Subject: Re: [lojban] "knowledge as to who saw who" readings

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 23:02:45

la and cusku di'e

>I suppose you could say say that "nobody but Bill went" and
>"Bill saw Jane and Jane saw Bill and nobody else saw anybody else"
>each count as members as the set of answer, and in that case you
>would have a way of accommodating SA3 (in terms of knowing every
>true answer), but would not have a way of distinguishing Scenario 2
>from Scenario 3.

What if...

What if the set of answers does not include the {noda} case?
Let's say that {ma} presupposes {da}, so that {ma} expects a
positive answer only. Since I don't admit {na'i} as a member
of the set of answers, that would mean that {noda} is out.

Now we have 4 cases:

1- la djan djuno lo du'u makau viska makau
"John knows (at least one of) who saw who." (Presupposes that
someone saw someone.)

2- la djan djuno ro jetnu du'u makau viska makau
"John knows (all of) who saw who."

3- la djan djuno lo du'u xukau makau viska makau
"John knows (at least one of) who, if anyone, saw who, if anyone."

4- la djan djuno ro jetnu du'u xukau makau viska makau
"John knows (all of) whether someone and if so who saw who."

It is probably the case that "who" does have existential import,
otherwise phrases like "who if anyone" would be redundant.

So, does {ma} have existential import? Is {noda} a {na'i} answer?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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