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The Complete Lojban Language ; Example 4.12
 * lijda
 * religion


 * Example 4.13
 * blanu
 * blue


 * Example 4.14
 * mamta
 * mother


 * Example 4.15
 * cukta
 * book


 * Example 4.16
 * patfu
 * father


 * Example 4.17
 * nanmu
 * man


 * Example 4.18
 * ninmu
 * woman

A small number of gismu were formed differently; see Section 4.15 (p. 73) for a list.

4.5 lujvo
When specifying a concept that is not found among the gismu (or, more specifically, when the relevant gismu seems too general in meaning), a Lojbanist generally attempts to express the concept as a tanru. Lojban tanru are an elaboration of the concept of “metaphor” used in English. In Lojban, any brivla can be used to modify another brivla. The first of the pair modifies the second. This modification is usually restrictive – the modifying brivla reduces the broader sense of the modified brivla to form a more narrow, concrete, or specific concept. Modifying brivla may thus be seen as acting like English adverbs or adjectives. For example,


 * Example 4.19
 * skami pilno

is the tanru which expresses the concept of “computer user”.

The simplest Lojban tanru are pairings of two concepts or ideas. Such tanru take two simpler ideas that can be represented by gismu and combine them into a single more complex idea. Two-part tanru may then be recombined in pairs with other tanru, or with individual gismu, to form more complex or more specific ideas, and so on.

The meaning of a tanru is usually at least partly ambiguous: skami pilno could refer to a computer that is a user, or to a user of computers. There are a variety of ways that the modifier component can be related to the modified component. It is also possible to use cmavo within tanru to provide variations (or to prevent ambiguities) of meaning.

Making tanru is essentially a poetic or creative act, not a science. While the syntax expressing the grouping relationships within tanru is unambiguous, tanru are still semantically ambiguous, since the rules defining the relationships between the gismu are flexible. The process of devising a new tanru is dealt with in detail in Chapter 5 (p. 79).