Return-Path: Message-Id: From: cowan (John Cowan) Subject: "Which" questions in Lojban To: lojban-list Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 12:54:52 EDT X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL13] Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Thu Apr 18 12:55:29 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cowan Nick Nicholas used the word "which" in his short translation about news, which prompted me to realize that some explanation may be appropriate about suitable Lojban translations of this word. There are two, or perhaps three, senses of "which" in English. One use is relative, and is illustrated by the previous sentence. This is simply "noi" in Lojban: "such-that-incidentally". The subject of this article, though, is the use of "which" in questions. "Which book do you have?" can have several translations, depending on intent: do ponse le ki'a cukta You possess the (Confusion!) book. is appropriate when the speaker is unclear about the possible set of books you might have, and wishes to express confusion. do ponse le mo cukta You possess the what-type-of book? is appropriate when the speaker wishes the book-possessor to respond with additional information about the book he/she has. This might be a color, a predicate of location like "zunle" = "The left one", or even a title: "me la'e zoi gy. A Tale Of Two Cities .gy" do ponse le xomoi cukta You possess the what-number-th book? is appropriate when the possible books form an ordered set and the speaker wishes an ordinal number identifying the book. This is perhaps unlikely for books, but might come up in a police line-up: le xomoi prenu cu darxi do The what-number-th man hit you? Which man (answer by number) hit you?