From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:53:55 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 29032 invoked from network); 18 Sep 1997 16:52:51 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 18 Sep 1997 16:52:51 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <9.815FA675@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Thu, 18 Sep 1997 18:52:41 +0100 Date: Thu, 18 Sep 1997 17:48:23 GMT+0 Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: negated nitcu X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1473 Lines: 34 Message-ID: Don: > cu'u la .and. > > Not so subtle, because if {mi na`e nitcu ko`a} is true then either > > {mi nitcu ko`a} or {mi na nitcu ko`a} can be true. > Either {mi nitcu ko'a} or {mi na nitcu ko'a} is a tautology and always true. What I mean is that if you only know {mi na`e nitcu ko`a} then you don't know whether {mi nitcu ko`a} is true. > {mi na'e nitcu ko'a} implies that {mi na nitcu ko'a} is true. It doesn't. At best in certain contexts it pragmatically implicates that. But certainly it doesn't logically. Unless, that is, a stipulation has been added to the refgram such that na`e and to`e are taken to *entail* na. > The subtlety > lies in whether the speaker wishes to indicate that there is some sort of > relationship between the arguments or not. Using "na" is the more > diluted than "na'e". "to'e" for the polar opposite is much stronger than > "na'e" and gives a definitive relationship. All of the above could be used > for the translation, but it shows the fine nuances that jbobau allows. You're missing the point, which is that na on the one hand and na`e and to`e on the other are entirely different in their logical nature, and not merely nuanced variants of one another. Na is a logical negator. Na`e and to`e are basically like components in a... - I can't believe it, but I've forgotten the word!: the one misleading glossed "metaphor". I say all this from my memory of my knowledge of Lojban, not from a recent reading of the refgram. And