Is "is" a verb?
M. Ranjit Mathews
qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
This food is good.
This car is running well.
In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
"is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
qualified by an adverb:
<inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
<inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
zbihniew
wzią/ęł(a) i napisał(a) :
Not every verb must be qualified by an adverb (vide to smell, to look).
--
there's no kaangut. it's only yourself.
"A czyja wiara jest lepsiejsza? Twoja czy moja? Bo wg mnie moja." (jw)
phone: +48.888.106.477
http://zbihniew.krasl.cz
Wolfgang Schwanke
news:1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com:
> "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it?
"Is" is the 3rd person singular of the verb "to be", so it's certainly a
verb. In English - as in other Germanic and IE languages - "to be" is
highly irregular and has many special functions, but that doesn't change
the fact that it's a verb.
> Examples:
>
> This food is good.
> This car is running well.
An example of the special function of "to be", which is what causes the
irregular grammar. However you can't deduce from its irregular grammar that
it's not a verb, as verbs are not defined as "must be modified by an
adverb".
Regards
--
Ein Naßhorn und ein Trockenhorn spazierten durch die Wüste,
da stolperte das Trockenhorn, und's Naßhorn sagte: "Siehste!"
- Heinz Erhardt
John O'Flaherty
This food is quite good.
Is as copula can be modified by semantically appropriate adverbs- quite,
somewhat, very, pretty, way (colloquially).
This car is running very well.
(really, the verb there is 'is running')
--
john
Herb Martin
> > <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
>
> This food is quite good.
>
> Is as copula can be modified by semantically appropriate adverbs- quite,
> somewhat, very, pretty, way (colloquially).
You folks have pretty much covered it.
I had intended to offer, "The food definitely is."
or even the "The food is definitely good." but
you have covered this class.
Certainly, surely, work this way too.
Raymond S. Wise
news:1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com...
*Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary,* 11th ed., shows "be" to be an
"intransitive verb" and a "verbal auxiliary." Examples of the latter usage
given in the entry are: "the money _was_ found," "he _is_ reading," "I _am_
to interview him today," and, in an archaic usage "Christ _is_ risen from
the dead."
How does MWCD11 define a "verbal auxiliary"? As "an auxiliary verb."
At
http://www.bartleby.com/68/41/641.html
under the entry "AUXILIARIES, AUXILIARY VERBS," in his *Columbia Guide to
Standard American English," Kenneth G. Wilson includes "be" in his list of
auxiliary verbs or "helping verbs." He points out that "Many grammars assert
that _auxiliaries_ are not verbs at all, since they behave differently from
verbs: most of them have no past participles such as verbs have."
I expect that the average educated speaker of American English would find
nonsensical the assertion that "be" in the examples I gave above is not a
verb, since he would have been taught in school that it is.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Wugi
> "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
>
> This food is good.
> This car is running well.
>
> In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> qualified by an adverb:
'qualified by an adverb' is not a qualification of a verb.
A verb *needs* a subject, even if it is impersonal, implied, or tacit (like
with gerunds):
the car => is running
the food => is good
it => is raining
[(one=>) trying] to learn a language
[(people =>) smoking] is dangerous.
note that the [] groups are a (hidden)subject-verb combination, which in
turn acts as a subject for the whole phrase.
A verb *may need*
- an object (transitive verbs) :
The man is reading => a book
- a predicate (your problem here :-)
The food is => good
Smoking is => dangerous
It appears => the truth
He became => a soldier
- nothing else (intransitive verbs)
It is raining => (nil)
The car is running => (nil)
Some verbs may be used transitively and intransitively:
people smoke.
people smoke cigarettes.
I'm reading.
I'm reading a book.
The transitive and intransitive verbs (not the ones with a predicate) *may
be accompanied by* an adverb, or an adverbial group, as may be adjectives
and other adverbs:
people smoke much, they smoke too much.
smoking a lot is dangerous.
the car is running out of fuel.
this food is quite good. (quite goes with good, not with the verb is)
you did it very well (well goes with did, and very with well)
James Kanze
|> M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
|> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it
|> > isn't qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it?
|> > Examples: This food is good.
|> > This car is running well.
|> > In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
|> > "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
|> > qualified by an adverb:
|> > <inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
|> > <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
|> This food is quite good.
|> Is as copula can be modified by semantically appropriate adverbs-
|> quite, somewhat, very, pretty, way (colloquially).
Except that in this case, quite modifies good, and not is.
Today the food is good.
fills the bill, however.
|> This car is running very well.
|> (really, the verb there is 'is running')
--
James Kanze
Conseils en informatique orientée objet/
Beratung in objektorientierter Datenverarbeitung
9 place Sémard, 78210 St.-Cyr-l'École, France +33 (0)1 30 23 00 34
James Kanze
|> M. Ranjit Mathews :
|> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it
|> > isn't qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it?
|> > Examples:
|> > This food is good.
|> > This car is running well.
|> > In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate
|> > that "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and
|> > "runs") are qualified by an adverb:
|> 'qualified by an adverb' is not a qualification of a verb.
|> A verb *needs* a subject, even if it is impersonal, implied, or
|> tacit (like with gerunds):
A verb doesn't always need a subject. What is important is that, in
English, a sentence needs a verb. Some sentences consist of a single
verb:
sleep.
Most, except for imperative sentences, do require a subject as well.
|> the car => is running
|> the food => is good
|> it => is raining
|> [(one=>) trying] to learn a language
|> [(people =>) smoking] is dangerous.
|> note that the [] groups are a (hidden)subject-verb combination,
|> which in turn acts as a subject for the whole phrase.
I don't see where there is any need for a hidden subject for a
gerundive. In general, impersonal forms of the verb (infinitives,
participles, etc.) don't need subjects.
|> A verb *may need*
|> - an object (transitive verbs) :
|> The man is reading => a book
|> - a predicate (your problem here :-)
That's a strange use of the word predicate. I would consider something
like "is reading the book" a predicate.
In modern terms, a sentence consists of either a verbal proposition, or
a nominal proposition and a verbal proposition. In classic terms,
replace verbal proposition with predicate, and nominal proposition with
subject. But only when they refer to the complete parts of a sentence
(or rather a clause).
|> The food is => good
|> Smoking is => dangerous
|> It appears => the truth
|> He became => a soldier
|> - nothing else (intransitive verbs)
|> It is raining => (nil)
|> The car is running => (nil)
|> Some verbs may be used transitively and intransitively:
|> people smoke.
|> people smoke cigarettes.
|> I'm reading.
|> I'm reading a book.
|> The transitive and intransitive verbs (not the ones with a
|> predicate) *may be accompanied by* an adverb, or an adverbial group,
|> as may be adjectives and other adverbs:
Any verb can take an adjective:
Today the food is good.
etc.
|> people smoke much, they smoke too much.
|> smoking a lot is dangerous.
|> the car is running out of fuel.
|> this food is quite good. (quite goes with good, not with the verb
|> is) you did it very well (well goes with did, and very with well)
I think that the real difference between "to be" and related verbs is
that their complement refers to the same thing as the subject. There is
an identity between "the food" and "good". With the result that 1) if
the complement is a modifier, it is an adjective, rather than an
adjective, and 2) historically, and in the languages which still make
the difference, the complement is also in the nominative. (FWIW, when I
was in school, up until about the fifth grade, teachers tried to teach
that the correct form was "It is I", and not "It is me". In German, I
still say "Ich bin es", or "Ich bin ein Mann", with both sides in the
nominative.)
