From sbelknap@UIC.EDU Sat Dec 07 17:57:17 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: sbelknap@uic.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 8 Dec 2002 01:57:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 43334 invoked from network); 8 Dec 2002 01:57:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.217) by m10.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 8 Dec 2002 01:57:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO larch.cc.uic.edu) (128.248.155.164) by mta2.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 8 Dec 2002 01:57:16 -0000 Received: (qmail 23354 invoked from network); 8 Dec 2002 01:57:14 -0000 Received: from webmail.cc.uic.edu (HELO webmail.uic.edu) (128.248.121.50) by larch.cc.uic.edu with SMTP; 8 Dec 2002 01:57:14 -0000 X-WebMail-UserID: sbelknap@uic.edu Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 19:56:35 -0600 Sender: sbelknap To: Robert LeChevalier Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com X-EXP32-SerialNo: 50000146 Subject: nelci Message-ID: <3DFF06C3@webmail.uic.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: InterChange (Hydra) SMTP v3.62 From: sbelknap X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810567 I just had an interesting conversation with my son, who is five. We were talking about . Quite often, when I ask him if he likes X, he says no, even though he has never tasted X. I then complain that he has never tasted X, so how can he say he doesn't like it? As we discussed , I finally saw the logic of his point-of-view, which as any Loglander or lojbanistani knows has to do with the fussiness of negation. My son only likes things he has tasted and "doesn't like" anything he hasn't tasted. I either like or don't like things I've tasted, and don't know about things I haven't tasted. When we discussed what means, we both realized that we had been miscommunicating in English. He is using a different negation scheme than I am. I tried to explain lojban negation to him, but I soon realized that I do not have a firm grasp on this myself, so I'm going to have to reread what John had to say about negation. As I recall, the grammar is quite lucid on this topic. My two year old daughter says "no" a lot. Now, I wonder what exactly she means! -co'o mi'e la stivn