Re: Results of Poll by Email No. 27

Joe <joe@...> a écrit:
<<<
Sentence is the right word.  I think these guys are wrong.  But only in
English, and a few other IE langs.  There are a lot of Languages that don't
have a verb 'to be' and just slam two nouns together, quite gramatically.
>>>
"Ralph (is a) doctor."
Always an interesting starting point for a few aborted conlangs of mine :-)
Some people will infer an equative 0-copula stuck to "doctor" to make it a verb
(that is, one of the several uses of English "to be"). But I might as well
infer an essive 0-case tag on Ralph to contrast it as a noun. Depends on your
own conlanging bias ;-) Some avoid talking about noun/verb and say Ralph is an
argument and Doctor a predicate, regardless where the linking dark material is
to be spotted with Hubble. But eventually the two smurfs pair as an entity and
its behaviour as any sentences ("orações?":-) need.