Subject: RE: [lojban] kau -- What does it really mean?!

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 16 Aug 2002 18:04:31 +0100

pc:
> [email-masked] writes:
> , kau became meaningless; it converts direct
> questions into indirect questions. In my view, it can't even be
> seen as some kind of logical converter, because I think indirect
> questions are semantically more basic than direct questions
> 
> This seems an odd position: how can one talk about a direct question 
> until there is one to talk about. Admitedly, if you go by the 
> performative-verb-head style grammar, then questions arise from a "I 
> ask Q" structure, but there is no reason to think that, at that 
> level, Q is distinctly indirect, that being a surface feature which 
> might emerge if the preformative is also brought to the surface. 

I don't know what "distinctly indirect" means. What I meant is that
I think the best way to achieve a unified account of direct and
indirect questions -- i.e. a unified account of semantic interrogativity
-- is to adopt a "performative-verb-head style grammar", which then
handles direct questions in the way that indirect questions are
handled. The motivation goes beyond that, in that semantically,
direct questions involve an element of directive illocutionary force
-- or at least the act of posing a question -- plus an element of
interrogativity, while in indirect questions there is only the
element of interrogativity.

None of this really matters for Lojban: the only implication is that
the semantics of kau is not strictly compositional.

--And.