Subject: Re: [lojban] Dumb answers to good questions

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:59:27 +0100

A brief reply, because I am pressed for time. 

I don't remember this having been discussed properly before. What Mark is talking about is Focus. You need focus not only in questions -- e.g.
besides "Why was it Bob that hit Fred" we also need "It was Bob that
hit Fred", and English also has focusing constructions like
"What Bob did to Fred was hit him", which for syntactic rather than
logical reasons can't be turned into questions.

A typical natlang strategy for focus is to isolate the focused item
syntactically:

the one that hit Fred = Bill
the thing that Bill did to Fred = hit

and hence the way to form your questions would be:

Why is it the case that the one that hit Fred = Bill
For x such that x hit Fred, why is x Bill?

Why is it the case that the thing that Bill did to Fred = hit
For x such that Bill did x to Fred, why does x = hitting?

So the general Lojban strategy I'd propose would be twofold
(a) a method of isolating the focused item along the lines sketched
above, (b) an optional UI to mark the focused item -- the equivalent
of English intonation's focal stress ("Bob HIT Bill", etc.).

Sorry for rushed reply, but hopefully this points to where the
solution is to be found. I certainly agree that we need to get round to
thinking about focus, tho possibly when we've a little less on our
plates....

--And.

>>> <[email-masked]> 09/20/01 05:07am >>>
For some reason, I've found myself thinking about a few points in 
Lojban and coming up with questions that I couldn't answer easily.  
The concepts are so simple and basic I'm sure they've come up 
before, but I don't recall how or where. Here's the first:

Consider the question {mu'i ma la bab. darxi la fred.} "Why did Bob 
hit Fred?" A reasonable question. Reasonable answers include 
things like {mu'i le nu by. fengu} or {mu'i le nu fy. pu gletu le 
mensi be by} or whatever. But I could also just as easily answer 
{mu'i le nu fy. duksu leni barda le nu by. ka'e citka}. ("Why did 
he hit him? Well, he was too big to eat, and he couldn't wear him 
as a hat because he clashed with his shoes, and...") Or "Well, Jack 
was too far away/too big." These are all valid answers, but under 
many circumstances, they are completely unhelpful. OK, a lot of 
Lojban permits answers that are unhelpful. But how do you ask more 
explicitly? Why did Bob HIT Fred (as opposed to kissing him or 
doing something else)? Why did Bob hit FRED (as opposed to Susan or 
Jolene)? I suppose {ba'e} *might* do the job, but I'm not sure it's 
specific enough. Stuff with {.enai lo drata} won't do it. Maybe 
Bob *did* hit Susan and Jolene (and I know why), but I want to know 
why Fred had to get popped.

One thing which I don't think would solve the problem completely, 
but would at least make a step towards it would be to have some UI 
word to flag what we're really asking about. Just as {do xu citka 
le nanba} and {do citka le nanba xu} specify precisely what's being 
asked about (but we can't do that with {mu'i ma} type questions).  
The obvious candidate would be {pau}: {mu'i ma la bab pau darxi la 
fred.} (why was it BOB that hit Fred?), {mu'ima la bab darxi pau la 
fred.} (why did Bob HIT Fred?), and {mu'ima la bab. darxi la fred. 
pau} (why was it FRED that Bob hit?). Still won't stop me from 
answering the second with "He wasn't hollow enough to live in," but 
that's life. I'm not sure why I'm not thinking {ba'e} here. Maybe 
"emphasis" isn't what's at stake here, but focus of the question.

You know, come to think of it, Hebrew (particularly Modern Hebrew) 
has a word that's used something like this: "davka." It doesn't 
translate very well. The closest I can come is "particularly."  
"Why did davka Bob have to hit Fred." (why *particularly* Bob?) "Why 
did Bob davka hit Fred?" (why hit and not kick), and so on. Yes, 
among some folks you would in fact use it in English sentences too.  
And there's the phrase "lav davka"/"not particularly" for saying 
things like "The example in the book where it says "noun" is lav 
davka; it could be any word."

Has this been hashed out already? I have to believe it has. Just 
musing.

~mark

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