Re: do be do be do

Carlos Thompson wrote:

Tagalog is another example of a language that does not have the verb
"to be". In fact, it does not use copulas at all.


-----<snip>-----
>
>"to do", I don't know but surely on the auxiliary use of "to do"
>many languages live without it (actually I only know English for
>having it but my knoledge is quite small).  On the wildcard use
>(the pro-verb), I guess any language could formulate the question
>"what are you doing?" but I could imagine that a language full of
>preverbs or auxiliary could manage a way of asking that without
>using a verb.
>
>In Spanish "to do" is merged with "to make".  You could also thing
>like "hacer" actually means "to make" and that it is used in the
>sense of "to do" due to the lack of other word.  What I mean is
>that, if you don't have a wildcard verb, questions like "what are
>you doing" will find a way... probably I don't even know what I
>mean :-( )
In Tagalog, when someone asks "what are you doing?", they ask "ano
ang ginagawa mo?" (what are you making?).

Likewise, when some tells you "do this now!", they say "gawa mo ito
ngayon na" (you make this now).

It seems that "gawa" (make) is used in Tagalog to denote a sense of
doing like Spanish "hacer". Actually, I think the verbs for "to do"
and "to make" can easily be merged - but that is perhaps because I'm
thinking like a Filipino at the moment.

-kristian- 8-)