Re: tenses

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

And:
> I trust that we have established (i) that {ba broda} logically claims
> that some event of brodaing is located at some time that is after
> {ba} (the word), (ii) that {ba broda} is false if no event of brodaing
> is located at some time after {ba}, (iii) that to assert {ba broda}
> is to be on epistemically shaky ground, (iv) that (iii) does not have
> any bearing on the accuracy of (i-ii), and (v) that the word LIE does
> not mean "say something that is untrue".

I agree with all of that, but it doesn't apply to {capu'o broda}, which
is about a present state. There is no {ba} involved.

> Lojbab
> > Thus I am inclined to accept the ruling that it doesn't matter whether
> > the ball actually falls off the table
>
> It does matter to the truth of the statement.

It depends on what statement you are talking about. If it's a statement
with {ba}, then the future does matter, otherwise it doesn't.

> It generally won't matter
> to whether it is an appropriate thing to say. (There can be little
> doubt that truth has negligible influence on what we choose to say.)

I agree that we often say things that are not true simply because we
are mistaken, or because we are lazy and know that what we say will
not be interpreted literally, not because we are lying. But in the
case of {capu'o}, the claim is not false if the event ends up not
happening, as long as it really was about to happen.

In other words, if you say {le bolci ba farlu}, I can say
"you were wrong, I caught it fefore it fell" but if you say
{le bolci pu'o farlu} I would say "you were right, but I caught
it before it fell".

> Suppose koa started to eat an apple, but never finished it, and
> suppose you don't want to falsely claim that there was an event
> of koa eating an apple, which is what {koa coa citka pa plise} would
> do (I presume).

I don't think that it would claim that. All it claims is that the
event starts, there is no claim that it won't be prematurely interrupted
before it is completed. Why should {ko'a co'a citka pa plise}
entail that {ko'a mo'u citka pa plise}? If it does entail that,
then how are we to interpret {co'u}? If you say {ko'a co'u citka
pa plise} then is may be false that the event ever started?

> What one should in those circumstances say is, I
> suggest, {coa dahi nu koa citka pa plise} or {coa nu dahi koa citka
> pa plise}, where {dahi} has the function of expanding the universe
> to include the imaginable as well as the actual.

Why not just {da'i ko'a co'a citka pa plise}? But in any case,
I very much disagree. In my opinion {co'a} makes a claim about the
start of the event only, in no way suggesting that the event will
ever be completed.

Jorge