Re: "......I have a banana in my ear" (was: Re: Weekly Vocab 6: to know)

En réponse à Douglas Koller, Latin & French :


>I can't swim. - I haven't learned how.
>vs.
>I can't swim. - I have a red hot poker jabbed into my thigh.
French has the same distinction, using "savoir" vs. "pouvoir":
Je ne sais pas nager: I can't swim - I haven't learned how.
Je ne peux pas nager: I can't swim - they cut my legs and arms.


>The fact that you can get away with the sentence, "Nihongo ga
>dekiru.", I like to liken in my mind to the German "Ich kann
>Deutsch.", but I think the background logic is actually different. In
>German, I interpret it as an ellipsis of a
>well-understood-by-context, rounding-out-the-sentence infinitive,
>here "sprechen", maybe "verstehen".
Dutch is full of those ellipses. I find it a neat feature :) .

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.