From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Fri Sep 14 18:07:57 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 15 Sep 2001 01:07:57 -0000 Received: (qmail 75886 invoked from network); 15 Sep 2001 00:34:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 15 Sep 2001 00:34:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta02-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.42) by mta1 with SMTP; 15 Sep 2001 00:34:11 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.253.84.163]) by mta02-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20010915003408.NOLB29790.mta02-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sat, 15 Sep 2001 01:34:08 +0100 Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [lojban] RE: set of answers. Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 01:33:22 +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 In-Reply-To: <168.bb822d.28cfcc3f@aol.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 10722 pc: > OK, so suppose we get away from sets and stick with the predicates we > actually have. I take it that a direct question, {ma broda}, is covertly of > the form {ko xusra lo du'u makau broda}. Suppose the directee says {la b > broda}. Has he answered the question, To me it seems as though there are two aspects to answers that need to be disentangled. On the one hand, an answer -- call it an 'illocutionary answer' is any information that is as relevant as the answerer's knowledge allows. On the other hand, an answer -- call it a 'logical answer' -- is a specification of the extension of a category (or so I think). Sometimes a non-l-answer can nevertheless be an i-answer, e.g. "lo ninmu (cu klama)" as an answer to "ma klama", in a context where, say, the answer has no more relevant information, or where this information is sufficient to satisfy the questioner's needs. But my feeling is that interrogatives and qkau involve only logical answers -- illocutionary answers are a red herring. > i.e., is it the case that {la'e lu la > b broda li'u du'u makau broda}, that is is > {le (better {to'u}) du'u la b broda cu du'u makau broda}? I don't accept that lo'i du'u ma kau broda is the set of answers. > The answer to this > is not transparent. As noted, it often fails to be the case (though not > always by any means) that {da broda} and {noda broda} fail, and {lo broda cu > broda} almost always fails. In a given case, others may also fail (stones if > the questions supposes an agent, long dead folks if the questions supposes a > contemporary, and so on). > But now at least, like And, I have {makau} universal -- though only the ones > that actually fit the property are significant. Note that this is still not > {ce'u} for the property in question still has {makau} in its description, is > still a property of expressions, not of things yet, unlike the {ce'u} cases > (so far at least). > In at least some cases we can carry out the elimination of indirect questions > pretty thoroughly: {la dubias frica la tclsys le du'u maka mamta ce'u} > amounts to (by extensionality) {da zo'u le (or {to'u}) du'u da mamta la dubia > cu frica le du'u da mamta la tclsys le ka ceu jetnu} which means {da zo'u > gonai da mamta la dubias gi da mamta la tclsys} which amounts eventually to > just {le mamta be la dubias na du le mamta be la tclsys} from which (euclid's > law) it follows in fact that {la dubias na du la tclsys}. Other cases behave > similarly. Of course this way of eliminating qkau is both obvious and correct, but I don't think that for our purposes it counts as eliminating qkau, for the same reason as other extensional formulations fail. I think I am now able to offer a halfway decent analysis: no da ro de poi ke'a cmima la dybiyb ce la tcelsik [-- or cmima of whatever class of differers --] zo'u da -extension-of tu'odu'u ce'u mamta de = D frica C tu'odu'u ma kau mamta ce'u = Dubya and Chelsea differ in who their mothers are Now that can be done more simply as: no da ro de poi ke'a cmima la dybiyb ce la tcelsik zo'u da mamta de or indeed no da mamta ge la dybiyb gi la tcelsik But the longerwinded method comes into its own in cases like: X and Y differ in who gave them what = ... frica tu'odu'u ma kau dunda ma kau ce'u = ... da -extension of tu'odu'u ce'u dunda ce'u de Admittedly, this "halfway decent analysis" does not use {frica}, but there was no guarantee that {frica} is logically sound, and hence no guarantee that frica could be used in a logically explicit formulation. > Roughly, to take on the final case, {roda zo'u ganai da nu makau se citka fau > le raljysanmi gi ge de nu makau nenri le lenkytanxe gi de rodytcini da} I won't comment on this, as, not being qkauless, it is part of an analytical programme that I'm not participating in. --And.