indirect Qs (was Re: On logji lojbo discussions)

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

Lojbab:
> >> Or perhaps "mi djuno tu'a lejeikau la frank cu bebna"
> >
> >Doubtful. IIRC {kau} is not well defined when not after a
> >Q-word. With a struggle I might make some sense of your example,
> >[though] it would take a lot of cerebration & conscious reasoning.
>
> If it is a conventional interpretation than it should take zero cerebration.
> All uses of discursives are inherently conventional.  WE have agreed on a
> convention when kau follows a Q-word.  We can agree on other conventions.
> It requires no cerebration or reasoning at all, just usage which catches on.
> Of course negotiating the agreement should take place in Lojban rather than
> English in this post-baseline world %^)

Some conventions make sense. Others don't. Your usage of kau is
not (yet) conventional. Nor does it make sense. Since it neither
is conventional nor makes sense, I cannot work out what you
intend it to mean.

> >> No, since I created it.  It was created specifically to talk about the
 truth
> >> of a proposition.
> >
> >But I have seen from your own messages that you have believed that
> >to know the truth value of p is to know whether p is true.
>
> That is true.  I still believe it.  but I also believe that this
> is equivalent to saying "know that the truth value of p is X"

It's true for English. Not for canonical Lojban.

> because the nature of truth value" is that a proposition has only
> one.

Invalid reasoning. I may djuno fi lo pa do mamta, but not
djuno lo nu ma kau do mamta.

> But we do not have idiomatic use of the phrase "truth value"
> in English, so I am not prone to say mi djuno ledu'u makau jei
> broda though I consdier this to be as Lojbanic as the xukau
> variety, and indeed careful analysis would find it even more
> appropriate. (The convention for other Q words besides xu, seems to
> be that using kau in a djuno expression means that a word which
> answers the question is what is meaning asked for.   But the answer
> to xu is "go'i"/nago'i" which is not a truth value but a claim.

I agree with this. {ma kau jei} would be equivalent to having
a question word in JAhA, e.g. "xa`a", and then using {xa`a kau
broda}. Possibly {ja`a xi ma kau broda}. Or what is the question
word in PA? Is it {xo}? Maybe {ja`a xi xo kau broda} is better.

> Thus an English translation of a du'u xukau question might go like:
>
> Tell me whether <proposition x> is true
> <proposition x> or
> <not proposition x>

I'm not sure I understand.

> I am not entirely convinced that these are answrs to English "whether
> We have a convention like many languages that repeating a claim is
> saying  yes to a yes/no question.  But I am not sure that "whether" is a
> yes/no question.

Broadly, yes. Definitely if a tea-or-coffee question counts as a
yes-no question.

--And