On Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:29 PM, Jorge Llambías
<jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Now let's consider just {su'o da na broda}. The obvious prenex
>> rewriting, if we hadn't read of any special rule, is:
>
> That last sentence sets up an interesting straw man -- First, it uses a
> word, "obvious". Obvious to whom? To those who expect na to behave the
> same as naku?
No, I mean obvious from looking at the parse tree, without
preconceptions. Syntactically {na} is part of the bridi tail, and it
is not, in general, the operator of the bridi-tail with widest scope.
So in general the scope of {na} is already conditioned by the other
operators in the bridi-tail and cannot be changed. Only in the very
special case when {na} has widest scope over the bridi-tail can the
issue even arise of giving it even wider scope than just its natural
scope over the bridi-tail. And no justiication is ever given for that
move.
This is a very interesting argument. I've never considered trying to glean meaning from how something parses, and I doubt that anyone can. Can you tell me how "smaji" differs from "ganra" by how they parse? The best you can do is tell me that they are both three-argument gismu. "Na" is forced by the grammar to be right before a selbri (or connective. Any other legal places, disregarding UI and the like? I'm not sure). But how you can jump from syntax to meaning is beyond me. I wish it could be free when attached to ku, as PU is, without affecting its meaning, but it's not. Why they made the choice they did to not let it, is beyond me. But that fact then remains, since they didn't, that shouldn't necessarily mean that it can only affect those things to its right. It's kind of like the claims that since the male pronoun in Hebrew is used for refering to God, God must have a gender, and it must be male. Um, no. It's just the constraints of the language force each noun to be either male or female, and a choice was made (you could argue the case it was made for patriarchal reasons, and so forth, but that's not the point here).
> I'd've personally been a lot happier if they had created an entirely
> different cmavo for "naku" rather than modifying na in a way that is
> counterintuitive to the way it normally works (or the way things like
> tense+KU works, for example). If they had a completely different cmavo, I
> doubt we'd be having this argument.
I don't think you are adressing the argument I'm giving, which has
nothing to do with {naku}.
But it certainly does. You are suggesting that na perform exactly the same way that naku does. In other words, two constructions that are identical. Then why do we need both? Therefore, it must be the case that "na" doesn't behave the same way as "naku". If "naku" had been called "xo'o", that would leave "na" to have the function it has, scoping over the entire bridi (or bridi-tail) (or, possibly more to your satisfaction, not exist at all). I absolutely agree with you that na's interactions with qualifier+gi'e constructions need to be specifically laid out.
Compare:
(1) su'o da na broda
(2) su'o da ge na broda gi na brode
There's no {naku} in sight. (2) cannot mean anything other than "some
x is neither broda nor brode".
Agree
It is unnatural for (1) comparing it
with (2), to mean something other than "some x is not broda".
And here we disagree. I see "na" and say to myself. "this negates the entire tail as it exists without it, so this means "it is not true that there is something that is a broda" If I saw naku, that would be different.
Even better, compare (1) with:
(3) su'o da ge na broda gi na broda
This can only mean "some x is not broda and is not broda", which
reduces to "some x is not broda".