na`e

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

Annoyed by my failure to remember the word "tanru",
I bothered to look up the online refgram discussion
of na`e. It is completely unclear about whether my
contention is correct; it seems that the question has
not been addressed. Certain phrases suggest that
na`e does entail na, but this is not as far as I
can see said explicitly, and the general description
of na`e certainly does not imply that na`e entails
na. Certainly scalar negation in English does not entail
"bridi negation", and there is explicit comparison with
English.

Since the refgram is unclear on this score, either
position could become adopted by the speech community.
So long as both positions are possible, the semantically
weaker one (no entailment of na) would, logically,
prevail.

What I predict will happen is (i) that na`e will work like
English "other than", and will be used to communicate
negation, and (ii) that usage will not evidence attention
being paid to logic. In other words, a continuation of
current trends.

--And