7. Other useful selbri for mekso bridi

So far our examples have been isolated mekso (it is legal to have a bare mekso as a sentence in Lojban) and equation bridi involving “du”. What about inequalities such as “x < 5”? The answer is to use a bridi with an appropriate selbri, thus:

7.1)   li xy. mleca li mu
       The-number x is-less-than the-number 5.

Here is a partial list of selbri useful in mathematical bridi:

     dunli       x1 is equal/congruent to x2 in/on property/quality/dimension/quantity x3
     mleca       x1 is less than x2
     zmadu       x1 is greater than x2
     dubjavme'a  x1 is less than or equal to x2         [du ja mleca, equal or less]
     dubjavmau   x1 is greater than or equal to x2      [du ja zmadu, equal or greater]
     tamdu'i     x1 is similar to x2                    [tarmi dunli, shape-equal]
     turdu'i     x1 is isomorphic to x2                 [stura dunli, structure-equal]
     cmima       x1 is a member of set x2
     gripau      x1 is a subset of set x2               [girzu pagbu, set-part]
     na'ujbi     x1 is approximately equal to x2        [namcu jibni, number-near]
     terci'e     x1 is a component with function x2 of system x3
Note the difference between “dunli” and “du”; “dunli” has a third place that specifies the kind of equality that is meant. “du” refers to actual identity, and can have any number of places:
7.2)   py. du xy.boi zy.
       “p” is-identical-to “x” “z”
       p = x = z
Lojban bridi can have only one predicate, so the “du” is not repeated.

Any of these selbri may usefully be prefixed with “na”, the contradictory negation cmavo, to indicate that the relation is false:

7.3)   li re su'i re na du li mu
       2 + 2 ≠ 5