Re: Using 'to be' and cases

zzz wrote:
> 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?
This usage of "is" might be expressed with a different word than the
ordinary symmetrical usage. Zharranh for instance uses the "mi ... ka"
construction:

sho mi xamla sem ka jautu?
QU     dream her    thought?
Is her dream a thought?

sho mi jautu   sem ka xamla?
QU     thought her    dream?
Is her thought a dream?

The Zharranh "mi ... ka" is usually translated in English as "is ... a",
as opposed to "ta ... ja" which is translated "is ... the". But these
are different concepts in Zharranh which just happen to be expressed
with the same word ("is") in English; the distinction between "a" and
"the" is not explicitly expressed in the Zharranh sentences.