Re: Copula

Sayonara,

Jason Monti <yukatado@...> schrieb:

> While I know that prescriptively, in answer to the
> question, "Who is Jason?" I should technically answer "It
> is I", but in reality, most of us (at least, speakers of
> American English) would answer, "It's me" instead.
   German: Ich bin es. (casually: Ich bin's.)
           1sg.NOM be.1sg 3sg.NOM
           "I am it"

   French: C'est moi. (< *Ce est moi)
           3sg.NOM-be.3sg 1sg.ACC
           "It's me"

> So the question is why is it that the copula is
> considered to be intransitive? I can see why the
> existential "be" is intransitive ("there he is!") but why
> would the copula be intransitive? It seems awfully
> transitive to me. Are there any langauges that treat the
> copula as a transitive verb?
I'm undecided whether I maybe should in Ayeri. When this
question was raised sometime and somewhere else, I just
wrote "Prescriptivists can't agree whether to use the
patient or the agent for the other argument of the copula.
In fact, both ways are in use, depending on your dialect".
But then, in Ayeri, you wouldn't say "It's me" but "That is
I/me", which is most commonly heard as:

   Adanyareng ayaris
   Adanya·reng ay·aris
   That_one.AGT:inan 1sg.PAT
   "That-one me"

But then:

   Iyāng nukāryo
   Iya·ang nu·kāryo
   3sg:m.AGT CPL:AGT.big (CPL:X = agreement with X)
   "He big"

And to take up David's examples:

   Edāyonang mebimayāng..
   Eda·ayon·ang me·bimaya·ang
   This.man.AGT a.painter.AGT

or

   Edāyonang mebimayāris.
                ...·aris
                ....PAT

And in fact, I'd favour the last one for some reason,
although in German, I think the "object" would be
nominative as well: (Dieser Mann).NOM ist Maler.NOM.

> Of course, this hinges on the language even having a
> copula in the first place, obligatory or not.
Ayeri doesn't have one.

Yours,
Carsten

--
"Besonvenyonangang ayena nudeng inunsegasyēna."
 -- Segakāryo Litayarim

Tenena, Dirlem 13, 2316 ya 03:58:16 pd
Monday, March 19, 2007 at 05:55:30 pm