Re: na`e

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS wrote:

> Lojban is not really well suited to handle quantification of selbri,
> but something like this at least superficially works:
> 
> (1)        su'o bu'a poi na vreta zo'u le mlatu cu bu'a le stizu
>              For some <X> which is not "vreta", the cat <X> the chair.
> 
> I think {su'o bu'a poi na vreta} really means something else, but
> that's a different story which I'm not sure we want to get into.

For "poi" read "cei", which makes everything fine.
 
> In any case, in my opinion it is always true that:
> 
>  (2)       ro da ro de so'i bu'a zo'u da bu'a de
>             For every x and every y, there are many <Z> such that x <Z> y.
> 
> so that (1) is always true.

Probably (2) is always true, though it is not a tautology.
 
> Well, let's see: {na'e bo ko'a broda} should mean {ko'a na broda
> ije da broda} = "ko'a is not a broda and there is some x such that
> x is a broda".

This is actually too weak:  there has to be some *reasonable*
connection between "ko'a" and "da"; i.e. they have to form two points
on some intelligible (not merely logically possible) scale.
"George is not (na'e) a horse, it is a democracy" is insensate.
 
> [...] [S]omething sits on something, but it is
> neither  the cat nor on the chair.

I agree with this, subject to the criterion of scalar
reasonableness:  perhaps the dog sits on the table.
(Bad dog!)

> But that would be inconsistent. Besides, there is no inner and outer na'e,
> since it doesn't matter in which order you take them.

I agree.
 
-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban