Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 09:32:48 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712101432.JAA02225@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: And Rosta Sender: Lojban list From: And Rosta Organization: University of Central Lancashire Subject: indirect Qs (was Re: On logji lojbo discussions) X-To: Logical Language Group X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 2794 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 10 09:32:50 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Lojbab: > >> Or perhaps "mi djuno tu'a lejeikau la frank cu bebna" > > > >Doubtful. IIRC {kau} is not well defined when not after a > >Q-word. With a struggle I might make some sense of your example, > >[though] it would take a lot of cerebration & conscious reasoning. > > If it is a conventional interpretation than it should take zero cerebration. > All uses of discursives are inherently conventional. WE have agreed on a > convention when kau follows a Q-word. We can agree on other conventions. > It requires no cerebration or reasoning at all, just usage which catches on. > Of course negotiating the agreement should take place in Lojban rather than > English in this post-baseline world %^) Some conventions make sense. Others don't. Your usage of kau is not (yet) conventional. Nor does it make sense. Since it neither is conventional nor makes sense, I cannot work out what you intend it to mean. > >> No, since I created it. It was created specifically to talk about the truth > >> of a proposition. > > > >But I have seen from your own messages that you have believed that > >to know the truth value of p is to know whether p is true. > > That is true. I still believe it. but I also believe that this > is equivalent to saying "know that the truth value of p is X" It's true for English. Not for canonical Lojban. > because the nature of truth value" is that a proposition has only > one. Invalid reasoning. I may djuno fi lo pa do mamta, but not djuno lo nu ma kau do mamta. > But we do not have idiomatic use of the phrase "truth value" > in English, so I am not prone to say mi djuno ledu'u makau jei > broda though I consdier this to be as Lojbanic as the xukau > variety, and indeed careful analysis would find it even more > appropriate. (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. I agree with this. {ma kau jei} would be equivalent to having a question word in JAhA, e.g. "xa`a", and then using {xa`a kau broda}. Possibly {ja`a xi ma kau broda}. Or what is the question word in PA? Is it {xo}? Maybe {ja`a xi xo kau broda} is better. > Thus an English translation of a du'u xukau question might go like: > > Tell me whether is true > or > I'm not sure I understand. > I am not entirely convinced that these are answrs to English "whether > We have a convention like many languages that repeating a claim is > saying yes to a yes/no question. But I am not sure that "whether" is a > yes/no question. Broadly, yes. Definitely if a tea-or-coffee question counts as a yes-no question. --And