Re: R: Re: New to the list

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Patrick Dunn wrote:

> > > 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!
>
> Biblical Hebrew is copula zero.  There's a verb meaning "to exist" --
> hayah -- but as far as I know it's not used as a copula.
>
> The word "yesh" simply means "there is, there were, there are."  It's like
> the Spanish "hay" or the French "il y a."  It's not even conjugated, and
> it cannot be negated, although a negative word, "ain," meaning "there is
> not, are not, were not, etc." exists and can be used the same way.
Whoops!  You're right; I read that somewhere, but my mind blanked when I
saw "there.is"--sorry.  I wonder if I should have a "yesh/hay/il y a"
construction in Chevraqis.  I might replace the dative? "to.me" with a
genitive or locative (the case system doesn't have a dative, if that's
what it is).

YHL