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

Josh Roth <Fuscian@...> wrote:

And about the "object" of "be" being in the nominative vs.
accusative, it is,
at least in my dialect, absolutely always accusative (or
oblique, or
objective, or whatever you want to call it. *"That is he" is
just as wrong as
*"I saw he". You only say the former if you're trying to
impress an English
teacher or if you're feeling theatrical or something.

IIRC, Turkish also has the object of "be" in the accusative.
""""""""""""""""""""""""
that's interesting because to me the verb "to be" in "i am a
student" and "to be" in "it is me" are completely different
copulae.
in "it's me", it_is is "descriptif" while in "i am a
student", be_student is "équatif". quoting Claude Hagège:

"On peut dresser une typologie des énoncés minimaux à deux
termes. L'examen d'un grand nombre de langues permet
d'aboutir au modèle suivant :
Types sémantiques / Participant
non actifs :
1. équatif : défini par le procès
2. attributif : qualifié par le procès
3. situatif : identifié par sa situation
4. existentiel : posé comme existant
5. descriptif : conçu comme théâtre du procès
actif :
6. actif : doué d'un certain contrôle sur le procès"

note that "procès" doesn't mean "process". it's the
equivalent of "comportement" ("behaviour"). the french
authors i read don't care about the state/action,
stative/dynamic difference when tracking down their "énoncés
minimaux". the funny thing is that in English many examples
of those can be made with the copula "to be":

1. i am a student. (équatif)
2. i am dead. (attributif --i know that if anyone reads this
i'll get "noped at" back again :-)
3. i am here. (situatif)
4. there is a student. (existentiel)
5. the streets are plagued with dog shit. (very descriptif:
remember, i live in beauuuuuuutiful Paris :-((()

Mathias
www.geocities.com/kalatunu/index.htm