Re: tense conversions

[Cyril Slobin <slobin@FEAST.FE.MSK.RU>]

coi

> But I agree that intention doesn't have much to do with it either. Neither
> the ball had intentions of falling, nor the floor of being fallen to, nor
> the table of being fallen from. Indeed, unless there is a person subject,
> it doesn't really make much sense to talk about intentions.

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.
What do you claim when you say "I will go to market"? How do you can to know
that? 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.

co'o mi'e kir.
--
Cyril Slobin <slobin@fe.msk.ru> `When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said,
<http://www.fe.msk.ru/~slobin/> `it means just what I choose it to mean'