Date: Sat, 17 Dec 1994 02:21:01 -0500
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199412170721.AA01632@access1.digex.net>
To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject: Re: Q-kau
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Status: RO

>Is this the problem with "indirect questions"? Of course they don't ASK
>anything, that's what direct questions do. That doesn't mean that they
>are not related. Nobody says that indirect questions are asking anything.

I guess this is the crux.  To me, in Lojban, the question words are so
strongly metalinguistically asking a question, that I have trouble thinking of
a mere discursive changing that.  ONLY if I think of "makau" as a single
undivided unit, can I overcome that instinct, and that goes against the grain
of Lojban which says that they are separate words.  In English, where the
"question words" are also used in indirect questions and as relative pronouns,
and maybe a few other ways, the strong semantics usually doesn;t come to the
fore (though I am prone these days to making puns based on interpreting
them in non-standard ways, per the classic "Who's on First" comedy (if
unfamilar with this Jorge, it is worth tracking down as classic American linguistic humor.)

lojbab