Re: Genitive relationships (WAS: Construct States)

On Thu, 4 Mar 1999, Irina Rempt wrote:

> > > certain other constructions.  So "the man owns a house" is "dol omen ay
> > yn
> > > domu" (at the man there is a house).
> >
> > That's a nice construction. I think I've seen a similar
> > one somewhere.
>
> In Latin: _mihi domus est_ "to me house is" > "I have a house".
> Nepali and (I think) Sanskrit also has it, and one phrase from Nepali
> has found its way into our home idiolect, in Dutch but with the same
> construction: "aan mij is geen kennis" ("to me there is no knowledge"),
> meaning "I don't know", or more specifically "I don't know at all, I
> don't know anything about it".
>
>    Irina
Hebrew?  Doesn't even have a verb "to have."  Expressed ownership with
the construction "yesh . . . al-"  (There is . . . to x) or "ain . . .
al-" (there is not . . . to x)  So "the man has a horse" is "yesh sus
al-ish."

Of course, my normal caveat: my Hebrew sucks and should not be taken as
the authoritative, and also, it's Biblical Hebrew.  Modern Hebrew might
not do this anymore.

--Patrick