Greg Lee
...
> under the entry "AUXILIARIES, AUXILIARY VERBS," in his *Columbia Guide to
> Standard American English," Kenneth G. Wilson includes "be" in his list of
> auxiliary verbs or "helping verbs." He points out that "Many grammars assert
> that _auxiliaries_ are not verbs at all, since they behave differently from
> verbs: most of them have no past participles such as verbs have."
I don't think there is much agreement among syntacticians about this.
I don't think "be" is a verb, personally. It's not just that it fails
to have verbal morphology (actually, it does take "-ing", as verbs do),
but it inverts in questions, though real verbs don't invert. Also,
unlike verbs, it doesn't select for a complement type, and as a
consequence, you can have coordinations of differing categories
after "be": "He was studious, in his teens, being prepared for a life
of crime, and watched closely by his guardians." Verbs don't work
that way, because they're heads of their constructions. "Be" isn't
a head.
> I expect that the average educated speaker of American English would find
> nonsensical the assertion that "be" in the examples I gave above is not a
> verb, since he would have been taught in school that it is.
--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
John O'Flaherty
> John O'Flaherty <quia...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> |> M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
>
> |> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it
> |> > isn't qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it?
> |> > Examples: This food is good.
> |> > This car is running well.
> |> > In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> |> > "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> |> > qualified by an adverb:
> |> > <inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
> |> > <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
>
> |> This food is quite good.
>
> |> Is as copula can be modified by semantically appropriate adverbs-
> |> quite, somewhat, very, pretty, way (colloquially).
>
> Except that in this case, quite modifies good, and not is.
>
> Today the food is good.
>
> fills the bill, however.
>
> |> This car is running very well.
> |> (really, the verb there is 'is running')
You have a point, but it's kind of a distributed attachment that varies
with the exact formulation. For 'This food is quite good.', it sounds
as if it attaches to the adjective, but 'This food is not quite good.',
'not quite' seems to attach to the 'is'.
Your example is unambiguous, though.
--
john
CyberCypher
> "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
>
> This food is good.
> This car is running well.
>
> In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> "is" is not quite a verb.
You will have to define "verb" before you ask and answer the question
"Is 'is' a verb?" It is defined as a stative verb in English grammars.
The reason that "This food is well" is wrong is that food cannot be
"well" or "ill", only living organisms can be "well" or "ill". "Well"
in this case modifies "this food", not "is"; therefore, "it is to be
"good", an adjective.
> In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> qualified by an adverb:
In Chinese, adjectives are verbs. The traditional greeting "Ni hao
ma?" is literally "You good [question particle]?", which is translated
into English as "How are you?", not "Are you good?" The grammar of
Tamil does not define the grammar of English any more than the grammar
of English defines the grammar of Chinese or Tamil.
> <inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
> <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
>
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.
Brian M. Scott
<gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu> wrote in
<news:cais2l$olj$1...@news.hawaii.edu> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> In sci.lang Raymond S. Wise <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote:
>> under the entry "AUXILIARIES, AUXILIARY VERBS," in his *Columbia Guide to
>> Standard American English," Kenneth G. Wilson includes "be" in his list of
>> auxiliary verbs or "helping verbs." He points out that "Many grammars assert
>> that _auxiliaries_ are not verbs at all, since they behave differently from
>> verbs: most of them have no past participles such as verbs have."
> I don't think there is much agreement among syntacticians about this.
> I don't think "be" is a verb, personally. It's not just that it fails
> to have verbal morphology (actually, it does take "-ing", as verbs do),
> but it inverts in questions, though real verbs don't invert.
Have you irrefutable evidence of this?
> Also,
> unlike verbs, it doesn't select for a complement type, and as a
> consequence, you can have coordinations of differing categories
> after "be": "He was studious, in his teens, being prepared for a life
> of crime, and watched closely by his guardians."
Rather sloppy. In any case, you can about as well (or as
badly) say 'He had strange tastes: he liked to go to the
opera, and spinach, and being tickled'.
[...]
The mistake here, it seems to me, is thinking that something
either is or is not a verb, when in fact there are degrees
of verb-ness.
Brian
M. Ranjit Mathews
> O czasie 2004-06-13 19:32, taki/taka jeden/jedna M. Ranjit Mathews
> wzią/ęł(a) i napisał(a) :
>
> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> >
> > This food is good.
> >
> > In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> > "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> > qualified by an adverb:
> >
> > <inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
> > <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
>
> Not every verb must be qualified by an adverb (vide to smell, to look).
That seems like an artifice to passivise the verb: Skunks look good
but smell bad.
In active form, they take adverbs: Wolves smell well, and look around
quizzically on encountering strange smells.
The "verbal auxiliary" and "copula" observations give me some
alternative parts of speech that "is" falls under, which was what I
was looking for, but there have been many other interesting
observations, including yours.
Michael West
>> unlike verbs, it doesn't select for a complement type, and as a
>> consequence, you can have coordinations of differing categories
>> after "be": "He was studious, in his teens, being prepared for a life
>> of crime, and watched closely by his guardians."
>
> Rather sloppy. In any case, you can about as well (or as
> badly) say 'He had strange tastes: he liked to go to the
> opera, and spinach, and being tickled'.
Not at all. Your example contains structural
ambiguity absent in the other example; to wit,
of which verb is "spinach" an object?
--
Michael West
Melbourne, Australia
M. Ranjit Mathews
> "Wugi" <guido...@planetinternet.be> writes:
> |> the car => is running
> |> the food => is good
> |> it => is raining
> |> [(one=>) trying] to learn a language
> |> [(people =>) smoking] is dangerous.
> |> note that the [] groups are a (hidden)subject-verb combination,
> |> which in turn acts as a subject for the whole phrase.
>
> I don't see where there is any need for a hidden subject for a
> gerundive. In general, impersonal forms of the verb (infinitives,
> participles, etc.) don't need subjects.
>
> Any verb can take an adjective:
>
> Today the food is good.
Runs takes an adverb. It's "this car runs badly", not "this car runs
bad".
> I think that the real difference between "to be" and related verbs is
> that their complement refers to the same thing as the subject. There is
> an identity between "the food" and "good". With the result that 1) if
> the complement is a modifier, it is an adjective, rather than an
> adverb, and 2) historically, and in the languages which still make
> the difference, the complement is also in the nominative.
