Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 12:59:53 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711251759.MAA15666@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: Re: Indirect questions X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 3490 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 25 12:59:56 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Jorge: > >A nungasnu. The speaker is a gasnu. The text is a nungasnu. > >The text type is some kind of abstract intensional thingy. > > From what you say below, I take it that you're calling {lu ... li'u} > a text type. If that is so, I don't know what would be a text. > Maybe {lu'e lu ... li'u}? An utterance, or text-token, exists in space-time. A sentence, or text-type does not; it is abstract. On reflection, I now think that it makes more sense for Zo, lu, zoi, etc. to denote text-types. This is because zo/lu/zoi are not selbri valsi. Since there may be many tokens of a given text-type, reference to a text-token should be by means of a selbri (e.g. "le nu cusku zo coi" - 'an utterance of the text-type _coi_'). > >> Do you mean something like: > >> le nu mi cusku lu go'i li'u cu danfu lu xu do badri li'u > >> My saying "I am" is an answer to "Are you sad?". > >> Or do you mean: > >> le mi se cusku cu danfu lu xu do badri li'u > >> What I said is an answer to "Are you sad?". > > > >The former. I think x2 of cusku is a text-type, not an actual > >utterance. > > But I thought you agreed that the x1and x2 of {danfu} should > be of the same type. If {le se danfu} is a text-type, then > {le danfu} should be one as well. I wouldn't have thought sentences (text-types) have answers; rather, utterances, which happen in a particular universe and context and have particular referents, do. So better is: le nu mi cusku lu go'i li'u cu danfu le nu cusku lu xu do badri li'u My saying "I am" is an answer to someone's saying "Are you sad?". > >> why not just: > >> {ko cusku le sedu'u xukau do badri} = "Say whether you're sad". > > > >Doesn't that mean {ko cusku lu xu kau do badri li`u}? > > No, because of {do} and {xukau}, which inside {lu} mean > different things than inside {du'u}. {do} inside {du'u} is the > audience, inside {lu} it could be somebody else. The {kau} > inside {du'u} removes the directing of {xu} to the audience. > Inside of {lu}, {xu} is not directed to the audience in the first > place. > > if {da de du'u xukau do badri}, then {da} is a proposition and {de} is > a text-type corresponding to that proposition. The x2 of cusku asks > for a text-type, that's why I have to use {le se du'u}. But I'd have thought that the text-type corresponding to the propositionoid "xu kau do badri" is {xu kau do badri}. I agree that {da} is a proposition and {de} is a text-type corresponding to that proposition, but what proposition and text-type do you think da & de are? > >I can't see it as meaning "Say whether you're sad". > > How would you say "Say whether you're sad"? Ko ???? le du`u xu kau do badri -- I can't remember the appropriate word for "say". Possibly something like "selvlagau" would do, but there must be gismu for it. > Would that work as an explication of the direct question? Yes. Direct questions would reduce to a subcase of indirect questions. > > >Just to remind myself: I take it that the point of this thread > >is still the question: > > What is the appropriate technical definition of an (indirect) > > question, and how might an (indirect) question be phrased in > > Lojban in such a way as to make its logical structure explicit? > > Well, I think this thread started with you objecting to > {le danfu be la'e lu xu do badri li'u} instead of > {le danfu be lu xu do badri li'u}. In my opinion, the second > one cannot be a {se djuno}. I agree with this particular opinion. --And