Date:  Mon, 15 Dec 1997 11:21:46 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199712151621.LAA29612@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Organization: University of Central Lancashire
Subject:      Re: GLI Re: Indirect questions
X-To:         LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
X-Mozilla-Status: 0011
Content-Length: 3071
X-From-Space-Date: Mon Dec 15 11:21:50 1997
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU

Jorge:
> And:
> >> Noninherent only in as much as they depend on the context. Somewhat
> >> like deictics.
> >
> >Not like deictics. It is possible to specify the meaning of
> >deictics exactly, but involving variables that are to be
> >bound by properties of the utterance.
>
> I think I understand what you're saying. You consider
> {le ka makau bacru}, "who is the utterer", a property of the
> utterance, but you don't want to accept {le ka va'o makau bacru},
> "under what circumstances occurs the utterance", as a property
> from which to derive the inherent meaning.

I'm not against either {da poi ke`a se ckaji le ka makau bacru ce`a}
or {da poi ke`a se ckaji le ka va`o makau bacru ce`a} being part
of inherent meaning.

> >OK. But I think your position entails that la`e should include
> >all entailments, given that it is established which world the
> >utterance is talking about. So I think you are in effect
> >arguing that {la`e lu she painted the house his favourite
> >colour} can be the proposition "She painted the house blue".
> >I'm unhappy with that.
>
> I think it has to work like that. If I know that John lives in New York,
> and Lojbab tells me {mi klama le tcadu poi la djan xabju}, "I go to
> the city where John lives" then I want to be able to say truthfully:
> {la lojbab cusku le sedu'u ly klama la nuiork}, "lojbab says he
> goes to N.Y.", even if he didn't use the very words {ly} and {nuiork}.

[Warning: things are getting really really abstruse, and it's
probably not worth taking them that much further. But here goes
anyway:]

There are contexts where you wouldn't necessarily want {le tcadu}
and {la nuiork} to be the same, e.g. in {jinvi le du`u} contexts.
("Ralph believes that Ortcutt is a spy"...)

But there's a way round it so that your two bridi are
truth-conditional equivalents: assume them to implicitly be
restricted to the real world (i.e. "in R, the real world, it is the
case that"). That makes the two bridi truth-conditional
equivalents in every possible world. I think.

> >So, in conclusion, I think that {cusku le se du`u xu kau Y} can
> >coherently be ruled to mean "say whether", but that without
> >further investigation, it does not seem as if there is any
> >regularity to the mapping from syntax to semantics.
>
> In any case, this would not be a problem related only to
> indirect questions. It is in general about what {le sedu'u ...}
> means. Can {le sedu'u le va nanmu cu klama le zarci}
> be in some context {lu la djan cu klama le zarci li'u}?

Sometimes one would like the answer to be Yes, and sometimes
No. The fairest answer is that Lojban remains vague on the
answer, so that if one really wants to be clear on the sort
of meaning involved, one has to find ways to indicate it
more explicitly.

We could go on to discuss what those ways could be, but I am
trying to clear my email backlog before Christmas.

> If yes, as I think, then the indirect question meaning with kau
> also follows.

I don't see that. I've already accepted that {se du`u Q-kau} can
be made to make sense, though.

--And