>> no lo gerku cu xekri
>>
>> Not:
>>
>> lo no gerku cu xekri
>>
>>
>> mu'o
>>
>
> But those are two different assertions.
> In the first, we don't know how
> many dogs are in the universe of discourse, but we know no matter how many
> there are, none of them are black. The second says there are in fact zero
> dogs (lo gerku cu nomei), and it's the second part that really doesn't add
> any information, since any assertion about a nomei (other than an assertion
> about its cardinality, I guess) is per force true, and therefore adds no
> further information. That's right, I am saying that "lo no gerku cu broda",
> for any value of broda, asserts one thing, and one thing only, that "lo
> gerku cu nomei". Therefore it's neither contradictory, nor meaningless, nor
> nonsense. It does make an assertion, it does impart information (that we
> have no dogs), it just imparts it in an efficient way, and does not impart
> any other information that it might on the surface appear to.
It does make an assertion and impart information, yes, and that
assertion and information are incompatible in the way you formed the
_expression_, "lo no gerku cu xekri". What is your assertion about? "lo
gerku". You want to ascribe the property "none of which are black".
NO!!!! I do NOT want to make that assertion! Please stop putting words in my mouth! I was very explicit which assertion I was making. That there are NO dogs! PERIOD! I explicitly stated that it does NOT "impart any other information that it might on the surface appear to" The only assertion I WANT to make is that there are no dogs. Everything else is a red herring.