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

yes, the paradigm was/is:

jesm'  jesmy
jesi   jeste
jest'  sut'

-elliottt


--- 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.
>
> -- Yitzik
>

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