GLI Re: Indirect questions

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

Jorge:
> >I don't see that xu kau is deictic at all. "She wondered whether
> >he was hungry" does not vary in meaning according to when and where
> >who says it to who.
>
> But "She knew whether he was hungry" means something if he was
> hungry and something else if he wasn't.

I certainly don't think that. Are you sure you really do?
In truth-conditional terms, "She knew whether he was hungry"
is true iff either he's hungry and she believes he's hungry
or he's not hungry and she believes he's not hungry.

> Our methods of expansion seem not to work for "She wondered
> whether he was hungry". What's going on here?

"She desires that for every x, x a se jetlai of le du`u
he was hungry, she knows that x is a se jetlai of le du`u
he was hungry."

> >I predict that if this is left to ordinary usage, words like
> >"bacru" and "zo" (and many many others) will become homonymous.
>
> Probably, but we should at least try to avoid that.

It depends. Lojbab appears not to want us to try to avoid
homonymy.

--And