[YG Conlang Archives] > [engelang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

Re: [engelang] xorban summary



Well, tenses aside, this sounds like a reasonable reading.  I get the impression that the role of individuals are here being played by s-t chunks, which is fine, since the same formalism obtains and all the various interps can agree on what is said and meant.  This doesn't seem to be about near-sighted orphans, however, who still present a problem.  Well, the details of the explication would be different, though the pattern is the same -- we just need a single word to cover all these ultimate individuals.



From: And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email>
To: engelang@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 4:46 AM
Subject: Re: [engelang] xorban summary

 
Jorge Llambías, 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.