whether (was Re: ni, jei, perfectionism)

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

Lojbab to Prince Rampant:
> >>In English, we might use the indirect question formulation for either
> >>type of expression "I discussed whether broda is true" sounds like an
> >>indirect question, but if I indeed know that it is true, then most likely I
> >>really am discussing the fact that it is true and not the indirect question
> >>of whether it is true.  But when making a statement about personal
> >knowledge
> >>or actions involving a not specified value, we don't NEED to use an
> >indirect
> >>question in Lojban, and with truth values that are known but unspecified,
> >>it may seem awkward.
> >
> >I really don't know what you're getting at. They are slightly different
> >indirect
> >questions, but they're both indirect questions
>
> 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."

Because they don't mean the same thing, and the "whether" meaning
is some times more appropriate. For example, "She knows whether
x is true" is a perfectly sensible thing to say (especially if
I don't know whether x is true).

> 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".
>
> 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.

It's not an English idiom. The semantics is compositional, so it's
not an idiom, and it is not peculiarly English, since other
languages do it too (e.g. Italian _so se_, "I know if", vs. _so che_
"I know that"). These are not truth-condtionally equivalent.

> In the second, either a different indirect question is being
> discussed, or it is a fact that is being discussed.

It can't mean that a fact is being discussed.
The meaning of "whether" as complement of "discuss" is indeed
different from the meaning of "whether" as complement of "know"
(and most other verbs that can have an interrogative clause
complement). The difference seems to correlate with whether the
interrogative clause can alternate with a that-clause. When
no alternation is possible, as after "discuss" (*"discuss that"),
the interrogative clause means something approximately like "the
question about whether". At any rate, discussing whether x is
the case involves enquiring whether x is the case, while
discussing the fact that x is the case does not.

--And