--- In conlang@y..., "Thomas R. Wier" <trwier@U...> wrote:
> Quoting Nik Taylor <fortytwo@G...>:
>
> > > 2. The pattern "A is a B" is rendered as "A va B vo kisi ta."
> > >
> > > You can't use this pattern if "vo" is a direct object marker. To
> > preserve
> > > the pattern, you could give "vo" two readings: direct object marker OR
> > > predicate marker. Alternatively, you could have a different marker for
> > > predicate nouns or pronouns.
Obrenje's verb "to be" used to be transitive before I changed the
case system. And since Swiss German doesn't formally distinguish acc
and nom (except in pronouns), I found it very counterintuitive that
Latin and High German should use the nominative for predicates when
I learnt about those at school.
You can still hear stuff like "Herr Meier ist meinen Lehrer" from
Swiss children who try to learn the case distinction. =P
> > Classical Arabic uses the accusative for the "object" of "to be".
>
> ... as do almost all varieties and registers of English.
Ah? I didn't know that English had an accusativen casen. =P
-- Christian Thalmann