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Middle Ru: Difference between revisions
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<h3>The copula verbs</h4> | <h3>The copula verbs</h4> | ||
<p>In English, the copula verb <em>'to be'</em> fulfills a | <p>In English, the copula verb <em>'to be'</em> fulfills a number of functions, including noun-noun copula (describing one thing as being another, as in "John is a man"), adjective-noun copula (indicating that an adjective apples to a given noun or noun phrase as in "John is tall") and an existential usage (indicating that something exists, often in relation to a location as in "John is in the city"). In Middle Ru, those constructions are handled in different ways.</p> | ||
<p>Noun-noun copula, be it indicating identity ("John is my father", here the two arguments are identified as being the same individual) or membership to a given class ("John is a man"), may be expressed with the copula verb <em>mi</em>, which could be considered to be the closest Middle Ru counterpart to English 'to be'. This kind of expressions, however, are often handled <b>without any verbs</b> (what is known as zero-copula, a common tactic cross-linguistically), simply putting the two phrases one next to the other. The first element in this type of copula must be expressed in the absolutive case, while the second one is used in its base, suffix-less form, as shown in the following examples:</p> | <p>Noun-noun copula, be it indicating identity ("John is my father", here the two arguments are identified as being the same individual) or membership to a given class ("John is a man"), may be expressed with the copula verb <em>mi</em>, which could be considered to be the closest Middle Ru counterpart to English 'to be'. This kind of expressions, however, are often handled <b>without any verbs</b> (what is known as zero-copula, a common tactic cross-linguistically), simply putting the two phrases one next to the other. The first element in this type of copula must be expressed in the absolutive case, while the second one is used in its base, suffix-less form, as shown in the following examples:</p> | ||
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<p><em>I am your father.</em></p> | <p><em>I am your father.</em></p> | ||
<p>As it is often the case for copula verbs, Middle Ru <em>mi</em> is massively irregular. Fortunately, the number of forms to be memorized is somewhat limited as the verb may only be marked for a single person (instead of featuring polypersonal agreement). It's conjugation takes contrasts aspect (perfective or imperfective; <em>mi</em> cannot be marked for the inchoative/cessative aspect), tense, person for one of its arguments and polarity ( | <p>As it is often the case for copula verbs, Middle Ru <em>mi</em> is massively irregular. Fortunately, the number of forms to be memorized is somewhat limited as the verb may only be marked for a single person (instead of featuring polypersonal agreement). It's conjugation takes contrasts aspect (perfective or imperfective; <em>mi</em> cannot be marked for the inchoative/cessative aspect), tense, person for one of its arguments and polarity (affirmative vs negative; the interrogative prefix is also accepted), as shown in the following table:</p> | ||
<table> | <table> | ||
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<p><b>Adjectives</b> behave like verbs in Middle Ru and thus adjective-noun copula does not require an equivalent of the verb 'to be'. For instance, the equivalent to the English adjective 'tall' is <em>ğwn</em> which may also be translated as 'to be tall'. This subject will be covered in more depth in the following section.</p> | <p><b>Adjectives</b> behave like verbs in Middle Ru and thus adjective-noun copula does not require an equivalent of the verb 'to be'. For instance, the equivalent to the English adjective 'tall' is <em>ğwn</em> which may also be translated as 'to be tall'. This subject will be covered in more depth in the following section.</p> | ||
<p>Finally, Middle Ru uses the verb <em>se</em> (conjugated regularly in the Cadarmeni standard, although irregular forms such as <em>*sar-</em> for <em>sear-</em> are attested for other dialects) for existential copula. This often corresponds to English 'there is' or 'there are', indicating the presence of an | <p>Finally, Middle Ru uses the verb <em>se</em> (conjugated regularly in the Cadarmeni standard, although irregular forms such as <em>*sar-</em> for <em>sear-</em> are attested for other dialects) for existential copula. This often corresponds to English 'there is' or 'there are', indicating the presence of an object or person.</p> | ||
<p><em><b>Searmis emimýaħ ñy.</b></em></p> | <p><em><b>Searmis emimýaħ ñy.</b></em></p> | ||