Re: Grammar of "something to do."

Wm. Annis wrote:


>How in the world do you analyze phrases like "something to do," "a
>place to live," "someone to love?"....
>How do other languages handle this?

Spanish:  algo que hacer 's.t. to do'; nada que hacer 'nothing to do'
              ...(en) donde vivir '(in) where to live' (works better in the
negative, as do all of these, oddly enough); Literal:  un lugar en que
vivir.
Not at all sure about the last; nothing I come up with sounds right.........

ObConlang: Good grief, no sooner do I finish what I thought was an
exhaustive (and Lord knows exhausting) syntax of Kash, than someone comes up
with something I didn't treat........Here goes, I think:

ta yale kar {person pfx}mepu '{pers.} doesn't/don't have anything to do',
lit not there-is that-which {pers.}do

yapita kar mepu 'he needs something to do' lit. he-needs what do
One could get the sense of obligation by sticking an aux. verb into the
_kar_clause.

a place to live:  ...yurun re {pers.}eçen riyan, lit. 'place REL {pers.}live
there'
e.g. aka mende hatromat yurun re hayeçen riyan 'have you found a place to
live?' makes a little more sense if ... re pole hayeçen... 'you can live...'

someone to love:  ...kaç are ne {pers}sisa, lit. 'person REL him/her
{pers.}love'
e.g. yaminja kaçe re ne yasisa 'he/she is looking for s.o. to love'.
One could get gender-specific by substituting kaçut 'man' ~ kaçuma 'woman'
for _kaç_ .