Re: "Anticipatory" Tense

Lars Henrik Mathiesen writes:
 > > Date:         Sat, 2 Mar 2002 19:37:36 +0000
 > > From: Tim May <butsuri@...>
 > >
 > > Lars Henrik Mathiesen writes:
 > >  > According to Trask, prospective denotes the state of being about to do
 > >  > something, not the immediacy of the actual act --- the crown prince is
 > >  > going to become king, some time the next thirty years --- and it thus
 > >  > shares the stative status of perfect, and presumably its aspecthood.
 > >  >
 > >  > (I think Welsh and Irish express the perfect by something like 'is
 > >  > after', and the prospective by 'is before', clearly marking them as
 > >  > states).
 > >
 > > Interesting - I guess this makes more sense (to have a grammatical
 > > indication for) than immediacy, although personally I find it an odd
 > > way of thinking about a future event.  Possibly a result of only being
 > > able to think in English.  I can see it being useful to refer to a
 > > future event relative to the time being discussed (which is in the
 > > past or future), but I'm not sure I can see its usefulness in the
 > > present.  A present state can't result from a future action one under
 > > normal circumstances, after all.
 >
 > Well, do you accept mortality as a state, for instance? All men are
 > going to die (prospective) = all men are mortal (present state).
 >
 > English does conflate immediate future (I'm going to eat dinner) and
 > prospective (as above), that may be part of the problem.
 >
 > Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn@...> (Humour NOT marked)

I suppose so, although there are few things you can speak of with as
much certainty as death (which suggests a joke about a language in
which the only verbs which can take the prospective are "to die" and
"to be taxed").  Still, it makes more sense to be now.

I think the main problem is that I can't find a suitable way to
paraphrase the present perfect, and so can't make a future
equivalent.

It's interesting, certainly.

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