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

From:Rob Haden <magwich78@...>
Date:Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 17:49
On Mon, 20 Mar 2006 21:03:27 +0100, taliesin the storyteller
<taliesin-conlang@...> wrote:

>Basically: languages which inflect the verb itself for present and >preterite/past, will also have a verb for "to be". Examples include most >IE-languages. Languages which use some other way to show time, don't >have a verb for "to be". Examples include Chinese. The reason why "to >be" is needed is because you can't add a particle/word meaning "not" >directly to a noun used as a predicate, you need a buffer-word of some >sort, hence "to be".
Slavic languages typically don't have "to be" in the present tense. Is this because they mark verbs primarily for aspect instead of tense? - Rob

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Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>