OT: multiroot verbs, was: sorta OT: cases: please help...
| From: | Anton Sherwood <bronto@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, December 7, 2001, 7:18 |
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> On Thu, 6 Dec 2001, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
> > And why *are* copulas highly irregular in those languages where they
> > are? . . .
Tristan Alexander McLeay wrote:
> In English, it's because `to be' is a merger of three different verbs,
> _béan_, _weran_ and something else that I've forgotten (I think, I could
> be wrong about anything).
The IE roots are <es> (`be' timelessly), <wes> (`stay') and <bheu>
(`grow, become').
Latin uses <es> and <fu>; French adds <sta> (`stand'), but that's still
partly distinct in Italian (<essere>, <stare>, but <stato> for the
participle of both) and fully distinct in Spanish.
Another example of such cooperation is `go', in which English borrows
the past tense of `wend'. (Why?) Romance combines three Latin roots:
<i>, <vad>, <ambula>.
--
Anton Sherwood -- http://www.ogre.nu/