Message-Id: <199709250403.XAA16823@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Chris Bogart Date: Wed Sep 24 23:04:01 1997 Sender: Lojban list From: Chris Bogart Subject: Location of "na" in sentence To: Lojban List In-Reply-To: <199709250039.SAA13932@indra.com> X-Mozilla-Status: 0005 Content-Length: 928 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Sep 24 23:04:01 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU On Thu, 25 Sep 1997, HACKER G N wrote: > Why at the END of the bridi? It doesn't make any difference where you > put the "na" in a bridi; its grammar and semantics are exactly the same. My understanding is that "na"'s position does matter in a sentence where we're using "lo" or "da poi" in a logical statment without a prenex. mi ponse lo mlatu naku => da poi mlatu naku zo'u mi ponse da = There exists a cat such that it is not true that I possess it = There is at least one cat I don't own mi na ponse lo mlatu => naku da poi mlatu zo'u mi ponse da = It is not true that there exists a cat that I posses = I don't have a cat We're trying to map a lojban sentence without a prenex to a formal logic sentence (which always has a prenex). The approved way to know what order the quantifiers and negations are supposed to fall in, is to take them in the order they're found in the sentence.