On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 8:57 AM, Jorge Llambías
<jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:28 AM, Michael Turniansky
<
mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > So how would you negate just the first part (there is someone
>> > who is not a broda, but is a brode) using naku and gi'e?
>>
>> "su'o da broda naku gi'e brode"
>
> I'm a bit confused about this. Under your rules (naku negates everything
> (and only things) to its right), doesn't that mean "X is broda and/or not
> brode"?
structures. "gi'e" is above naku (and in fact when you write it in
forethought form it becomes clear that it is superordinate and to the
left of naku: "su'o da (broda naku) gi'e (brode)" = "su'o da ge (broda
naku) gi (brode)".
Okay, so now I'm getting further and further confused about your rule. I thought I understood it, based on your claim that it was straightforward and easy to apply. Now naku is working (scoping) backward (leftward)? And yet, if you have it before the broda, you say that it applies to both broda and brode? I'm sorry, xorxes, but I really can't use a rule where I have to submit every utterance to you first to decide how what it means to you. It really seems to be working in arbitrary ways. This might be my own densitude, but the rules in the CLL seem very straightforward, and yours really don't. YMMV
> I hope we get this all straigthened out before I tell you "su'o lo
> regerku poi pu batci do na bilma fi loi vidrnreibi". It might make a
> difference....
If you don't want to confuse your audience, you are better avoiding
na+selbri in the presence of preceding quantifiers, and just use: "no
lo re gerku poi pu batci do cu bilma fi loi vidrnreibi" or "me'i lo re
gerku poi pu batci do cu bilma fi loi vidrnreibi".
Wouldn't bother me at all. This whole thread started with my assertion that "[na's] meaning in very complicated sentence with both existential qualifiers and bridi tails is not well-defined." And your counter assertion " If {su'o da na broda gi'e brode} counts as a 'very complicated sentence', then the characterization of Lojban as 'spoken predicate logic' is almost a sham. The relative scopes of quantifiers, logical connectives and negation should be very straightforward." It seems that you are now agreeing with me that in order for communication to take place, both the speaker and audience must agree on how to interpret utterances and that the types of sentences under discussion are not well-defined. Of course, other than our two voices, we've only heard from Pierre (And by proxy, J Cowan in CLL?)). It seems to me I'd have an easier (read:less-confusing) time communicating with the latter two in lojban than with you.