If it refers to the same thing as a subject, can't there be a hidden
subject like Wugi suggested? That is, perhaps "this food is good" =
"this food is good food", the 2nd "food" being the hidden subject. The
suggestion of a hidden subject opens up the following train of
thought:
<inda sApAD nalladu> this food good-that (i.e., is that which is good)
implies
<inda sApAD nalla sApAD> this food (is) good food
since the <adu> ("that") suffix refers to the same thing as the
subject sApAD (food).
M. Ranjit Mathews
> O czasie 2004-06-13 19:32, taki/taka jeden/jedna M. Ranjit Mathews
> wzią/ęł(a) i napisał(a) :
>
> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> >
> > This food is good.
> > This car is running well.
> >
> > In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> > "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> > qualified by an adverb:
> >
> > <inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
> > <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
>
> Not every verb must be qualified by an adverb (vide to smell, to look).
In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an adjective? That
is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English the exception
or the rule?
Brian M. Scott
<mbw...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:yw7zc.20239$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
It's ambiguous only if you're actively looking for
ambiguity: 'go to spinach' is implausible, to put it mildly,
and the comma after 'opera' points away from that
interpretation anyway. In real life I consider the two
equally sloppy and equally understandable. (And don't
bother to explain 'structural'. I don't consider the
distinction relevant here.)
Brian
Michael West
> On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 01:51:26 GMT "Michael West"
> <mbw...@bigpond.com> wrote in
> <news:yw7zc.20239$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
> sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
>
>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>
>>> On 14 Jun 2004 00:38:45 GMT Greg Lee
>>> <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu> wrote in
>
>>>> Also,
>>>> unlike verbs, it doesn't select for a complement type, and as a
>>>> consequence, you can have coordinations of differing categories
>>>> after "be": "He was studious, in his teens, being prepared for a life
>>>> of crime, and watched closely by his guardians."
>
>>> Rather sloppy. In any case, you can about as well (or as
>>> badly) say 'He had strange tastes: he liked to go to the
>>> opera, and spinach, and being tickled'.
>
>> Not at all. Your example contains structural
>> ambiguity absent in the other example; to wit,
>> of which verb is "spinach" an object?
>
> It's ambiguous only if you're actively looking for
> ambiguity:
No, the ambiguity tripped me up unawares.
> 'go to spinach' is implausible, to put it mildly,
Indeed it is -- once the logical analysis is done.
> and the comma after 'opera' points away from that
> interpretation anyway.
Does it do so in the construction, "He liked
to go to the opera, and the theatre, and
fine restaurants?
> In real life I consider the two
> equally sloppy and equally understandable. (And don't
> bother to explain 'structural'. I don't consider the
> distinction relevant here.)
I can see that you don't; I wish more writers
did. But one sentence reads fine and the other
makes me stumble, so they're not of equal clarity.
Brian M. Scott
<mbw...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:xn8zc.21588$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
But as I read, no separate logical analysis is required; the
intended interpretation is the obvious and natural one,
though I might think unkind thoughts about the writer's
taste (and I don't mean in music, vegetables, and
horseplay).
>> and the comma after 'opera' points away from that
>> interpretation anyway.
> Does it do so in the construction, "He liked
> to go to the opera, and the theatre, and
> fine restaurants?
Yes. Which is why I consider the sentence less than well
constructed. Assuming that it is intended to have the most
natural meaning, I would say 'He liked to go to the opera,
to the theatre, and to fine restaurants'.
>> In real life I consider the two
>> equally sloppy and equally understandable. (And don't
>> bother to explain 'structural'. I don't consider the
>> distinction relevant here.)
> I can see that you don't; I wish more writers
> did. But one sentence reads fine and the other
> makes me stumble, so they're not of equal clarity.
To you. To me neither reads fine, but neither makes me
stumble. These two data points say essentially nothing
about the actual relative clarity of the sentences: the
reader sample is far too small.
Brian
CV
> But not all auxiliary verbs are defective. To have and to be are not. They
> have an infinitive, all present and past participle, sand they can be cast
> in any tense you like. So they are "full grown" auxiliary verbs.
Quite, but to have and to be are also regular main verbs in their
own right, as well as auxiliaries in some cases.
> And all of them are verbs anyway, even the "defective" ones.
Absolutely.
CV
Michael West
Excuse me? You wrote the sentence. So you know in
advance what the writer meant. The rest of us don't
have that advantage.
--
Michael West
Peter T. Daniels
>
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote in message news:<1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com>...
> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> >
> > This food is good.
> > This car is running well.
>
Since you don't know what Tamil is, you're presumably not Indian; where
else can you say "This person is being well"?
> > In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> > "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> > qualified by an adverb:
>
> What's Tamil? Are you African? If "is" takes an adverb, how do you
> ever use adjectives? If something "is'es" well, then it is'es well.
> But an object can only BE "good". Ya did?
>
> >
> > <inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
> > <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Stuart Geary
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote in message news:<1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com>...
> > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> >
> > This food is good.
> > This car is running well.
>
>
> >
> > "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> > qualified by an adverb:
>
> ever use adjectives? If something "is'es" well, then it is'es well.
> But an object can only BE "good". Ya did?
>
> >
> > <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
It truly is.
It is frequently.
Usually, food is there.
Some adverbs do not make sense with "to be" and some adverbs do not
make sense with "to run", e.g. he ran dimensionally, he ran
grammatically.
CyberCypher
[...]
> Some adverbs do not make sense with "to be" and some adverbs do
> not make sense with "to run", e.g. he ran dimensionally, he ran
> grammatically.
>
But "He ran on grammatically" makes sense.
LEE Sau Dan
M> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an
M> adjective?
In most languages? Some languages perhaps don't even have an "is".
Some have it, but it isn't used in sentences such as "He is tall".
So, that's not the same "is" as "is" is in English.
M> That is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English
M> the exception or the rule?
Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
Greg Lee
...
> Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
Certainly, huh. Then you must have some pretty good evidence for what
you say here. Just what is that evidence?
--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
Lukas Pietsch
> > Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
>
> Certainly, huh. Then you must have some pretty good evidence
> for what you say here. Just what is that evidence?
Look more closely at Lee's sentence... :-)
Nice one.
Lukas
P.S.: Of course, M. Ranjit Matthews' criterion of verbs being "qualified" by
adverbs, versus _be_ being "qualified" by adjectives doesn't work in any
case. The adjective in a sentence like "the food is good" is not a
"qualifier" of the copula, it is its complement. Taking adjectives or
nominals as *complements* is just what a copula is for (and this goes not
only for the copula _be_ but for all other copular verbs too: "X
seems/appears/becomes... good"). The optional *modifier* (or "qualifier")
position which a copula can also take can be filled by an adverb just like
that of any other verb.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
It certainly is a verb that can be qualified by (appropriate)
adverbs.
> This food is good.
> This car is running well.
