Re: [lojban] 'good or simple' vs 'good, or simple'

[Ian Johnson <blindbravado@gmail.com>]

On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 1:21 AM, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:

The problem is, of course, that you're trying to do something explicitly in Lojban that is done /implicitly/ in the English phrase "Would you like coffee or tea?" {.i do djica tu'a loi ckafi ji loi tcati}

It should be noted that even in the English question, "both" and "neither" are still acceptable -though uncommon- answers. There is nothing about the English question that forbids a choice of "both" or "neither", it is merely social customs that makes such answers verboten.

This very thing is talked about in the logical connectives section of the CLL.

http://dag.github.io/cll/14/13/

It's also been discussed quite a bit in the tiki:

http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Do+you+want+coffee+or+tea%3F

Basically, the gist is, if you want someone to choose amongst a set of mutually exclusive items, and you're using OR, you're asking the wrong question.

What you should be saying in such situations is more akin to: "Choose one of: coffee, tea"

.i.e'u cuxna lo pamei lo ckafi .e lo tcati

You shouldn't have logical "and" there; I concede that the irrealis attitudinal scope can be argued to fix it, but it's more weird than it needs to be. {.e'o cuxna pa da lo ckafi ce lo tcati} (or, in the idiom that doesn't think sets matter in everyday discourse, {.e'o cuxna pa da lo ckafi joi lo tcati}).

mi'e la latro'a mu'o

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