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A serious but ungeneralized new attempt on Q-kau
- To: "Lojban@Yahoogroups. Com" <lojban@yahoogroups.com>
- Subject: A serious but ungeneralized new attempt on Q-kau
- From: "And Rosta" <a.rosta@ntlworld.com>
- Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 01:47:46 +0100
- Importance: Normal
Okay, here's the context, as a reminder.
In English there's a construction normally called 'interrogative',
but this term is a bit misleading, because it has to do with
questions only in the prototypical case, not in all cases, so
I'll rename it 'interrogativoid'.
It remains a matter of dispute whether there is a semantic
unity to the grammatically-defined class of interrogativoids.
I intuit that there is a unity, but I definitely don't know
what it is.
For the prototypical interrogativoids that have to do with
indirect questions, it was decided to render these in Lojban
using Q-kau.
Then Q-kau was extended to render in Lojban all English
interrogativoids.
Then Jorge came up with a general characterization of the
meaning of Q-kau. This meant that Q-kau could be meaningfully
extended to new grammatical contexts such as main bridi.
However, Jorge's general characterization was notional rather
than logically explicit, and until we have a logically explicit
characterization of Q-kau, we are building on quicksand.
So we still have the goal of finding a logically explicit
characterization of Q-kau. This has to proceed on a case-by-case
basis, treating separately the genuinely interrogative-like
cases and the heterogenous non-interrogative-like cases. Once
we've done that, we'll have the full logical picture, and will
be able to see whether we can formally define Q-kau, or whether
Q-kau is the wrong thing for the job, and so on.
So now what follows is a new start at attempting to render in logically
explicit form the meaning of an interrogative-like case (with 'know')
and the meaning of a non-interrogative-like case (with 'change').
For future reference, I name the analysis:
The Extension-ce'u approach (Version 1)
1.
fadni jboselsku:
ko'a djuno lodu'u ma kau prami ma kau
"She knows who loves who"
in explicit form:
(ro) de da poi ke'a ge jetnu gi du'u de -is-extension-of lodu'u
ce'u prami ce'u zo'u ko'a djuno da
The 'extension' of X is the set of all ordered n-tuples of values
such that when they bind the ce'u variables, the bridi to which the
ce'u belong becomes true.
2.
fadni jboselsku:
??lodu'u makau fonxyjudri cu cenba (be lodu'u ce'u jetnu??)
(NOT "le fonxyjudri be mi cenba")
"My phonenumber has changed"
in explicit form:
de da poi ke'a du'u de -is-extension-of lodu'u ce'u fonxyjudri be
mi zo'u da jetnybinxo [= change-from-false-to-true]
3.
fadni jboselsku:
ko'a fo'e frica lodu'u ce'u prami ma kau
"Ko'a and Fo'e differ in who they love"
in explicit form:
no da poi de zo'u ke'a -is-extension-of lodu'u de prami ce'u zo'u
na ku ge ko'a gi fo'a me de
[Not all that good, that rendition; brain is dying.]
4.
"What I have for dinner depends on what's in the fridge"
"What shirt I wear depends on where I'm going"
fadni jboselsku:
??lodu'u mi crekydasni ma kau cenba ??lodu'u ce'u jetnu kei fo
lo??nu mi klama ma kau
-- I'm too tired to attempt this very difficult one.
--And.