Re: Grammatical Summary of Kemata

Christophe Grandsire wrote:

>>  Also, I don't think I've quite understood what a
>> copula is - I thought it was just something like "to be".
>
> Indeed, but a language needn't have only one copula. Spanish has two for
> instance: ser and estar, one used for existence and definitive  qualities,
the
> other one for transient qualities (I'm simplifying here, the use  of the
those
> verbs is a little more complicated than that). You could very well have a
> copula to link two nouns together, and another one (which doesn't
> even need to be a verb, your null pronoun works well) to link a noun and
an adjective.

In elementary school, Dutch children learn the nine copula verbs of the
dutch language.Some of them are archaic, but they all express some form of
equality between the two subjects. In Dutch, they are:

-zijn (to be)
-worden (to become, i.e. to be in the future)
-blijven (to remain, i.e. to be now and in the future)
-blijken (turn out to be, i.e. two things were alreayd the same, but it only
shows now)
-lijken (seem to be, the facts seem to indicate that two things are equal)
-schijnen (seem to be, the rest of the world seems to think the things are
equal)

More archaic forms:

-heten (are said to be, the rest of the world says the two things are equal)
-dunken (are thought to be, the speaker has concluded the two things are
equal, usually also with a direct object)
-voorkomen (seem to be, the appearance suggests that the two things are
equal)

Maarten

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