Adverbs here would qualify the assertion. "The food is probably
good". "The car is obviously running well".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Other computer companies have spent
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |15 years working on fault-tolerant
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |computers. Microsoft has spent
|its time more fruitfully, working
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |on fault-tolerant *users*.
(650)857-7572
zbihniew
wzią/ęł(a) i napisał(a) :
> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an adjective? That
> is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English the exception
> or the rule?
In every Indo-European language I know an adjective is used.
--
there's no kaangut. it's only yourself.
"A czyja wiara jest lepsiejsza? Twoja czy moja? Bo wg mnie moja." (jw)
phone: +48.888.106.477
http://zbihniew.krasl.cz
M. Ranjit Mathews
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote ...
> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> >
> > This car is running well.
>
I don't think so.
> > In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> > "is" is not quite a verb. In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> > qualified by an adverb:
>
> What's Tamil?
A language spoken in south India.
> If "is" takes an adverb, how do you ever use adjectives?
All verbs, including <irukku> (meaning is), take adverbs.
Adjectives are used to qualify nouns or noun clauses.
<nalla sApAD> = good food
<nalla OTTam> = (a) good run
<nalla kARu> = good car
> If something "is'es" well, then it is'es well.
> But an object can only BE "good". Ya did?
In English. In Tamil, "object well is", not "object is good". In order
to use an adjective, a noun that serves as a proxy for the object has
to be introduced after the adjective "object good-thing is".
Stewart Gordon
> O czasie 2004-06-14 03:56, taki/taka jeden/jedna M. Ranjit Mathews
> wzią/ęł(a) i napisał(a) :
>
>> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an adjective? That
>> is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English the exception
>> or the rule?
>
> In every Indo-European language I know an adjective is used.
Does the adjective modify the verb? Or the subject?
The way I see it is that the adjective is the pseudo-object of "is", and
its effect is to describe the subject. OTOH, adverbs modify the verb.
That's what they're there for.
We tend to think of "well" and "ill" as adjectives, but presumably only
because we say "I am well" and the like. But in reality, I suppose it's
really still an adverb, modifying "am". It describes one's way of
being, rather than describing the person him/her/itself. That's also
why we say "How are you?" and why "poorly" is used in the same setting.
OneLook's quick definitions give "well" and "ill" as both adjectives and
adverbs. But their being adjectives presumably derives from this
erroneous parsing itself.
Stewart.
--
My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox, aside from its being the
unfortunate victim of intensive mail-bombing at the moment. Please keep
replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit.
Brian M. Scott
<mbw...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:Wyezc.26618$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>>>>> Brian M. Scott wrote:
I also know how I process the written word. It is possible
but very unlikely that the sentence would have caused me any
difficulty had I encountered it cold.
Do you actually have something to say about the verbiness of
'to be', or do you merely wish to argue?
M. Ranjit Mathews
>
> M> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an
> M> adjective?
>
> In most languages? Some languages perhaps don't even have an "is".
Is "to be or not to be" untranslatable to these languages, then?
> Some have it, but it isn't used in sentences such as "He is tall".
> So, that's not the same "is" as "is" is in English.
If it isn't used, then there's no "is" to be not the same as in English.
> M> That is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English
> M> the exception or the rule?
>
> Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
Is it?
It is slowly?
It is absurdly?
Tom Breton
> "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
>
> This food is good.
> This car is running well.
>
> In English, "This food is well" is wrong which seems to indicate that
> "is" is not quite a verb.
The copula ("is", "to be") has unique features in English.
Some (eg U.Penn's XTAG grammar) classify it as an auxilliary always.
That's a word like "can" or "will" that modifies a verb and can
invert. "to be" doesn't modify a verb but it can invert.
I would say the copula does not precisely fit any category but is most
like an auxilliary, and has some features of a verb as well.
> In Tamil, both verbs ("is" and "runs") are
> qualified by an adverb:
>
> <inda sApAdu nallA irukku> = this food well is
> <inda kARu nallA ODum> = this car well runs
--
Tom Breton, the calm-eyed visionary
M. Ranjit Mathews
> DE781 wrote:
> > But you CAN say "this person is being well" and that's correct.
>
> Since you don't know what Tamil is, you're presumably not Indian; where
> else can you say "This person is being well"?
Excellent observation! That is a fairly literal translation of an
equivalent Indian sentence. That introduces the piquant question of
what DE781's native language might be, that he finds this correct.
M. Ranjit Mathews
> M. Ranjit Mathews wrote on 13 Jun 2004:
>
> > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> In Chinese, adjectives are verbs. The traditional greeting "Ni hao
> ma?" is literally "You good [question particle]?", which is translated
> into English as "How are you?", not "Are you good?" The grammar of
> Tamil does not define the grammar of English any more than the grammar
> of English defines the grammar of Chinese or Tamil.
Sure, but the question was why, in English, "is" is treated
differently from other verbs unlike in a number of Indian languages
where it is treated the same as other verbs. If also being the antonym
of "ill" makes "well" a bad choice for the example, here's an
alternate example:
<sApAD mOsamA irukku> food badly is = the food is bad
<kARu mOsamA OD'radu> car badly runs = the car runs badly
Wugi
> "Wugi" :
> |> A verb *needs* a subject, even if it is impersonal, implied, or
> |> tacit (like with gerunds):
>
> A verb doesn't always need a subject. What is important is that, in
> English, a sentence needs a verb. Some sentences consist of a single
Really ? :-)
> verb:
>
> sleep.
Rubbish. Sorry. Maybe. My eyes. Oh well...
> Most, except for imperative sentences, do require a subject as well.
Let us go.
> |> [(one=>) trying] to learn a language
> |> [(people =>) smoking] is dangerous.
> |> note that the [] groups are a (hidden)subject-verb combination,
> |> which in turn acts as a subject for the whole phrase.
>
> I don't see where there is any need for a hidden subject for a
> gerundive. In general, impersonal forms of the verb (infinitives,
> participles, etc.) don't need subjects.
Well, kinda. Now, between not showing supposed (or not) hidden things, and
explaining them away, what's in words? :-)
I want to read a book.
I want (I/me) to read a book.
....
> |> A verb *may need*
> |> - an object (transitive verbs) :
> |> The man is reading => a book
> |> - a predicate (your problem here :-)
>
> That's a strange use of the word predicate. I would consider something
> like "is reading the book" a predicate.
Yes, I noticed this shift in modern Dutch grammar as well...
> In modern terms, a sentence consists of either a verbal proposition, or
> a nominal proposition and a verbal proposition. In classic terms,
> replace verbal proposition with predicate, and nominal proposition with
> subject. But only when they refer to the complete parts of a sentence
> (or rather a clause).
but I prefer to stick to my old definitions and keep a clear distinction
between verbs with object an verbs with predicate.
> |> The food is => good
> |> Smoking is => dangerous
> |> It appears => the truth
> |> He became => a soldier
> Any verb can take an adjective:
>
> Today the food is good.
I'm not sure I'm with you here, and under the impression you're messing up
adjective and adverb. Anyway, 'today' qualifies 'the food is good', and not
'is' only.
