Re: OT: sorta OT: cases: please help...

In a message dated 12/6/01 5:02:26 PM, faceloran@JUNO.COM writes:

>On Thu, 6 Dec 2001 09:09:24 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
><christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:
>
>>Since when "being" is an action? "to be" is a copula, i.e. it links
>together
>>two entities by stating that they are identical, or that one is qualified
>by
>>the other (so semantically, it's rather the subject which here receives
>>something): I am a student, here the subject "I" receives a
>>denomination: "student". That's why in the vast majority of languages
>in
>this
>>kind of sentences both nouns are in the same case (nominative or
>absolutive,
>>depending whether it's a nominative-accusative language, or an ergative-
>>absolutive language).
>
>However, "to be" is a verb, and when there is a matter of grammar, it
>usually doesn't care about meaning. You wouldn't distinguish the
>conjugation of verbs of motion from the conjugation of sensory verbs, for
>instance.
Actually it's an important difference, called dynamic vs. stative verbs. Look
at these:
Question: What are you doing?
Incorrect Answer: *I write.
Correct Answer: I'm writing.

Q: What's China?
IA: *It's being a country.
CA: It's a country.

You generally use the progressive form in English for dynamic verbs, and the
simple present for stative ones (to contrast, Spanish, even though it has
both types of verb tenses, generally uses the latter, reserving the former
for the case listed below, or so I was taught). Of course there are
exceptions, namely:
Progressive: also used for expressing being in the middle of something, or
the transitory nature of it, such as "I'm feeling sick" rather than "I feel
sick"
Simple: also used to express that something, even if it's not happening right
now, happens in general, e.g., "I work a lot"

I think some other natlangs make much bigger distinctions (help me out here,
people, if you want). Kar Marinam, a conlang, certainly does.

Josh Roth
http://members.aol.com/fuscian/eloshtan.html