Lojban/Attitudinals

Attitudinals are markers of attitude or emotion, modifying the word (brivla, cmavo, cmene, sumti, or tanru) directly before it. For example, the simple << mlatu >> for "cat" can become << mlatu .ui >> for "cat (happiness!/:D)". At the beginning of a sentence (after the place of .i) they modify the entire sentence (bridi), and after the attitudinal beginning bracket << fu'e >>, they continue the emotion for all the statement until the closing bracket << fu'o >>.

Attitudinals can also affect vocatives, the same way a change in vocal tone can greatly affect a simple "hello". For example, << coi .ui >> means not a simple "Hello.", but something like "Hello! :D". Combined with the attitudinal question-maker pei, you can easily create more complex << coi .uipei >> may be thought of as "Hello - are you glad to see me?", while << co'o .uipei >> may be viewed as "Good-bye - are you happy that we part?".

Beyond mere emotion, they can mark prepositional ideas such as desire ("I want this to happen"), obligation ("This needs to happen"), and many other complex functions we take for granted - for example, << mi citka >> means "I eat", while << .au mi citka >> means "I want to eat", and << .e'e mi citka >> means "I am able to eat".

Emotional modifiers:

Modifier	Modification
cai	very strong
sai	strong
(nothing)	felt
ru'e	weak
cu'i	not felt
nairu'e	weak negative
nai	negative felt
naisai	strong negative
naicai	very strong negative

Attitudinal indicators and suffixes with examples of modifier use:

Attitudinals

Simple propositional emotions:

Attitudinal	attitude	-cu'i	-nai
.a'a	attentive	inattentive	avoiding
.a'e	alertness		exhaustion
.ai	intent	indecision	refusal
.a'i	effort	lack of effort	repose
.a'o	hope		despair
.au	desire	indifference	reluctance
.a'u	interest	no interest	repulsion

Complex propositional emotions:

Attitudinal	attitude	-cu'i	-nai
.e'a	permission		prohibition
.e'e	competence		incompetence
.ei	obligation		freedom
.e'i	constraint	independence	resistance to constraint
.e'o	request		negative request
.e'u	suggestion	no suggestion	warning
.ia	belief	skepticism	disbelief
.i'a	acceptance		blame
.ie	agreement	neutrality	disagreement
.i'e	approval	non-approval	disapproval

Miscellaneous pure emotions:

Attitudinal	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai
.ii	fear	nervousness	security
.i'i	togetherness		privacy
.io	respect	lack of respect	disrespect
.i'o	appreciation	lack of appreciation	envy
.iu	love	lack of love	hatred/fear
.i'u	familiarity		mystery

Complex pure emotions:

Attitudinal	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai
.o'a	pride	modesty	shame
.o'e	closeness	detachment	distance
.oi	complaint/pain	no complaints	pleasure
.o'i	caution	boldness	rashness
.o'o	patience	mere tolerance	anger
.o'u	relaxation	composure	stress

Simple pure emotions:

Attitudinal	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai
.ua	discovery		confusion
.u'a	gain		loss
.ue	surprise	no surprise	expectation
.u'e	wonder		commonplace
.ui	happiness		unhappiness
.u'i	amusement		weariness
.uo	completion		incompleteness
.u'o	courage	timidity	cowardice
.uu	pity		cruelty
.u'u	repentance	lack of regret	innocence

Emotional categories:

Category	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai
ro'a	social	asocial	antisocial
ro'e	mental	absentminded	mindless
ro'i	emotional	emotionless	denying emotion
ro'o	physical	intangible	denying physical
ro'u	sexual	asexual	sexual abstinence
re'e	spiritual	secular	sacrilegious

Attitudinal modifiers:

Modifier	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai	[gismu]
ga'i	hauteur/rank	equal rank	meekness/lack of rank	[galtu]
le'o	aggressive	passive	defensive
vu'e	virtue [zabna]		sin [mabla]	[vrude]
se'i	self-orientation		other-orientation	[sevzi]
ri'e	release	restraint	control	[zifre]
fu'i	easily/with help	without help	with difficulty/opposition	[frili]
be'u	lack/need	presence/satisfaction	satiation
se'a	self-sufficiency		dependency	[sevzi]

Special:

cmavo	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai
pei	attitude question
dai	empathy
bu'o	start emotion	continue emotion	end emotion

Evidentials:

Evidential	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai	[gismu]
ja'o	I conclude			[jalge]
ca'e	I define
ba'a	I expect / I anticipate	I experience	I remember	[balvi]
su'a	I generalize		I particularize	[sucta]
ti'e	I hear (hearsay) - not necessarily literally "hear"			[tirna]
ka'u	I know by cultural means			[kulnu]
se'o	I know by internal experience			[senva]
za'a	I observe			[zgana]
pe'i	I opine / It is my opinion that...			[pensi]
ru'a	I postulate / I presume			[sruma]
ju'a	I state (elliptical discursive)			[jufra]

Consecutive discourse:

cmavo	(nothing)	[gismu]
ku'i	however/but/in contrast	[karbi]
ji'a	additionally	[jmina]
si'a	similarly	[simsa]
mi'u	ditto	[mintu]
po'o	the only relevant case

Commentary on words:

cmavo	(nothing)	-nai	[gismu]
va'i	in other words	in the same words	[valsi]
ta'u	expanding a tanru	making a tanru	[tanru]

Commentary on discourse:

cmavo	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai	[gismu]
li'a	clearly/obviously		obscurely	[klina]
ba'u	exaggeration	accuracy	understatement	[banli]
zo'o	humorously	dully	seriously
sa'e	precisely speaking		loosely speaking	[satci]
to'u	in brief		in detail	[tordu]
do'a	generously		parsimoniously	[dunda]
sa'u	simply		elaborating	[sampu]
pa'e	justice		prejudice	[pajni]
je'u	truly/It is true that,...		falsely	[jetnu]

Knowledge:

cmavo	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai	[gismu]
ju'o	certainly	uncertain	certainly not	[djuno]
la'a	probably		improbably	[lakne]

Discourse management:

cmavo	(nothing)	-cu'i	-nai	[gismu]
ta'o	by the way	(sometimes: speaking of which,...)	returning to point	[tanjo]
ra'u	chiefly	equally	incidentally	[ralju]
mu'a	for example	omitting ex.	end examples	[mupli]
zu'u	on the one hand		on the other hand
ke'u	repeating		continuing	[krefu]
da'i	supposing		in fact

Miscellaneous indicators:

Attitudinal	(nothing)	-nai
ki'a	metalinguistic confusion
na'i	metalinguistic negator
jo'a	metalinguistic affirmer
li'o	omitted text (quoted material)
sa'a	material inserted by editor/narrator
xu	true-false question
pau	question premarker	rhetorical question
pe'a	figurative language	literal language
bi'u	new information	old information
ge'e	non-specific indicator

External links