From jcowan@reutershealth.com Wed Mar 24 13:48:29 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 88502 invoked from network); 24 Mar 2004 21:48:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.167) by m11.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 24 Mar 2004 21:48:28 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail.reutershealth.com) (65.246.141.36) by mta6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 24 Mar 2004 21:48:28 -0000 Received: from skunk.reutershealth.com (mail [65.246.141.36]) by mail.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/Pro-8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA19637; Wed, 24 Mar 2004 16:42:19 -0500 (EST) Received: by skunk.reutershealth.com (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 24 Mar 2004 16:48:21 -0500 Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 16:48:21 -0500 To: "xahlee.org" Cc: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: <20040324214821.GH19914@skunk.reutershealth.com> References: <200403242119.i2OLJOG12020@xahlee.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200403242119.i2OLJOG12020@xahlee.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 65.246.141.36 From: jcowan@reutershealth.com Subject: Re: [lojban] reply to a negated selbri X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=8122456 X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 21783 xahlee.org scripsit: > * it is not well-known how average English speaker responds to negated > question. (assuming that average English speaker does in fact respone > in one way.) Well, it's well-known to native speakers, who are primarily the ones addressed. > So for example, if someone asks: > > This is not white? > > and i wanted to reply that it is white, i think average English speaker > would answer "yes". (more likely: "that's right!"). Not at all. The answer would be "no" in this case, i.e. "No, that is not white". The presence of "not" in the question is completely disregarded. In the other case, one says "It *is* white", as "Yes" by itself would be confusing: one might instead say "On the contrary". This pattern varies from one language to another. In Russian and Japanese, one replies "logically": "yes" means "Yes, that is not white", and "no" means "No, that is white". In French and German as in English, "non/nein" means "No, that is not white", but the affirmative form is different from the regular affirmative ("si" instead of "oui" in French, "doch" instead of "ja" in German). > According to the "What is lojban" paragraph cited above, if we have > a conversation thus: > A: "xu ti na blabi" > B: "na go'i" > > what B is means is that "it is not white". Am i right here? Yes, you are right. -- "No, John. I want formats that are actually John Cowan useful, rather than over-featured megaliths that http://www.ccil.org/~cowan address all questions by piling on ridiculous http://www.reutershealth.com internal links in forms which are hideously jcowan@reutershealth.com over-complex." --Simon St. Laurent on xml-dev