From phma@webjockey.net Wed Mar 24 15:28:57 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: phma@ixazon.dynip.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 21065 invoked from network); 24 Mar 2004 21:39:19 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.166) by m1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 24 Mar 2004 21:39:19 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO blackcat.ixazon.lan) (208.150.110.21) by mta5.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 24 Mar 2004 21:39:19 -0000 Received: by blackcat.ixazon.lan (Postfix, from userid 1001) id 9A0122E7; Wed, 24 Mar 2004 21:39:18 +0000 (UTC) Organization: dis To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 16:39:18 -0500 User-Agent: KMail/1.5 References: <200403242119.i2OLJOG12020@xahlee.org> In-Reply-To: <200403242119.i2OLJOG12020@xahlee.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200403241639.18224.phma@webjockey.net> X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 208.150.110.21 From: Pierre Abbat Subject: Re: [lojban] reply to a negated selbri X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=92712300 X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 21787 On Wednesday 24 March 2004 16:19, xahlee.org wrote: > i find this quite unclear about what it means, because: > * 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.) * I find the passage confusing as is written. For example, it is > not clear to me what "double negative" means as used. * it didn't give > example to illustrate one way or the other. "double negative" means e.g. "this is not not white", which means "this is white". > 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!"). I would answer "it is" or "it isn't", because I don't know what the listener would understand by "yes" or "no". > 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, and "go'i" would mean the same, and "ja'a go'i" would mean "it is white". phma -- li fi'u vu'u fi'u fi'u du li pa