Re: Jorge's right re: ni

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

Chris Bogart wrote:

> By analogy with this example, I claim that whenever you have a simple
> sumti with arguments connected by {be}, the main bridi doesn't claim
> anything about those {be} arguments, except that they help identify
> the one place that's privileged by being connected to the {le} gadri.

I think this is a property of "le"; remember that "le broda" needn't
be a broda.  "lo gerku be la sankt. bernard." is not only
veridically a dog, but veridically a St. Bernard.

> But on to {ni}:

I knew damn well when I wrote that that I was skating on thin ice,
probably the thinnest ice in the whole refgram except for the
second-order logic stuff (which is also being discussed now).
It's damn near impossible to explain what you yourself do not
understand.  :-)  I read JCB's various remarks on the subject,
and lojbab's, and I still don't really know what "ni" is doing
in the language, or how it should be construed.
-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban