I find it curious that, while the present and past adverbial participles "-ante" and "-inte" are quite common (and passive voice equivalents), the future adverbial participles "-onte" and "-ote" are very rarely seen. I'm not actually 100% confident what the appropriate usage is, because I've almost never seen it used!

I'm aware that the oft-given English equivalent is "about to [verb]/ be [verb]-ed", but I wonder if this is always congruent. It seems that, in principle, "-onte" could be used anywhere to indicate that the event will happen in the future, relative to another event (expressed by a verb ending in -s), as with "-inte" and "-ante" for events happening in the relative past and present.

Consider the following sentences.

A: Li injektis la drogon post kiam li sentis dormemon.

B: Li injektis la drogon kaj dume/samtempe li sentis dormemon.

C: Li injektis la drogon kaj [baldaŭ] poste li sentis dormemon.

It seems we can change the sentences in this way without (seriously) affecting the underlying meaning:

A:Sentinte dormemon, li injektis la drogon.

B:Sentante dormemon, li injektis la drogon.

These sound fairly natural, I think it's safe to say. Generalising to the future tense, it seems I'm justified to say:

C: Sentonte dormemon, li injektis la drogon.

But for some reason this sounds odd, and I can't explain why, other than there being no exact equivalent to the future adverbial participle in other languages I'm familiar with.

Can someone provide insight? Am I mistaken in my understanding of "-onte" somewhere?

Tempodivalse:
Can someone provide insight? Am I mistaken in my understanding of "-onte" somewhere?

I don't know if this will help at all, but the only time I've ever seen the elusive onte is in the world "volonte" i.e. willingly, as in "mi volonte [verb]os."

To me it basically serves as an indication that something has not happened yet relative to the point in time an action occurs. It sounds strange, but it does convey information: an adverbial phrase which indicates that the predicate occurs "before having done X" and thus it's basically the opposite of the inte ending, which as I'm sure you recall means something like "having already done X".

So if I'm sitting on a bench waiting for the bus which is coming in 5 minutes, then I could say "Mi sidas veturonte." Even if said bus does not come for an hour or three and I sit there and wait and wait and wait until it finally comes two whole days later, I could still say at that first moment I sat down to wait for the bus, "Mi sidis veturonte."

Tempodivalse:But for some reason this sounds odd, and I can't explain why, other than there being no exact equivalent to the future adverbial participle in other languages I'm familiar with.

Take for comparison e.g. Latin: Cives auxilium petituri ad consulem adierunt.
It works exactely as you described it. It refers to an action after the main verb.

In this case it is attributive, but this doesn't change much. The closest thing you get to an Esperanto adverbial participle would be an ablativus absolutus.

Civibus aŭilium petituris consul cucurrit.

nornen:

Tempodivalse:But for some reason this sounds odd, and I can't explain why, other than there being no exact equivalent to the future adverbial participle in other languages I'm familiar with.

Take for comparison e.g. Latin: Cives auxilium petituri ad consulem adierunt.
It works exactely as you described it. It refers to an action after the main verb.

Thank you!

What I wonder, then, is why -onte and -ote are so rarely used (compared to other adv. participles). Surely there are not that many fewer contexts in which their use would be appropriate. Is it just convention?

Clarification: the reason I don't think "about to [verb]" is an accurate equivalent to -onte, is because "about" implies immediacy. ("About to break" = "will break very soon." ) But seems there is no similar implication when using -inte (e.g., "has just broken" ).

Tempodivalse:

nornen:

Tempodivalse:But for some reason this sounds odd, and I can't explain why, other than there being no exact equivalent to the future adverbial participle in other languages I'm familiar with.

Take for comparison e.g. Latin: Cives auxilium petituri ad consulem adierunt.
It works exactely as you described it. It refers to an action after the main verb.

Thank you!

What I wonder, then, is why -onte and -ote are so rarely used (compared to other adv. participles). Surely there are not that many fewer contexts in which their use would be appropriate. Is it just convention?

Clarification: the reason I don't think "about to [verb]" is an accurate equivalent to -onte, is because "about" implies immediacy. ("About to break" = "will break very soon." ) But seems there is no similar implication when using -inte (e.g., "has just broken" ).

There is no such implication about "-onte/-ote" either.

FractalBloom:

Tempodivalse:
Can someone provide insight? Am I mistaken in my understanding of "-onte" somewhere?

I don't know if this will help at all, but the only time I've ever seen the elusive onte is in the world "volonte" i.e. willingly, as in "mi volonte [verb]os."

"Volont-" seems to actually be a separate root, going by ReVo. This word confused me for a long time...

Christa627:

FractalBloom:

Tempodivalse:
Can someone provide insight? Am I mistaken in my understanding of "-onte" somewhere?

I don't know if this will help at all, but the only time I've ever seen the elusive onte is in the world "volonte" i.e. willingly, as in "mi volonte [verb]os."

"Volont-" seems to actually be a separate root, going by ReVo. This word confused me for a long time...

It is indeed.

The future is never as sure as the past, so it is no wonder that there are fewer contexts and that the are much more languages lacking a future than a past tense.
But I think a great deal of the avoidance of -o(n)te is just because in many languages don't exist similar expressions, so they use circumlocutions like "por poste fari" instead of "faronte".

Myself I decided to try to use the future participle in the approriate contexts and in fact it is not that seldom with me, although the other participles are much more frequent.

I'm not actually 100% confident what the appropriate usage is, because I've almost never seen it used!

Just a few from the Tekstaro.

Ĉu adiaŭonte vi deziras diri ion?
Mi vin petas, observu, ke ĝi estonte iru pli bone
Via markiza Moŝto, li diris, mi venas petonte de vi konsilon.
... kiu jam staris sur la sojlo de la pordo, ekelironte
Vidante ke aliulo alkuras, helponte la viron de ili frapitan, la krimuloj forkuris
Aĉetonte aŭ vendonte domon aŭ terenon, ekzemple, oni bezonas ...

nornen:

Christa627:

FractalBloom:

Tempodivalse:
Can someone provide insight? Am I mistaken in my understanding of "-onte" somewhere?

I don't know if this will help at all, but the only time I've ever seen the elusive onte is in the world "volonte" i.e. willingly, as in "mi volonte [verb]os."

"Volont-" seems to actually be a separate root, going by ReVo. This word confused me for a long time...

It is indeed.

Curse my noobitude.