Re: R: Re: New to the list

On Fri, 13 Oct 2000, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

> 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!
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.

Of course, this all comes from a single semester of Biblical hebrew back
in college, so it's hardly fresh in my mind.

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