Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: "to be" and not to be in the world's languages

From:Stephen Mulraney <ataltane.conlang@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 28, 2006, 16:22
On 28/03/06, Isaac Penzev <isaacp@...> wrote:
> > Philip Newton girs'epset': > > > | On 3/22/06, Rob Haden <magwich78@...> wrote: > | > Slavic languages typically don't have "to be" in the present tense. > | > | Is this really typical? > | > | I know that Russian doesn't have "to be" in the present tense, but > | Polish and Czech do. I'm fairly sure Bulgarian and Serbian do as well. > | > | Maybe Russian is the odd one out and the "typical" behaviour for > | Slavic languages *is* to have a present-tense "to be"? > > East Slavic langs (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian) are odd. They tend to > avoid using the verb "to be" in the present tense. But nevertheless, the > very verb does exist even in the present tense form, and may be used for > emphasis, for poetic purposes etc.
Oh? Pray, elaborate! What's the Russian present tense to be? I thought there was just "jest'" (which, with the soft sign looks like an infinitive rather than the 3rd singular I thought it was). I'm curious about the Ukrainian one, too :) For comparison, in Polish we have: (ja) jestem 1s (ty) jestes' 2s (on) jest 3s (my) jestes'my 1p (wy) jestes'cie 2p (oni) sa, 3p (Can't type Polish letters here: s' = s-acute /s\/, a, = a-hook /O~/) s.

Reply

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>