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Nick Nicholas scripsit: <digression> > -- I know who killed Laura Palmer! > -- Yeah, who? > -- The same guy who killed Theresa Banks! > > No, that's not an answer; we want a name. I think the not-an-answer-ness of this is fact-specific. The dialogue -- I know where Bolshoi Olyania is. -- Yeah, where? -- Two kilometers from Krasny Sigorsk. is uncommunicative, assuming the asker doesn't know much about Russian villages (indeed, one can know this fact without having a clue where either Bolshoi Olyania or Krasny Sigorsk are); whereas in -- I know who Cicero is. -- Who? the answer "Tully" is reckoned uncommunicative (if pedantically true) whereas the answer "The greatest Roman orator" at least gets you some points on the exam. </digression> > Intension: > > Dale Cooper knows that, for some X, X killed Laura Palmer > => Dale knows someone killed Laura > > Extension: > > For some X, Dale Cooper knows that X killed Laura Palmer > => Dale knows who killed Laura No, that won't wash. For some X, I know that X is a spy (that is, I know there are spies), but "I know who is a spy" is false, because I don't know any spies. If you search for "Ortcutt" in the Lojban archives you can see lots of discussion on this. IMHO it's dangerous to use "know" as the matrix verb in kau discussion, because of the factivity it drags in. Much safer to use "wonder". (I believe And pointed this out, many and many a year ago.) To recap your examples, we get "Dale wonders whether someone killed Laura" vs. "Dale wonders who killed Laura". In the former case, Laura might be killed or unkilled; in the latter, Laura's death is presumed. -- John Cowan jcowan@hidden.email www.reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan "The exception proves the rule." Dimbulbs think: "Your counterexample proves my theory." Latin students think "'Probat' means 'tests': the exception puts the rule to the proof." But legal historians know it means "Evidence for an exception is evidence of the existence of a rule in cases not excepted from."