[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
Mike S., On 18/09/2012 17:08:
On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com <maikxlx@gmail.com">mailto:maikxlx@gmail.com>> wrote:
On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 4:13 AM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email <mailto:and.rosta@hidden.email>> wrote:
I don't understand by what logic the first pair are false and the second true. My initial thinking is that they're all false (and o'e should be sa sma) but would all be true with a different kind of negation (replacing na mlta by li mlti na hcaki).
Okay, that may be reasonable. Let's imagine two separate but utterly identical universes/worlds/situations/cases identical in all respects, containing the same entities, history, etc. The universes are similar to ours, and everything in these two universes is the same as each other until a certain moment in which some interlocutor identical in those worlds up until that moment says a sentence.
In U1, he says: "la sma mlte."
In U2, he says: "la sma na mlte.
Which sentence if any is true, and why.
Let me correct that,
In U1, he says: "la sma mlta."
In U2, he says: "la sma na mlta.
No tricks intended, which sentence if any is true, and why.
John said he thinks both are true. I guess he'd say "la sma je mlta na mlta" is true too.I don't trust my thinking, given the exiguous quality and quantity of thought I'm able to give this at the moment, but my intuition is that one is false (probably "la sma na mlta") and therefore that "la sma je mlta na mlta" is false too. The example is analogous to "Napoleon was married to Josephine and wasn't married to Josephine". There's one reading in which that is a contradiction and therefore false, the reading in which "Napoleon wasn't married to Josephine" means "It isn't the case that Napoleon was married to Josephine". There's another reading in which it's true, where "Napoleon wasn't married to Josephine" means something like "Napoleon was in a state of not being married to J", which is not equivalent to "It's not the case that Napoleon was in a state of being married to J". Xorban na has been defined as the former sort, the one where "la bcda na fgha" is equivalent to "na la bcda fgha". But I guess we want to find a way to do the negation that can't skip over a lV, e.g. "li 'napoleon'i le 'josephine'e sa sma fa na spnike" in contrast to""li 'napoleon'i le 'josephine'e na spnike" = "na li 'napoleon'i le 'josephine'e spnike".
So, "la sma je mlta na mlta" is false, but "la sma je si smi fi mla su smu na mltu" is true. [NB I'm assuming N actually was married to J. I haven't bothered to go and check.] --And.