Re: Varon

En réponse à daniel andreasson <danielandreasson@...>:

>
> Why? Couldn't you just have "It is (a) black" the same way you
> have "He is a doctor." Although, "it had black" is a neat
> way to do it. I haven't seen that before.
>
Well, my conlang Itakian does that too: "It is black" is "It has blackness" (in
fact "It is with blackness", Itakian doesn't have a verb "to have"). Copular
sentences in Itakian can only mark identity, not qualification. I don't think
it's particularly unnaturalistic. On the contrary, since the use of copular
sentences can be vastly different depending on the language (after all, in
Palau, a language of Micronesia, "I want it" is said: "it is my will", thus a
copular sentence for something which in most European languages is translated
as an active verb). In a book of mine, it is even said that possessive
sentences are rendered as qualificative sentences in some Australian langs
(that is to say, "X has Y" is rendered as "X is Y-having", where "Y-having" is
an adjectival form of "Y"). So if it can be done this way, I don't see why it
couldn't be done the other way round :)) .

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

Take your life as a movie: do not let anybody else play the leading role.

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