> I think that the real difference between "to be" and related verbs is
(and the other ones...)
> that their complement refers to the same thing as the subject. There is
Well put. I agree.
> an identity between "the food" and "good". With the result that 1) if
> the complement is a modifier, it is an adjective, rather than an
> adjective, and 2) historically, and in the languages which still make
adjectives and adjec.., er, adverbs...
> the difference, the complement is also in the nominative. (FWIW, when I
> was in school, up until about the fifth grade, teachers tried to teach
> that the correct form was "It is I", and not "It is me". In German, I
> still say "Ich bin es", or "Ich bin ein Mann", with both sides in the
> nominative.)
In Dutch: Ik ben het, whereas in Flemish more often: Het ben ik. Messy isn't
it? :)
A worse case:
in Dutch writing I stumble ever more upon phrases going sth like:
... for they who want to join; ... for he who cannot follow;
whereas it ought to be:
... for them who want...; for him who cannot...
Then I stumbled upon exactly the same (wrong) turns in an English novel (I
forget which and am not inclined to find out right now, but it was a
medieval whodunit story, and apparently mimicking the 'older' idiom, hence a
question: ) Was this a construct of earlier English?
Tom Breton
> James Kanze <ka...@gabi-soft.fr> wrote ...
[...]
> > I think that the real difference between "to be" and related verbs is
> > that their complement refers to the same thing as the subject.
> > There is
> > an identity between "the food" and "good". With the result that 1) if
> > the complement is a modifier, it is an adjective, rather than an
> > adverb, and 2) historically, and in the languages which still make
> > the difference, the complement is also in the nominative.
>
> If it refers to the same thing as a subject, can't there be a hidden
> subject like Wugi suggested? That is, perhaps "this food is good" =
> "this food is good food", the 2nd "food" being the hidden subject. The
> suggestion of a hidden subject opens up the following train of
> thought:
That apparent transformation doesn't work for verbs that are
predicative and are not equative, eg "feels", "seems":
This room feels cold.
*This room feels [a] cold room.
It has been argued that the equative and the predicative form of "to
be" are two different things ("Inversion and equation in copular
sentences", "Pseudocleft connectivity: implications for the LF
interface level"). I tend to agree.
(There's also the superficial problem that it only works for plural
and mass nouns, but one could add an article)
It's true that the object of a predicative verb is predicated of the
subject. But I don't believe the mechanism is syntactic. I believe
it's semantic, but at an early level of semantics so that selection is
still controlled by the verb. This picture of predication easily
accomodates secondary predication, eg resultatives and depictives:
The river froze solid => The river froze into a solid river.
Bob squashed the bug flat => Bob squashed the bug into a flat bug.
John left the room happy => John left the room while being a
happy man.
John left the room messy => John left the room while it was a
messy room.
It's clear that mere syntactic manipulations aren't sufficient to
accomodate all this.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> LEE Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote ...
> > >>>>> "M" == M Ranjit Mathews <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >
> > M> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an
> > M> adjective?
> >
> > In most languages? Some languages perhaps don't even have an "is".
>
> Is "to be or not to be" untranslatable to these languages, then?
it's hard enough to interpret in English. The non-poetic version is, "to
exist or not to (continue to) exist?"
> > Some have it, but it isn't used in sentences such as "He is tall".
> > So, that's not the same "is" as "is" is in English.
>
> If it isn't used, then there's no "is" to be not the same as in English.
>
> > M> That is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English
> > M> the exception or the rule?
> >
> > Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
>
> Is it?
>
> It is slowly?
> It is absurdly?
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Michael West
> On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 09:51:50 GMT "Michael West"
>> Excuse me? You wrote the sentence. So you know in
>> advance what the writer meant. The rest of us don't
>> have that advantage.
>
> I also know how I process the written word. It is possible
> but very unlikely that the sentence would have caused me any
> difficulty had I encountered it cold.
>
> Do you actually have something to say about the verbiness of
> 'to be', or do you merely wish to argue?
Isn't this a discussion group? Are you uncomfortable when people
question your assertions? If I see an assertion being made that
I believe to be patently false, I see no reason not to state my
objection.
Brian M. Scott
<mbw...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:5Epzc.27531$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 09:51:50 GMT "Michael West"
>>> Excuse me? You wrote the sentence. So you know in
>>> advance what the writer meant. The rest of us don't
>>> have that advantage.
>> I also know how I process the written word. It is possible
>> but very unlikely that the sentence would have caused me any
>> difficulty had I encountered it cold.
>> Do you actually have something to say about the verbiness of
>> 'to be', or do you merely wish to argue?
> Isn't this a discussion group?
No; it's two discussion groups.
> Are you uncomfortable when people question your assertions?
Not in general. I am, however, mildly annoyed when they
assume that I make unconsidered claims.
[...]
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<40CD93...@worldnet.att.net>...
> > DE781 wrote:
> > >
> > > ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote in message news:<1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> > > > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> > > >
> > > > This food is good.
> > > > This car is running well.
> > >
> > > But you CAN say "this person is being well" and that's correct.
> >
> > Since you don't know what Tamil is, you're presumably not Indian; where
> > else can you say "This person is being well"?
>
> they're supposed to be very well. For example, if you're putting on a
> play and you're pretending to be a lawyer, someone could say that
> you're "being well a lawyer", and it's perfectly acceptable. You're
> GOOD AT being a laywer, i.e., you ARE a good lawyer. But you're being
> a lawyer well. See the difference?
Once again: where in the world is "being well a lawyer" perfectly
acceptable?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote in message news:<1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com>...
> native speaker of the language that they're admittedly just a novice
> at, especially when you're WRONGLY correcting someone's "error". How
> arrogant! It must be part of Indian culture, where you all thing you
> live in Jung Gwo, the centre of the universe!
>
> I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
> Bullshitters need not respond.
I already did, and I asked you where in the world you were from, and you
haven't answered.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
I'm sure if I worked at it I could come up with a (non-jocular)
context in which it would seem normal. But it would probably take
some work.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |...as a mobile phone is analogous
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to a Q-Tip -- yeah, it's something
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |you stick in your ear, but there
|all resemblance ends.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | Ross Howard
(650)857-7572
Dylan Nicholson
news:c98b1ba0.04061...@posting.google.com...
> I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
Plenty of things in English are arguably 'correct' - in that you wouldn't be
able to find printed anywhere a specific rule stating that the sentence is
grammatically wrong. But 'correctness' is only half of what matters when
speaking/writing a language. "I'm being well" is not idiomatic as part of
Standard English in any major English-speaking country. It may be used in
certain dialects, and I would expect some pidgin varieties.
But it's the sort of thing that would instantly give you away as being not a
native speaker of garden-variety English.
Nathan Sanders
ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote:
> LEE Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote ...
>
> > Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
>
> Is it?
>
> It is slowly?
> It is absurdly?
It is occasionally.
