[Lingtyp] IF and WHEN in the future

[Sergey Loesov]

Dear colleagues,

In Babylonian Akkadian corpora of the 1st millennium BC the conjununction
*kī* is claimed to mean both ‘if’ and ‘when’ in the future-time clauses.
Some people believe that clause-initial *kī* is ‘if’, while *kī* as a
preverb is ‘when’. The evidence does not always confirm this claim. One
immediately thinks about the German *wenn*, 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?

Best,

Sergey
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