[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [lojban] .e'onai



At 01:04 AM 02/04/2001 -0500, you wrote:
On Sat, 3 Feb 2001, michael helsem wrote:

> >From: Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
>     li'o
> >Thanks, knew that.  What the heck is a negative request?
> >
>
> "I wouldn't do that if I was you."


I think this is "e'unai", not "e'onai".

First of all, recall that an attitudinal does not negate a sentence logically, so a negative request will likely refer to something that is going on that you want to stop, but it remains a request. The difference is really the subtle one in tone between "Will you and "Wouldn't you":

e'onai ko na krixa
Wouldn't you please not yell!?

You could say the same thing with e'o, but the nai reinforces the negative aspect of the request. It becomes more important when you don't explicitly use a "ko".

do krixa e'onai
You are yelling (Please don't!)

lojbab
--
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                    703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban:                 http://www.lojban.org