Nathan
--
Nathan Sanders
Linguistics Program nsan...@wso.williams.edu
Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders
Williamstown, MA 01267
Michael West
> On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 22:28:17 GMT "Michael West"
>
> Not in general. I am, however, mildly annoyed when they
> assume that I make unconsidered claims.
I make no such assumption in general, but it
strikes me as absurd for someone to claim
that a sentence they wrote couldn't possibly
be ambiguous because *they* understood
exactly what it meant.
Greg Lee
> > ...
> > > Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
> >
> > Certainly, huh. Then you must have some pretty good evidence
> > for what you say here. Just what is that evidence?
> Look more closely at Lee's sentence... :-)
You mean he thinks the sentence or VP modifier "certainly" modifies
"is"?
You'll find the difference between verb-modifying adverbs (degree
adverbs like "completely", "strictly") and VP- or S-modifying
adverbs very clearly drawn in McCawley's SPHE. It's perfectly
reasonable to test "be"s verbhood by trying to modify it by
an adverb which modifies verbs. But you have to make sure your
test adverb actually is a verb modifier. Just because a thing
is traditionally called an adverb, that doesn't make it a
verb modifier.
When you do try to use genuine verb modifiers to modify "be",
you get things like *"He completely is finished", *"He strictly
is critical of your position". So here is still more evidence
that "be" is not a verb.
> Nice one.
> Lukas
> P.S.: Of course, M. Ranjit Matthews' criterion of verbs being "qualified" by
> adverbs, versus _be_ being "qualified" by adjectives doesn't work in any
> case. The adjective in a sentence like "the food is good" is not a
> "qualifier" of the copula, it is its complement. Taking adjectives or
> nominals as *complements* is just what a copula is for (and this goes not
> only for the copula _be_ but for all other copular verbs too: "X
> seems/appears/becomes... good"). The optional *modifier* (or "qualifier")
> position which a copula can also take can be filled by an adverb just like
> that of any other verb.
I agree with this, up to the last sentence.
--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
Brian M. Scott
<mbw...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:zmrzc.27638$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
I did not claim that the sentence 'couldn't possibly be
ambiguous'. I did claim that I would not find such a
sentence ambiguous -- not, of course, because I understood a
sentence that I had composed and written -- and I implied
that I would not have expected someone else to find it
ambiguous.
But I begin to understand why *you* did.
Dylan Nicholson
news:calhs2$f1m$1...@news.hawaii.edu...
>
> When you do try to use genuine verb modifiers to modify "be",
> you get things like *"He completely is finished", *"He strictly
> is critical of your position". So here is still more evidence
> that "be" is not a verb.
>
You think you're right about such things. But you never are.
Of course, you clearly are an academic. I surely am not.
Robert Bannister
> I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
> Bullshitters need not respond.
Maybe English used to be your native language, but it certainly isn't now.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> "This person's being well" can be used when someone is being what
> they're supposed to be very well. For example, if you're putting on a
> play and you're pretending to be a lawyer, someone could say that
> you're "being well a lawyer", and it's perfectly acceptable. You're
> GOOD AT being a laywer, i.e., you ARE a good lawyer. But you're being
> a lawyer well. See the difference?
I can accept "This person's being a good lawyer" in the situation you
suggest, but "This person's being well" sounds totally weird.
--
Rob Bannister
Brian M. Scott
<wizo...@hotmail.com> wrote in
<news:2j713aF...@uni-berlin.de> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> It certainly is!
It does little good to answer the objection by repeating the
error. I'm not convinced that verb-hood is all or nothing,
but it does seem pretty clear that 'never', 'clearly', and
'surely' here do not modify the associated verbs. The last
two, at least, evidently modify the whole clause.
Brian
Michael West
> I did not claim that the sentence 'couldn't possibly be
> ambiguous'. I did claim that I would not find such a
> sentence ambiguous -- not, of course, because I understood a
> sentence that I had composed and written -- and I implied
> that I would not have expected someone else to find it
> ambiguous.
>
> But I begin to understand why *you* did.
I found it ambiguous because it contains
a syntactical ambiguity; one which you
refuse to recognize.
What you said was:
>>> It's ambiguous only if you're actively looking for
>>> ambiguity
You were wrong. I wasn't looking for ambiguity.
I was trying to understand why the other poster's
sentence was perfectly clear and yours wasn't.
On examination, I discovered the reason.
Go ahead and take the last word; I'm finished
with this thread.
--
Michael West
Brian M. Scott
<mbw...@bigpond.com> wrote in
<news:fEszc.27699$sj4....@news-server.bigpond.net.au> in
sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
> Brian M. Scott wrote:
>> I did not claim that the sentence 'couldn't possibly be
>> ambiguous'. I did claim that I would not find such a
>> sentence ambiguous -- not, of course, because I understood a
>> sentence that I had composed and written -- and I implied
>> that I would not have expected someone else to find it
>> ambiguous.
>> But I begin to understand why *you* did.
> I found it ambiguous because it contains
> a syntactical ambiguity; one which you
> refuse to recognize.
You really don't read at all well: I most certainly did
acknowledge its existence. What I found (and still find)
surprising is that anyone would be troubled by it.
> What you said was:
> >>> It's ambiguous only if you're actively looking for
> >>> ambiguity
I said a great deal more than that as the thread developed,
most of which you appear to have ignored or misunderstood.
[...]
Dylan Nicholson
news:1l2uoytujhiuo.x...@40tude.net...
verb 'to be', or the whole clause.
Take, for instance, the sentence "I never was a doctor". If you're going to
say that never modifies the clause "I was a doctor", then I'd expect to be
able to move 'never' to another position in the clause (say, at either end).
There's no question 'to be' is a special case in more ways than one, and the
sorts of adverbs that get used with it (and the way in which they apply) are
not exactly similar to regular verbs, but to argue that it isn't a verb at
all (or even that it can't take an adverb) is an extraordinary claim, and as
such, requires extraordinary evidence to back it up. I for one am far from
convinced I've seen such evidence.
Dylan
Michael West
> You really don't read at all well: I most certainly did
> acknowledge its existence. What I found (and still find)
> surprising is that anyone would be troubled by it.
I know; this is true of all sloppy writers.
Yes, I broke my promise about being finished,
but you're now resorting to personal insult,
having no other case to make, so I'm entitled.
Lukas Pietsch
> You mean he thinks the sentence or VP modifier "certainly"
> modifies "is"?
>
> You'll find the difference between verb-modifying adverbs (degree
> adverbs like "completely", "strictly") and VP- or S-modifying
> adverbs very clearly drawn in McCawley's SPHE.
Okay, point taken. Given the original poster's confusion over
complementation versus modification, it didn't occur to me to go into the
finer details of modifying verbs versus modifying verb phrases.
> It's perfectly reasonable to test "be"s verbhood by trying to
> modify it by an adverb which modifies verbs.
