How to Read an LOD Entry

The Loglan Dictionary ought to be pretty easy to use for basic translation work. However, it does contain a lot of specialized notations that the serious word smith might be curious about. This is where you can look up those notations.

Loglan to English

Like any dictionary, the Loglan Dictionary has certain conventions in how it presents its information. Consider the word "kliri".

kliri,
kli <4/4E clear;  4/5J kirei;  3/4S clar o;  3/4F clair;  3/4G klar;  3/5R liegk ioi>  49% C-Prim L4 '75 1.0
   (2a) G is apparent/lucid/clearer/more transparent than J, fig. understandable. [G-J]
   (av) clearly, as a predicate modifier.
   pu -- (n) a lucidity/transparency/clarity, a spec. property.
   Used in: bliklimao; bliklimazmao; klicea; klimao; klimaosio; klimaosismao; klimaoste; klinorbli; klisupta; klivia; norkli; norklicue; pertyfeokli; sanklimao;

Parts of the Entry

There are four parts:

The kind of information that appears in each of the parts will depend on the kind of word it is. The "meat" of Loglan are the meaning carrying words called predicates and, not surprisingly, the LOD has information about predicates that it doesn't have about other kinds of words.

Technical Information About the Word

kli <4/4E clear;  4/5J kirei;  3/4S clar o;  3/4F clair;  3/4G klar;  3/5R liegk ioi>  49% C-Prim L4 '75 1.0

The second line contains information about the word. This information may include:

Affixes:
(Optional.) In this case, "kli". These are short forms of the word that can be used to make complexes (a kind of compound word) from. Many words don't have affixes, while a few can have as many as three. (See Loglan 1 Section 2.17.)
Word Type:
In this case, "C-Prim" for "Composite Primitive". For a list of word types, see below.
Word Origins:
Shown in angle brackets. ("<...>") The kind of information that shows up here depends on the Word Type. In this case, we have a list of natural language words this Loglan word is supposed to resemble. The "49%" is the recognizability score based on those languages. (See Loglan 1 Section 6.3) Complexes will have a list of words they're built from. (See Loglan 1 Section 2.17.)
Authorship:
The author's initials and the date the word was coined. In this case, "L4 '75" refers to Loglan 4&5, the 1975 edition of the dictionary, written before they started keeping track of authorship. For a list of authors, see below.
Rank:
This refers to the position of the concept in Helen Eaton's Semantic Frequency List (1940). "1.0" means the word is in the first thousand concepts. (See Loglan 1 Chapter 6, Note 3 and the bibliography.)

The Definitions

   (2a) G is apparent/lucid/clearer/more transparent than J, fig. understandable. [G-J]
   (av) clearly, as a predicate modifier.
   pu — (n) a lucidity/transparency/clarity, a spec. property.

The body of each definition has some English text that describes what the word means. (E.g. "clearly, as a predicate modifier.") Some definitions of predicates are written as complete sentences with the "arguments" replaces by capital letters, the case tags. (E.g. "G is apparent/lucid/clearer/more transparent than J") (See Loglan 1 Section 4.31.) Certain emphasized words (such as "apparent" here) are the key meanings of the word.

Usage:
This appears at the start of each definition, and shows the usage in Loglan for that definition. In the example, the first two definitions have blank usages, which means the usage is just the word itself. In the third definition, "pu —" is shorthand for pu kliri, where pu is one of the abstraction operators. The first two definitions don't show a usage, which means the usage is just the word itself. For a list of usages, see below.
Grammar:
A code in parenthesis ("(...)") for the English part of speech that the definition represents. Here we have "(2a)" for "adjective", "(av)" for "adverb" and "(n)" for "noun". For a list of grammar codes, see below.
Number of Places: (Predicates only.)
The number in the grammar code for the first definition gives the number of places the predicate may have. (E.g. the "2" in "(2a)") The number of places runs from 1 to 5. (See Loglan 1 Section 3.3.)
Case Tags: (Predicates only.)
These appear at the end of some definitions and are enclosed in square brackets. (E.g. "[G-J]") These describe the role each argument plays for the predicate. In this case, "[G-J]" means that the predicate describes how something is in some sense bigger than something else. (See Loglan 1 Section 4.31.) For a list of case tags, see below.

English to Loglan

The English to Loglan part of the dictionary has the same information but rearranged. For example, the entry for "energy" is:

energy,
   pu kaoflo (n) <action full>B [G-J] energy, of persons, a spec. property.
   nerji (2n) [G-J] G has more energy/capacity for doing work than J (physics).
   lopu nerji (n) B [G-J] energy, mass term.
   pu nerji (n) B [G-J] the energy/vehemence, work capacity of a body/system.

There is no "word information" line (We're not going to tell you where the English word came from.) although the "word origins" information appears in one place ("<action full>") to tell us where the complex kaoflo came from.

There is one other change: The pu — entries have an extra case tag in front, "B". That is because abstraction operators like pu can be thought to add an extra place to the predicate. (See Loglan 1 Section 3.10.)

That's about it, except for the lists below. If you have any questions, write to the author of this page, , or the maintainer of the LOD, Bob McIvor.

