"Could you please..." "Yes"

>From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk
>Date: Mon, 12 Aug 91 13:19:30 BST
>steffan%pro-angmar@com.alfalfa (Steven Mesnick) writes:
>>So in Lojban, the answer to
>>"Do you know what time it is" would have to be "Yes" or "No", right?
>Why?  The listener can give whatever answer he likes.  He is not bound by
>the literal meaning of the speaker's question.
>For that matter, in Loglan (I dont know if this is still the case in Lojban)
>the speaker's meaning is, fundamentally, whatever the speaker intends to
>mean, regardless of the actual words he uses.  So there's nothing wrong with
>asking "Do you know what time it is" when you want to know the time.

Yes and no, as I see it.  Certainly, the response depends solely on the
responder, who can say absolutely anything.  A reasonable assumption on the
part of the listener would probably be that the asker wanted to know the
time, not whether or not the listener knew it, and thus give the time as
the answer.  But, note that that reading is somewhat culturally- and
contextually-centered.  If I came into your office and said, "Make sure
you're outside at 4:30.  Do you know the time?" (meaning "do you have some
means of telling time (e.g. a watch), so that you'll know when to come
out?"), the "reasonable" answer (just as "illogical") would be "yes."

BTW, as I understand it, Lojban has a similar view regarding what you say
vs. what you mean, only there are more choices.  If you state a
predication, you assert that predication to be true, and are in error if it
is not.  However, when you use a predication with an "article," to make a
"noun" (all loosely speaking.  I really mean "to make an argument (for
another predication)") -- as in "le cmene" (the name(s)), there's a certain
looseness.  If you use "le" as the "article," you really mean, "that which
I describe as...", and so it can be anything.  So if I say, "le cukta cu
blanu" (the book is blue), and the referent of "le cukta" (the book) really
isn't a book, but is a table, then my sentence is still true, PROVIDED that
the table really is blue (i.e. the predication still holds).  However, if I
use "lo" as the article, my predication includes a claim about the thing
referred to there as well.  So "lo cukta cu blanu" would be false unless
the thing referred to by "lo cukta" really was a book (and was blue, of
course).

Someone correct me if I misunderstood the veridicality of lo, please.

~mark