Re: [lojban-beginners] xu kau

[Felipe Gonçalves Assis <felipeg.assis@gmail.com>]

On 4 June 2012 10:21, tengo <yurock.tengo@gmail.com> wrote:
> 7.3)   mi djuno le jei la frank. cu bebna [kei]
>       I know the truth-value of Frank being a fool.
>
> And later in the text: "I know whether or not Frank is a fool", which

This example doesn't make sense. Assume that {la .frank. bebna} has
the same truth
value as {la .djordj. klama le zarci} (for example, both are
positively true), then
{le jei la .frank. bebna} and {le jei la .djordj. klama le zarci}
refer to the same thing, and
Example 7.3 is equivalent to
  {mi djuno le jei la .djordj. klama le zarci},
while its presumed translation is certainly not equivalent to
  "I know whether or not George goes to the market".

A more sensible bridi would be
  {mi djuno lo du'u ma kau jei la .frank. bebna}
  "I know what the truth-value or Frank being a fool is."
It is as different from
  {mi djuno lo du'u xu kau la .frank. bebna}
as these questions are different:
  {ma jei la .frank. bebna}
  {xu la .frank. bebna}

This is a common problem arising from naively translating terms of an English
sentence at the wrong time. For example,
  "I know the result of '2+2'"
is certainly not equivalent to
  "I know 4".


>
> So, is there a special rule for interpretation of {xu kau}? If yes,
> where is it defined? Is the {jei}-version still correct with current
> definitions of {jei} and {djuno}?
>

I think of du'u-kau constructions as formal questions, as plain du'u are formal
predications. When they are the x2 of {djuno}, it should be read as "x1 knows
the answer to question x2 ...".

The jei-version presented in CLL has always been nonsense.

mu'o
mi'e .asiz.

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