Tables

Word Types

Acr
acronym, E.g. DaiNaiA, "DNA"
Afx
affix
Bor
Borrowing, a word that has been borrowed from one language, but carefully spelled so that it can't be mistaken for another kind of Loglan predicate.
Cpd
Compound Little Word E.g. enoi from e+no, "and not".
LW
Little Word, a small word used to give Loglan its grammatical structure.
Name
A name, a proper noun.
Phrase
(not used?)
C-Prim
Composite Primitives, drawn from several target languages in a way that might make them recognizable in most of them. (See Loglan 1 Section 6.3.)
D-Prim
Derived Primitive, one of the primitives that follows the cultural (language, nationality, culture) or animal (male, female, infant, resembling, unspecified) declension. E.g. zebra (female), zebre (resembling), zebri (infant), zebro (male), zebru (unspecified) (See Loglan 1 Section 6.2 for a description of the cultural declension. Animal declensions were added to Loglan since Loglan 1 was published.)
I-Prim
International Primitives, drawn from a single word of international scope. E.g. telfo from "telephone".
L-Prim
Loglan Primitives, a small group of primitives that were drawn from other Loglan words. E.g. logla from the name Loglan.
N-Prim
Native Primitives, drawn from a single source language. E.g. dolra from the English "dollar".
O-Prim
Onomatopoetic E.g zbuma, to explode.
S-Prim
Scientific Primitive, drawn from the international vocabulary of science. E.g. lidro from Hydrogen.
2-Cpx
Two-term Complex E.g. flicea, from fli(du)+ce(nj)a=liquid-become
3-Cpx
Three-term Complex E.g. tarsesmao, from tar(ci)+se(n)s(i)+ma(dz)o=star-science-make.
4-Cpx
Four-term Complex E.g. blidensaecko, from bli(cu)+den(ro)+sa(ns)e+cko(zu)=possible-danger-sense-cause

Some Common Usages

Here are some common usages. The forms that could actually appear are infinitely varied, and the best reference for that is the text Loglan 1.

le —
instance of (See Loglan 1 Section 4.8.)
lo —
mass term (See Loglan 1 Section 4.9.)
la —
as a name (See Loglan 1 Section 4.7.)
lio —
as a number (See Loglan 1 Section 4.26.)
nu —, fu —, ju —
conversion (argument permutation) (See Loglan 1 Section 3.8.)
po —, pu —, zo —
abstraction (See Loglan 1 Section 3.10.)
lopo —, lepu —, etc
some combination of the above.

Grammar Codes

These are the abbreviations that indicate the part of speech a definition represents.

(n)
Noun
(a)
Adjective
(af)
Affix
(art)
Article
(av)
Adverb
(c)
Conjunction
(h)
Honorific
(i)
Interjection
(l)
Letter
(ms)
Mathematical Sign
(na)
Name
(op)
Operator
(p)
Pronoun
(ph)
Phrase
(pm)
Punctuation Mark
(pp)
Preposition
(v)
Verb
(va)
Verb Auxiliary
(voc)
Vocative

Case Tags

A list of case tags, taken from Loglan 1, Table 4.1.
Table 4.1 The Eleven Optional Case Tags
B beu Bekti (object) '-/in' Patients, Parts, Properties
C cau Canli (quantity) 'by/for' Quantities, Amounts, Values
D dio Dirco (direction) 'to/for' Recipients, Beneficiaries, Destinations
F foa Folma (full) 'in/of' Wholes, Sets, Collectivities
J jui Junti (young) 'than' Lessers in greater/lesser than relations
K kao Kakto (act) '-/by' Actors, Agents, Doers
N neu Nerbi (necessary) 'under' Conditions, Fields, Circumstances
P pou Proju (produce) '-' Products, Outputs, Purposes
G goa Groda (big) 'than' Greaters in greater/lesser than relations
S sau Satci (start) 'from' Sources, Origins, Reasons, Causes
V veu Vetci (event) 'by/via' Events, States, Deeds, Means, Routes, Effects

Common Authors

Here are the initials of the various authors of individual words. As you can see, we're still tracking these down.

AL, APL
Alex Leith
BW
Birrell Walsh
CF
Colin Fine
CJB
Chuck Barton?
DB
?
EM
Emerson Mitchell
FR
Faith Rich
HA
Heike Amelung
JBS
?
JCB
James Cooke Brown
JF
Jerome Frazee
JFB
Jenny Brown
JFC
James Carter?
JJ
James Jennings
JLS
?
JLT
Jeremy Taylor
JPC, PC
John Parks-Clifford
JR
?
JRK
JR Kennaway
JT
?
KAC
Kieran A. Carroll
KAD
?
KS
?
L1
The standard textbook on Loglan, Loglan 1.
L4
The book Loglan 4&5, the printed-on-paper, 1975 version of the dictionary.
MD
Michael Demoulin
MWZ
Mark W. Zacharias
NT
?
PC, JPC
John Parks-Clifford
PI
Paloma Ibanez
RAM
Robert McIvor
RH
M. Randall Holmes
RRM
?
RWJ
Ron W. Johnson
SLR, SR
Steve Rice
SRL
Scott Layson? Sheldon Linker? Both early L students at San Diego
TB
?
WDG
?
WG
William G. Gober (likely)

Last modified on May 26, 2003.

Copyright ©2000-2003 by The Loglan Institute. All rights reserved.