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

On Thursday, December 6, 2001, at 02:01 , Christopher Wright wrote:

> On Thu, 6 Dec 2001 09:09:24 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
>
>> 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. You'll probably cite some language's word for "to be" at me, for
> the sake of argument "ser" (Spanish), and say that it's highly irregular.
> That's only because it's such a common word.
>
I seem to recall Payne's _Describing Morphosyntax_ saying that in very
many languages the copula is irregularly conjugated (if there is in fact
conjugation).  Does anyone have the exact reference?  (Unfortunately, my
copy of that most useful book is in New York.)

And why *are* copulas highly irregular in those languages where they are?
I'm not completely convinced, offhand, by "common word" status; is there
some other or additional underlying reason, or is it all buried in the
mists of time?  :-)  Anyone?

I deliberately constructed Czevraqis as zero-copula, for example, but just
as deliberately made the verbs inu (dynamic/static: to arrive/come) and
azu (dynamic/static: to depart/go) irregular--I like quasinaturalism in my
conlangs.  :-p

> Anyway, grammar is separate from meaning. "Student" in the example defines
> the subject, "I", but "I" am doing something. I am existing as a student.
>  A
> sentence requires a subject (though the subject is occasionally understood
> from the verb and not written / spoken); you can say "I am", but you can'
> t
> say "am student" in English. (You can in many languages because they
> inflect their verbs fully.)
>
You can also say "am student" in Korean (and, I believe, Japanese, though
someone will have to verify this for me) where verbs don't inflect for
person or number at all.  :-)  "Gatta" could mean "I went," or "she went,"
or "he went," or "they went"; of course, you *can* add the pronoun, but if
it's clear from *context* there's no grammatical obligation.  So you might
generalize and say the subject may not be actually put *in* the sentence
when it's understood from another source, whether that be the verb or
external context (or something else).  (At least, you can speak whole
sagas in Korean while avoiding pronouns, though it'd be a bit excessive
and weird.)

>> Besides, there's only one language I know of which happens to use the
>> accusative as the "object" of a verb "to be". That's Classical Arabic, in
>> tenses other than present (where there is no need for a copula, and both
> parts
>> of the sentences are then in the nominative case). But in Classical
> Arabic, in
>> some kinds of sentences (including main clauses) you can mark the subject
> with
>> the accusative case! So the only language I know of which behaves the way
> you
>> describe it is a rather pathological case.
>
What about the French "l'État, c'est moi," where "moi" (accusative?) is
distinct from the more usual "je" (nominative?)?  Je ne me souviens pas
bien les détails de la grammaire française; pouvons-vous m'expliquer la
situation pour(?) votre langue, Christohpe?  [I don't remember details of
French grammar well; could you explain the situation for your language,
Christophe?--Sorry, just had to get in my bit of French practice.]  And
someone else mentioned (I seem to recall) the colloquial usage in English
of "it's me" or "that's him" vs. the prescriptivist "it is I" and "that is
he."  Does anyone know the origins of those colloquial forms?

Yoon Ha Lee [requiescat@cityofveils.com]
http://pegasus.cityofveils.com

Math illiteracy affects 8 of every 5 people.

Replies