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Re: Possession (was: Re: Ergative)

From:vardi <vardi@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 21, 1998, 8:16
Matt Pearson wrote:
>
> Use of BE + a dative or locative expression to denote "have" is quite > common. Both Russian and Hindi express "I have a book" as "a book is > beside me". I think the Celtic languages do this as well. So do > Hungarian, Finnish, and Turkish. >
So, in their own ways, do Hebrew yesh li sefer there-is to me book = I have a book and spoken Arabic 3andi ktaab by-me book = I have a book - - - though the effective absence of a present tense of the verb in both languages gives the construction a slightly different feel. Conlanglikeg coluiereiin (In Conlangish friendship) Shaul Vardi