Re: [lojban] {makau} {mokau}

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Feb 3, 2013 at 3:24 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Inrect questions are a problem for English (and familiar language) speakers
> because (since at least I-E days)  one set of pronouns get used in a variety
> of ways.  So "He asked who the murderer was" involves a clear indirect
> question, a transform from "He asked, 'Who is the murderer?'", but "He knows
> who the murderer is" seems only remotely related to a question, perhaps as
> "He know the correct answer to the question 'Who is the murderer?'".

You can see the connection to the question by rephrasing as follows:

He asked who the murderer was
--> Who was the murderer? He asked that.

He knows who the murderer is.
--> Who is the murderer? He knows that.

> But
> then *"He believes who the murder is" (OK in Lojban, of course: ko'a krinu
> lo du'u makau morgau) could only mean "He believes some answer to the
> question "Who is the murderer?'"

Or sticking to more idiomatic English:

He has an opinion as to who the murderer is.
--> Who is the murderer? He has an opinion as to that.

> ("He believes he knows ...").  And when we
> get to something like "They differ in what they wear", the connection to
> questions has virtually disappeared ('They give different answers to the
> question 'What do you wear?'"?!)

Certainly not! What if the things that are different were things that
could not give answers?

They differ in what they wear.
--> What do they wear? They differ in that.

> What they wear is in Lojban just lo se
> dasni (or, in the example, maybe te), similar to "what he said" in "He said
> who the murder was, but I didn't hear what he said".

"What they wear" _sometimes_ is "lo se dasni", but other times it is
"'lo ka ce'u dasni ma kau" or "lo du'u ko'a dasni ma kau".

When it is "lo se dasni", it is not an indirect question. "What he
said" in "I didn't hear what he said" is "lo pu se cusku be ko'a",
also not an indirect question.

>  In this last case,
> even the first is pretty clearly not about a question but rather an
> assertion with the crucial part left out ("He said '... is the murderer'")

It's an idirect question though:

He said who the murderer is.
Who is the murderer? He said that.

> All of this got shifted to Lojban (culturally neutral, ma derriere) as an
> indirect question, rather than the several things it might reasonably be --
> relatives of  {ce'u} with matter of focus thrown in mainly.

If the name "relative question" for "ma kau" bothers you, you can give
it some other name, but it is not used for several disjoint things. If
only reported questions can count as true indirect questions then
think of "indirect question" as a kind of metonym for the class of
things of which reported questions are an important member.

> All that being
> said, {makau} seems to work in place, despite the incongruities in the
> semantics.  Of course, it would be somewhat easier if the use of {ce'u} were
> not limited to abstraction, so that we could say {lo se dasni be ce'u}
> without throwing in the irrelevant property marker and fictional indirect
> question.  On the other hand, the separation is sometimes needed, since (in
> English) "He knows who the murderer is" is quite different from "He know the
> murderer" (something someone always says in closed suspect list mysteries).

That's not an issue in Lojban, because the indirect question one would
be "djuno (lo du'u ma kau catra)" and the one that is not an indirect
question would be "se slabu (lo catra)", with two different senses of
"know".

An example where it would be ambiguous is this. Suppose she knows who
the murderer is, I also know who the murderer is, but she doesn't know
that I know it.

Now "she knows what I know" is ambiguous. In the indirect question
sense it is false (ko'a djuno lo du'u mi djuno ma kau). but in the
non-question sense it is true (ko'a djuno lo se djuno be mi)..

In English you could disambiguate by saying "she knows what it is that
I know" (indirect question) vs. "she knows that which I (also) know"
(not an indirect question).

In general, if you can replace "what" by "what it is that" and keep
the sense it's an indirect question, if you can replace it by "that
which" it is not an indirect question.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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