From: cbmvax!uunet!munagin.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn
Message-Id: <9108130357.24266@munagin.ee.mu.OZ.AU>
To: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk
Cc: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com, nsn@munagin.ee.mu.OZ.AU
Subject: Re: "Could you please..." "Yes" 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 12 Aug 91 13:19:30 BST."
             <13974.9108121219@sys.uea.ac.uk> 
Date: Tue, 13 Aug 91 13:57:47 +1000
Status: RO


Quoth Richard Kennaway:
>steffan%pro-angmar@com.alfalfa (Steven Mesnick) writes:
>>So in Lojban, the answer to
>>"Do you know what time it is" would have to be "Yes" or "No", right?

Given that {xu} means "confirm the truth of my statement", yes. Questions,
like I/O in functional languages, are something that doesn't readily fit
in the language structure. I might do a monograph on the state of indirect
questions in lojban as I see it today (with {kau} existing) sometime.

The "Do you"/"Can you" is universalish in Euro languages, sure: they've all
been influenced by French ettiquette. Try the "do you" in Tok Pisin or
Burmese, and see what you get.

>Why?  The listener can give whatever answer he likes.  He is not bound by
>the literal meaning of the speaker's question.

Sure, context is non-negligible, and any linguistic analysis that ignores
(lojbanic or not) is stoopid. At the same time, lojban, as a very primitive
pidgin, needs all the help it can get, and saying "do you" for a request
is not helpful. You'll be advocating encoded English puns in lojban next!

>So there's nothing wrong with
>asking "Do you know what time it is" when you want to know the time.

Or, by that logic, the Modern Greek casual statement, "Are you telling me
the time?" (Mou les thn wra?), or "Don't tell me; what time is it?" (De
mou les, th wra einai? - the "Don't tell me" corresponds, in intonational
context and circumstance of usage, to the English "Tell me", or "Why don't
ya [tell me]" or "How about you tell me."

Sorry, but Lojban can't work that way. Account for context, yes. Lojban will
end up very figurative, yes, because that's the human spirit. And calques
will be made. But let's not be wholesale about it; if we are, then Lojban
has little advantage over a more advanced pidgin (Esp), whose calques are
at least borrowed from a wider range of languages.