Message-Id: <199709250141.UAA11526@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: HACKER G N Date: Wed Sep 24 20:42:27 1997 Sender: Lojban list From: HACKER G N Subject: Re: RV: na'e entails na? X-To: And Rosta X-cc: Lojban List To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <0EH000CHIJYGA9@newcastle.edu.au> X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1042 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Sep 24 20:42:27 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU On Wed, 24 Sep 1997, And Rosta wrote: > John: > > Chris Bogart wrote: > > > > > [Y]our definition (that na'e entails > > > na), plus your claim (that any set of arguments > > > have *some* relationship) > > > together imply that na'e will be logically > > > equivalent to na. > > > > But not all relationships are relevant, only those > > that are reasonable scalar alternatives to the one > > denied. > > Is this merely pragmatics, or is one actually asserting, > by using na`e, that the relationship is relevant? > (i.e. "su`o broda poi relevant to di`u", or something > like that) > That's not pragmatics, that's semantics. It's part of the reason why scalar negation was invented in the first place, so you wouldn't be able to say "That's not a brown chair" while allowing the possibility of someone else's saying, "No, it's a Shetland pony". That kind of broadly scoped negation is left up to "na". "Na'e" is much narrower, and implies some sort of commensurability between the concept being negated, and the one being affirmed. Geoff