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Re: [lojban] How would I say ...
On 12/16/2015 11:35 AM, Frank Martinez wrote:
"Today, I will be a husband my wife falls in love with"?
Unfortunately that statement, in English, is highly ambiguous with
respect to things that are important to translation into Lojban.
On the surface, the usage "I will be ... " usually is an indication of
intention, and in particular that the speaker intends to actively do
something to achieve what is intended. But you could look down the list
of attitudes in selma'o UI to get a sense of several other possible
meanings. It could be a prediction or an expectation. Rather than
committing the speaker to action (which might use the attitudinal for
effort?), it might be a more passive desire.
What does the speaker think will happen during the 24 hours constituting
(or less, since today has already begun when someone invokes it)? Is
"X falls in love with Y" a singular achievement event, or is it a
process. Or is being "in love" a state of existence, and "falling in
love" is merely the initiation of that state.
It might be the more passive statement that you mean to be loveable
today, (since in fact you have no control over how your wife's reaction
to anything you do - and in most English usage, even your wife has no
control over whether she "falls in love", since the "falling" implies a
change of state that was NOT a matter of will).
At the very least, there are two predications (wife falls in love with
Y) and (I am/become? a?/the Y), and you need to figure out what "today"
has to do with each predication and you need to figure out what "I will"
means with respect to each predication.
lojbab
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