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CiWfeMRNrYuNQT.0ztW7gjcNExVDkgcWx6X8qJ.cCxAiYMmnXtJrdPpEqyiX 1YRIJ1FrHR04IAtzJXPl3JK8aYvX7gl1dr.ivleKzYfNSe7DkTH7xiKSO1lK zCVZkirvhi7k.5W2XZ61WpLcIvs.WeiberX4_UHEyesimJ.8Mw26nzkmvYKw R81Jq5AxgYBj4B65AJEZEC4T94heqZwcjmvr9HSzYUhQkIKhjy7I6uHyM92U SychoYTtIRvOlf49keLUBD37_pGdlTzVqizF0miOKfq7iYszA6xA7c60ecoB nXroYvojjDGNztgmqfp_OuiPHEn2QgWIbvucSTNXPe5Abxt_WRT02Fh9Rf3f EoEQnpbsmGs6IPtd42wkiU3bIrFLETM2QwxtA6da1e.X03R9xYGTz2Qa5_qY - X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: ymail-3 References: In-Reply-To: X-Apple-Yahoo-Original-Message-Folder: AAlojbanery Mime-Version: 1.0 (iPad Mail 8G4) Message-Id: X-Mailer: iPad Mail (8G4) From: "John E. Clifford" X-Apple-Yahoo-Replied-Msgid: 1_8328529_AHfHjkQAARdWTdQzmQNvNFZxBcg Subject: Re: [lojban] "lo no" Date: Wed, 18 May 2011 16:29:52 -0500 To: "lojban@googlegroups.com" X-Original-Sender: kali9putra@yahoo.com X-Original-Authentication-Results: gmr-mx.google.com; spf=pass (google.com: best guess record for domain of kali9putra@yahoo.com designates 98.138.88.251 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=kali9putra@yahoo.com; dkim=pass (test mode) header.i=@yahoo.com Reply-To: lojban@googlegroups.com Precedence: list Mailing-list: list lojban@googlegroups.com; contact lojban+owners@googlegroups.com List-ID: X-Google-Group-Id: 1004133512417 List-Post: , List-Help: , List-Archive: Sender: lojban@googlegroups.com List-Subscribe: , List-Unsubscribe: , Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable ."No flying teapots exist" is a weaker claim than"There are no flying teapo= ts", since there might be flying teapots in the domain of discourse, but no= ne in the extension of "exists". As to what to do about "nothing", there i= s the useful bit in Alice, cited in CLL, to show the problems of taking "no= thing" to be the name of something. On the other hand, there is Fridegesis = (sp?) who noted it must be the name of a very big something, since God made= the world out of nothing, and look how big it is! Sent from my iPad On May 18, 2011, at 16:01, tijlan wrote: > On 17 May 2011 14:54, John E Clifford wrote: >> "is a flying tea pot" can indeed be said of nothing, i.e., "There are n= o flying teapots" is a perfectly sensible (and true, I think) sentence. >=20 > Does "There are no flying teapots" really say of nothing? I think it > says of "flying teapots". It means "no flying teapots exist", where > "flying teapots" is quantified with "no" and predicated with "exist". >=20 >=20 > On 17 May 2011 13:11, Michael Turniansky wrote: >> I say you CAN say "is-flying-teapot" of a nothing. >=20 > "Nothing is a flying teapot"? I take notice of how it's convertible > into an expression that says of something: "Everything is not a flying > teapot". The same conversion is possible in Lojban: >=20 > no da broda --> ro da na broda >=20 > If it weren't for this parallel -- if without an underlying > non-nothing subject --, "nothing is a flying teapot" would have been > nonsensical, I think. "no da broda" (saying of nothing) is neither > true nor false independent of "ro da na broda" (saying of something). > Can a predicate be true of absolutely nothing? >=20 > Besides, I wonder if the form of "no da broda" is as much common as > the form of "ro da na broda" among natural languages. Spanish "nada" > and French "rien" can each mean "anything" rather than "nothing" > depending on the verb's negativity. >=20 > No veo nada. > Je ne vois=20 > ("I do not see anything." rather than "I see nothing".) >=20 > Should these be translated as "mi viska no da" or "mi na viska ro da"? >=20 > Japanese has no equivalent form to "no da broda" (nothing is/does > ...). They do have words for the concepts of nothingness, but they > never use them as the subject of a positive proposition which is > expressible in its negative parallel: >=20 > nani-ka mie-ru --> nani-mo mie-nai. > (zo'e se viska --> zo'e na se viska) >=20 > This is how they would translate the English "I see nothing". "nani" > means "anything" indicatively and "what" interrogatively, but never > "nothing". >=20 >=20 >> I am not going to argue this point >> anymore, because you understand what I am saying, and I understand what = you >> are saying. No point in going round and round here. Anymore sentences = you >> say on this exact point will be ignored, but do not think that the fact = of >> my ignoring them means I agree with you. It just means I'm sick of the = same >> points being raised again and again, as if repetition is a valid rhetori= cal >> style to get something across. >=20 > You could help save my repetitive effort to see the supposed logic of > your "lo no broda" by deconstructing what you identify as its 'two > claims' into proper predicative Lojban expressions. The same point > down below. >=20 >=20 >>> There are cases when a reference to >>> "non-nothing" is more meaningful than