Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: ka + makau (was: ce'u (was: vliju'a

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 18:38:24

la xod cusku di'e

>Going back a moment, "le jei broda" = a truth value; a real in [0, 1]. The
>ANSWER to the question "xu broda" is the same.

Not really, at least not the full answer. The full answer to
{xu broda} is either {ja'a broda} or {na broda}, or if you like
something in between: {ja'aru'e broda}, etc. The full answer
is never a real in [0,1], and {le du'u xukau ...} makes reference
to the full answer, a full bridi.

>Jorge, I can understand your recent explanatory post better if I stop
>thinking of "makau" and use "ko'a" in its place.

And yet it is not the same thing. In {la meris djuno le du'u ko'a
klama le zarci} le listener is expected to identify ko'a, either
because it was previously assigned or from context.

>Really, we are not
>talking about questions so much as we are talking about algebraic
>variables. And, since du'u + Qkau doesn't turn the abstraction into the
>answer to the question, I really don't see why they are called "indirect
>questions" at all. They are indirect statements; statements with variables
>that are assumed to have known values that the speaker doesn't know or
>isn't revealing.

Not necessarily _known_ values. Many questions don't have known
answers.

>mi djuno le du'u makau pu zarci le klama

i u'i xu go'i i lo klama cu rupnu ma

>Unless du'u + Qkau really means 'the answer to the question posed by
>removing "kau"', why does the above statement imply that I know WHO went
>to the store? I could know simply that somebody did go to the store.

Even in that case {da klama le zarci} is a possible answer to {ma
klama le zarci}, but makau makes reference to the contextually
relevant answer.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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