Subject: Re: [lojban] I almost caught the train

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 20:05:08 -0500 (EST)

On Mon, 12 Mar 2001 [email-masked] wrote:

> In a message dated 3/12/2001 12:15:06 PM Central Standard Time,
> [email-masked] writes:
> >
> > 10.1) mi pu'o damba
> > I [inchoative] fight.
> > I'm on the verge of fighting.
> >

> I suppose, and. in that case, even {mi pu'o damba} suggests
> -- in the absence of a correlated event, that the battle did not take place.

When I hear "I'm on the verge of fighting.", I never take that to mean
the fight actually doesn't occur. Is that really what pu'o means? Is the
English in example 10.1 incorrect? I thought that pu'o refers to an
event that really occurs, otherwise, there would be no event having a
before-period. (You can't be before an event that never occurs, unless
we're taking the trivial case, suggesting that all conceivable events
could occur in the future. It is before the time that Jesus Christ comes
to my door in a Domino's uniform and delivers me a pizza.)

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