Re: Further language development Q's

Chris írta: "As you can see, the subject (I) is the same in both sentences,
but the auxilliaries are different because one is transitive (with "to work
in Television" as the other argument), and the other is intransitive, with
"I" as the only core argument. Note also that "to work", which is
intransitive in english, is treated as a transitive verb in Basque, since
its translated as "make work". This is an example similar to the "sneeze"
example Roger gave. To say "I work in Television" you'd say:

IIRC this is how some Australian lang works-- it has only three verbs... I
remember there was a paper on it... (IIRC the verbs were "to be", "to do",
and "to go".)

"Telebistan lan egiten dut
Telebista-n lan egin-ten du-t
Television-LOC work make-(simple? I forget...)
pres.transitive.3rd.ABS-1st.ERG

"Simple present"? Would that be equivalent to the English progressive, since
the English "present" is actually a habitual aspect? Or maybe something
totally different?

Trebor
"Oysters are a fine thing, so are strawberries: but mashed together?"

Reply