Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 07:10:21 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712101210.HAA28575@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: On logji lojbo discussions X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 3143 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 10 07:10:22 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >>(The convention for other Q words besides xu, seems to be that using kau >>in a djuno expression means that a word which answers the question is what >is >>meaning asked for. But the answer to xu is "go'i"/nago'i" which is not a >>truth value but a claim. > >The answer can also be ja'a/na. That's how Lojban questions are usually >explained: they ask for a replacement word that makes the utterance true. > 1. Reference for bare ja'a/na as an answer to xu? (A bare NA is gr ammatical, but I don't recall it being discussed wth respect to "xu"). 2. Neother ja'a/na nor go'i/nago'i is a replacement for "xu" since xu is a discursive having attitudinal grammar. You cannot replace it by the answer and have the resault be grammatical. Thus xu is obviously an exception to the replacement rule. >>Thus an English translation of a du'u xukau >>question might go like: >> >>Tell me whether is true >> or >--More-- >> > >Not quite. The first should be "Tell me whether ". >The way you have it, the corresponding direct question is >"Is true?", and then the yes/no answers would be: >"Yes, proposition x is true", and "No, is not true". > >To give a more concrete example: > >Tell me whether John goes to the market. >He does. (He goes to the market.) >He doesn't. (He doesn't go to the market. > >Tell me whether "John goes to the market" is true. >It is. ("John goes to the market" is true.) >It isn't. ("John goes to the market" is not true.) I see that they are different. I do not clearly see how it realtes to the Lojban. Can you translate each of these into Lojban-as-you-see-it so I can see how the answers seem to be responsive/non-responsive to the indirect question? (In my opinuion, phrasing a direct question, which the above are, as an indirect question, isn't really kosher, but I understamd that it is done in English. Can it legitimately be done in Lojban? Or does the kau marking on the xu make the qu estion unaskable? >>We have a convention like many languages that repeating a claim is >--More-- >>saying yes to a yes/no question. But I am not sure that "whether" is a >>yes/no question. > >I don't see what else could it be. ("Whether" is also used for {ji} >questions, >as in "he told me whether he'd go to Paris or to Rome", which is in a >sense two yes/no questions in one.) It is not any yes or no question - it is a pronoun representing the answer to either a yes/no or a connective question. Thus it works like "who" and "what" grammatically, but in English at least, we cannot ask the direct question with "wehether" "*Whether you go to the s tore?" lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.