Re: ni, jei, perfectionism

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

Jorge:
>>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.
>

Therefore we need a clear way to distinguish the two, and BOTH need to be
taught to Lojbanists.  English usage  has indirect questions used for
both pirposes, but you seem to agree that there are two distinct meanings.

I suspect that most usages of indoirect questions are referring to known
answers of those questions - and indeed that is why I originally glossed
"kau" as a knowledge discursive - dakau meant "something da and I know what
da is).  The original indirect usag
question usage that led to kau involved
the answer to the question and not the question itself.  Likewise
"Dp you know who went to the store" is "Do you know the answer to the
question "Who went to the store?".

But casnu for example, might allow us to discuss either the question OR
the answer.  Let us discuss the question "Who wnet to the store?".  Let us
discuss the answer to the question "Who went to the store?"  Not to mention
as I said elsewhere "Let us discuss why the paritcular answer to
WWho went to the store?" ios correct, which is plausible for the English

"Let us discuss who went to the store".  (Axctually, in the case of the
English, "discuss" might mean any facet of the goi
ng to the store, including
why said person went or why someone else did not, but this is pragmatic
ellipticization.)

>>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?


Ah, YOu ask about what I just discussed.  If my son is supposed to
take out the trashm and I ended up doing it, I might say "Let us discuss who
took out the trash?"  Clearly soince I know the answer, neither the
 and probably my son
does do, so neither the question nor the answer is really what is being
discussed.  There are other times when the ambiguirty is merely between
discussing the question and the answer.  Then there is my first sentence
of this paragraph, which I realized was an indirect question halfway through th

the sentence prior to this one.

>> 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?


I haven't separted it.  But you maynot realize how many messages
that
conversation amounted to.  I don't know the total volume of text, but I
am sure that it far exceeds, for example, Nick's psotings.  Furthermore,
other than examples, your own Lojban writings since then have been an
occasional  1 or 2 exchange note.  You did do a piece of Don Quixo
te, too,
I recall.  Remember that since that conversation died out (which
was shortly before you moved, I think), Lojban list was all but dead mo
st of
the time.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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