Loaded Questions (Was: Re: Conlangcon Boston today!)

On Mon, Nov 11, 2002 at 05:17:32PM +0000, bnathyuw wrote:
>  --- "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh@...> wrote: > On
> Mon, Nov 11, 2002 at 03:00:06PM +0000, bnathyuw
> > wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > naive question this, but don't most conlangers
> > have
> > > mobile phones ? :->
> > [snip]
> >
> > I don't, and I don't intend to get one anytime soon.
> >
> >
>
> btw, in case anyone misinterpreted, that was an
> advanced |not| == 'is it the case that most conlangers
> don't have mobile phones?'
[snip]

Ahh, typical case of confusion about English loaded questions. I used
to have a Classical Greek prof who could never figure out which way a
question was loaded in English, i.e., is it
        "you don't ... do you?" --> expecting "no"
and
        "you do ... don't you?" --> expecting "yes
or is it the other way round?

It's not hard to figure out when the question is simple; but when the
question itself contains complex negatives, double negatives, etc., it
quickly becomes really muddy.

<ObConlang><shameless Ebisedian plug>
Fortunately, Ebisedian has a very clear-cut way of loading questions.  In
Ebisedian, yes/no questions are indicated by an interrogative particle,
usually _a'ne_ ["?an&]. For example:

        a'ne lyy's jh3t3' moo'ju? [*]
        "Is it true that she went to the city?"

To load a question toward an affirmative answer, _ji'ne_ is used instead:
        ji'ne lyy's jh3t3' moo'ju?
        "She went to the city, didn't she?"

To load a question toward a negative answer, _my'ne_ is used instead:
        my'ne lyy's jh3t3' moo'ju?
        "She didn't go to the city, did she?"

Note [*]: although I put a question mark in the orthography for
readability, technically there are no question marks in Ebisedian. In
native script, there is unquestionably only a single sentence-break mark.
:-)
</shameless Ebisedian plug></ObConlang>


T

--
Give me some fresh salted fish, please.