Re: tense conversions

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

coi

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

> 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.

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). Of course this claim includes a bit of predicting.
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'.

>         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.

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.

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'