Subject: RE: [lojban] RE: set of answers.

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 19:23:37 +0100

pc:
> [email-masked] writes: 
> To me it seems as though there are two aspects to answers that need to 
> be disentangled. On the one hand, an answer -- call it an 'illocutionary 
> answer' is any information that is as relevant as the answerer's knowledge 
> allows. On the other hand, an answer -- call it a 'logical answer' -- 
> is a specification of the extension of a category (or so I think). 
> Sometimes a non-l-answer can nevertheless be an i-answer, e.g. "lo ninmu 
> (cu klama)" as an answer to "ma klama", in a context where, say, the 
> answer has no more relevant information, or where this information is 
> sufficient to satisfy the questioner's needs. 
> 
> But my feeling is that interrogatives and qkau involve only logical 
> answers -- illocutionary answers are a red herring. 
> 
> A nice distinction. I think that we will need to allow illocutionary 
> answers, so as to encompass cases like "believes" and maybe "same" 
> and "different." We'll see what happens as more cases come under the 
> microscope. 

I'll need to see concrete examples of where illocutionary answers might
be needed, because I'm finding of any myself.

Let me try. You want to be able to sat "John has an opinion about
who went", such that this covers a case where John's opinion is that
the set of goers includes da poi ninmu. I would handle this case 
not by using indirect questions that allow for i-answers, but rather
by, say, "la djan jinvi tu'odu'u lo'i klama mo kau", or

da zo'u la djan jinvi tu'odu'u de ge cmima tu'o -extension tu'odu'u 
ce'u klama gi da ckaji de

> <I don't accept that lo'i du'u ma kau broda is the set of answers.> 
> 
> Does this mean that you don't accept set-of-answers theory-- which I 
> knew already -- or that you don't think this is how to say in Lojban 
> "the set of answers to the question{...}? Gee, it looks exactly 
> right to me; what is the problem. 

I don't accept that the set-of-answers theory gets us to a satisfactory
analysis of qkau. But what I meant was the latter -- that I don't accept
that "lo'i du'u ma kau broda" is the way to say "the set of answers to 
the question 'ma broda'". I don't reject it outright, though; my position
is that that meaning does not automatically follow from the constituent
parts, but that since I can think of no other sensible meaning it is
an unobjectionable interpretive convention.

> <Of course this way of eliminating qkau is both obvious and correct, 
> but I don't 
> think that for our purposes it counts as eliminating qkau, for the 
> same reason 
> as other extensional formulations fail.> 
> 
> But I am not trying to eliminate Q-kau, only to explain it and bring 
> it under rules. It turns out that I can also often eliminate it -- 
> in different ways in different cases. So, if what I say is correct, 
> I am content. 

I think I've said in other messages that I don't think qkau can be
explained unless we can eliminate it (from underlying logical forms).

--And.