Re: tense conversions

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

la kir cusku di'e

> 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.

That's true, but then we shouldn't claim that something will happen, but
rather that we think it will happen, we intend it to happen, we want it
to happen, or something like that.

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

You can't know for sure. You are making a prediction. If you say {mi ba klama
le zarci} and you end up not going, then the claim you made is simply not true.
That doesn't mean you were lying, since that involves intention to deceive,
but you certainly were mistaken.

On the other hand, if you say {mi ca pu'o klama le zarci} then you are
making a claim about the present. At this moment you are ready/about to
go to the market. If for one reason or another you end up not going, the
claim was still true, because you were describing your state at that time.

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.

> 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.

Well, what's wrong with predictions? When you use the future tense you are
making a prediction. If your prediction is not realized, then you were wrong,
and what you said was not true.

Jorge