Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 68.230.241.216 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of lojbab@lojban.org) client-ip=68.230.241.216;
Message-ID: <50C23D7F.1030601@lojban.org>
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2012 14:03:27 -0500
From: "Bob LeChevalier, President and Founder - LLG" <lojbab@lojban.org>
Organization: The Logical Language Group, Inc.
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:13.0) Gecko/20120614 Thunderbird/13.0.1
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: lojban@googlegroups.com, lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: [bpfk] polysemy of {nai}
References: <95cdbee4-7ddc-4f7d-bb48-4591b7c3d915@googlegroups.com> <50C10003.1080806@lojban.org> <5406c1d2-ee78-4b41-ab68-06b7cf99dce7@googlegroups.com>
In-Reply-To: <5406c1d2-ee78-4b41-ab68-06b7cf99dce7@googlegroups.com>
Reply-To: lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com
Precedence: list
Mailing-list: list lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com; contact lojban-beginners+owners@googlegroups.com
Sender: lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
X-Spam_score: -0.0
X-Spam_score_int: 0
X-Spam_bar: /

la gleki wrote:
> Let me see if I understand negators correctly (scheme attached in a file
> to this post).
>
> {na'e} says that we are somewere at another point but on the same scale.

On the negative side of the same scale, but not necessarily the opposite

> {no'e} says we are in the middle of the same scale.
> {to'e} says that we are at the opposite point of the same scale.
> {na'i} says that we are outside this scale (i.e. this predicate
> relationship)


> {na}. Here I have a problem. According to what I draw {na} means that we
> are not at this point of this scale and may be even outside this scale.
> So for me {na} is (warning! bad grammar follows) {na'i ja na'e}.

na has nothing to do with scales, but rather with truth tables.  It is 
contradictory negation, and in general says that the predication without 
the na is false

> But may be you prove me wrong (I'm not sure myself).
>
> Anyway, I want all types of negation to fit on the same scheme.

They can't because negation is NOT a single scheme, conceptually.  There 
is contradictory negation and contrary/scalar negation.

The negation chapter of CLL goes into this at length.

> Last time when I draw a similar scheme I could completely solve (at
> least for myself) the problem of subjunctives in lojban.
> Now it's time for negation.

You have to know the problem in order to solve the problem.  At the time 
we solved it, the most comprehensive book we could find on the 
linguistics of negation was _The Natural History of Negation_ by Horn

http://cslipublications.stanford.edu/site/1575863367.shtml

>     There is one "meaning" - a syntactically appropriate afterthought
>     negation of a single word.  The semantics of that negation are specific
>     to what is being negated, but generally it is a scalar/contrary
>     negation
>     (cf. na'e) of the specific word being marked.  Sometimes the nature of
>     the construct means that a scalar negation is effectively equivalent to
>     a contradictory negation (cf. na) (this is especially the case for
>     logical connectives, by intent).
>
>
> I understand that on boolean scale {na'e=to'e}

na'e and to'e have nothing to do with booleans.  Boolean negation is 
contradictory negation, which uses na.


Sometimes the na'e and even the to'e of a predication has the same truth 
value as the one without the scalar.  That is not the case for 
contradictory negation ("not the case" is a contradictory "na" negation 
expressed in English)

>but what is {na} then?

contradictory (Boolean), not scalar

>     As a scalar negation, it is NOT the equivalent of to'e when attached to
>     a UI, but rather na'e (generalized rather than extreme contrary
>     negation).
>
>
> na'e is {cu'i ja to'e} (grammar ingnored), isn't it?

No.

Let me concoct an example with a well-defined scale.  Perhaps I'll 
manage this with no mistakes, being rusty.

Let us arbitrarily define any natural number (positive integers) larger 
than 100 as "large" and any number smaller than 100 as "small".  Then

li 200 cu (je'a) barda ke rarna namcu
li 100 cu no'e barda ke rarna namcu
li 1 cu to'e barda ke rarna namcu
li 1 bi'i li 99 cu na'e barda ke rarna namcu
li za'u 1 cu na'eto'e barda ke rarna namcu
li ci'i cu to'eto'e barda ke rarna namcu

li 1 bi'i l00 na barda ke rarna namcu = naku zo'u li 1 bi'i l00 cu barda 
ke rarna namcu
lo mlatu na barda ke rarna namcu (lo mlatu na namcu)

le cinfo cu barda ke rarna na'e namcu (emphasizing that na'e can apply 
to the next word, and that it can be used when the "scale" is unclear to 
mean "other-than")

"lo mlatu cu namcu" could also be marked with na'i on the entire 
sentence, or on the words mlatu or namcu because it is 
metalinguistically inappropriate to talk of cats as numbers.

If I had not strictly defined what "large" meant, then both of the 
following could be true

li 200 cu barda
li 200 cu na'e barda

>       naicai would be the afterthought "nai"-like equivalent of
>     to'e when attached to UI.  That said, sometimes a scalar situation
>     degenerates to the point where to'e and na'e are equivalent in meaning.
>
> This is not the case with some UI that have {cu'i}  as an appropriate
> point on the scale.

correct.  I said "sometimes"

>        The separate words exist for those situations when the scale is NOT
>     degenerate.
>
>      > Next question is why {nai} should move to CAI and then to UI when UI
>      > have no truth value?
>
>     It shouldn't, and I have no idea why such a thing would be proposed (I
>     haven't read the cited proposal, and personally don't consider any
>     proposals until/unless formally brought before byfy - not that I know
>     what the procedure for doing so would be these days).
>
> One more vite that it shouldn't be done. Therefore, the poll is closed.
> moving to CAI - may be.
> moving to UI - no.
> :)

moving at all - no

changing the language, unless things are so truly broken that the byfy 
(i.e. Robin) can't write it up - no

(and at this point, unless Robin says so, NOTHING is subject to a vote)

I am opposed *in principle* to language change by decree at this stage. 
  We aren't designing the language any more.

>     They can't be so replaced, unless some proposal screws up the language
>     in an attempt to oversimplify the negation problem.  Having multiple
>     words allows the semantics of each situation to resolve over time with
>     usage evolving the way each word is interpreted.
>
>
> That's what I'm proposing. Separate words for different meanings.

"meaning" is itself an ambiguous term

>     Note also that nai is afterthought (like UI) while the NAhE family of
>     words are forethought and can be used with larger constructs than a
>     single word.
>
> UI/CAI can be used with larger constructions, don't they?

only by using it in a way that the word that it marks is a delimiter for 
a larger construction (generally one of the construct-terminators or one 
of the start-construct words - e.g. fu'e bu'o ke to tu'e) and at the 
beginning of the sentence/utterance (where it is afterthought of 
nothing).  In those cases, the longer scope is inferred from what is marked

NAhE's and NA's scope are defined by the syntax rules

-- 
Bob LeChevalier    lojbab@lojban.org    www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Lojban Beginners" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban-beginners+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban-beginners?hl=en.