Re: Poijpohloneny

>From: Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
>Subject:      Re: [CONLANG] Poijpohloneny
>
>Hi!
>
>Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> writes:
>...
>> >In all of the above sentences:
>> >
>> >    'The book is on the table.'
>> >    'The book is new.'
>> >    'This is a new book.'
>> >
>> >I would analyse 'is' as the copula.  It it was not in the first
>> >sentence, then that sentence would be highly mystical to me:
>> >'That book does its being on the table!' :-)
>>
>> You forget the second full verb use of "to be": verb of position. It's
>> *not* a copula in the first sentence (a test is that the copula can be
>> replaced by verbs like "seem", as in: "the book is new" -> "the book seems
>> new". But you can't have: "the book is on the table" -> *"the book seems
>on
>> the table".
[snip]

>Same questions concerning Finnish:
>
>   Kadulla   on yksi koira.
>   street-on is a    dog.
*One* dog. (The numeral _yksi_ is indeed practically an indefinite article
in colloquial Finnish, but your sentences are in Standard Finnish.)

>   Olen soumalainen.
>   I-am finnish.
Suomalainen. (OK, that one was probably a typo. :)

>   Katu   on punainen.
>   street is red.
>
>Are these all copula uses in Finnisch?
If the verb in "The book is on the table" is not a copula, then the one in
"Kadulla on yksi koira" 'There is one dog on the street' shouldn't be either,
as they both equally indicate location.
To be sure that I have understood the copula thing correctly: is _become_
a copula, too?

>And is the following a good
>sentence:
>
>  ?Minä olen.
I don't know.
So I asked a friend, who felt it was ungrammatical, and also disliked the
cogito - see below.
(It would, of course, be perfectly good if it was actually a copula with
context, as in "Is someone a doctor here?" - "I am".)

>Or is 'olla' exclusively a copula in Finnish? What is 'I think,
>therefore I am' in Finnish?  (I'm collecting that one.)
"I think, therefore I am";
"Ajattelen, siis olen."
think-1SG, ergo be-1SG

So yes, it has the verb _olla_, but I suspect it is influence from the language
it was translated from. I find it hard to judge how good Finnish it exactly
is.

And anyway, much rather than "Minä olen" 'I am' I too would say "Minä olen
olemassa" 'I exist', if that was what was meant.
Isn't it the same with the English translations as well? Is "I am" influence
from the Latin "Cogito, ergo sum", and does Latin not do the difference here
- is the verb whose first person singular form is _sum_ the only Latin verb
for both existence and copula use?

>**Henrik
- M. Astrand

>--
>Wo3 si1 gu4 wo3 zai4.
>Naneun ssaenggakhanda.  Koro naneun chonjaehanda.
>Jo jes kel lw hw jo.



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