Re: EXERCISE: Meanings of to be

Jake _wr_ote:

Talarian is interesting in that, while there is a verb "be" (ffewam), it is largely
unnecessary because any substantive can be used as a verb. In particular a
sative verb, which essentially makes for a verb that means "is X".

>1. forming predicate nominative: He IS happy
One can use some other verb to form a phrase that roughly means the same. Like,
"socta manstar-co", is-wise saint-the. Such would certainly emphasise the
saint's inherent holiness.

To simply describe someone or something as holy, one could use "xatam", go, with
a verbal noun. Like, "xatati manstar-co sacttani", goes saint-the holying-in
(or the saint is in being holy). There is no emphasis on any of the saint's
inherent qualities.

>2. equivalence: Today is Wednesday.
Talarians can distinguish between nenaparti and naparati. The former is the punctual
aorist and means "it was Wednesday" or "it will be Wednesday"; while the latter
is durative present and means "it Wednesdays", i.e., today is Wed. [By the way,
the days of the week are ultimately derived from ancient Semitic forms.]

>3. existance: To be, or not to be.
General existence is where "ffewam" shines: "ffewtan-wa ffewtan-na", being-either
being-not. Or "ffewtan-wa na ffewtan-wa". The latter is a bit clumsy, since -na
is really a suffix.

>4. English use, for creating verb forms: He is walking.
Present progressive form. Talarian doesn't have it. The closest would be something
like "xatati pashshaxatomtar-co", goes walker-the. Here "xatam" is durative, so
gives a sense of continuance, though not equivalent to the English.

>5. Numerical equivalence: One plus one is two.
"Pamtra-hal trayas wewosa ashtor": 5-towards 3, because of, lives 8. In other words,
'eight exists because of putting five to three.'

Several neat things here. First, mathematical numbers are base-10 (rather than the
usual base-12) and are derived from Sanskrit. Regular numbers are derived from
another language entirely. Second, the equative verb, "wasam", is a 'resultive
stative'. Statives have two subtypes, neutral and resultive. Neutral simply
describes a pure state; resultive describes a state as a result of some
external action: "morta", he is dead; "memorta", he is murdered. The resultive
is due to the action of putting one number towards (-hal) another, thus
altering the state of their values.

Padraic.

>Jake