From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Mon Jul 10 15:14:08 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 4081 invoked from network); 10 Jul 2000 22:14:08 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m3.onelist.org with QMQP; 10 Jul 2000 22:14:08 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO relay3-gui.server.ntli.net) (194.168.4.200) by mta1 with SMTP; 10 Jul 2000 22:14:08 -0000 Received: from m117-mp1-cvx1c.gui.ntl.com ([62.252.12.117] helo=andrew) by relay3-gui.server.ntli.net with smtp (Exim 3.03 #2) id 13BlfG-0002GO-00 for lojban@onelist.com; Mon, 10 Jul 2000 23:04:35 +0100 To: Subject: RE: "which?" (was: RE: [lojban] centripetality: subset vs component Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 23:13:58 +0100 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <396A13E7.F5D749F9@reutershealth.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" John: > And Rosta wrote: > > > > "You see here door number one, door number two, and door number three. > > > Which [xomoi] door do you choose?" In any choice situation in which the > > > choices are or plausibly could be numbered, "xomoi" is reasonable > > > for "which?". > > > > But the answer would not normally be a number, right? > > Well, if you wanted to be comic about it you could reply "nu'a le xekri" > (the-number the black-one), where "nu'a" converts an arbitrary sumti > into a number. > > > Anyway, it might be reasonable for "which?", but does not seem wholly > > satisfactory, since {xomoi} might equally be an enquiry about the ordinal > > position of the referent rather than its identity, > > But on the Lockean principle of the identity of indiscernibles, if you know > the ordinal position of something (given that the sequence to which it > belongs is uniquely determined by context), then you know its identity > as well. By a '"Which?" question' I mean one that says "give me information sufficient for ***me*** to identify the referent". > > I rather feel that a Q-word in LE and/or KOhA would have been added if > > this problem had been noticed prior to the baseline. > > It was noticed: indeed Loglan has a word for "which" as does -gua!spi. > The problem was a lack of theory, not a lack of opportunity. That's interesting to discover. It didn't stop Lojban in other areas, e.g. Q-kau (but also many others). > > As things stand, > > {ma du} strikes me as the best way to say it, on the grounds that I > > can think of no potentially relevant answer but one that specifies > > which. > > That certainly works, provided your interlocutor is properly Gricean > and doesn't just echo back the original description! But what makes this locution different from the others is that the *only* griceanly relevant interpretation is as a Which question. --And.