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

In a message dated 12/5/01 3:25:12 PM, faceloran@JUNO.COM writes:

[Note: For those of you who are really anal about this, Chris didn't write
the part in quotes directly following this note of mine; someone else wrote
that.  Chris wrote the bottom part.]

<< >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. >>

    That's a fine way of explaining why "student" is in the accusative and
"I" is in the nominative in the sentence "I am a student".  Wonderful.  So
now explain why "student" is in the instrumental, not in the accusative or
nominative, which was the original question, O greater understander of
languages.

<<Hey, I might not know the fancy notation, but I know a lot more about the
workings of language than some of you do.>>

    Was this a joke?  I'd think it's generally not polite to insult someone
for asking a question.

-David

"Zi hiwejnat zodZaraDatsi pat Zi mirejsat dZaCajani sUlo."
"The future's uncertain and the end is always near."
                --Jim Morrison

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