Re: [lojban] RE: set of answers.

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/14/2001 8:10:31 PM Central Daylight Time, a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com writes:

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.

A nice distinction.  I think that we will need to allow illocutionary answers, so as to encompass cases like "believes" and maybe "same" and "different."  We'll see what happens as more cases come under the microscope.

<I don't accept that lo'i du'u ma kau broda is the set of answers.>

Does this mean that you don't accept set-of-answers theory-- which  I knew already  -- or that you don't think this is how to say in Lojban "the set of answers to the question{...}?  Gee, it looks exactly right to me; what is the problem.

<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 samereason
as other extensional formulations fail.>

But I am not trying to eliminate Q-kau, only to explain it and bring itunder rules.  It turns out that I can also often eliminate it -- in different ways in different cases.  So, if what I say is correct, I am content.  

<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.>
Well, all the cases of {frica} I have dealt with come down eventually to some {na du}, so eliminating {frica} seems part of this aprticular game. The rest of you analysis seems to work OK , though I don't yet see that if follows from a general theory (that is, I don't see how to make the right moves yet.  I'll practice on a few more).