2010/10/15 Jorge Llambías<jjllambias@gmail.com <mailto:jjllambias@gmail.com>>:
OK. I think my issue in the case of Lojban is that quantifiers need to
be fronted for them to have scope over the matrix, whereas questions
have matrix scope without being fronted. I find it somewhat dissonant.
Quantifiers are just arguments, whereas questions are jufra-level
modifiers that change the overall illocutionary force. They shouldn't
be compared.
In my (unpublished) analysis of English interrogatives (which owes a large debt to xorxes), subordinate interrogatives (aka indirect questions, e.g. _wonder who_) involve a 'WH complementizer' (same word class as _that_) that binds a variable. In main clause interrogatives, the WH complementizer is complement of an illocutionary operator that means "I-hereby-enquire". So e.g. _Who came?_ is syntactically "I-hereby-enquire that(WH)_x it_x (x is a person) came". I recognize that this exposition is 99% incomprehensible, but the point is that there are logically three ingredients, the relationship between two of them involves variable binding, so is very like quantifiers, and the illocutionary ingredient is not really the core ingredient (since it is present only in main clause interrogatives).
How does Lojban distinguishthe following?
"I know who she knows that he likes"= "I know that(WH)x she knows that he likes x"
"I know that she knows who he likes"? = "I know that she knows that(WH)x he likes x"
-- these differ wrt the scope of the WH complementizer.
--And.
Can someone put that in layman, please? That entire post is completely beyond me.