Re: do be do be do
| From: | Matt Pearson <mpearson@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, May 25, 1999, 18:33 |
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Steg Belsky wrote:
>In Rokbeigalmki "what are you doing" is a verbless sentence:
>
>_hawa eza:?_
>
>It's literally like saying "what are you -ing?"
In Malagasy, the way to say "What are you doing?" is
"Maninona ianao?". "Maninona" is formed by adding the
verbal prefix "man-" to the word "inona", which means
"what". So "Maninona ianao?" is literally something
like "You are what-ing?".
An old conlang of mine, Kosan, had a number of what
you could call 'interrogative pro-verbs', including
ones meaning "do what?", "be what?", and "be where?".
Matt.
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Matt Pearson
mpearson@ucla.edu
UCLA Linguistics Department
405 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1543
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