Re: Existential clauses

From: "Philippe Caquant" <herodote92@YAHOO.COM
<mailto:herodote92@...>>
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: Existential clauses


 > --- Carsten Becker <post@BECKERSCARSTEN.DE
<mailto:post@...>> wrote:
 > >
 > > Argh, why must I always cause confusion?
 >
 > I don't think you cause confusion, you bring confusion
 > to light, that's something different. This is the
 > first step to solve a problem :-)

0:) :D ;)

 > > From: David Peterson
 > > Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 12:45 AM
 > > Subject: Re: Existential clauses
 > >
 > > I'm still not sure what you mean by that.  As far as
 > > I'm concerned, in
 > > "The man is on the lawn", "is on the lawn" is a
 > > description of the
 > > man -- >
 > > [...]
 >
 > I would not say so. I would say: there is a concept
 > called "the man", and there is a concept called "the
 > lawn", and I rely them by means of a third concept,
 > which is something like "to be on", and so I get a
 > predicate, or a relation (x R y).

I guess this is what I mean? Waaaah, I'm completely confused now!
Man, I really could it make as easy as this: You always use "to be" for
such things, except if what follows "to be" is an adjective. But a fact
does *not* tell us WHY things are like they are in this case. Now I do
want to think about something in detail, but by doing that I only
confuse myself.

 > > From: Philippe Caquant
 > > Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 07:57 AM (GMT+1) <-- O_o
 > > So early!
 >
 > 'Le monde appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt' (French
 > proverb: the world belongs to the ones who stay
 > early).

"Morgenstund' hat Gold im Mund", grrrrr! "Se lever" is in this context
"to get up", though. "To stay" is "rester", no?

 > > Subject: Re: Existential clauses

In every case, I did not mean something with "There is", although this
would also be interesting to think about. Just to make it clear again.

 > >  > - existence, or presence : Il est un pays cher à
 > > mon
 > >  > coeur (old style, seldom used by now). Et la
 > > lumière
 > >  > fut (literary style).
 > >
 > > Ack, my French is too bad for that. What does that
 > > mean in English?
 >
 > - There is a country I love ('dear to my heart').
 > - And there was light. (from Genesis : Let there be
 > Light ! And there was Light)
 > I feel there is a difference between the concepts of
 > (absolute) existence, and of presence.

Maybe. Unfortunate in this particular case is that thoughts are not
transmissible yet. Language causes brain-ache if you think to much about
it, really ;)

 > >  > - identity. Ex: L'assassin, c'est le notaire.
 > > Ceci est
 > >  > ma maison. Paris est la capitale de la France.
 > >  > - instantiation (sort-of) : Un moineau est un
 > > oiseau.
 > >  > Je suis un homme.
 > >
 > > Maybe this is where I'd use "to be"? Nevertheless,
 > > as David said, here
 > > what follows "to be" is also an adverbial.
 >
 > Huh ? I find it hard to understand that word
 > 'adverbial' here. It's a 'sort-of' relation, a kind of
 > a definition, or an element of a class, or whatever
 > you might call it (1). 'Adverbial' normally refers to
 > a verbal concept, like in 'Colorless green ideas sleep
 > furiously' : 'furiously' is adverbial, it (strangely)
 > completes the verb "to sleep".

I already answered on that. What I meant was "adverbiale Bestimmung des
Xes" (adverbial definition of x), where x can be anything that is left
because there is no case for it (not among the "traditional" four cases
of German at least).

 > In "L'assassin, c'est le notaire", the idea is: you
 > were reading a detective novel, and you had an idea of
 > the killer, and another idea of the notary, there were
 > two different characters for you, and suddenly you
 > discover that they are the same man ! So you discover
 > that two different concepts are in fact only one. This
 > I call identity : different names for a unique
 > concept.

Another disadvantage (here of IE langs): Emphasis is not
grammaticized/lexifyed/whatever-ized. Perhaps you meant "L'assassin,
c'*est* le notaire!" (It *is* the notary who is the killer.)

 > >  > - intrinsic quality : Ces cerises sont rouges.
 > > Les
 > >  > basketteurs sont souvent grands. Ce problème est
 > >  > difficile (see NB)
 > >  > - temporary, reversible state : Elle est malade.
 > >  > - transitory, irreversible state : Il est encore
 > >  > jeune.
 > >
 > > That's where you'd omit "to be" in Ayeri.

In your terms, Philippe, I think here is only *one* concept present,
which is described by an adjective (or a whatsoever I called "adverbial
definition of X" (adverbiale Bestimmung des Xes)).

 > Yes, in Russian too: On ech'chjo molodoj (my personal
 > transcription).

I don't know any Russian, sorry. Here, you usually learn English,
French/Latin and only *maybe* Classical Greek (if there is a course at
your school at all), Italian, Spanish or Russian.

 > (1) I thought about what Ray Brown said. If I'm not
 > mistaken, he said that even if by "When shall we be
 > adults at last ?" I meant mankind, he nevertheless
 > felt offended, because he happens to belong to mankind
 > (me too, BTW). True, Ray Brown is an element of the
 > class of "human beings" (at least I suppose so, having
 > not met him physically yet). But one should consider
 > that inside a class, some elements may not share every
 > property of the class. There are always exceptions.
 > See the well-known examples about the ostrich or the
 > penguin, which are not very convincing examples of the
 > "bird" class. This would bring us to the theory of the
 > prototype... maybe not today.

Naah, this goes too much into philosophy, my little mind cannot handle
philosophy that well ;) No, really, I'm bad at that. Sounds interesting,
though, but IMO not language related.


From: "Carsten Becker" <post@BECKERSCARSTEN.DE
<mailto:post@...>>
Sent: Sunday, July 11, 2004 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: Existential clauses

 > I just wanted to ask what I could enter in Google to
 > find more information about my problem.

Now, anyone has an idea?

-- Carsten

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