First Steps in Lojban
Lesson 16. Negation
You may notice more vocabulary per chapter from here on: the skeleton of Lojban is mostly set, so we widen expression and reading practice.
Up until now, we've mostly dealt with straightforward statements. But what if you want to say that something isn't the case? It's time to tackle negation.
The simplest way is to place the word na immediately before the selbri. This basically says, "It is not true that..."
- na
- negates the bridi; typically immediately before the selbri.
mi na catra le gerku I am not killing the dog.
la .miran. na dasni lo crino kosta Milan is not wearing a green coat.
mi na du la .kocon. I am not Koshon.
- catra
- x1 kills x2 by method x3
- gerku
- x1 is a dog of species/breed x2
- dasni
- x1 wears x2 as garment x3
- crino
- x1 is green
- kosta
- x1 is a coat of material x2
Just like the tense tags we saw earlier, placing na before the selbri also clearly marks where the verb begins. It can even take the place of cu.
That's remarkably simple! Is there an opposite word? Like a way to say, "Yes, it really is true!"
There certainly is! That would be ja'a. It works exactly like na, but it affirms the entire sentence instead of negating it.
- ja'a
- emphatic affirmation before selbri.
do ja'a ca jmive You are (really) alive right now.
ti ja'a prenu .i na minji This is a person; it's not a machine.
- prenu
- x1 is a person (psychological sense)
- minji
- x1 is a machine for purpose x2
Nice — paired particles that work the same way.
So, na and ja'a deal with the truth of the entire sentence. But we also have the NAhE-series of words, which allow you to tweak the meaning of the selbri itself (similar to how SE works).
These words let you build new shades of meaning: the opposite, a neutral midpoint, or just something "other than" the standard definition.
- to'e
- the logical opposite (polar meaning)
- no'e
- the neutral midpoint (not X, not its opposite)
- je'a
- the strong affirmation ("it really is [selbri]")
- na'e
- something else ("other than the usual sense of [selbri]")
mi prami do / mi to'e prami do I love you / I hate you (the opposite of love).
lo vi tanxe cu barda / lo vi tanxe cu no'e barda The box is big / The box is medium-sized (not big, not small).
lo nu cilre fi lo lojbo gerna cu je'a zdile mi Learning Lojban grammar really is fun for me.
- prami
- x1 loves x2
- tanxe
- x1 is a box for contents x2, material x3
- barda
- x1 is big in property x2 compared to x3
- cilre
- x1 learns fact x2 about subject x3 from source x4 by method x5
- gerna
- x1 is the grammar of language x2 regarding property x3
- zdile
- x1 is fun for x2 in aspect x3
Keep in mind that NAhE words don't act as sentence markers like na or cu do. The [NAhE] + selbri combination is still treated as a single unit and can still form part of a tanru.
lo crino to'e barda green small-ish thing
lo na'e crino kosta a non-green coat (a coat of some other color)
From the definitions alone, na and na'e don’t look that different…
na negates the entire claim (it says the whole sentence is false). na'e simply points to a different predicate ("not green" still implies we're talking about a color—it's what we call "suggestive negation").
la .miran. na dasni lo crino kosta It’s false that Milan wears a green coat (maybe naked, maybe other coat).
la .miran. cu dasni lo na'e crino kosta Milan is wearing a coat that is something other than green.
Oh, I see. So ti na nanmu means "This thing is not a man" (it could be a rock for all we know). But ti na'e nanmu suggests it's something like a man or has a gender, but specifically is not a man.
In general, na is your safe default for negation. Use the NAhE series when you want that specific "it's another kind of..." nuance.
Negate with na, refine with NAhE. Simple!
True or false
Pick whether each statement is true or false according to the lesson.
na and ja'a can replace cu.
na negates the selbri, while na'e negates the whole sentence.
NAhE-family words build new selbri from a selbri, so they cannot replace cu.