Re: [bpfk] polysemy of {nai}

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Dec 8, 2012 at 3:21 PM, John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> Jorge Llambías scripsit:
>
>> Negation is acheved with "na" or "na'e". They both have the same
>> meaning, just different scopes. "na'e" can pretty much be replaced
>> with "me lo na" and "na" can pretty much be replaced with "na'e ke ...
>> ke'e be ... bei ... bei ...".
>
> This is not at all the case.
>
> "mi na klama le zarci" means that it's false that I go to the store, and
> nothing more.  It does not affirm anything.  "mi na'e klama le zarci"
> means that I do have some relationship to the store that is related on
> a scale to "going".  Perhaps I am coming from the store.  At any rate,
> something is being affirmed.

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". 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.

A better example for what you mean may be something like "lo du'u
carvi na blanu" vs. "lo du'u carvi na'e blanu", where you could argue
that the first is true (because propositions don't have colors) while
the second must be false, because presumably you would be saying that
a proposition is of some color other than blue. But other than such
nonsense sentences, there really is no difference (besides scope)
between "na" and "na'e". Both "lo du'u carvi na blanu" and "lo du'u
carvi na'e blanu" fail even before considering their truth value
because they involve inappropriate scales for the objects in question.
If you prefer, I will say that "na" and "na'e" have the same meaning
(leaving aside scope issues) whenever they are used with predicates
appropriate for their arguments.

>> "nai" should be moved to CAI because it does the same as other CAI's,
>> it takes a word and changes it into something with the same function
>> and a systematically related meaning.
>
> I've just shown that it's *not* systematically related.  Sometimes it is
> mere contradictory negation, sometimes it is scalar negation, and sometimes
> it is polar negation.

".enai" is not any of those with respect to ".e". ".enai" is a logical
connective with truth table "0 1 0 0" as opposed to truth table "1 0 0
0" for ".e".  In fact the closest to contradictory negation of ".e" is
"na.anai", with truth table "0 1 1 1" not ".enai".

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".

> Allowing "nai" to be attached to any word would
> indeed require a systematic relationship between the word and its
> counterpart with "nai", but that contradicts both the Red Book and usage.

There is some usage of "nai" with words other than those officially
allowed, but yes, allowing "nai" after any word would of course
contradict the CLL.

> "nai" is a convenience feature, which is why the grammar only allows it in
> well-defined places.

Why would its being a convenience feature prevent it from being
allowed with every word? It would then be even more convenient.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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