[Lingtyp] Intuitions about inclusive time reference

[Pier Marco Bertinetto]

Dear All,
I do not share Lidia's view (sorry, Lidia!).
If I understand Östen's example correctly, the intention to submit the
application was expressed yesterday and at the moment I still ignore
whether the event has occurred.
I would then say:
a) Oggi Maria inviava (Imperfect) la sua domanda
    (= most obvious rendering; absolutely neuter w.r.t. occurrence)
b) Oggi Maria doveva (Imperfect) inviare la sua domanda
    (= epistemic meaning of 'dovere'; underlines uncertainty about the
occurrence)
c) Oggi Maria voleva (Imperfect) inviare la sua domanda
    (= I would rank it epstemically intermediate between (a) and (b))
d) Oggi Maria avrebbe inviato (Past Conditional) la sua domanda
    (= double reading: (i) essentially similar to (b) but definitely not
colloquial; (ii) counterfactual, i.e. I know that she could not [(ii) is of
course irrelevant with respect to the situation proposed by Östen])

PS: Lidia is right in observing that most people nowadays use these two
loans (sottomettere, applicazione); but since these words have other
meanings in Italian, I prefer, at the cost of being called purist, to avoid
them in these contexts.
In other words: Io sottopongo domande (che sono certo frutto della mia
applicazione), ma non mi sottometto. Mai!

Best
Pier Marco


Il giorno gio 15 feb 2024 alle ore 11:44 Lidia Federica Mazzitelli <
lfmazzitelli at gmail.com> ha scritto:

> Dear Östen,
>
> In Italian I would say:
>
> "*Oggi Mary spedisce la domanda*" ** Today Mary submits the application'
> - if I am just fact-stating (In a context like Colleague A: "How's it going
> with that proposal Mary has been working on? ME: *Tutto bene, oggi la
> spedisce *"All good, today she submits it" - it is fine both in case she
> already sent it/ she has not yet sent it.)
>
>  "*Oggi Mary dovrebbe spedire la domanda*" 'Today Mary should submit the
> application' (who knows if she will at all?)  - if chatting with a third
> colleague about Mary (and I am unsure whether she will be submitting the
> application at all).
>
> (** Please note: In real life I'd say "*oggi Maria sottomette la
> domanda per la grant*", o "oggi *Maria sottomette l'applicazione**" *but
> I would then have to endure endless reprimands from purists who say "you
> don't use "sottomettere" and "applicare"/"applicazione" in Italian with
> that meaning!" - even if almost everyone uses them (and I fully
> endorse this use). I don't even try to translate grant, so I blocked it out
> from my translation.)
>
> My intuition on Lakurumau, an Oceanic language of PNG, is that they would
> use the irrealis - unless they were absolutely certain she had already sent
> it (But that's not the context you imagined, right?)
>
> T*aning** Mary  ka=daa        lis     paan-in    a     application
> pan=a      grant*
> today  M.      3SG.S=IRR  send  go-APPL ART application OBL=ART grant
>
> Best,
> Lidia
>
>
>
> Il mer 14 feb 2024, 22:29 Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se> ha scritto:
>
>> I would like to ask for intuitions about the following, in one or more
>> languages that you are acquainted with.
>>
>>
>>
>> Suppose your colleague Mary said on Monday: "Tomorrow I'm going to submit
>> my grant proposal." Now it's about noon on Tuesday, and you have no idea
>> whatsoever of the time of the realization of her intention. Maybe she did
>> it in the morning, maybe she'll wait until midnight, and maybe she's just
>> doing it right now. How would you express the sentence below in your
>> language(s), replacing SUBMIT by a suitable verb form? The idea is that you
>> should try to use a maximally simple and natural formulation without
>> excluding any possibility.
>>
>>
>>
>> Today Mary SUBMIT her grant proposal
>>
>>
>>
>> All comments are welcome.
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance!
>>
>> - Östen
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