Re: EXERCISE: Meanings of to be

> >1. forming predicate nominative: He IS happy
> >2. equivalence: Today is Wednesday.
> >3. existance: To be, or not to be.
> >4. English use, for creating verb forms: He is walking.
> >5. Numerical equivalence: One plus one is two.
> >Do you differenciate?

Well, let's look at how Silindion does it.
Silindion has 6 basic types of 'Be-ish' verbs.
1) Copulative
2) Predicative/Essive
3) Descriptive
4) Relative
5) Existential
6) Emphatic

1) The Copulative is used with sentences of the form X = Y; where X is a noun and
Y is a noun. (Note most pronouns are included as nouns, but personal pronouns
of the 1st and 2nd person use a different construction). This would cover
sentence 2 in most cases. But, since I dont have a word for Wednesday I'll
think of another sentence.

I nar nista = 'the man is a king'

i: the
na: man
-r: Copulative suffix
nista: king

The Copulative can also be used in some varieties in sentences of the form
Adjective Phrase X, meaning "X = Adjective". This would cover sentence 1, if we
replace the word "He", with "The Singer".

maldea i empindor = 'the singer is happy'

maldea: happy
i: the
empindo: singer/cantor
-r: Copulative suffix.

2) The Predicative/Essive suffix is most used in sentences of the form It = Y;
where Y is a noun. This would cover my new sentence 2 (The man is a king) if we
want to say 'He is a king'instead:

niste = 'he is a king'

nista: king
-i: Essive/Predicative suffix.

(a+i > e /e/)

The Essive has other uses as well, and we'll encounter another one now. If we want
to say 'One and one is two' (sentence 5), the structure:

   _becomes one increased one-instrument two-essive_

   yassar ala neite alo minni

yassa-: become
-r: 3rd singular present
ala: one
neit-: increase
-te: Past Participle
-u: instrumental
(a+u > o /o/)

minni: two
-i: Essive suffix
(i+i > i /i/)

One might also say: yassar ala me ala minni
With the only difference being _me_ a conjunction meaning 'and, in addition'.

3) The Descriptive is used in sentences of the form X = Adjective Phrase. It is a
more usual variant of the structure Adjective Phrase X-copulative mentioned
above. This would cover my new sentence 1 ('the singer is happy')

ean i empindo maldea

ean: Descriptive Verb.

The descriptive verb is also the normal verb if one wants to use the pronouns 'I'
and 'You' with any of the above structures:

easi i nista = 'I am the king'
eale maldea = 'You are happy'
-si: 1st person singular suffix
-le: 2nd singular suffix

4) The relative is the verb that replaces the above forms in relative clauses.

horosi i na te nista = 'I will meet the man who is king'
horosi i na te maldea = 'I will meet hte man who is happy'

horosi: I will meet
te: Relative verb

5) Existential verb is used in sentences of the form There is/are X

me phendenya asse = 'there are some hills over there'

me: Existential verb
phendenya < pendenya: hills
asse: over there

Sentence 3 might be translated:

  me eina sa emme eina

me: existential verb
eina: being
sa: or
emme: there is not, without

6) The emphatic replaces the copulative, predicative and descriptive when
emphasizing some fact over another fact.

easi i nista, ne otma, e i nistarie = 'I am the king, but *she* is the queen

e: Emphatic Verb
nistarie: queen
ne: and
otma: as for him/her

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All these rich disctinctions kind of get lost in the past; the copulative,
predicative, descriptive and the emphatic kind of merge into the form: _ie_
"was".
The relative becomes: _tie_ "who was" and the existential: _mie_ "there was".
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For sentence Four, Silindion would use some sort of auxiliary verb plus a gerund
in some case (which case it is depends on the auxiliary)
So:

filin sundu = "he comes by walking, he is walking (towards something)"

fili-: come
-n: 3rd singular present
sun-: walk
-du: instrumental gerund.

or:

fatan sundan = 'he does some walking, he is walking (at the moment), he's out walking'

fata-: do
-dan: accusative gerund.

With someother verb:

fatan pentan = 'he is eating, he does some eating'

pet-: eat
penta: eating
pentan: eating-accusative

(The gerund is verb form with very difficult morphology in Silindion).


Elliott Lash.