[lojban] reply to a negated selbri

["xahlee.org" <yahoo@xahlee.org>]

According to "What is Lojban", "Contradictiory negation"
.../lojban.level0.html.utf/comp.html
(website currently down)

it says

---- begin quote
If you were to use go'i after a sentence that contained a na contradictory negation, the negation would carry over to the repeated sentence. Unlike English, na go'i would not form a double negative; it merely replaces the na by another na leaving the sentence unchanged. Instead, you must cancel a negative by using the positive equivalent of na, ja'a, to replace the previous sentence na:
---- end quote

i find this quite unclear about what it means, because:
* it is not well-known how average English speaker responds to negated question. (assuming that average English speaker does in fact respone in one way.)
* I find the passage confusing as is written. For example, it is not clear to me what "double negative" means as used.
* it didn't give example to illustrate one way or the other.

So for example, if someone asks:

This is not white?

and i wanted to reply that it is white, i think average English speaker would answer "yes". (more likely: "that's right!").


According to the "What is lojban" paragraph cited above, if we have a conversation thus:
A: "xu ti na blabi"
B: "na go'i"

what B is means is that "it is not white". Am i right here?

 Xah
 xah@xahlee.org
 http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html



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