Re: savoir-connaître (was: Re: can-may)

>Separating "to know" into saber/savoir/weissen vs
>conocer/connaître/kennen is relatively easy for English speakers,
>actually; the meanings fall into easily grasped categories, even though
>the same word is used for them in English, and even though the two words
>in each of the above three languages don't line up exactly with each
>other.  In contrast, things like the two copulas in the Iberian
>languages, or prepositional distinctions (e.g.  "por" vs "para" in
>Spanish, both of which can be "for" in English) are harder, because the
>categories are harder to delineate.
I think that it is simple for conlangers like you whom(who?) know how cases
work.

"por" introduces the benefactive case

"para" introduces the causal case

so "le hace por usted" is "he does it for you"
    "le hace para te ver" is "he does it to see you"

(it's stupid I wanted to use "hacer" at the first person and I didn't
remember what it was!)

It's always hard to understand separations of an other language when that
division doesn't exist in an other

like "ser" and "estar" in spanish, or "izan" and "egon" in basque wich all
mean "to be"

but here, the difference is easier to understand I think

"Estoy aqui", "Estoy en el Quebec"
"Soy inteligente", "Soy del Quebec"


Only the english divisions still loose me

Example: because the way to create a futur tense in english is to use
auxilaries (or only a futurity word as tonight or tomorrow) it creates a
great diversity

I don't think there's a way to translate each of these with a different
equivalent in any language

Tomorrow I go to work
Tomorrow I must go to work
Tomorrow I can go to work
Tomorrow I may go to work
Tomorrow I might go to work
Tomorrow I shall go to work
Tomorrow I should go to work
Tomorrow I would go to work
Tomorrow I will go to work
Tomorrow I need to go to work
Tomorrow I have to go to work
Tomorrow I want to go to work
Tomorrow I get to go to work
Tomorrow I do go to work
Tomorrow I am going to work
Tomorrow I am going to go to work

Impossible to understand without an instinctive comprehension of the
language and it is impossible to trace a limit between each for someone else
and the sense can change with the situation...

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