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4.5 lujvo To express a simple tanru, simply say the component gismu together. Thus the binary metaphor “big boat” becomes the tanru


 * Example 4.20
 * barda bloti

representing roughly the same concept as the English word “ship”.

The binary metaphor “father mother” can refer to a paternal grandmother (“a father-ly type of mother”), while “mother father” can refer to a maternal grandfather (“a mother-ly type of father”). In Lojban, these become the tanru


 * Example 4.21
 * patfu mamta

and


 * Example 4.22
 * mamta patfu

respectively.

The possibility of semantic ambiguity can easily be seen in the last case. To interpret Example 4.22 (p. 55), the listener must determine what type of motherliness pertains to the father being referred to. In an appropriate context, mamta patfu could mean not “grandfather” but simply “father with some motherly attributes”, depending on the culture. If absolute clarity is required, there are ways to expand upon and explain the exact interrelationship between the components; but such detail is usually not needed.

When a concept expressed in a tanru proves useful, or is frequently expressed, it is desirable to choose one of the possible meanings of the tanru and assign it to a new brivla. For Example 4.19 (p. 54), we would probably choose “user of computers”, and form the new word


 * Example 4.23
 * sampli

Such a brivla, built from the rafsi which represent its component words, is called a lujvo. Another example, corresponding to the tanru of Example 4.20 (p. 55), would be:


 * Example 4.24
 * bralo'i
 * “big-boat”
 * ship

The lujvo representing a given tanru is built from units representing the component gismu. These units are called rafsi in Lojban. Each rafsi represents only one gismu. The rafsi are attached together in the order of the words in the tanru, occasionally inserting so-called “hyphen” letters to ensure that the pieces stick together as a single word and cannot accidentally be broken apart into cmavo, gismu, or other word forms. As a result, each lujvo can be readily and accurately recognized, allowing a listener to pick out the word from a string of spoken Lojban, and if necessary, unambiguously decompose the word to a unique source tanru, thus providing a strong clue to its meaning.

The lujvo that can be built from the tanru mamta patfu in Example 4.22 (p. 55) is


 * Example 4.25
 * mampa'u

which refers specifically to the concept “maternal grandfather”. The two gismu that constitute the tanru are represented in mampa'u by the rafsi mam- and -pa'u, respectively; these two rafsi are then concatenated together to form mampa'u.

Like gismu, lujvo have only one meaning. When a lujvo is formally entered into a dictionary of the language, a specific definition will be assigned based on one particular interrelationship between the terms. (See Chapter 12 (p. 263) for how this has been done.) Unlike gismu, lujvo may have more than one form. This is because there is no difference in meaning between the various rafsi for a gismu when