Re: Indirect questions

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

> >> >>     da poi danfu lu xu mi badri li'u zo'u ko'a djuno da
> >> >
> >> >A somewhat off-topic question, but maybe this should
> >> >be "...danfu la'e lu xu mi badri li'u"?
> >> Yes, definitely.
> >I don't see why. {lu xu mi badri li`u} itself refers to a question.
>
> Yes, a morphological question, but I think that's not what we
> want.

I mean that the text {xu mi badri} is itself an act of questioning,
in the same way as "hello" and "coi" are verbal acts of greeting.

> {lu xu se badri mi li'u} is different from {lu xu mi badri li'u}
> for example. They're different questions morphologically, but
> they mean the same thing. It's the meaning that interests me.

They're different texts, but they're both questions, and they
both are questions about the same thing.

> >So {lo danfu be lu xu mi badri li`u} refers to the answer to the
> >question, I'm not sure whether the answer is a text or a bit
> >of information (a truth value, in this instance).
>
> Two points:
>
> (1) In my opinion {le danfu} and {le se danfu} are the same
> type of thing. If one is a text then so is the other. But the text is
> not what I'm interested in. For example, given some text:
>
>  - xu do badri
> - le mi mlatu cu morsi
>
> Then I could say: {lu le mi mlatu cu morsi li'u cu danfu
> lu xu do badri li'u}, but when I say {ko'a djuno le du'u xukau
> mi badri} I don't mean {ko'a djuno le du'u le mi mlatu cu
> morsi}.

OK. But why are you so sure that {danfu} is the appropriate
selbri? {la`e lu le mi mlatu cu morsi} is not what one knows
if one knows le du`u xu kau do badri. I seem to be missing a bit
of your reasoning.

> (2) The answer in any case is never a truth value.
> The simplest answers to {xu do badri} are {mi badri}
> or {mi na badri} (or their equivalents in terms of {go'i}).
> The answer is NOT a truth value. (Of course there
> can be all manner of other in-between answers, etc.)

You may be right, but it's not clear to me that you are.

I take {xu do badri} to mean

   Bring it about that for every x, a truthvalue of {do badri},
     I know that x is truthvalue of {do badri}.

I suppose the "answer" to that command would be some information
such as a list of everything that is a truthvalue of {do badri}.

You seem to be following some alternate reasoning, but I can't
yet see what it is.

> >I don't know what {la`e lu xu mi badri li`u} refers to.
>
> {la'e lu ko'a badri li'u} is {le du'u ko'a badri}. With a question
> it's not so straightforward because {xu} escapes the boundaries
> of {du'u} but not those of {lu}. Same goes about {mi}. But other
> than that I think it is clear. {la'e} extracts the proposition from
> the text.

So if {xu do badri} means

   Bring it about that for every x, a truthvalue of {do badri},
     I know that x is truthvalue of {do badri}.

then {la`e lu xu do badri} means one of the following:

   - For every x, a truthvalue of {do badri}, I know that x is
        truthvalue of {do badri}.
   - x is truthvalue of {do badri}.
   - do badri

To me, the first of these makes the most sense. {la`e lu ko
klama li`u} would be "do klama". And {xu do badri} would
be equivalent to something like {gau ko mi djuno le du`u
xu kau do badri}.
["gau" is a guess at the appropriate BAI]

> >But given that {mi badri} is a statement, but {la`e lu mi
> >badri li`u} refers not to a statement but rather to a proposition
> >or state-of-affairs wherein I am sad, I would conclude that
> >{la`e lu xu mi badri li`u} refers not to a question but rather
> >to the proposition being asked about,
>
> Not to a sentence-question, right! But that's just what I need
> for the x2 of djuno, a proposition (a du'u). A proposition that
> serves as answer to the propositional question {la`e lu xu
> mi badri li`u}. When I say {ko'a djuno le du'u xukau mi badri}
> I am not making reference to any sentential question. I'm
> claiming koha's knowledge of a state-of-affairs.

I just aren't convinced that {le danfu be la`e lu xu do badri li`u}
refers to the proposition you want, even if x2 of danfu can
be a proposition rather than a text.

--And