Re: Implied verbs

Hi!

Gary Shannon writes:
> Do any natlangs make frequent use of implied verbs? ...
>...
I'm not sure whether this is what you are looking for, but German and
Dutch frequently drop the main verb if an auxiliary is present.
Depending on language and dialect, the degree of grammaticality
differs.  E.g., in my dialect it would be correct to ask:

   Kann    ich noch ein Bier?
   can/may I   another  beer?
   'have' is dropped.

In Standard German, it would be ok to say:

   Sollen wir in   die Stadt?
   Shall  we  into the city?
   'go' is dropped.

And Dutch allows things like:

   Openbare borstvoeding   mag.
   public   breast-feeding may
   i.e. the auxilary 'may' is used for 'is allowed'.

In the same way, it uses 'must' for 'is mandatory' etc.

Again in German:

   Das Messer soll/muß/kann           in   die Schublade.
   The knife  is_supposed_to/must/may into the drawer

Is this what you were looking for?  An auxiliary must still be there,
so the sentences are not verb-free.

Ok, Russian allows the copula to be left out (as many languages do),
but that may be something different -- the copula and sentences that
need it in languages that have it, are special types of sentences
anyway.

**Henrik

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