"going to" definition, does it imply intent?

Question

I have had a debate with one of my friends about this little game:

"1 rabbit saw 9 elephants while going to the river. Every elephant saw 3 monkeys going to the river. Each monkey had 1 tortoise in each hand. How many animals are going to the river?"

Answers:

• 4 - if you could rabbit and monkeys (which are described as "going to" the river)
• 10 - if you are counting tortoises in monkeys' hands
• 19 - if you assume all

my argument is that the tortoises are not "going to", but are being either "taken to" or "move towards" river. That's what I would say if someone holds me and goes to the river.

my friend's argument is that because they move towards the river, they are "going to" the river. he gave example of me being in the car.

Me: If I don't intend to go there, I'm being "taken to", even if in the car.

Question: does "going to" implies intent of the subject ?

Answer 1

In the question/game/riddle, "going to" does not indicate an intent. It indicates that the subject(s) was(were) moving towards the river, whether that were their intent or not. (I assume you are referring to the tortoises - they are going to the river.

(We can say 1 rabbit is going to the river. ("while going to the river" is a free modifier - it is adverbial modifying "1 rabbit saw 9 elephants": it is not adjectival. It can be rephrased as "While going to the river, one rabbit saw 9 elephants.")

As there is no information about the elephants, we cannot assume that they were going to the river.

We can say 3 monkeys are going to the river. (The elephants saw them doing this.)

There are 6 tortoises that are going to the river - even though they have no choice.

There are 10 animals going to the river.)

Answer 2

I don't believe the intent matters in this question. Let's say we replace "to" with "towards". The tortoises are still moving towards the river, and if that's where the monkeys are going, that is where they will also end up. I'm more interested in this question, however. 1 rabbit sees 9 elephants on the way to the river, and each elephant sees 3 monkeys. Does that mean all of the elephants see the same 3 monkeys? Or is it 3 different monkeys each? And each monkey has 2 tortoises. The way it is written implies that their is 1 rabbit, 27 monkeys and 54 tortoises. The elephants just saw the mokeys going to the river, they did not go themselves. My answer would be 82.