Re: Using 'to be' and cases

On Wed, 28 Sep 2005, 16:32 CEST, Yahya Abdal-Aziz wrote:

 > And this is also what many natlangs do, for example, in
 > Malay you would normally say:
 >   Impiannya sebuah fikiran.
 >   'Her dream: a thought.'
 > and
 >   Fikirannya sebuah impian.
 >   'Her thought: a dream.'
 >
 > Although you COULD say
 >   Impiannya adalah sebuah fikiran.
 >   'Her dream was a thought.'
 > and
 >   Fikirannya adalah sebuah impian.
 >   'Her thought was a dream.'

This makes me think of how Ayeri could handle this.

I'd most probably translate the given sentence "Is her dream
a thought or is her thought a dream?" as

   Manganang   iyàena  nernanaris   soyang
   dream.AGT   her     thought.PAT  or

   nernanang   iyàena  manganaris?
   thought.AGT her     dream.PAT

Solved by wordorder because "to be" is dropped here: "Her
dream: a thought or her thought: a dream?". Considering
Henrik's idea about using topic markers, you'd have to use
"to be" here, which you usually would *not* do, since Ayeri
regularly drops "to be" in such situations. *With* "to be",
the sentence should be

  Manganin   iyàena  ang      yomaiyè   nernanaris  soyang
  dream.TRG  her     TRG:AGT  be.3sg:e  thought.PAT or

  manganaris iyàena  ang      yomaiyè   nernanin?
  dream.PAT  her     TRG:AGT  be.3sg:e  tought.TRG

Hm. You wouldn't need to change word order here, only the
focus marker would change its place.

All in all, I somehow have problems with marking the agents
as agents and the patients as patients here for some reason.
Does the dream really affect the thought by being? It rather
seems to me that both should be equally marked or not at all,
but I followed my (German biased) intuition here.

How works the emphatic marker you speak about, Yahya? It'd
be enough explanation if you interlinearized your examples
I think.

Thanks,
Carsten

--
"Miranayam cepauarà naranoaris."
(Calvin nay Hobbes)