Date:  Fri, 21 Nov 1997 20:53:09 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199711220153.UAA07105@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>
Subject:      Re: Indirect questions
X-To:         lojban <lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR
X-Mozilla-Status: 0011
Content-Length: 2102
X-From-Space-Date: Fri Nov 21 20:53:42 1997
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU

And:
 >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}?

>> 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.

 >> 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}.

>I can't see it as meaning "Say whether you're sad".

How would you say "Say whether you're sad"?
Would that work as an explication of the direct question?

>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}.

co'o mi'e xorxes