At 09:15 AM 2/10/02 -0500, pycyn@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 2/9/2002 4:04:37 PM Central Standard Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes:But you're approaching this backwards. You say: "{makau broda} is an indirect question and therefore it only makes sense in subordinate clauses. I refuse therefore to consider what it might mean as a free floating clause." I want to say: "We more or less understand what {makau broda} means as a subordinate clause, but in Lojban it is also grammatical as a free floating clause. Is there a possible generlization of the meaning so as to cover this case, or are we forced to declare it nonsense?"Well, as a fundamentalist in Lojban, I point out thaat, although {kau} is grammatical outside of subordinate clauses, it is meaningless since it is the mark of an indirect question and that is its only function. Alos, of course, we do not know enough about how indirect questions work (there are at least three theories on that, none of them definitive nor more than plausibly false) to suggest a reasonable generalization to illicit cases. And also there is the question of whether following English habits here will give the clearest and most useful solution to presently perceived problems or whether another approach is better. None of this says that what you are doing is wrong, necessarily, but it is clearly unjustified at the moment.
I think that if there are (at least) 3 theories of indirect questions which are consistent with Lojban semantics for kau in subordinate clauses, we would have to examine what each theory would imply about non-subordinate indirect questions were they to exist. Perhaps they would all lead to similar enough conclusions that Spanglish interpretation is acceptable (or at least a subset/component of what is an acceptable interpretation).
lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org