Re: Copula

--- Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@...> wrote:

> On 3/19/07, Jason Monti <yukatado@...>
> wrote:
>
> > So what you're saying is that I am free to treat
> 'be' as a transitive and
> > intransitive verb in my own conlangs without being
> 'unnatural'?
> >
> > I would treat it as a normal, transitive verb when
> copular (That is a dog); and
> > as a normal, intransitive verb when existential
> (There he is!) in my own
> > conlang.
>
> Another possibility is to create a predicative case
> for this
> use, and also for the complement of certain other
> verbs
> - e.g. in "He found that book interesting" or "He
> described
> that book as interesting" the word "book" might be
> accusative
> and "interesting" predicative, if those are distinct
> cases.
> You could probably find other uses for that.
Indeed, this is what goes on in Silindion, although,
there are some compllications.

There is one case, called the "Copulative". This may
or may not actually be a case. It could be a sort of
clitic. The form is usually -r (or -ar, sometimes
-ra). It attaches to the first noun:

 i    na-r           lavando             "the man is a
hunter"
the man-COP   hunter.NOM

  If there is only one noun however, but that noun is
a (definite) predicate, then Another case is used, the
"Essive" or the "Predicative". This basically turns a
noun into a predicate:

 i kirmeihya   =   i   kirma-i-hya      'It's my ship'
or just "my ship"
                        the ship-ESS-my

(in answer to: Yova-r mossi? "What is that?")

The Essive is also used in a lot of other ways:

As the internal argument of verbs of 'becoming':
    Yassesi niste  =  Yass-e-si                nista-i
     'I will become king'
                              become-fut/opt-1s
king-ESS

    Alini ruli me, dari tani     'The sapling grew
into a tall oak'

   A-lin-i         ruli       me    daru-i    tani
   pt-grow-pt  sapling that  oak-ESS  tall


-Elliott





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