Subject: RE: "which?" (was: RE: [lojban] centripetality: subset vs component

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2000 10:32:05 PDT

la and cusku di'e

> > A's claim assumes that {le mlatu} is enough to identify
> > the cat.
>
>It doesn't assume this. Specificity is not the same as
>identifiability, at least not for the hearer.

I don't know what word to use. "Sufficiently identifiable"?
"Enough information has been provided for you to take stock
of the referent I mean"? "Relevantly identified"? My point
is that if the listener has to ask "which?" to a {le broda}
from the speaker it is because {le} has failed. If {le}
succeeds there is no need for the listener to ask "which?",
because the referent has been relevantly identified.
On the other hand a "which?" to a {lo broda} is a request
for additional information, not a question to clarify a
failed communication.

>The point of this dialogue was to show that {le
>mo broda} needn't be asking a which-question.

My impresion is that a successful answer to {le mo broda}
should not leave the questioner with a "which broda?"
doubt. Do you agree at least with that part?

For it to be something else than a which-question, it
would require the questioner to already know the
referent of {le mo broda}. But if that is the case,
any replacement of {mo} will add zero information,
because the content of {le} phrases is intrinsically
identificatory/specificatory, only secondarilly
descriptive.

>Okay, I'll discuss this {le ki'a} suggestion now. Here are
>two problems with it.
>
>First:
>
> A: le nanmu ............ le nanmu
> B: le ki'a nanmu
>
>B is saying that {le} provokes confusion. What sort of
>confusion? Presumably, about what the referent is.

Right.

>HOWEVER, it could simply be confusion about whether
>the two {le nanmu} sumti share the same referent. In
>this case, all B is saying "is this le ba'e, or not?",
>and B is not saying "give me sufficient information
>to identify the referent".

I don't think I see the difference. There are at least
two possible referents, and B is in doubt as to which
one A means. Thus {le} has failed.

>Second:
>
>I may be wrong, but I don't think {le ki'a kau} can be
>assumed to work as an indirect question. Yet we do want
>to be able to say "He told me which book he was reading".

But that's {le mokau cukta}. You wouldn't want to use
{ki'akau} (which is grammatical, BTW) unless you were
reporting the failed {le}, which is not something you
would normally want to do.

> > A is not making a specific reference there.
>
>John has answered this:
>
> % "A certain" in English is a way of making +specific
> % -definite sumti: I know what cat is meant (+specific), but
> % you don't (-definite). In Lojban "le bi'unai mlatu".

I am not very persuaded by this specific vs. definite
distinction. As if speaker and listener were obtaining
different meanings from the same utterance, and yet that
was considered a succesful exchange. To me it sounds weird.

>Maybe it would be more helpful to think of things this way:
>
>A; le broda goi ko'a cu brode
>B: ko'a mo
>
>Whatever question B is trying to ask, it remains the case that
>ko'a has a guaranteed referent, even if B cannot identify ko'a.

But B's question is not very sensible if B doesn't know
what {ko'a} refers to. In that case B should ask {ko'a ki'a}.

>I contend that B could equally well have said "le broda cu mo",
>where "le broda" would have a referent guaranteed either (a)
>by B being able to identify it, or (b) by it being coreferential
>with the {le broda} in A's utterance.

I agree they are equivalent. I just don't think A is being
asked to provide identifying/specifying information. A can
provide any relevant information about {le broda}/{ko'a},
but that is not what B wants to know when asking "which?".

You are concentrating on which-questions to rectify failed
identification, (I think those are {ki'a}) but which-questions
can also be initiatory:

do zmanei le mo mlana be le ckana
Which side of the bed do you prefer?

>If B instead uses {le mlatu}, then this could refer to the same
>cat as A was talking about, even if B can identify it by no
>unique property other than the property of being talked about
>by A, but there is no guarantee of this coreference; A would
>have to glork it from context.
>
>{ri du ma} works okay though.

I think {ri du ma} or {ko'a du ma} or {le mlatu cu du ma} do
work because as you say it is hard to find an alternative
intention for the question. {ri mo}, {ko'a mo} and
{le mlatu cu mo} on the other hand don't work for me, because
it could just mean "tell me something more about this cat".

But I think {le mo mlatu} works perfectly, and I find it
more elegant than {du}.

co'o mi'e xorxes

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