. In
writing, it is appropriate to place extra space before ``.i''
to make it stand out better for the reader. In some styles of
Lojban writing that have been used so far, every ``.i'' is
placed at the beginning of a line, possibly leaving space at
the end of the previous line.
An ``.i'' cmavo may or may not be used when the speaker of
the following sentence is different from the speaker of the
preceding sentence, depending on whether the sentences are felt
to be connected or not.
An ``.i'' cmavo can be compounded with a logical or
non-logical connective (a jek or joik), a modal or tense
connective, or both: these constructs are explained in href="../c9/s1.html">Chapter 9, Chapter
10, and Chapter 14. In all cases,
the ``.i'' comes first in the compound. Attitudinals can also
be attached to an ``.i'' if they are meant to apply to the
whole sentence: see Chapter 13.
There exist a pair of mechanisms for binding a sequence of
sentences closely together. If the ``.i'' (with or without
connectives) is followed by ``bo'' (of selma'o BO), then the
two sentences being separated are understood to be more closely
grouped than sentences connected by ``.i'' alone.
Similarly, a group of sentences can be preceded by ``tu'e'' (of
selma'o TUhE) and followed by ``tu'u'' (of selma'o TUhU) to fuse
them into a single unit. A common use of ``tu'e ... tu'u'' is to
group the sentences which compose a poem: the title sentence would
precede the group, separated from it by ``.i''. Another use might be
a set of directions, where each numbered direction might be
surrounded by ``tu'e ... tu'u'' and contain one or more sentences
separated by ``.i''. Grouping with ``tu'e'' and ``tu'u'' is
analogous to grouping with ``ke'' and ``ke'e'' to establish the
scope of logical or non-logical connectives (see href="../c14/s1.html">Chapter 14).
Previous
Introductory
Putting It All Together: Notes on the Structure of Lojban Texts
The Lojban Reference Grammar
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Paragraphs: NIhO