Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 20:53:52 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711200153.UAA18237@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Sender: Lojban list From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Subject: Re: Indirect questions X-To: lojban To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2980 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Nov 19 20:54:29 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU And: >> Then I could say: {lu le mi mlatu cu morsi li'u cu danfu >> lu xu do badri li'u}, but when I say {ko'a djuno le du'u xukau >> mi badri} I don't mean {ko'a djuno le du'u le mi mlatu cu >> morsi}. >OK. But why are you so sure that {danfu} is the appropriate >selbri? {la`e lu le mi mlatu cu morsi} is not what one knows >if one knows le du`u xu kau do badri. I seem to be missing a bit >of your reasoning. I suppose we need to know what {danfu} is supposed to mean. I think that you either have { danfu } or { danfu }, or maybe we can have both, but I don't think you can have a mix. If I'm right then you must have either: {ko'a djuno le danfu be la'e lu ... li'u} or {ko'a djuno la'e le danfu be lu ... li'u}, because the x2 of djuno is a du'u, not a text. >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. 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 suppose the "answer" to that command would be some information >such as a list of everything that is a truthvalue of {do badri}. To me, as I said, it's either: {lu mi badri li'u danfu lu xu do badri li'u} or {la'e lu mi badri li'u danfu la'e lu xu do badri li'u}. The second one could be {le du'u mi badri cu danfu la'e lu xu do badri li'u}, assuming the question was made to {mi}. In the case of { danfu } there is no claim that any statements were made by anybody. >So if {xu do badri} means > > Bring it about that for every x, a truthvalue of {do badri}, > I know that x is truthvalue of {do badri}. > >then {la`e lu xu do badri} means one of the following: > > - For every x, a truthvalue of {do badri}, I know that x is > truthvalue of {do badri}. > - x is truthvalue of {do badri}. > - do badri > >To me, the first of these makes the most sense. To me, my knowledge has little to do with the meaning of {la'e lu xu do badri}. Perhaps it's not such a good idea to use examples with mi/do. What would you say {la'e lu xu la djan badri} means? "I know whether John is sad"? >{la`e lu ko >klama li`u} would be "do klama". And {xu do badri} would >be equivalent to something like {gau ko mi djuno le du`u >xu kau do badri}. >["gau" is a guess at the appropriate BAI] How do you make reference to the meaning of {lu xu la djan badri}, which is the same as the meaning of {lu xu se badri la djan}, even though they're two different text-questions? co'o mi'e xorxes