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WikiDiscuss


Wiki page BPFK Section: brivla Negators changed

posts: 1912


pc:
> > A predicate, as I'm using it, is the thing that
> > takes
> > arguments and, with the arguments, forms a
> > sentence
> > (or formula). {naku} negates a sentence, or
> > turns
> > a sentence into another sentence. {na'e}
> > changes one predicate into another predicate.
> >
> I have no problem with the distinction you are
> using, but you seem to think it is an absolute
> one. In fact, in Lojban at least, every
> predicate is a sentence and far and away most
> sentences are predicates.

I'm afraid we are speaking different languages.

The distinction I make is between "bridi" and "brivla",
where a bridi is the kind of thing that can have truth
values, which a brivla cannot have.

So you need something
> more than that mark to explian the difference
> between the uses of {na} and {na'e}. I suppose
> you want a scope one, but then you have to allow
> that {naku} at least sometimes has only a
> predicate in its scope and so must be modifying
> it.

{naku} always has a full bridi in its scope:
it takes a bridi and returns a new bridi.

{na'e} never acts on a bridi. It takes a brivla
and returns a new brivla.


> > {na} is the same as {naku} in this regard. It
> > may
> > differ in the order in which it operates with
> > respect
> > to other bridi operators (quantifiers and
> > connectives).
>
> Is that the whole difference?

Yes.

> > The only controversy about {na} has been about
> > where
> > an equivalent {naku} would occur. I don't think
> > up
> > to now anyone had suggested that {na} and
> > {naku}
> > differed in anything but scope.
>
> But scope is just what the problem is here, when
> is the scope the sentence and when (in cases
> where the distinction is useful) a predicate?

The scope of na/naku is always the bridi, never the brivla.

If
> you want that {naku} is just sentential negation
> wherever it occurs, then the same problem arises
> in figuring out what is the sentence it negates.

That's what the reduced form is for. In that form it
is very clear which sentence it negates.

> It is usually not just what is left when the
> {naku} is dropped, as that will typically get
> quantifiers (and tenses and existence conditons
> and so on)wrong.

Right. That's why I'm doing the reduced form exercise.

I suppose that the distinction
> you want is about length of scope not actual
> scope: {na(ku)}takes as long a scope as it can
> get within a sentence, {na'e} takes just the next
> complete structure, typically a brivla or a
> marked tanru — and with {bu} apparently a sumti.

{naku} operates on a sentence. The reduced form shows
which sentence.

{na'e} operates on a brivla (or tanru). It never operates on
a sentence. Which brivla it operates on is already obvious
from the parse, so there is no need for transformations here.

{na'ebo} operates on a term, also obvious which one.

> Is {na bu} a possibility to contradictorily
> negate a term?

Nope.

> Probably not but {ko'a klama naku
> ko'e} is and seems to function like {na'e} but
> with some mysterious additional meaning: a goes
> to someplace other that b, such that not going to
> this place would be going to b, which makes sense
> in some restricted cases anyhow.

{ko'a klama naku ko'e} is simply {naku zo'u ko'a klama ko'e}.
There are no other bridi operators to interact with {naku}
here.

mu'o mi'e xorxes




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