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

From: "Christopher Wright" <faceloran@...>
> >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.
Actually I understand in many (most?) languages both are in the nominative.
("agricola poeta est" ?)  The "to be" verb is a copula (linker) and not really
an action in itself.

Prescriptively, English has it ("It was he") although I think "It was him" is
more common.

> 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.
"The customs of your tribe are not laws of nature" -- just because something is
grammatically so in one language doesn't necessarily mean it's so in all others.

    *Muke!