Re: Phenomena

Steg Belsky wrote:

>I'm not sure what to do in Rokbeigalmki, i have two possibilities:
>"it's raining" can be:
>
>uza-jaariht  ~  (it)(present-immediate)-(rain)
>
>or just
>
>a-jaariht  ~  (present-immediate)-(rain)
>
>Normally, verbs need a true subject-tense complex in order to be
>considered conjugated verbs and not nouns.
>There's one exception, the words tii/kii/nii, which are the equivalents
>of positive, possible, and negative versions of Spanish _hay_ or Hebrew
>_yeish_, "there is/are".  To say "there were/was" you just add the
>past-tense vowel to the beginning: u-tii.
>
>So i'm not sure whether to make these kind of subjectless weather verbs
>irregular, like "tii/kii/nii", or make them regular verbs with an "it"
>subject.
There's a third possibility, which would involve using "tii/kii/nii"
plus a noun:  "There is rain" or "There is raining".  Some natlangs
express weather predicates as existential constructions, I think.

Matt.