Date: Wed, 21 Dec 1994 00:29:07 -0700
From: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
Subject: ni'i vs naja
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>
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Xorxes:
>{ni'i} is for *logical* entailment, and this is not what usually "if" is
>used for. I find that {ni'i} is used often where {ki'u} would work much
>better.
>
>{ni'i} works for things like:
>
>     la spot se tuple voda ni'i le du'u ge ro gerku cu se tuple voda
>     gi la spot gerku
>     Spot has four legs because every dog has four legs and Spot is a dog.
>
>It does not work for things like:
>
>     la spot se tuple voda ki'u le nu sy fadni gerku
>     Spot has four legs because he is a normal dog.

But the reference grammar paper "From Boston via the road go I" says:
>7.4)    la sokrates. morsi binxo ni'i le nu la sokrates. remna
>    Socrates dead-became with-logical-justification Socrates is-human.
>    Socrates died because Socrates is human.

I've also been using ni'i in this slightly fuzzier way.  My text is full of
".iseni'ibo" (annoyingly unzipfean as it is .uinai).

It's a matter of definition of ni'i/nibli/entail/imply, I guess, but I lean
more towards Nick's roomier definition.

I should say, though, that I disagree with Nick about ni'i always being used
in preference to naja.  They're different syntactically if nothing else, and
if it turns out that they mean the same thing, why use ".ini'ibo" if
".inaja" is shorter?  By my own arguments I guess I should have been using
".ijanai" instead of ".iseni'ibo", but then I'm not fluent yet either...

BTW I'm assuming that these are equivalent:

    X nibli Y
    Y ni'i ledu'u X
    X .ini'ibo Y

The reference grammar paper has a little table like this, but it's not
consistent with the examples.

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