tutorial question

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!shoulson>]

   Date:         Wed, 18 Dec 1991 10:19:28 -0800
   From: "F. Schulz" <fschulz%PYRPS5.ENG.PYRAMID.COM@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>
   X-To:         uunet!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!lojban@uunet.UU.NET

   In

      Diagrammed Summary of Lojban Grammar Forms with Example Sentences

   the following appears:

             la djan. po'u le ctuca [ku] [ge'u] [cu] klama [vau]
             -------- <    -------------    |        =====
             John, the teacher, comes.

   It appears to me that the cu in front of klama is not optional.
   Or do I not understand what [ ] means?

Depends on how you look at it.  Not everything bracketed in this example is
optional, but each thing bracketed is.  Of the three consecutive
bracketed words [ku] [ge'u] [cu], each is elidable (or omittable, in the
case of cu), or any two, but NOT all three:

la djan. po'u le ctuca klama   <-- grammatical, but not right.  it means,
                                   "John, who-is the teacher-comer..."
                                   (hmmm.  I think in this case it would be
                                    incorrect to have the "vau" on the end
                                    though.  Not sure.)
la djan. po'u le ctuca ku klama
la djan. po'u le ctuca ge'u klama
la djan. po'u le ctuca cu klama
and so on, are all right and give the desired meaning and structure.

~mark