From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Sun Oct 1 16:31:04 1995 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id QAA07679 for ; Sun, 1 Oct 1995 16:31:02 -0400 Message-Id: <199510012031.QAA07679@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id BFE9FC32 ; Sun, 1 Oct 1995 16:09:28 -0400 Date: Sun, 1 Oct 1995 16:07:30 EDT Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Subject: Re: tense conversions To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: OR la kir cusku di'e > It seems to me that problem is not in lojban inchoative, but in _any_ kind of > future tense in _any_ language that have them. We usually know more or less > definitely about past and present events, and almost nothing about future. That's true, but then we shouldn't claim that something will happen, but rather that we think it will happen, we intend it to happen, we want it to happen, or something like that. > What do you claim when you say "I will go to market"? How do you can to know > that? You can't know for sure. You are making a prediction. If you say {mi ba klama le zarci} and you end up not going, then the claim you made is simply not true. That doesn't mean you were lying, since that involves intention to deceive, but you certainly were mistaken. On the other hand, if you say {mi ca pu'o klama le zarci} then you are making a claim about the present. At this moment you are ready/about to go to the market. If for one reason or another you end up not going, the claim was still true, because you were describing your state at that time. Of course, in English "I will go" usually means "I intend to go", even the etymology of "will" suggests this, but that is not what {ba} means. With {ba} one claims that a certain relationship will hold at some future time. If it ends up not holding, then the claim is false, no matter what were the intentions of anybody involved. > What do you really know is your intention, or physic laws, or > probability - but not the event itself. So "pure" future tense seems a bit > strange... And it's not a lojban specific problem. Well, what's wrong with predictions? When you use the future tense you are making a prediction. If your prediction is not realized, then you were wrong, and what you said was not true. Jorge