Re: [lojban] Does {na nei} work like that?

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 01:13:08PM -0700, Jonathan Jones wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 21, 2010 at 11:17 AM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
> 
> > On Saturday 20 November 2010 16:06:36 ianek wrote:
> > > coi
> > > {na nei} should work like {na go'i}. According to LLC 15.9, {na}
> > > replaces previous negation, not negates it. Just like this:
> > > A: i le vi karce na crino
> > > B: i na go'i
> > >
> > > A: this car isn't green
> > > B: it isn't
> > >
> > > So {na nei} should mean "this negative statement is indeed true", or
> > > I'm awfully wrong.
> >
> > That's what I think too. What happens, though, when you have
> > several {na} or {ja'a} in front of a selbri?
> >
> > I think the right way to say "this statement is false" is "dei
> > jitfa".
> 
> 
> From Robin Lee Powell's signature:
> 
> Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this
> parrot is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", *but "this sentence
> is false" is "na nei".*

Yes, I'm pretty sure that's what they were replying to.

They're point is that {na nei} means something like "this negated
statement is true", which isn't a contradiction the way "this
statement is false" is.  It's more like " "not this statement" is
false", which is trivially true.

{la'e dei jitfa}, surely?

That has the profound disadvantage of not being *nearly* as funny.
Wholesale replacements welcome.

-Robin

-- 
http://singinst.org/ :  Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
Lojban (http://www.lojban.org/): The language in which "this parrot
is dead" is "ti poi spitaki cu morsi", but "this sentence is false"
is "na nei".   My personal page: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/rlp/

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