Re: R: Re: New to the list

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000 15:13:56 -0400 Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...>
writes:
> On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Patrick Dunn wrote:
>
> [yhl]
> > > Probably you'd say something like "I have 14 summers," though
> I'm still
> > > figuring out how to express "to have" (probably going to use the
> verb
> > > "to exist" instead of creating a new verb).  This would only
> count the
> > > summers you'd lived through, plus the womb-time.
> >
> > YOu could do what Biblical Hebrew does:
> >
> > yesh li sus
> > There.is to.me horse
> > I have a horse
> >
> > I've always found that elegant.
> <pondering>  I like it, but I'll have to see whether I'm going to
> even
> have a copula.  Thanks for the suggestion!
>
> YHL
-

If i understand correctly what a copula is, _yeish_ is not one.  It has
no connection to the root HYH (to be); like _hay_ in Spanish, all it
means is "there is/are" with no distinction of person.  In Spanish, _hay_
in non-present tense turns into singular forms of _haber_ "to have" (as
in "to have eaten", not "to have a horse"), which might be where _hay_
comes from in the first place.  In Hebrew, _yeish_ becomes
fully-conjugated forms of HYH when you want to use it for past or future.
 Hebrew doesn't have a present-tense copula.  The forms of HYH for
present tense exist, they're just illegal to use except in the phrase
"hayah, _hoveh_, veyihyeh" (was, _is_, and will be).


-Stephen (Steg)
 "light rises from the east / a new day has arrived / the two of us will
vanquish fear"
                    ~ _tutim_, by Ethnix