Okay. Again, this is not the test the original poster had in mind - he had
apparently got hung up over the question why the adjectival predicate in an
English copula clause doesn't take the adverbial morphology.
BTW, I'm afraid the McCawley book you cite doesn't ring the bells it
probably should. Could you give me the full title?
Lukas
Greg Lee
> probably should. Could you give me the full title?
James D. McCawley, The Syntactic Phenomena of English,
Second Edition (but the first edition also has the dope
on adverbs), The University of Chicago Press, 1998.
--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
Richard Herring
Mathews <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> writes
>>
>> M> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an
>> M> adjective?
>>
>> In most languages? Some languages perhaps don't even have an "is".
>
>Is "to be or not to be" untranslatable to these languages, then?
They will have some way to express the concept of existence, but it
won't necessarily be a verb. BTW, do you think "to be" is (or is not) a
verb in the same way that "is" is?
>
>> Some have it, but it isn't used in sentences such as "He is tall".
>> So, that's not the same "is" as "is" is in English.
>
>If it isn't used, then there's no "is" to be not the same as in English.
I think there is. For example, in Russian it's written "-".
>
>> M> That is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English
>> M> the exception or the rule?
>>
>> Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in English.
>
>Is it?
>
>It is slowly?
>It is absurdly?
--
Richard Herring
LEE Sau Dan
Dylan> I'm curious as to how you can distinguish whether an adverb
Dylan> modifies the verb 'to be', or the whole clause. Take, for
Dylan> instance, the sentence "I never was a doctor". If you're
Dylan> going to say that never modifies the clause "I was a
Dylan> doctor", then I'd expect to be able to move 'never' to
Dylan> another position in the clause (say, at either end).
Well... you can do that for emphasis, but the sentence structure is
changed:
Never have I been a doctor.
I was not a doctor, never.
For the first one, I find it unacceptable to use "was". "Have been"
sounds much better.
--
Lee Sau Dan 李守敦 ~{@nJX6X~}
E-mail: dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/~danlee
LEE Sau Dan
M> LEE Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote ...
>> >>>>> "M" == M Ranjit Mathews <ranjit_...@yahoo.com>
>> writes:
>>
M> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an
M> adjective?
>> In most languages? Some languages perhaps don't even have an
>> "is".
M> Is "to be or not to be" untranslatable to these languages,
M> then?
Why would you find that surprising?
Show me a Chinese translation to convince me of what you think.
Then, try an Arabic and/or Russian translation. Try also Malay and
Japanese.
M> That is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English
M> the exception or the rule?
>> Modifying "is" with an adverb certainly is possible in
>> English.
M> Is it?
You still haven't discovered the hidden message in that sentence.
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<40CE2D...@worldnet.att.net>...
> > DE781 wrote:
> > >
> > > "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<40CD93...@worldnet.att.net>...
> > > > DE781 wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote in message news:<1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > > "is" doesn't seem to be a verb like (say) "runs" insofar as it isn't
> > > > > > qualified by an adverb. If it's not a verb, what is it? Examples:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > This food is good.
> > > > > > This car is running well.
> > > > >
> > > > > But you CAN say "this person is being well" and that's correct.
> > > >
> > > > Since you don't know what Tamil is, you're presumably not Indian; where
> > > > else can you say "This person is being well"?
> > >
> > > "This person's being well" can be used when someone is being what
> > > they're supposed to be very well. For example, if you're putting on a
> > > play and you're pretending to be a lawyer, someone could say that
> > > you're "being well a lawyer", and it's perfectly acceptable. You're
> > > a lawyer well. See the difference?
> >
> > Once again: where in the world is "being well a lawyer" perfectly
> > acceptable?
>
> Anywhere, numbnuts! But modern construction has evolved it into the
> more usual "being a lawyer well" that we're all used. Those damn
> Brits and their Queen of Cunts is responsible for THAT travesty! If
> you knew French, Spanish, Latin, Italian, Japanese, etc, etc, as do I,
> you'd have known that ALL other languages use the "being well a
> lawyer" form! THANK YOU!
All except English? You know 5,000 - 6,000 languages?
You're not only rude, you're a liar.
--
Peter T. Daniels gram...@att.net
Des Small
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<40CE2D...@worldnet.att.net>...
[...]
> > Once again: where in the world is "being well a lawyer" perfectly
> > acceptable?
>
> Anywhere, numbnuts! But modern construction has evolved it into the
> more usual "being a lawyer well" that we're all used. Those damn
> Brits and their Queen of Cunts is responsible for THAT travesty!
Bad Queen! No biscuit!
> If you knew French, Spanish, Latin, Italian, Japanese, etc, etc, as
> do I, you'd have known that ALL other languages use the "being well
> a lawyer" form!
Är det riktigt sant att alla andra språk gör det så?
> THANK YOU!
Tack själv!
Des
skulle ju inte mata trollet, men...
--
"[T]he structural trend in linguistics which took root with the
International Congresses of the twenties and early thirties [...] had
close and effective connections with phenomenology in its Husserlian
and Hegelian versions." -- Roman Jakobson
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message news:<40CE2D...@worldnet.att.net>...
> > >
> > > ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote in message news:<1d4c67e3.04061...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > > DE781 wrote:
> > > > > > But you CAN say "this person is being well" and that's correct.
> > > > >
> > > > > Since you don't know what Tamil is, you're presumably not Indian; where
> > > > > else can you say "This person is being well"?
> > > >
> > > > equivalent Indian sentence. That introduces the piquant question of
> > > > what DE781's native language might be, that he finds this correct.
> > >
> > > Here's a lesson to learn: it's STUPID of a foreigner to criticize a
> > > native speaker of the language that they're admittedly just a novice
> > > at, especially when you're WRONGLY correcting someone's "error". How
> > > arrogant! It must be part of Indian culture, where you all thing you
> > > live in Jung Gwo, the centre of the universe!
> > >
> > > I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> > > me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
> > > Bullshitters need not respond.
> >
> > haven't answered.
>
> I'm from AMERICA (aka the only NORMAL place that anyone NORMAL would
> wanna live and the only place that doesn't suck balls), you dip! You
> don't like it, then you can go back to your country. If you REALLY
> don't think "I'm being well" is correct American English, British
> English, Swahili English, or whatever the hell other type of English,
> you REALLY need to get your ass into a school!
Where in America: Tierra del Fuego? Costa Rica? Yukon Territory?
Show me a schoolbook that says "I'm being well" is correct American
English.
Since you're probably about 12 years old, make that a sixth-grade
schoolbook.
Rex F. May
de...@aol.com wrote on 6/15/04 10:39 AM:
> "Dylan Nicholson" <wizo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:<2j6qmtF...@uni-berlin.de>...
>> "DE781" <de...@aol.com> wrote in message
>> news:c98b1ba0.04061...@posting.google.com...
>>
>>> I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
>>> me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
I can imagine a context where it's correct.
(to guy who'd been sick and is resting up)
"What are you doing these days?"
"Not much. I'm being well."
