From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Thu Sep 20 07:40:28 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 20 Sep 2001 14:40:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 43203 invoked from network); 20 Sep 2001 14:40:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 20 Sep 2001 14:40:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta2 with SMTP; 20 Sep 2001 14:40:27 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Thu, 20 Sep 2001 15:18:04 +0100 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Thu, 20 Sep 2001 15:48:30 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 15:48:16 +0100 To: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] Dumb answers to good questions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta Adam: #> 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. # #I think that what you want here is 'kau', and that's how it's glossed #in the book (ch 11.8): "mu'i ma la bab. kau darxi la fred.", etc. #However, I'm reluctant to use it like this, because its meaning is so #different from q-kau. If 'kau' were used consistently like this, #'makau', etc. would remain a direct question, just with topic focus. #(Then again, maybe that's not a good enough reason.) I'd momentarily forgotten in my previous message that kau is=20 supposed to be a focus marker. It's true that wh elements are focused: Who hit Bill? for x such that x hit Bill, x =3D what? but at the same time, IF qkau is valid lojban for indirect questions then kau cannot be a mere focus marker and must instead be the magic thingy that makes direct q-words indirect. Things'd probably be semantically/logic= ally=20 neater if kau were the focus marker and qkau for indirect questions were in= valid,=20 but that'd invalidate a HELL of lot of usage! Must dash... --And.