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Re: [engelang] xorban summary



Jorge Llamb�as, On 20/09/2012 02:45:
On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 8:29 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@hidden.email>  wrote:

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".

I think the two readings are not related to where the "na" is respect
to Napoleon, but rather where you put the tense:

Yes, I agree, but if "la bcda na fgha" is necessarily equivalent to "na la bcda fgha", then "la bcda na fgha" can be equivalent only to "la bcda na [at some point in time:] fgha" and not to "la bcda [at some point in time:] na fgha", and so for the latter I was suggesting "la bcda si smi fi na fgha", which still seems to me the best available solution. If "la bcda na fgha" were ambiguous wrt the location of implicit tense (-- which would not be a felicitous ambiguity) then it couldn't be inherently equivalet to "na la bcda fgha".

--And.