From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:53:50 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 29770 invoked from network); 23 Sep 1997 14:30:21 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by 128.214.94.50 with SMTP; 23 Sep 1997 14:30:21 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <11.34F7D9AF@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Tue, 23 Sep 1997 16:28:37 +0100 Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 15:10:23 GMT+0 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: RV: na'e entails na? X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1948 Lines: 47 Message-ID: Xorx: > la kris cusku di'e > >I think you're right about this, but your 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. > > No, they are not logically equivalent because they have different > scope: na negates the whole bridi, while na'e negates only the selbri. > It doesn't make much difference with singular arguments, but it makes > a big difference as soon as you introduce quantification. For example, > these two say very different things: > > mi na'e prami lo prenu > There is at least one person that I don't love. > > mi na prami lo prenu > It is not the case that there is at least one person > that I love. > (i.e. I don't love anyone.) So you are arguing that "mi na`e prami lo prenu" = mi prami lo prenu na ku In other words, na`e before selbri = na ku at the end of the bridi, so na`e is basically redundant, added only for convenience. I don't see any particular appeal in this position. > > So the choice is "na'e" having no logical > >import at all, or "na'e" duplicating "na". Maybe we'll have to consider > >its pragmatics if it has nothing to contribute logically. > > It has a lot to contribute, because using na with its wide scope > usually is not what is wanted. In any case, I think that there has > already been enough usage of {na'e} before this discussion > that it can be settled by looking at how it has been used. When doing linguistics one learns that mere usage is not a sufficient indicator of the rules of the language: speakers' intuitions must be consulted too. I think that when one reflects upon the difference in meaning between "na zei broda" (=nalbroda) and "na`e zei broda" (=narbroda), it will be clear that "na`e" is not merely a narrow-scope version of "na". --And