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

Emaelivpeith taliesin the storyteller:
> 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".
Do you know what he says about languages that have both independent
morphemes and bound particles that can express tense? AFMC, Asha'ille
does this:

Pas shavni. "I spoke." / Pas kr'shavni. "I didn't speak."
Shavpeni. "I spoke." / Kr'shavpeni. "I didn't speak."

Or does this fit the pattern he describes, and I just misunderstood?


--
AA
http://conlang.arthaey.com