Re: "About to" aspect

At 2:18 pm -0800 11/11/98, JOEL MATTHEW PEARSON wrote:
>On Wed, 11 Nov 1998, Raymond A. Brown wrote:
>
>> The aspect is also called 'inchoative' - and not only by lojbanists.  The
>> two terms 'inchoative' & 'inceptive' seem to be about equal in choice of
>> term for this aspect among linguists.
>
>As I understand them, inchoative and inceptive are not quite the same.
>Inchoative denotes a change of state ("becoming") whereas inceptive
>denotes the commencement of an activity ("beginning").
Yes, thank you.  I agree that's certainly more in line with my own usage.

>Incidentally, both inchoative and inceptive are marked by the suffix
>"-oin" in Tokana.  An inchoative form is produced by adding "-oin"
>to a verb denoting a state, while an inceptive form is producing
>by adding it to a verb denoting an activity or accomplishment:
>
>        liuna           "be old"
>        liunoina        "become old"
Yep - the Latin 'senescere' (to become old) is certainly what I learned
long years ago as an inchoative verb.

>        uhna            "sing"
>        uhnoina         "begin to sing"
....which, I guess, would simply be 'canere incipere' in Latin :)

>When attached to a verb denoting a punctual activity (like "arrive"),
>"-oin" has the flavour of "about to" in English:
>
>        itskana         "arrive"
>        itskanoina      "begin to arrive, be about to arrive"
>        itskanoine      "began to arrive, was about to arrive"
>
>Matt.
...begin to arrive, _be about to_ arrive.

Looks as though my 'gut instinct' to call the "about to" aspect 'inceptive'
was the better choice  :)

Well - I won't throw away my reference book as it generally seems pretty
good - but in this respect I must say I'm very much inclined to agree with
Joel that there is a difference between the two terms.

Thanks,
Ray.