Re: GLI Re: Indirect questions

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

And:
>> Noninherent only in as much as they depend on the context. Somewhat
>> like deictics.
>
>Not like deictics. It is possible to specify the meaning of
>deictics exactly, but involving variables that are to be
>bound by properties of the utterance.

I think I understand what you're saying. You consider
{le ka makau bacru}, "who is the utterer", a property of the
utterance, but you don't want to accept {le ka va'o makau bacru},
"under what circumstances occurs the utterance", as a property
from which to derive the inherent meaning. Is this because
the utterer is much more readily identifiable and easier to
describe the bounding of the variables, or is there some
deeper reason why the utterer is a more inherent property of
an utterance than the circumstances of the uttering?
Perhaps because every utterance must have an utterer, but
not every utterance must have a state of affairs where
someone is or isn't hungry?

>Your case is less like deixis and more like "She painted the
>house his favourite colour".

Yes, certainly.

>If this is true of world W, and
>in world W his favourite colour is blue, then it is entailed
>that she painted the house blue.

Right.

 >OK. But I think your position entails that la`e should include
>all entailments, given that it is established which world the
>utterance is talking about. So I think you are in effect
>arguing that {la`e lu she painted the house his favourite
>colour} can be the proposition "She painted the house blue".
>I'm unhappy with that.

I think it has to work like that. If I know that John lives in New York,
and Lojbab tells me {mi klama le tcadu poi la djan xabju}, "I go to
the city where John lives" then I want to be able to say truthfully:
{la lojbab cusku le sedu'u ly klama la nuiork}, "lojbab says he
goes to N.Y.", even if he didn't use the very words {ly} and {nuiork}.

>So, in conclusion, I think that {cusku le se du`u xu kau Y} can
>coherently be ruled to mean "say whether", but that without
>further investigation, it does not seem as if there is any
>regularity to the mapping from syntax to semantics.

In any case, this would not be a problem related only to
indirect questions. It is in general about what {le sedu'u ...}
means. Can {le sedu'u le va nanmu cu klama le zarci}
be in some context {lu la djan cu klama le zarci li'u}? If yes,
as I think, then the indirect question meaning with kau also
follows.

co'o mi'e xorxes