Re: Kinds of Negation

--- "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> wrote:

> I don't know how natural it is, but Ebisedian
> has 3 types of negatives (explained below).
>
> > A) indicating the boolean negation of the
> > entire clause
> > B) indicating the negative of a set of
> > entities i.e. whatever isn't in the named
> > set.
>
> Ebisedian uses the nullar number for (B), and a
> negation particle for (A).
> The nullar number simply indicates the absence
> of a noun; while the
> negation particles negate the sentence.
Kerno has a similar division, though "ne" is
involved with both.

> Examples:
> 1) mw'p3z3d3 juli'r.    "There is no man in the
> house."
>    man(nul)  house(loc)
>
> 2) my'e p33'z3d3 juli'r. "It is not true that
> the man is in the house. "
>    NEG  man(cvy) house(loc)
Are mw and my are the negations? In K.:

1) Ysta nenom 'nâ domme. "Noman is home."

2) N' ysta pass 'nâ domme il om. "Not at home is
the man."

> There is a third type of "negative" which
> indicates opposition, rather
> than absence. It's not strictly on par with the
> above two negatives, but
> Ebisedian does distinguish between "X is not
> true" and "not-X is true".
K. has a- and ni- to indicate opposition in this
way: amath = evil [a- + math, good]; nigouisiboel
= invisible. Mind you, ni- also means "up from
below", so nitener doesn't mean "to not hold".
Rather, it means "to support".

> For example, if somebody claimed "all dogs are
> white", you could respond
> in one of the following ways:
> - _ji'e_ (yes, all dogs are white)
> - _my'e_ (no, some dogs aren't white---negation
> of universal quantifier)
> - _khe'e_ (no, no dogs are white---universal
> quantifier on negation of the
>   statement)
Very succinct. The K. answer would be "Ke
domdeckis!?" = What did you say!? To follow the
scheme given, you'd most likely encounter:

Si (yes) or Sey (ya), vlanck y thot lor gon.
Ouel (well), vlanck y nuis, ces alch chon.
Mirá (look here), n' vlanck puiyn y nechon.

Translations:
Yep, white (are) all the dogs.
Well, white (are) some, some dogs.
Now look here, (there are) no white at all dogs.

Double negatives don't cancel; like in English,
they intensify. Adding ne- to cy in the last
sentence intensifies the idea of "not at all".
Sort of like "ain't no white dogs nohow!"

Padraic.


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