Message-Id: <m0rhk3G-00001pC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Thu, 23 Feb 1995 19:47:43 +0000
Reply-To:     ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: replies re. ka & mamta be ma
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Wed, 22 Feb 95 20:58:09 EST.)
Content-Length: 1187
Lines: 28

Jorge:
> > I am now become dubious about the utility of Q-kau. {Makau} can
> > notionally be replaced by {da}, thus:
> >   koha djuno le duhu makau klama
> >   koha djuno le duhu (da zohu) da klama
> No, it may be that she knows that noone is coming.

I mean that {da} (or {no da}) could be a replacement for {makau}
that makes the bridi true.

> > That is, to claim {koha djuno le duhu makau klama} is merely
> > to claim "She knows whether there is someone that came". It
> > seems the same as {koha djuno le duhu xukau da klama}.
> Perhaps, but {ko'a djuno le du'u makau klama} strongly suggests
> (without reaching the point of claiming) that she knows a useful
> answer to the question, just as {ma klama} pragmatically asks for
> a useful answer, even though in principle anything that makes
> the sentence true is acceptable. (What is useful and how useful
> it is depends, of course, on context.)

I'll go along with this. Two interesting things have emerged from
our discussion of Q-kau: (1) there are alternative locutions of form
{da zohu ... le duhu ... da}; (2) the truth-conditional meaning
of Q-kau is not what we (or at least I) had originally thought
it to be.

---
And