to "three things", for instance. >>> Suppose I want to change the paint of the walls of my room by today's >>> evening -- "I'm going to give them a new coat of paint": >>>=20 >>> mi ba punji lo cinta lo bitmu >>>=20 >>> What's important for me is that the walls will have different paint >>> than the current one -- whether one material or three hundred >>> materials of paints, not important. Not only I'm unconcerned with the >>> number of lo cinta to be applied, also this number is factually >>> undetermined; not only I don't subjectively know how many lo cinta I'm >>> going to use, also there is no objective answer to "lo xo cinta" as of >>> now. It might even turn out that the wall wouldn't after all change by >>> the evening because I had been too busy doing other things or I >>> changed my own mind. >>=20 >>=20 >> In the last case you have not put paint on the walls, or to put it anot= her >> way, you have put "lo no cinta {of the paint you actually put on the wal= ls}" >> on the walls (or "no lo {whatever amount you intended to put} cinta" on = the >> walls. The statements mean two different things, but refer to the same = end >> result in the physical word) >=20 > Why don't you expand the two sumti into clear Lojban bridi so that we > can more accurately diagnose their logical viability? Here's my take > (incorporating xorxes' suggestion): >=20 > lo no cinta {of the paint you actually put on the walls} > --> zo'e noi cinta {poi mi ca'a punji ke'a lo bitmu ku'o} gi'e nomei >=20 > no lo {whatever amount you intended to put} cinta > --> no da poi cinta >=20 >=20 >>>>> In Lojban, only "no" can exactly quantify nothing, and all non-"no" >>>>> cardinalities can be defined by means of contrast to "no": "nonai". I= f >>>>> I had to fill the inner quantifier for "no lo xo broda" from your >>>>> example, I might say "nonai". >>>>=20 >>>> There's no such grammatical contruct, >>>=20 >>> no nai =3D PA NAI or PA UI =3D PA* >>>=20 >>> http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=3Dzasni+gerna+cenba+vrej= i >>>=20 >>> "NAI: Extended its grammar to that of indicators, i.e. it is allowed >>> after any word." >>>=20 >>> "nonai" would have the composite meaning of "other than zero". And the >>> set of cardinal numbers which are "other than zero" seem more than >>> undefinable: >>=20 >> But that page is not canon. That's xorxes' proposed extension of the >> grammar. >=20 > What canonical or more-acceptable-than-xorlo sources support your > argument for "lo no broda"? >=20 >=20 >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_number >>>=20 >>>=20 >>>> but again, I would hate to think >>>> that you can mean by that negatives, or imaginary numbers. >>>=20 >>> "PA mei" never means a negative or imaginary number, insofar as the >>> interlocuters properly understand what cardinality is about. >>>=20 >>=20 >> That's fine. Like I said, if you are wiling to restrict its domain in >> that way, I have no problem with that. But we already HAVE a construct = that >> means that, za'uno So you don't have to reinvent the wheel. "nonai" wo= uld >> include things like ka'o and ni'ure. >=20 > To the extent that "za'uno" too can mean non-integers like "pimu", > though, it too would have to be subjected to the said semantic > restriction when used with "mei". So "za'uno" wouldn't be functionally > different from "nonai". >=20 > I suggested "nonai" because: the sense of negation seemed more > appropriate for my response to your argument for "no"; and I wanted to > emphasize the contrast between nothing and something (non-nothing). >=20 >=20 >>> Such 'restrictive' compositions exist in other parts of the language. >>> For example, we don't say "ci lo pa gerku", because, however >>> syntactically valid, "ci" makes no sense in the composition that it's >>> in. Likewise, we shouldn't assume "nonai mei" could mean negatives or >>> imaginary numbers, because such are never to be in the scope set by >>> "mei" in its compositional relation to the preceding PA. >>>=20 >>=20 >>=20 >> But like I said, if you mean "greater than zero", than SAY that, not >> "non-zero". >=20 > In the context of cardinality, "greater than zero" basically means "at > least one", and "su'o" would thereby be neater than "za'uno". But I > wanted to avoid that line of positive expressions, because earlier > comments (especially by xorxes) suggested that "su'o" may not be > considered a default inner quantifier for "lo broda". >=20 >=20 > mu'o >=20 > --=20 > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups= "lojban" group. > To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegr= oups.com. > For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojb= an?hl=3Den. >=20 --=20 You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "= lojban" group. To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegrou= ps.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban= ?hl=3Den.