From jcowan@reutershealth.com Sun Dec 08 06:31:03 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_2_3_0); 8 Dec 2002 14:31:02 -0000 Received: (qmail 34373 invoked from network); 8 Dec 2002 14:31:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m8.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 8 Dec 2002 14:31:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail2.reutershealth.com) (65.246.141.151) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 8 Dec 2002 14:31:02 -0000 Received: from skunk.reutershealth.com (IDENT:cowan@[10.65.117.21]) by mail2.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/Pro-8.9.3) with SMTP id JAA06725; Sun, 8 Dec 2002 09:42:45 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200212081442.JAA06725@mail2.reutershealth.com> Received: by skunk.reutershealth.com (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Sun, 8 Dec 2002 09:30:21 -0500 Subject: Re: [lojban] nelci To: sbelknap@uic.edu (sbelknap) Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 09:30:21 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab@lojban.org (Robert LeChevalier), lojban@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: <3DFF06C3@webmail.uic.edu> from "sbelknap" at Dec 07, 2002 07:56:35 PM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL6] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=8122456 X-Yahoo-Profile: john_w_cowan sbelknap scripsit: > I just had an interesting conversation with my son, who is five. We were > talking about . Quite often, when I ask him if he likes X, he says no, > even though he has never tasted X. I then complain that he has never tasted X, > so how can he say he doesn't like it? I suspect that this has nothing to do with language or negation. Kids actually move from "mi na nelci" to "mi to'e nelci", and it's supposed that this is a biological gadget to prevent them from eating stuff that their culture doesn't eat, and may in fact be toxic. Try googling for "disgust evolution". > I'm going to have to reread what John > had to say about negation. As I recall, the grammar is quite lucid on this > topic. Thank you. That particular chapter was written by lojbab, as a matter of fact. -- John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan "It's the old, old story. Droid meets droid. Droid becomes chameleon. Droid loses chameleon, chameleon becomes blob, droid gets blob back again. It's a classic tale." (Kryten, Red Dwarf)