Date:  Wed, 29 Oct 1997 13:13:40 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199710291813.NAA28407@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Organization: University of Central Lancashire
Subject:      Re: Indirect questions
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To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
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X-From-Space-Date: Wed Oct 29 13:14:04 1997
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Jorge:
> Chris:
> >  What's a non i.q. way of saying {ko'a na djuno ledu'u
> >xukau mi badri} (She doesn't know whether or not I am sad).
>
> And solved this one one or two years ago, but I don't  remember
> now exactly how it went.  I think we needed a selbri with the place
> structure "x1 is the truth value of x2". I'm tempted to use {se jetlai}
> for that:
>
> jetlai  [jetnu klani]   x1 (du'u) amounts to x2 (li) in truth.

If {jei} meant "whether" then you could use {jei} for your
example. And then for "I know what she ate" you could have:

1.  ro da zo`u mi djuno le jei ko`a citka da

If {jei} means "jetlai", then you can do "whether" thus:

2.  ro da poi ke`a jei mi badri zo`u mi djuno le du`u da jei mi badri
3.  ro da poi ke`a jetlai be le du`u mi badri zo`u mi djuno le du`u
    da jetlai le du`u mi badri

Possibly this can be abbreviated if the second "mi badri" clause
can be replaced by an anaphor.

(1) Would then become:

4.  ro da ro de poi ke`a jei ko`a citka da zo`u mi djuno le du`u
    de jei ko`a citka da

It should be clear why I would prefer {jei} to be clarified as
meaning "whether" rather than "is the truth value of". It can
be defined straightforwardly in logical terms, it adds concision,
and the competing meaning can straightforwardly be rendered by
"jetlai".

--And