Re: do be do be do

In a message dated 5/24/1999 11:11:50 PM, fortytwo@UFL.EDU writes:

>Steg Belsky wrote:
>> In Modern Israeli Hebrew, they're a little weird and they use the
>> direct-object-marker _et_ when the thing which is "for" you has a
>> definite article, even though there's no verb in the sentence at all.
>>
>> yeish li kesef
>> "hay" for-me money = "i have money"
>>
>> yeish li et hakesef
>> "hay" for-me [obj] the-money = "i have the money"
>
>Presumably "yeish" is being reanalyzed as a verb meaning "have".
IIRC the same thing happened in Breton . . . they used to have a "there is
... to ..." contruction and the "there is to" part became a verb by itself.

>--
>"It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father
>was hanged." - Irish proverb
>http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files
>http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/Books.html
>ICQ: 18656696
>AIM Screen-name: NikTailor
Josh
http://members.aol.com/fuscian