From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Thu Aug 30 18:42:02 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2); 31 Aug 2001 01:42:01 -0000 Received: (qmail 54473 invoked from network); 31 Aug 2001 01:39:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 31 Aug 2001 01:39:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta01-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.41) by mta1 with SMTP; 31 Aug 2001 01:39:26 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.253.84.56]) by mta01-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20010831013924.FNWX15984.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Fri, 31 Aug 2001 02:39:24 +0100 To: "Lojban@Yahoogroups. Com" Subject: A serious but ungeneralized new attempt on Q-kau Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 01:47:46 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 10316 Okay, here's the context, as a reminder. In English there's a construction normally called 'interrogative', but this term is a bit misleading, because it has to do with questions only in the prototypical case, not in all cases, so I'll rename it 'interrogativoid'. It remains a matter of dispute whether there is a semantic unity to the grammatically-defined class of interrogativoids. I intuit that there is a unity, but I definitely don't know what it is. For the prototypical interrogativoids that have to do with indirect questions, it was decided to render these in Lojban using Q-kau. Then Q-kau was extended to render in Lojban all English interrogativoids. Then Jorge came up with a general characterization of the meaning of Q-kau. This meant that Q-kau could be meaningfully extended to new grammatical contexts such as main bridi. However, Jorge's general characterization was notional rather than logically explicit, and until we have a logically explicit characterization of Q-kau, we are building on quicksand. So we still have the goal of finding a logically explicit characterization of Q-kau. This has to proceed on a case-by-case basis, treating separately the genuinely interrogative-like cases and the heterogenous non-interrogative-like cases. Once we've done that, we'll have the full logical picture, and will be able to see whether we can formally define Q-kau, or whether Q-kau is the wrong thing for the job, and so on. So now what follows is a new start at attempting to render in logically explicit form the meaning of an interrogative-like case (with 'know') and the meaning of a non-interrogative-like case (with 'change'). For future reference, I name the analysis: The Extension-ce'u approach (Version 1) 1. fadni jboselsku: ko'a djuno lodu'u ma kau prami ma kau "She knows who loves who" in explicit form: (ro) de da poi ke'a ge jetnu gi du'u de -is-extension-of lodu'u ce'u prami ce'u zo'u ko'a djuno da The 'extension' of X is the set of all ordered n-tuples of values such that when they bind the ce'u variables, the bridi to which the ce'u belong becomes true. 2. fadni jboselsku: ??lodu'u makau fonxyjudri cu cenba (be lodu'u ce'u jetnu??) (NOT "le fonxyjudri be mi cenba") "My phonenumber has changed" in explicit form: de da poi ke'a du'u de -is-extension-of lodu'u ce'u fonxyjudri be mi zo'u da jetnybinxo [= change-from-false-to-true] 3. fadni jboselsku: ko'a fo'e frica lodu'u ce'u prami ma kau "Ko'a and Fo'e differ in who they love" in explicit form: no da poi de zo'u ke'a -is-extension-of lodu'u de prami ce'u zo'u na ku ge ko'a gi fo'a me de [Not all that good, that rendition; brain is dying.] 4. "What I have for dinner depends on what's in the fridge" "What shirt I wear depends on where I'm going" fadni jboselsku: ??lodu'u mi crekydasni ma kau cenba ??lodu'u ce'u jetnu kei fo lo??nu mi klama ma kau -- I'm too tired to attempt this very difficult one. --And.