tense

["John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>]

As many threads here show, it is often a long way from logic to Lojban
and the
vicissitudes that a concept endures along that trip are pretty
unpredictable.  So has it been
with tense, though in some parts much has survived rather well.  In
others less so.  And in
others it just ain't clear how things are going.  Aspect (contour aspect
in this case) is in
the last group.  At one time, the notion was that contour aspect in
natural languages had
two interpretation, extensional and intensional (Note: NOT "intentional,"
this is not about
plans and the like), and the plan was to give these different forms in
Lojban (this may go
back even to Loglan).  It now seems to me that there is only one form for
each of
inchoative, initiative, continuative (and pausitive), terminative
(indeed, the several
versions of that) and perfective, but I do not know which one it is.
Lojbab and Cowan
say extensional and that is powerful evidence; xorxes say intensional
(well, he does not
really say that but what he says amounts to that) and show in a variety
of ways that the
extensional forms would be redundant (not too surprisingly, since they do
the work of
tenses proper in languages which have them heavily).
        If I were to vote on what I would like them to be, I would go for
intensional (drat,
agreeing with xorxes again!).  The idea of the intensional inchoative is
that the event is
"present in its causes" (Aritstotle, I think, already), that the present
situation is basically
the sort that "just" precedes the start-up of  the event type in
question.  Of course,
"basically" allows for unnoticed deviance, like watchful xorxes flying
leap to catch the
pencil on the lip of the table or my mother-in-law calling me to her aid
twenty miles
aways just as I am about to go to the store.  But I was about to go and
the pencil was
about to fall, even though neither of us did. (The "just" back there was
because there is
not a good temporal limit on these things.  I have seen it seriously
argued -- though not in
these words -- that all the time between 1815 and 1939 were the
inchoative aspect of
WWII and certainly  that the period 1919-1939 were.  Of course this is
hindsight.)
        As xorxes notes, the assymmetry between causes and effects means
that the
inchoative is not exactly the mirror image of the perfective (the event
is still "present in
its effects"): the effect does not come about without the cause, but the
cause may be
interfered with so that its effect does not eventuate.  But the cause (in
this broad sense)
was still present.
        On the general question about tense lists, I side with Lojbab.
The English tense
formula involves at least half a dozen different systematic factors
(tense, aspects of both
kinds, affirmation, supposition, intention and  I bet someone will come
up with others)
and even the purely tense portion is based upon a different underlying
pattern from
Lojban, so often does not translate naturally -- Lojban does not use capu
and puca with
much comfort, but that distinction is central in the system underlying
English (without
the different forms making any difference in pure tense).  (Oh, yes,
modality and
habituality/uniqueness.)  Learn about the various systems, in English and
in Lojban and
thus learn to use both moer effectively, but do not expect that one will
translate into the
other in any uniform way