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I had a real hard time with "even" ("... which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams"). My unusual rendering

"which it-is-not-true-that you can visit by-method something {emphasis:} by-method the event-of dreaming"
can almost certainly be improved. i mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan no'u la'o sy adamgarrigus sy

>> I had a real hard time with "even" ("... which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams"). My unusual rendering

>> "which it-is-not-true-that you can visit by-method something {emphasis:} by-method the event-of dreaming"

>> can almost certainly be improved. i mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan no'u la'o sy adamgarrigus sy




> Pierre responds (via mailing list)

> "even" is {ji'acai}. So {do na ka'e vitke ta'i ji'acai lo nu senva} is a try.
But that's wrong, because that's the negation of "You can visit it, even by
dreaming". If you can visit by any other method, but not by dreaming, {do na
ka'e vitke tai ji'acai lo nu senva} is true, but the English is false.


> {do ta'i ji'acai lo nu senva naku ka'e vitke} is the right way. {ka'e vitke}
is negated; the rest of the sentence is not.




On further consideration, I think "even", in this case, is not {ji'a cai}. The Prophet is not referring to an additional ineffective method; he's highlighting the method least likely to be ineffective, while still asserting its ineffectiveness. I think this is {mu'a} and/or maybe {do'a nai}.




How such constraining of modals is affected by negation, I don't know. The negation needs to cover the implied unconstrained modal; hence my explicit double modal above. Or is Pierre's solution so obviously correct that I just can't see it? mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan

On Wednesday 31 January 2007 19:13, adamgarrigus wrote:
> Re: The Prophet: On Children
> I had a real hard time with "even" ("... which you cannot visit, not even

> in your dreams"). My unusual rendering "which it-is-not-true-that you can visit

> by-method something {emphasis:} by-method the event-of dreaming" can almost
> certainly be improved. i mu'o mi'e komfo,amonan no'u la'o sy adamgarrigus
> sy

"even" is {ji'acai}. So {do na ka'e vitke ta'i ji'acai lo nu senva} is a try.
But that's wrong, because that's the negation of "You can visit it, even by
dreaming". If you can visit by any other method, but not by dreaming, {do na
ka'e vitke tai ji'acai lo nu senva} is true, but the English is false.

{do ta'i ji'acai lo nu senva naku ka'e vitke} is the right way. {ka'e vitke}
is negated; the rest of the sentence is not.

Pierre

On 2/1/07, adamgarrigus <wikidiscuss@lojban.org> wrote:

> >> ("... which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams").
>
> On further consideration, I think "even", in this case, is not {ji'a cai}. The
> Prophet is not referring to an additional ineffective method; he's highlighting
> the method least likely to be ineffective, while still asserting its
> ineffectiveness. I think this is {mu'a} and/or maybe {do'a nai}.

I think the logic is:

You cannot visit it (in any way),
(you can)not (visit it) even in your dreams.

so {ji'a sai} does make sense as indicating the most extreme method
in addition to any other (not explicitly mentioned).

> How such constraining of modals is affected by negation, I don't know.
> The negation needs to cover the implied unconstrained modal; hence
> my explicit double modal above. Or is Pierre's solution so obviously
> correct that I just can't see it?

The original has two clauses, even though the verb is implicit in the
second one. If you want to replicate that you can say something like:

... noi do na ka'e vitke zi'e noi ta'i lo nu senva ji'a sai na ka'e vitke

mu'o mi'e xorxes