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If one element of a tanru can be another tanru, why not both elements?

4.1)  do mutce bo barda gerku bo kavbu
    You are-a-(very type-of large) (dog type-of capturer).
    You are a very large dog-catcher.

In Example 4.1, the selbri is a tanru with seltau ``mutce bo barda'' and tertau ``gerku bo kavbu''. It is worth emphasizing once again that this tanru has the same fundamental ambiguity as all other Lojban tanru: the sense in which the ``dog type-of capturer'' is said to be ``very type-of large'' is not precisely specified. Presumably it is his body which is large, but theoretically it could be one of his other properties.

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We will now justify the title of this chapter by exploring the ramifications of the phrase ``pretty little girls' school'', an expansion of the tanru used in Section 3 to four brivla. (Although this example has been used in the Loglan Project almost since the beginning --- it first appeared in Quine's book Word and Object (1960) --- it is actually a mediocre example because of the ambiguity of English ``pretty''; it can mean ``beautiful'', the sense intended here, or it can mean ``very''. Lojban ``melbi'' is not subject to this ambiguity: it means only ``beautiful''.) Here are four ways to group this phrase:

4.2)  ta melbi cmalu
        nixli ckule
    That is-a-((pretty type-of little)
        type-of girl) type-of school.
    That is a school for girls who are beautifully small.

4.3)   ta melbi cmalu nixli bo ckule
    That is-a-(pretty type-of little) (girl type-of school).
    That is a girls' school which is beautifully small.

4.4)   ta melbi cmalu bo nixli
        ckule
    That is-a-(pretty type-of (little type-of girl))
        type-of school.
    That is a school for small girls who are beautiful.

4.5)   ta melbi cmalu bo
        nixli bo ckule
    That is-a-pretty type-of (little type-of
        (girl type-of school)).
    That is a small school for girls which is beautiful.

0 Example 4.5 uses a construction which has not been seen before: ``cmalu bo nixli bo ckule'', with two consecutive uses of ``bo'' between brivla. The rule for multiple ``bo'' constructions is the opposite of the rule when no ``bo'' is present at all: the last two are grouped together. Not surprisingly, this is called the ``right-grouping rule'', and it is associated with every use of ``bo'' in the language. Therefore,

4.6)  ta cmalu bo nixli bo ckule
    That is-a-little type-of (girl type-of school).

means the same as Example 3.4, not Example 3.5. This rule may seem peculiar at first, but one of its consequences is that ``bo'' is never necessary between the first two elements of any of the complex tanru presented so far: all of Examples 4.2 through 4.5 could have ``bo'' inserted between ``melbi'' and ``cmalu'' with no change in meaning.