[lojban-beginners] Re: About the negators

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Tuesday 16 December 2008 14:37:57 Michael Turniansky wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Jorge Llambías 
<jjllambias@gmail.com>wrote:
> > On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 1:33 PM, paskal. kos <pascal.akihiko@gmail.com>
> >
> > wrote:
> > > 2008/12/16 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> > >>   ta na (sutra citka ro badna)
> > >>   That one did not quickly eat all bananas.
> > >
> > > "ta" isn't included?
> >
> > It depends who you ask. If you ask me, no.
>
>   Contrariwise, I maintain that, with "na" rather than "naku", it does
> include the "ta".   As it says in the reference grammar, chapter 15,
> section 2.   I concede that it might create messes with su'o+gi'e
> sentences.  But that's what the grammar says.

{na} just before the selbri (and tense markers, if any) is equivalent to 
{naku} at the beginning of the sentence (before the prenex, if any). 
Furthermore, {naku} is interpreted as if the selbri were at the end (i.e. its 
scope always includes the selbri). So {su'o da na renro lo cutci} is 
equivalent to {naku su'o da lo cutci cu renro}.

Now consider {su'oda na renro lo cutci gi'e karnypre}. I'm going to try to 
transform it. If I do it wrong, please tell me.
su'oda na renro lo cutci gi'e karnypre
su'oda na renro lo cutci .ije su'oda karnypre
naku su'oda lo cutci cu renro .ije su'oda karnypre
noda naku lo cutci cu renro .ije su'oda karnypre
If what you mean is "There is a journalist who doesn't throw a shoe", that's 
{su'oda renro lo cutci nagi'e karnypre}.

All sumti are terms, but not all terms are sumti. {naku} is a term but not a 
sumti. Even though it's not a sumti, it can be the object of a preposition or 
{pe} (or any other GOI). So you can say weird things like {le gerku goi naku 
cu tavla le mlatu ba naku}.

Pierre