Re: EXERCISE: Meanings of to be

On Tuesday 02 July 2002 12:30, Jake X wrote:
> I recently dealt with eradicating "to be" from elanagauo, replacing
> it with one of two
> different words depending on context. My choice was to use one verb
> for existance and one
> for equivalence. But there are more meanings, and different ways to
> split it. For those of you
> who don't stick to the natlang definition, what do you use? I made
> a short exercise.
>
> 1. forming predicate nominative: He IS happy
la, pa, ñi, se

> 2. equivalence: Today is Wednesday.
> 3. existance: To be, or not to be.
la

> 4. English use, for creating verb forms: He is walking.
doesn't happen. no verbs.

> 5. Numerical equivalence: One plus one is two.
la é án é án jé énne; be-equiv & one & one exchanges-for two


> Do you differenciate?
Yep.
la essentially denotes both existence and equivalence. You can say
"he is happy" with la by saying 'la sáen mánte' "he = happy-person".
pa denotes a whole and a part, so "he is happy" can be 'pa sáen
anánte' "be he-whole happiness-part" or even 'pa anánte ma' "be
happiness-whole he-part". With ñi and se, you imply that someone or
something is making him happy, as in 'ñeme mánte' "null-made-him
happy-person" or 'seme anánte' "null-to-him happiness"

When would you use which? you ask.
        la sáen mánte is sort of a default, he's a happy kind of guy
statement
        pa sáen anánte means he's happy right now, but that may or may not
be a usual state.
        pa anánte ma means happiness possesses him, probably because
something wonderful happened, but who knows. Oh, and ma is just a
reduced form of sáen, and not a specific form denoting a part. Full
forms always appear immediately after the relational/copula/whatever,
reduced forms can appear anywhere else.
        ñeme mánte would be appropriate immediately after a marriage
proposal or a job offer, or something else offered by someone.
        seme anánte would be appropriate after some event that went well,
like finding a dollar coin on the sidewalk.

Yes, the differences are sometimes subtle.

--
Sylvia Sotomayor
sylvia1@ix.netcom.com

The Kélen language can be found at:
http://home.netcom.com/~sylvia1/Kelen/kelen.html

This post may contain the following characters:
á (a-acute); é (e-acute); í (i-acute); ó (o-acute); ú (u-acute);
ñ (n-tilde);