Answers to exercises

IFF. In English, we expect that IFF is what is meant, anyway; but a very legalistic (and horridly mean) parent can still say "I said I wouldn't get you ice cream if you were naughty; I never said I'd get you ice cream if you were nice." That's because if in English logically means IF, and only conventionally means the stronger IFF. This conventional kind of meaning goes by the name of implicature; and implicature has always been something of an issue in Lojban, since humans expect it, but it's not really anything to do with logic.

Definitely IF: If Calvin Coolidge is president, it's still the twentieth century.

IF. If this was IFF, the relation would be symmetrical, so you should be able to say If I get a hangover, I've drunk too many strawberry daquiris. But daquiris aren't the only way to get a hangover, so this doesn't follow.

The reputable members of the business community who say this kind of thing will hardly begrudge you a quote if you've already called for a consultation; so this is OR.

EOR: You may be being imprecise, but you're not being nonsensical — the number of reasons you can come up with can't be both six and seven.

OR: As it turns out, it's next to both. (Nick met some people from Liechtenstein once, actually. They found the name of their capital hilarious...)

la suzyn. cinynei la jan. .a la ranjit.

mi nelci loi finpe ku joi loi se rasyjukpa patlu (or any reasonable facsimile thereof: loi patlu poi se rasyjukpa, loi rasyjukpa patlu, or anything of the sort.)

.e is possible, but joi is better, since we are probably talking about fish and chips together. (.u'i this is an example of a Sapir-Whorf effect; if more British people had been involved in the design of Lojban, there would be a gismu for 'chips'.)

As it turns out, the ku is obligatory there; see the warning in the section on tanru connectives.

ko cpedu le pelxu nimre jisra .onai le narju nimre jisra (When you order your beverage, you are not normally expected to order more than one.)

mi djica le birje .u le cidjrkari

mi klama la .uacintyn .o la .atlantas. la bastn. (Yes, this was meant to be tricky. In particular, it involves IFF rather than IF, since to get from Boston to Atlanta, you would likely go via Washington. So you cannot go to Atlanta without going to Washington, and you've just said you won't go to Washington without going to Atlanta.)

Ranjeet drinks something which is either wine or beer.

Ranjeet drinks wine mixed with beer (.aunai)

Natraj is a bar and restaurant (i.e. a bistro, or a licensed restaurant.)

x is a response, whether or not it is an answer to the question.

Zhang goes up to, meets, and talks to Susan.

This might lead you to ask what the place structure of a tanru is. The answer is, it is the place structure of its final gismu — however it is connected with the rest of the tanru.

All people are, if angry, then anxious about being hated.

Ranjeet likes tasty or spicy things. (The normal implication in English, made explicit in Lojban, is to add "or both". This is an implicature, as described in Exercise 1.)

I should but cannot go to the bar. (Not a typo: .enai builds a new connective, AND NOT, since what follows it gets negated.)

.i la djak.kenedis. jatna le merko gi'e bruna la rabyrt.kenedis. "Jack Kennedy was leader of America and brother of Robert Kennedy."

.i la djak.kenedis. speni la djaklin.buvier. gi'e se catra la lis.xarvis.azuald. "Jack Kennedy was married to Jacquelin Bouvier and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald."

.i la djak.kenedis. nupre lenu lo merko cu cadzu le lunra kei gi'e te tinbe fi la nasas. "Jack Kennedy promised that an American would walk on the moon, and was obeyed by NASA." (The conversion works out in putting Kennedy as the x₁ of both bridi.)

.i la djak.kenedis. tavla fi la kubas. gi'e gunta la kubas. "Jack Kennedy talked about Cuba and attacked Cuba." (You can't get Cuba into the bridi-head, because it's in different places in the two bridi: x₄ in the first bridi, x₂ in the second.)

.i la djak.kenedis fi leka vlipa cu mansa fe lei merko gi'e ckasu fe la nikitas.xrucTCOF. "Jack Kennedy, as regards power, satisfied the Americans, and mocked Nikita Khrushchev." (Tricky, tricky, I know. The x₁ and x₃ are the same; so with some clever usage of fi — and fe, so that the next sumti doesn't get taken for x₄ — this can be made to work.)

.i la djak.kenedis. sutra tavla gi'e na denpa — or equivalently, .i la djak.kenedis. sutra tavla gi'enai denpa "Jack Kennedy talked fast and didn't pause."

.i la djak.kenedis jikca la MErilin.monROS. gi'e djuno ledu'u la MErilin.monROS. misno "Jack Kennedy socialised with Marilyn Monroe and knew that Marilyn Monroe was famous." (Marilyn isn't in the same place in the two bridi: she's in x₂ in the first bridi, but in a sumti within an abstraction in x₂ in the second bridi.)

.i la djak.kenedis. slabu mi gi'e pu pendo mi gi'e na/gi'enai se dunli do doi kratrsenatore "Jack Kennedy was familiar to me and was my friend, and is not equalled by you, senator." (If it wasn't for the third sentence, you could have fit the mi into the bridi-head. The original text, famously spoken by Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle in the 1988 American Vice-Presidential debate, is: "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.")

.enai ("Does Ranjeet meet Susan at the bar or the hospital?")

nagi'e ("Does Jyoti stay at the bar or go to the restaurant?")

gi'e, because he does both. ("Does Zhang study chemistry or like German beer?")

na.e — in all likelihood. ("Is Jyoti is a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald's or of Ranjeet's?")

naju. Think about it... ("Does Susan like German or French beer?")

The waiter goes to the three friends' table and says "What would you like to eat?"

Ranjeet says "What curries or kebabs are you serving now?" (There's no reason you can't use mo in a tanru. As usual, this asks for the listener to fill in the blank. The way Lojban works, mo cidjrkari ja cidjrkebabi is interpreted as mo {cidjrkari ja cidjrkebabi} — in other words, mo} applies to both cidjrkari and cidjrkebabi. There is more on the structure of tanru in Lesson 14.)

The waiter says "Lamb, beef or chicken." (That is to say, the sentence "We serve x curries and kebabs" is true for x being lamb OR beef, OR chicken. This means that the waiter has come up with a new kind of animal, a 'Lamb-OR-Cow-OR-Chicken'; but of course, that description fits any one of a lamb, a cow or a chicken, so what the waiter has said does make sense.)

Ranjeet says "I want a beef curry and an onion bread."

The waiter gives Jyoti water and says to her "What would you like?" (Whatever is in front of the first selbri gets repeated in front of the second; so this is the same as saying le bevri fi la djiotis. cu dunda fe loi djacu .i je le bevri fi la djiotis. cu cusku fe lu .i do djica ma li'u.)

Jyoti says "A curry."

For that reason, the waiter says "Lamb or beef?"

Jyoti says "Not A but B" (or, in English, "Beef.")

.i le bevri cu carna fi la suzyn. gi'e cisma gi'e cusku lu .i lanme je'i bakni li'u

.i la suzyn. tirna le bevri gi'onai jundi le bevri (or: .i la suzyn. tirna le bevri gi'onai jundi ri)

.i la djiotis pencu la suzyn. le janco gi'e cusku lu .i ju'i .suzyn. li'u

.i la suzyn. se spaji gi'e cusku lu .i .y. jipci li'u (Not one of the alternatives the waiter presented, so she couldn't very well answer with a connective.)

.i la djiotis. cusku lu .i .a'o do se zdile lenu do litru le kensa kei gi'u penmi lo fange (If you left out the kei, the gi'u will attach to litru rather than se zdile, which gives a slightly different meaning. As it turns out, though, both would be acceptable renderings of the English.)