Message-Id: <199510021735.NAA15018@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Mon, 2 Oct 1995 13:07:45 EDT
Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: tense conversions
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

la kir cusku di'e

> I'm sorry - I have read lojban tenses paper this weekend first time, so my
> ideas may be silly, but newertheless...

Not at all. My ideas may be silly as well. If my arguments are not
convincing you should feel free to disagree.

> Likewise with {pu'o} one claims that the state of the world _now_ is that the
> event _will_ begin in the future (and probably now we have same pre-events
> related to this beginning).

I think {pu'o} only describes the state now. The description is in terms of
an event that would happen in the future, but it only describes the
current situation.

(By "now" and "current" I mean the appropriate reference time, which
need not be the present. {pupu'o} describes a past state of the world,
and {bapu'o} a future state of the world, but always states that
relate to events that would happen later on.)

Similar things happen with other tenses. If you say that the house
is being built now, you are not claiming that it will be finished.
If it is never finished, your claim that it was being built is not
false.

> I have never seen "inchoative tense" in any language before (except Vorlin,
> but I know them even worse than Lojban), but I belive (at least grammar tables
> of both languages forces me think so) that it acts symmetrical to perfective.
> And with perfective, one can't say that some event is now 'done' (AFAIK it is
> verbatim translation from latin 'perfectum') unless somewhere in the past it
> was 'doing'.

Right, you can't say it because of how causality works. If you could
travel to the past and change it, then you might have a perfective state
of something that didn't happen, but obviously our universe doesn't
work like that. But since the future is unknown, the tenses can't be
absolutely symmetrical.

> >         le bolci pu'o farlu le loldi le jubme
> >         The ball is about to fall to the floor from the table.
>
>         .i do cusku lu pu'o .ue farlu fa le bolci li'u
>
> >         i mi kavbu le bolci le xance ja'e le nu by na farlu
> >         I catch the ball with my hand so that it doesn't fall.
>
> I have added one more sentence between yours to illustrate my idea - in the
> _story_ time your was beliving that ball (inchoative) falls, but this claim
> (prediction) became false because of your own action.

I don't believe that claim is false, it was a faithful description of
the world. The ball was actually about to fall. If I had said
{le bolci ba farlu}, then yes, that claim would be false, because in the
future of the claim, the ball didn't fall.

> Again - I'm definitely not familiar with the concept, and all above was
> written just under the first impression. Correct me if I am wrong, please.

I can't say that you are wrong, since I don't have any authority on the
matter, I just tell you how I see it.

Jorge