Re: Existential clauses

On Sat, 10 Jul 2004 15:10:07 +0200, Carsten Becker <post@...>
wrote:

>[...] But I still
>haven't understood what the the difference betweeen "to be" and "EXIST"
>is. It must have something to do with "existencial clauses" and
>"equational clauses". I know that Spanish uses two kinds of "to be",
>perhaps this is also for the distinction which I do not understand?
I thought about this and now I think I know what's the difference. Here are
examples:

     1)     You are happy.
     2)     You are in the garden.

In the first example, the verb "to be" is followed by an adjective,
the "are" is in this case redundant, it has no meaning. Maybe it's kind of
a linker between "you" and "happy". This is why in such sentences, there is
no "to be" in Ayeri. You'd simply say "You happy".
In the second example, the sentece sounds somehow odd without the "are".
Here, "to be" is necessary because it's not an auxiliary but a full verb.
It has a meaning here. Or at least is supposed to be. In Ayeri, you'd thus
use "to be" here.

OTOH, I don't know if I should allow verbless sentences, because in Ayeri's
morphology, verbs are very important. They carry much important information
(person, time, aspect, case of the triggered argument).

So, am I right with my thoughts about to be/to be?

-- Carsten

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