Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: fancu

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 16:26:28 EDT

In a message dated 10/8/2001 1:18:04 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> (Of course {na'i} is a perfectly ok illocutionary answer,
> but the set of answers involved in indirect questions has 
> to be the set of logical answers.)
> 

I suspect this is where we differ. I want to stick to the illocutionary 
answers, because they are a moe manageable set and include all the logical 
ones that will ever be useful. But they include a few that muck some things 
up as well (not really, but they take some work).

<I'm not convinced. Consider this:

"Does John know whether you have stopped beating your wife?"

1- "Yes, he does. He knows that I don't even have a wife."

2- "No, there's nothing for him to know about it. He knows
    that I don't even have a wife."

I find (2) more realistic. If "I don't even have a wife" was
one of the members of the whether-answer-set, then (1) should 
be the right answer.>

I suppose the actual answer is { mi na'i co'u darxi lomi speni} (by the way, 
{darxi} by itself is not good for "beating" in htis context, nor is {co'u} 
for "stop") 
The fact that a question does not meet its presuppositions does not make it 
less of a question, it merely makes it one that has a peculiar correct 
answer. Of course, the {na'i} answer my also allow in various expansions 
{noda speni mi} or "I never started being my wife" or....