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Using 'to be' and cases

From:zzz <kyrawertho@...>
Date:Monday, September 26, 2005, 12:38
   Hi While translating, I came across the sentence "is her dream a thought or
   is her thought a dream?". English uses a fixed word-order; in my language
   Neimalu (previously Némalo) the translations "tse hugzedru agus keizöns
   jüma" and "tse jüma agus keizöns hugzedru" are the same because word-order
   doesn't matter in this case. Normally there would be an accusative word but
   because 'is' is being used, I do not use the accusative and I also don't use
   stress. Other sentences also give a problem: "he sees her" is "sku agar
   miros" (he-nom her-acc see) but "he is her" would either be "sku agu keizos"
   (he-nom she-nom be) or "agu sku keizos" (she-nom he-nom be) where it's not
   very clear who's the focussed person. Should I use accusative in 'to
   be'-sentences like 'he-nom she-acc be' or genitive maybe? Also, because I do
   not use stress, a question is pronounced like any other sentence. Therefore
   I use the word 'tse' for making questions (except when a word like who,
   which, where, etc. is already used) should I use words for exclamations,
   hypothetical sentences aswel? How is this done in natlangs?

Replies

Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
Herman Miller <hmiller@...>