<div dir="ltr">Hi Sergey - As others could attest, the same morpheme used in clauses that might be translated either 'if' or 'when' is common in African languages. For example, in an introduction to a volume on conditional clauses in African languages, <a href="https://journals.flvc.org/sal/article/view/107239/102560">Nicolle (2017:8)</a> writes: "The use of the same construction to indicate conditionality and (relative) time (if/when clauses) is very common in African languages, and is found in the majority of the languages discussed in this volume." There is no need to grammaticalize the speaker's degree of certainty about these hypothetical events. <div><br></div><div>Joey
</div><div><br></div><div>--<br>Joseph Lovestrand<br>British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow<br>School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics<br>SOAS University of London<br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Jun 11, 2022 at 4:01 PM Sergey Loesov <<a href="mailto:sergeloesov@gmail.com">sergeloesov@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Dear colleagues,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In Babylonian Akkadian corpora of the 1<sup>st</sup> millennium BC the conjununction <i>kī</i> is claimed to mean both ‘if’ and ‘when’ in the future-time clauses. Some people believe that clause-initial <i>kī</i> is ‘if’, while <i>kī</i> as a preverb is ‘when’. The evidence does not always confirm this claim. One immediately thinks about the German <i>wenn</i>, which is assumed to say both ‘if’ and ‘when’ in the future. What shall we make of it? Is it possible that language does not oppose a future condition and a future temporal clause? If yes, how come?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Best,</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0in 0in 8pt;line-height:15.6933px;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">Sergey </span></p></div>
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