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Esti and the in-existance-is's of the world.

ceigered, 2009 m. liepa 7 d.

Žinutės: 17

Kalba: English

robinast (Rodyti profilį) 2009 m. liepa 9 d. 11:07:27

ceigered:Interesting Harri! 2 questions:
- On = to be, correct? (sounds like the Finnish olen/olet/on, e.g. minä/sinä/hän olen/olet/on pitkä = I/you/he-she am/are/is tall)
- How come in "mul on kass" and "mul on kolm kassi" the difference is in the use of the accusative?
to be > olema (1. infinitive)/ olla (2. infinitive); I am > ma olen; you are (singular) > sa oled; he/she is > ta on; we are > me oleme; you are (plural) > te olete; they are > nad on

I have a cat/ one cat / cats (in the sense not dogs or pigs f.e) > Mul on kass/ üks kass/ kassid: cat/cats is always in nominative case (singular or plural).
I have (unknown amount of) cats > Mul on kasse (plural accusative)
I have three (or some other known amount) cats > Mul on kolm kassi (singular accusative)
WHY is it so, I have no idea... rido.gif

to have > omama (in a good Estonian, not in use): oman/omad/omab/omame/omate/omavad (fully regular declination).
I have, you have etc: mul/sul/tal/meil/teil/neil on. Personal pronouns are in adessive, verb form "on" does not change.

Harri.

ceigered (Rodyti profilį) 2009 m. liepa 9 d. 15:47:40

Cheers Harri. So I take it the switching between nominative and accusative is a peculiarity/irregularity that must be learnt nonetheless?
Very interesting language though, I am always occasionally delving into a bit of Finnish so the parallels are a bit visible.

robinast (Rodyti profilį) 2009 m. liepa 9 d. 16:12:56

ceigered:... the switching between nominative and accusative is a peculiarity/irregularity that must be learnt nonetheless?
Yes, indeed - but it is quite a regular irregularity! okulumo.gif
ceigered:... I am always occasionally delving into a bit of Finnish so the parallels are a bit visible.
That's true, Estonian and Finnish are pretty close to each other. Vocabularies partly coincide and grammars are very close to each other. Anyway, the differences are big enough to make the Finnish unanderstandable for Estonians and vice versa. This way or another, learning each other's languages is easy: only a new vocabulary is to be obtained and known grammar rules slightly modified.

Harri.

Polaris (Rodyti profilį) 2009 m. liepa 11 d. 04:39:40

In Spanish, "there is", "there are", and both "are there?" and "is there?" are all covered by the word 'HAY', which is a modified form of the verb 'haber', which means "to have" AS AN AUXILIARY VERB (not to show possession, but to make the perfect tenses).

That's quite a mouthful, but basically what I'm saying is that a single word (hay) which happens to be a form of "to have" (which is used as a helping verb) covers all of the "there is/there are" needs in Spanish.

yugary (Rodyti profilį) 2009 m. liepa 14 d. 08:26:17

When I first started learning Esperanto, I found it annoying that Esperanto did not have a separate verb for "there is" = "there exists" and for existence in a place as opposed to "be" in the sense of "equals". In Korean the two are entirely separate verbs, and the one meaning "there to be" is also used where English would use "have"; e.g., to say "I have a many friends" you'd say the equivalent of "To me there are many friends." To complicate matters, the verb for "there not to be" is yet another completely different verb. (I wouldn't foist that off on Esperanto!) Now that I'm used to using Esperanto, it doesn't bother me at all any more. For one thing, there are many ways to express the "existence" or "being in a place," like troviĝi, stari, kuši, resti, sidi, and so on.

mnlg (Rodyti profilį) 2009 m. liepa 14 d. 09:07:10

yugary:to say "I have a many friends" you'd say the equivalent of "To me there are many friends."
This mechanism is quite common among languages. I recall Latin employing it, alongside habeo-habere.

ceigered (Rodyti profilį) 2009 m. liepa 14 d. 10:10:01

mnlg:
yugary:to say "I have a many friends" you'd say the equivalent of "To me there are many friends."
This mechanism is quite common among languages. I recall Latin employing it, alongside habeo-habere.
And Japanese, if I recall, has a similar method.. But the Japanese method translates more to "regarding me, (possessed-object) exists" ridulo.gif

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