Date:  Tue, 18 Nov 1997 16:27:14 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199711182127.QAA18676@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>
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Content-Length: 2632
X-From-Space-Date: Tue Nov 18 16:27:23 1997
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>> >>                da poi danfu lu xu mi badri li'u zo'u ko'a djuno da
 >> >
>> >A somewhat off-topic question, but maybe this should be "...danfu la'e
lu
>> >xu mi badri li'u"?
>>
>> Yes, definitely.
>
>I don't see why. {lu xu mi badri li`u} itself refers to a question.

Yes, a morphological question, but I think that's not what we
want. {lu xu se badri mi li'u} is different from {lu xu mi badri li'u}
for example. They're different questions morphologically, but
they mean the same thing. It's the meaning that interests me.

>So {lo danfu be lu xu mi badri li`u} refers to the answer to the
>question, I'm not sure whether the answer is a text or a bit
>of information (a truth value, in this instance).

Two points:

(1) In my opinion {le danfu} and {le se danfu} are the same
type of thing. If one is a text then so is the other. But the text is
not what I'm interested in. For example, given some text:

 - xu do badri
- le mi mlatu cu morsi

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}.

(2) The answer in any case is never a truth value.
The simplest answers to {xu do badri} are {mi badri}
or {mi na badri} (or their equivalents in terms of {go'i}).
The answer is NOT a truth value. (Of course there
can be all manner of other in-between answers, etc.)

>I don't know what {la`e lu xu mi badri li`u} refers to.

{la'e lu ko'a badri li'u} is {le du'u ko'a badri}. With a question
it's not so straightforward because {xu} escapes the boundaries
of {du'u} but not those of {lu}. Same goes about {mi}. But other
than that I think it is clear. {la'e} extracts the proposition from
the text.

>But given that {mi badri} is a statement, but {la`e lu mi
>badri li`u} refers not to a statement but rather to a proposition
>or state-of-affairs wherein I am sad, I would conclude that
>{la`e lu xu mi badri li`u} refers not to a question but rather
>to the proposition being asked about,

Not to a sentence-question, right! But that's just what I need
for the x2 of djuno, a proposition (a du'u). A proposition that
serves as answer to the propositional question {la`e lu xu
mi badri li`u}. When I say {ko'a djuno le du'u xukau mi badri}
I am not making reference to any sentential question. I'm
claiming koha's knowledge of a state-of-affairs.

>e.g. "mi badri" or
>"X is truthvalue of le du`u mi badri", or something along those
>lines.

The first, or rather, {le du'u mi badri}. Not "I am sad" but
"that I am sad". Talk of truth values here just complicates
matters.

co'o mi'e xorxes