Date: Sat, 6 Dec 1997 06:59:03 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712061159.GAA23921@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: GLI Re: Indirect questions X-To: jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2297 X-From-Space-Date: Sat Dec 6 06:59:04 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >To those worried about the horribly arcane nature of this discussion, >we are trying to decide whether {le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri} makes >sense, as in {mi cusku le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri}, which to me >means "I say whether she is sad". Since I see the use of kau being conventional rather than analytical, I have no problem with this. Or is there some other plausible meaning to such usage. To me, if we can come up with one meaning for an expression using a discursive, it works as a convention regardless of whether that discursive has identical meaning in other expressions not fitting the convention. Only ifthere are two plausible meanings to a convention do we even have to make a decision (in which case we might choose based on consistency with other usages). I am unwiulling to say that ANYTHING has no meaning if we can come up with a useful conventional interpretation. > >> But then, is {kucli da} = {djica le nu/du'u djuno da}? > > >>{kucli} has two meanings, one where the x2 is an indirect >>question, and one where it isn't. {kucli da} doesn't >>mean {djica le nu/du'u djuno da}, but {kucli lo nu xu kau} >>does mean {djica lo nu djuno lo nu xu kau}. > >But doesn't this go against the spirit of the language? NO. Because, if I understand, this has nothing to do with the meaning of djica. One example has a kau in it and the other does not. The existance of a discursive like kau can change the meaning of a sumti in ways that can require conventional interpretation. In any event, I think kucli da means something more akin to "djica lenu djuno ba'e fi da" and you can substitute lonu xukau bu'a for "da" withoutany problems that are obvious to me. But kau is a way of putting focus on partof the abstraction to indicate what it is you want to know about in particular, but you still want to know about the event. 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.