So simplifying the grammar means nothing here.
Instead I suggest retaining the grammar of {nai} as it is and create alternative solutions in CAI for each type of negation.
Yes, it will make the vocabulary a bit lengthier but here is where usage will decide without any fear of demolishing the grammar.
I should note that your other suggestions including deleting {na'u, soi} are nice and should be discussed more frequently.
On Sunday, December 9, 2012 12:29:16 AM UTC+4, xorxes wrote:
On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 4:49 PM, John Cowan <co...@mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> Jorge Llambías scripsit:
>
>> I don't think you can use "mi na'e klama le zarci" to affirm that you
>> are coming from the store. You can only use it to affirm that the
>> relationship between you and the store, whatever that relationship may
>> be, is other than "klama".
>
> Exactly, and what I am affirming (though not explicitly) is that the
> relationship is "se te klama".
But you can't use "na'e klama" to affirm that. "na'e klama" doesn't
mean "se te klama" even when they can both be true together.
> In English, if I ask "Are you going to
> the store", I may reply "I'm not *going* to the store", with sentential
> stress on "going". This is "na'e", whereas "I'm not going to the store"
> without sentential stress may be "na'e" or "na", depending on context.
> (I don't know how you make this contrast in the Romance languages.)
Same way, that's just focus. If we use "ba'e" for focus, we could
distinguish "ba'e mi na klama le zarci" vs "mi na ba'e klama le zarci"
vs "mi na klama le ba'e zarci", indicating what part of the sentence
is what makes it false.
> This is clearer if we look at sumti scalar negation with "na'e bo".
> "mi klama na'e bo le zarci" definitely affirms that I went somewhere,
> it just wasn't the store.
Yes, just like "mi klama lo na me le zarci" does. "na'e bo" is pretty
much the same as "lo na me".
> "mi na klama le zarci" makes no such claim.
Just like "mi na'e klama le zarci" makes no such claim.
>> That's not really saying anything different from "mi na klama le
>> zarci". If you are coming from the store, both "mi na'e klama le zarci"
>> and "mi na klama le zarci" are true, but neither affirms that you are
>> coming from the store.
>
> However, if I stand in no relation whatever to the store, or more
> practically if the relationship I have with it is unrelated to "klama",
> then "na'e" is false but "na" is still true.
How could you possibly be not going to the market and not be therefore
in a non-going relation to the market? You could, for example, also
own the market, but you would still have to be either going to it or
non-going to it. If "ko'a broda" makes sense, then either it or "ko'a
na'e broda" must be true. They can't both be false unless they are
nonsense..
> "klama" is not really scalar, so it's a bad example however you look at it.
>
>> By systematically I meant it follows a pattern in how it changes words
>> with the same function. I agree it is not possible to follow the same
>> pattern for words with wildly different functions such as, for
>> instance, ".e" and "ui".
>
> In that case, spell out what "nai" means when attached to each selma'o,
> and write the whole thing up as a proposal. Without that, it's just
> loosening for the sake of loosening.
I think someone already did that on the page linked at the start of
this thread.
mu'o mi'e xorxes