From yahoo@xahlee.org Thu Mar 25 01:42:41 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: xah@xahlee.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 4523 invoked from network); 25 Mar 2004 09:42:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 25 Mar 2004 09:42:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO xahlee.org) (208.186.130.4) by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 25 Mar 2004 09:42:40 -0000 Received: (from xah@localhost) by xahlee.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) id i2P9gdl17608; Thu, 25 Mar 2004 04:42:39 -0500 Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 04:42:39 -0500 Message-Id: <200403250942.i2P9gdl17608@xahlee.org> To: lojban@yahoogroups.com, xah@xahlee.org X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 208.186.130.4 X-eGroups-From: "xahlee.org" From: "xahlee.org" Subject: Re:reply to a negated selbri X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=157844469 X-Yahoo-Profile: p0lyglut X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 21790 I kind of prefer for lojban to choose an interpretation/grammar as to stick to the so-called logical response to negated questions. That is, answer whether the question is true or false. Apparently this is not the case. Can anyone explain a bit why lojban choose to be the way it is? How do i view it in a positive light? :) thanks to all who helped. Xah xah@xahlee.org http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html ------------ John Cowan wrote: 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.