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

>here are some of the examples my polish professor gave us:
>'i write with a pen'... ok that works 'pen' is in the instrumental
>case, but the next example is: 'i am a student'... huh? what?
>wouldn't both 'i' and 'student' be nominative?
You are a student, but *you* are doing the action--being--and *student* is
receiving it. Whatever does the action is nominative, and whatever receives
it is accusative.

No, I don't have it wrong for passive sentences. For instance, "I was
crushed by the car." I'm doing the action--being crushed--and the car is in
the instrumental case.

Hey, I might not know the fancy notation, but I know a lot more about the
workings of language than some of you do. I'm fresh into high school; I
haven't had an opportunity to forget. For instance, all of you had a
discussion about linking verbs and whether their adjectival objects were
adjectives or adverbs. They're adjectives, by the way, because in most
languages you can remove the copula (isn't that what "to be" is called?)
and still be understood. "The rag bloody" could be understood, even in
English, though it isn't proper; in Chinese (I think), it is proper.

Just have to learn one more language, about sixty symbols....

Christopher Wright

Bow before royalty, you insolent wretches!
Ta torof turo, lu nuanu navenred!
Ta (imp. part.) torul (bow 2pl near fut) turo (royal [one]; dative
understood), lu (y'all) nuanu (insolent) navenred (lit. "robbed widows")!

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