Re: USAGE: 'born'

On Wed, 9 May 2001 Dan Sulani wrote:
> I read the following in a recent copy of an
> American magazine which is usually considered
> quite literate:
>
> "...the city is still becoming. There may be arguments
> as to what it's becoming, but no one can reasonably
> doubt that the place is still giving birth to itself."
>
> "Giving birth to itself".  What kind of verb-form is
> _that_?
>
> I'm not sure I could express it, at this point, in rtemmu.
> How would other con/nat langs do it?
Hmmm.  Let's look at that first quoted sentence first:
"...the city is still becoming."  Since there's no object,
what we have here is either an intransitive verb that
isn't in my dictionary, or else a copula ("is") plus an
adjective ("becoming").  As an adjective, "becoming"
means attractive, so the sentence then means that the
city hasn't yet lost its attractiveness.

But then the author informs us that "to be becoming"
means "to give birth to oneself".  So I'm as confused
as you are.  Perhaps what the author wrote is really
written in a new conlang that only looks like English.

-- Tommie

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