Re: ni, jei, perfectionism

[JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

>>But you seemed to think that the truth value use of {jei} was somehow well
>>established.]
>
>It is established by the prescriptive cmavo list.

Right, but not by use.

>In English we are prone to saying "I know whether x is true",  But if
indeed
>we do know, then why do we not say "I know THAT x is true" or "I
>know THAT x is false."

Are you serious? There can be zillions of reasons. We may not
want to give that additional information. Or we may not have it, e.g.
changing the pronoun: "She knows whether x is true, but she
won't tell us."

>If I am a teacher and I say that we will discuss in class "whether X is
true"
>and I know that X is indeed true, Then we will spend no time discussing
>the stated indirect question, but instead will be discussing "The fact that
>x is true" and perhaps "WHY x is true".

You'd make for an authoritative teacher then! Other teachers might really
mean it when they say they will discuss "whether X is true". Obviously it
has a different meaning than discussing "that X is true". If you say one
when you mean the other, that is not a problem of the language.

>In the forner case, what appears to me an indirect question is not really -
>it is an English idiom, and there is a non-indirect-question that can
>substitute.  In the second, either a different indirect question is being
>discussed, or it is a fact that is being discussed.

I was not aware that people used indirect questions as idioms to
mean something else. Is this a commonly accepted fact, or is it
something you just thought up for this argument?

> I was trying to claim that Lojban
>is not necessarily like any one person's usage, and that Nick did not seem
>to adopt your usage implied that at that time the question was still open.
>Since then, 95% of all Lojban usage in the record is one 2 month email
>conversation between you and Goran and Chris with occasional others
>chiming in.

I can't believe that my conversation with Goran is 95% of the Lojban
I've written. Or by "the record" you mean the subset of published Lojban
text that you have separated?

co'o mi'e xorxes