>> In Esperanto, e.g., it's obvious which is meant: "ne devas iri" vs. "devas ne iri";Alas Russian shares the problem with English: "не должен идти" *is*
>> Russian (i.a.) shares this, I believe.
ambiguous.
If you must be clear with the first meaning, you just
change the verb from "должен" (must) to "обязан" (obliged). "не обязан
идти" is absolutely clear the first meaning, not second.
On the other hand, "должен не идти" has clear second meaning, but is,
strictly speaking, illiterate. This form is used mainly by people that
know some programming language, and can be considered as a hack
speech.
In normal literate text, without weird logical assumptions, the
average reader would most likely understand "не должен идти" in a
second meaning.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.