Loglan/Overview of Loglan/Arguments
These form a set of words that you use to fill in the blanks of the predicates. They form the objects or agents that you talk about. Arguments come in three forms:
- Names
- Predicates as arguments
- Little words as arguments
We use a little word to tell the difference between a name and a normal predicate word used as an argument; either le or la. The little word le means the one I call and the little word la means the one that actually is. The word 'le' then forms a prefix for a description and the little word la forms a prefix for a name.
Names
[edit | edit source]Names in Loglan come in two types:
- Proper Names
- Predicate Names
All proper names end in a consonant and can have any number of letters. We can use predicates as names if we use the little word la first. As predicates together form a metaphor we use the little word gu to show where the name ends and the main predicate of the sentence starts.
Examples
[edit | edit source]Proper names:
- Frans - France
- Sol - Sun
- Romas - Rome
Predicate Names
- la farfu - father / dad
- la ratcu - Rat
Predicates as arguments
[edit | edit source]You can use predicates words as arguments to the main predicate of a sentence to form the object or agent of a predicate. To do so, you need to add the little word le to show that the you mean the one I call and then use the little word gu to show when the argument predicate comes to an end and the main sentence predicate begins.
Examples
[edit | edit source]- le nirli gu tcatro - the girl is driving (a vehicle)
- le farfu gu kamla - the father comes
- le hasfa gu redro - the house is red
- le prano mrenu gu goztsefui - the running man is late
Little words as arguments
[edit | edit source]Loglan has a number of little words that you can use for common occurring actors or objects.
Examples
[edit | edit source]- tu - you
- ti - this
- toi - that ( the last mentioned remark)
- da - he / she / it