Date:  Fri, 21 Nov 1997 12:49:41 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199711211749.MAA20214@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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John (to Jorge to And):
> > >I take {xu do badri} to mean
> > >
> > >   Bring it about that for every x, a truthvalue of {do badri},
> > >     I know that x is truthvalue of {do badri}.
> >
> > That's asking for too much. For example, you are asking
> > the person not only that they respond with the truth but that
> > they convince you that they're saying the truth (otherwise
> > you wouldn't _know_ that what they say it true). Maybe that
> > really is implicit in questions? I don't know.
>
> It not only asks too much, but it fails to capture many common uses
> of questions.  For example, I may ask "Is p true?" when I already
> know that p (or that not-p), in order to test the listener's
> truthfulness.  On a psychological test, this appears in the form
> "Have you ever hated your parents?"; in domestic life, "Did you
> eat the cookies?".

Hmm. I think I'll agree that those are bona fide questions.
Therefore I should revise my explication to:

 Bring it about that for every x such that you believe x is
    truthvalue of {do badri}, I know that you believe that
    x is truthvalue of {do badri}.

Now pick holes in that.

> > I would have said {xu do badri} means: repeat this
> > statement replacing the question word so as to make it
> > a true statement. The replacement for {xu} is in a first
> > instance either {na} or {ja'a}, and ususally you will repeat
> > by using {go'i}.
>
> I agree.

See my dissent voiced elsewhere.

--And