Date:  Thu, 18 Dec 1997 20:11:19 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199712190111.UAA25900@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: whether (was Re: ni, jei, perfectionism)
X-To:         lojban <lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
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X-From-Space-Date: Thu Dec 18 20:11:20 1997
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And:
 >>         la djan frica la alis le ka ce'u klama makau
>>         "John differs from Alice in where they are going."
 >
>The latter means: "the place where Alice is going is not the
>place where John is going".

It means that assuming that they both go somewhere.

> No indirect question there.

But then there would be no indirect question in {mi djuno le du'u
la djan klama makau}, which can also be rephrased, as you
have shown.

Let me change the example:

        la djan dunli la alis le ka xukau ce'u glico
        "John is equal to Alice in whether they are English."

This one can be explained exactly like {djuno}:

        la djan dunli la alis le ka ce'u glico
        ija la djan dunli la alis le ka ce'u na glico
        "Either John equals Alice in that they're both English
        or John equals Alice in that they're both not English."

>What you are doing with {djuno} is licit, but doesn't advance
>us towards a logical understanding of {makau}. To argue that
>these Q-kau are the same, you'd need to show it by translating
>it into something we understand, such as logical form.

Well, I did it for {dunli}. For {frica} or {zmadu} it is more difficult
because we need to evaluate the indirect question with two different
answers. Let me try:

            ti ta frica le ka xukau ce'u blanu
            This one is different from that one in whether they're blue.

That could be re-expressed as

            ti gonai ta blanu
            Either this xor that is blue.

but I'm not sure if that really serves as an explication of the
indirect question. Certainly not if we go beyond binary logic.
How do you translate this one into logical form:

        mi do toltugni le du'u xukau ta blanu
        I disagree with you on whether that is blue.

Is it an indirect question? It seems to have something in
common with {frica}, in that there are two different evaluations
of the question.

 co'o mi'e xorxes