Re: perfective counting

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

la lojban cusku di'e

>  But of course, any time we are
> talking about the future using standard (non-dream) epistemologies, we
> cannot "know" what is to occur, and thus I think all future tenses have
> an implicit da'i even if it is not stated.

There is only one future tense, namely {ba}, right?

I don't agree that it has an implicit {da'i}. If you say {ba carvi}
then you are saying that it will rain, and if it doesn't then you
were wrong.

> This seems similar to the ball-rolling-off-the-table problem, in which I
> think we agreed that we could talk about something happening "pu'o lenu
> farlu le loldi le jubme" even though it is perfectly possible that
> someone might interfere and prevent the ball from reaching the floor.
> "lenu" is in any case fine; "lonu" is questionable.

I didn't agree to that.

I think I can say {le bolci pu'o farlu le loldi le jubme} without
claiming that {le bolci ba farlu le loldi le jubme}, but what you
are saying with a sumti tcita is something different.

(Actually, sumti tcita use of {pu'o} and {ba'o} is weird anyway, so
preferably we shouldn't bring them into this.)

> Jorge suggests a different idea when he mentions the interpretation of
> tenselessness.  One doesn't need "da'i" if one simply presumes that in
> dealing with future tenses, one is normally dealing with an implicit
> ka'e or nu'o instead of ca'a.  Only an explicit "ca'a" would then be
> incorrect.

That's not my position at all. When dealing with the future tense,
my position is that you are claiming that the event _will_ indeed
happen.

On the other hand, when dealing with [ca]pu'o you are describing the
present, not the future, and so whatever eventually does end up happening
is not the main concern.

Jorge