| From: | Peter Clark <pc451@...> |
|---|---|
| Date: | Friday, March 15, 2002, 5:17 |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday 14 March 2002 01:26 am, Jan van Steenbergen wrote:> Later I found out, that Russian lacks both the verbs > "To be" and "To have" (not to mention the articles, of > course). So, if you want to say: > "I have a house", you would say: > "U menya dom", literally: > "With me house". > This construction looks a bit like the Latin way: > "Mihi domus est."While that is mostly true, I should note that it is not entirely accurate. Russian does not have *conjugated* forms of "to be" in the *present* tense. Thus, one says: "Ja byl zanjet" - I was busy "Ja zanjet" - I am busy "Ja budu zanjet" - I will be busy Also, you can use the infinitive, jest', to emphasize existance: U mjenja jest' dom - "By me exists house" "I _have_ a house." Furthermore, Russian does have a verb "to have," "imjet'" but it is used mostly for possessing abstract ideas, such as rights, truth, meaning, etc. For example, the phrase "Ja imjeju v vidu..." is commonly used as "I mean..." Also, were you to make the verb reflexive (add -sja/-s' at the end) it would also mean "to be" or "to exist." Of course, I would be interested in learning how Russian lost the present tense for of "to be," since originally there were such forms. I once even learned the conjugation, but I've forgotten... :Peter -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8kYPNevbW9GDdlVARAmhEAJsE4gADVhnCLfFh+T536lki/kPY8gCdHXxY RoL51qgI45mQtfgM8cPdJg0= =JEyl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
| Y.Penzev <isaacp@...> |