From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Wed Sep 24 21:48:34 1997 Message-Id: <199709250248.VAA14421@locke.ccil.org> Date: Wed Sep 24 21:48:34 1997 Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Sender: Lojban list From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Subject: Re: RV: na'e entails na? X-To: lojban To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 4246 Ok, once again I have been persuaded by And to change my mind. My position now is that na'e by itself does not entail na. It only does so when the selbri in question partitions its domain into exclusive regions (I try to explain what I mean by this below). >For example, everyone is either citizen of France or citizen of >some other country. [NB INCLUSIVE OR] I want to describe >the latter group as "na`e fraso zei selgugde" [...] > but will not be >able to if everyone bar me gets their way! I now agree with your position, as long as it is clear that {na'e broda} asserts not just any relationship other than broda. It must claim that a relationship from a very reduced group holds among the arguments. For the case of fraso, the relationships that may hold can be glico, dotco, spano, brito, etc, but not for example ropno, since {ko'a ropno} does not allow us to conclude that {ko'a na'e fraso}. In the case of glico we cannot have brito as one of the possible "others", and so on. How this very restricted group of relationships is selected is the difficult part, and probably very context dependent. In many cases the domain of arguments gets partitioned into exclusive regions by the predicates, and then na'e does entail na. For example, taking {zmana'u} to mean "x1 is positive", then {ko'a na'e zmana'u}, "k is non-positive", does entail {ko'a na zmana'u}, because the only possibilities left are that k is negative or that k is zero. All other relationships that may be true of ko'a are irrelevant. With this strong restriction, I think there isn't really that much of a distance between the strong and weak forms of na'e. In many cases it makes no difference which one we choose. I prefer the weak form because, as And pointed out, the strong form can be easily obtained with an end-of-bridi naku, whereas the weak form cannot. co'o mi'e xorxes From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Sep 20 08:02:42 1997 for ; Sat, 20 Sep 1997 08:02:38 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199709201302.IAA03721@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com Sender: Lojban list From: bob@MEGALITH.RATTLESNAKE.COM Subject: Re: na`e X-To: lojban@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199709200742.DAA16997@access1.digex.net> (message from Logical Language Group on Sat, 20 Sep 1997 03:42:38 -0400 (EDT)) X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1743 I am puzzled over the confusion. Here are three utterances: 1. The cat sits on the chair. lo mlatu ca'o vreta lo stizu 2. It is false that the cat sits on the chair. lo mlatu na ca'o vreta lo stizu 3. The cat sits otherwise than on the chair. lo mlatu ca'o na'e vreta lo stizu The latter utterance contains *two* propositions: a. That it is false that the cat sits on the chair; and, b. that some other proposition is true. to ra'unai lo mlatu ca'a vreta lo cuktykajna toi (Incidentally, the cat actually reposes on a book-type-of-counter/shelf.) Why do I make this interpretation? Here are extracts from a fairly recent, but pre-baselined copy of the reference grammar: Chapter 10: Unlike contradictory negation, scalar negation asserts a truth: that the bridi is true with some tense other than that specified. The following examples are scalar negation analogues of Examples 18.1 to 18.3: 18.5) mi na'e pu klama le zarci I [non-] [past] go-to the market. I go to the market other than in the past. Chapter 15: But what exactly does na'e negate? Does the negation include only the gismu klama, which is the entire selbri in this case, or does it include the le zarci as well? In Lojban, the answer is unambiguously ``only the gismu''. The cmavo na'e always applies only to what follows it. -- Robert J. Chassell bob@rattlesnake.com 25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road bob@ai.mit.edu Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA (413) 298-4725