Re: na`e

[bob@MEGALITH.RATTLESNAKE.COM]

I am puzzled over the confusion.  Here are three utterances:

  1. The cat sits on the chair.
     lo mlatu ca'o vreta lo stizu
       <What is truly a cat is in the continuative of
       reclining/resting on what is truly a chair.>

  2. It is false that the cat sits on the chair.
     lo mlatu na ca'o vreta lo stizu

  3.  The cat sits otherwise than on the chair.
      lo mlatu ca'o na'e vreta lo stizu

The latter utterance contains *two* propositions:

     a. That it is false that the cat sits on the chair; and,
     b. that some other proposition is true.


    to ra'unai lo mlatu ca'a vreta lo cuktykajna toi
    (Incidentally, the cat actually reposes on a
    book-type-of-counter/shelf.)


Why do I make this interpretation?  Here are extracts from a fairly
recent, but pre-baselined copy of the reference grammar:


Chapter 10:
    Unlike contradictory negation, scalar negation asserts a truth:
    that the bridi is true with some tense other than that specified.
    The following examples are scalar negation analogues of Examples
    18.1 to 18.3:

    18.5)   mi na'e pu klama le zarci
            I [non-] [past] go-to the market.
            I go to the market other than in the past.

Chapter 15:
    But what exactly does na'e negate?  Does the negation include only
    the gismu klama, which is the entire selbri in this case, or does
    it include the le zarci as well?  In Lojban, the answer is
    unambiguously ``only the gismu''.  The cmavo na'e always applies
    only to what follows it.

--

    Robert J. Chassell               bob@rattlesnake.com
    25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road     bob@ai.mit.edu
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (413) 298-4725