On Tuesday, January 13, 2004, at 08:03 AM, Muke Tever wrote:
> E f+AOk-sto Gary Shannon <[log in to unmask]>:
>> So my list of six primary verbs and four convenient
>> but not primary verbs would be:
>>
>> move, permit, exist, be, do, have +- seem, say, see,
>> hear
>
> This is of course mainly only useful for English.
That's precisely what I've been thinking as I've read this thread.
> Many languages dont
> need "have" or "be",
Indeed not - among _many_ others, e.g. neither Welsh nor russian have
"to have" - and many langs don't express the copula 'be', especially in
the present tense.
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On Tuesday, January 13, 2004, at 04:41 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
>
> David Peterson wrote:
>
>
>> DP Pardon me, but, in the words of a dissenting chief justice, I
>> respectfully dissent.
>
> RM And I concur with my distinguished colleague. A long time ago I
> invented an "all noun" language which had only one "verb"-- _there is
> (+tense)_. The verby concepts were nouns of the sort "act of ....ing",
> "state of...ing". So {there is}{act of hunting}{by me}
> {there is}{act/state? of loving}{by John}{w.r.t.Mary} etc.
The latter in Scots Gaelic: tha gràdh aig Iain air Màiri (there-is love at
John on Mary).
Yep - and once upon a time a guy called Tom Breton invented a language
with _no_ verbs - the language
(or rather syntax - since TB never gave any separate lexicon; he merely
used English for the lexical
items) is called AllNoun.
If we're talking conlangwise, then clearly there are no verbs you'll ever
need.
Tho quite why some people want to limit the number of verbs, I don't
understand. To me they're the
most interesting parts of most langs.
Ray
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