What context did you have in mind?
Peter T. Daniels
>
> "Dylan Nicholson" <wizo...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<2j6qmtF...@uni-berlin.de>...
> > "DE781" <de...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > news:c98b1ba0.04061...@posting.google.com...
> >
> > > I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> > > me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
> >
> > able to find printed anywhere a specific rule stating that the sentence is
> > grammatically wrong. But 'correctness' is only half of what matters when
> > speaking/writing a language. "I'm being well" is not idiomatic as part of
> > Standard English in any major English-speaking country.
>
> Who ever said it was? *I* sure as hell didn't. But "I'm GOING well"
> is not exactly something you'd expect to hear every day either.
> CONTEXT is EVERYTHING. Like I said, if you were putting on a play and
> someone was acting as a lawyer, the "lawyer" could ask if he was
> "being" a lawyer well. To which the askee could respond "you're being
> it well". Of course, "you're DOING (it) well" or "you're acting (it)
> well" are probably more LIKELY answers. But, why the hell mightn't
> someone say, "you're being it well" or "you're being good at it"?
> Just because something isn't heard EVERY day, that doesn't make it
> incorrect. The Hindu said "I'm being well" is NOT an acceptable
> English sentence. I've just proved him wrong, as I've proved many
> wrong throughout the history of my time at the AUE. I'm being it VERY
> well, as matter of fact, if I do say so myself.
Do you not notice the difference between
You're being it well (which, in that context, is not impossible)
and
You're being well
?
The second string of words isn't grammatical or idiomatic or "correct."
Peter T. Daniels
>
> Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> wrote in message news:<calkgv$599$2...@enyo.uwa.edu.au>...
> the topic of the person being at the lawyer has already come up. It's
> the same way as the sentence "Fart" would sound ridiculous and
> nonsensical and people would be denying it's a sentence. That is,
> UNTIL someone else explained that Sally had eaten three pounds of
> humus for dinner last night but Shaniqua accidentally left her dildo
> on the toilet seat. When Sally had gone to take a crap, Shaniqua's
> didlo become lodged up her anus, a la Frank Costanza, and Sally is
> demanding that Shaniqua try to fart the dildo out. I mean, sentences
> ONLY make sense in CONTEXT.
>
> If I said "He ran there", it doesn't really do you much good as a
> standalone sentence. The only way it's any help to you is if it's
> only part of a paragraph in which the nouns that "he" and "there"
> refer to have already been introduced.
>
> Why should "this person's being well" sound weird to you? Does "this
> person's acting well" or "this person's living well" sound weird to
> you too? If you THINK about it, they SHOULD sound weird. What about
> "this person's DOING well"? Sure, it's become something of an idiom
> meaning that the person's well, in general. BUT how about if the "do"
> had already referred to something? For example, "how is he doing the
> wash?". The answer to this question COULD LEGITIMATELY be a simple
> "he's doing well", which is a shortened version of "he's doing IT
> well". The "it" is unnecessary. Just as the answer to "how is he
> acting in the play?" could be either "he's acting it well" or just
> "he's acting well". I'm sure there are people here who think I'm
> being a pain in the ass (PITA) well.
>
> How am I being (at the role of) a pain in the ass? I'm being (it)
> well. How is Cooper being at annoying people? He's being well. How
> good is Raggs at being nice in his posts? He's bad. [adjective form]
> Or, he's not being (it) well. [adverb form]
Once more, where are you from? The "it" is NOT omissible from any of
those sentences; with the "it," they're fine.
Rex F. May
gram...@worldnet.att.net wrote on 6/15/04 11:38 AM:
>> How am I being (at the role of) a pain in the ass? I'm being (it)
>> well. How is Cooper being at annoying people? He's being well. How
>> good is Raggs at being nice in his posts? He's bad. [adjective form]
>> Or, he's not being (it) well. [adverb form]
>
> Once more, where are you from? The "it" is NOT omissible from any of
> those sentences; with the "it," they're fine.
> --
Yes, please ignore what I said. Somehow, I thought we were solving the
puzzle of when "I'm being well" could be correctly used, and I went ahead
and assumed the 'well' to be an adjective. OTOH, I can't see any context at
all where this sentence could be correct English with 'well' as an adverb.
Greg Lee
> >>>>> "Dylan" == Dylan Nicholson <wizo...@hotmail.com> writes:
> Dylan> I'm curious as to how you can distinguish whether an adverb
> Dylan> modifies the verb 'to be', or the whole clause. Take, for
> Dylan> instance, the sentence "I never was a doctor". If you're
> Dylan> going to say that never modifies the clause "I was a
> Dylan> doctor", then I'd expect to be able to move 'never' to
> Dylan> another position in the clause (say, at either end).
> Well... you can do that for emphasis, but the sentence structure is
> changed:
> Never have I been a doctor.
> I was not a doctor, never.
> For the first one, I find it unacceptable to use "was". "Have been"
> sounds much better.
The reason for the "any" in "I never was any smarter than I am now"
is the "never". The positive version, "I (once) was smarter than
I am now" cannot have "any": *"I was any smarter than I am now."
This shows that "never" does not modify "was", because (judging
from other cases) the "any" that is permitted or required by a
negative word must be within the part of the sentence modified
by the negative.
This shows only that "never" is not a modifier of "was" -- it
does not show that "never" in "I never was a doctor" modifies
a clause. Other evidence suggests that, in fact, "never" in
position after the subject does not modify the entire clause,
since it will not license an "any" within the subject. Compare
"Never has anyone suggested that" with ?*"Anyone has never
suggested that".
--
Greg Lee <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu>
Eric Schwartz
> Anywhere, numbnuts! But modern construction has evolved it into the
> more usual "being a lawyer well" that we're all used. Those damn
> you knew French, Spanish, Latin, Italian, Japanese, etc, etc, as do I,
> you'd have known that ALL other languages use the "being well a
You're definitely wrong about Japanese; I'll leave speakers of those
other languages to comment on them.
-=Eric
--
Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million
typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.
-- Blair Houghton.
Mike Lyle
> On 14 Jun 2004 00:38:45 GMT Greg Lee
> <gr...@ling.lll.hawaii.edu> wrote in
> <news:cais2l$olj$1...@news.hawaii.edu> in
> sci.lang,alt.usage.english:
>
> > In sci.lang Raymond S. Wise <mplsra...@gbronline.com> wrote:
>
> >> under the entry "AUXILIARIES, AUXILIARY VERBS," in his *Columbia Guide to
> >> Standard American English," Kenneth G. Wilson includes "be" in his list of
> >> auxiliary verbs or "helping verbs." He points out that "Many grammars assert
> >> that _auxiliaries_ are not verbs at all, since they behave differently from
> >> verbs: most of them have no past participles such as verbs have."
>
> > I don't think there is much agreement among syntacticians about this.
> > I don't think "be" is a verb, personally. It's not just that it fails
> > to have verbal morphology (actually, it does take "-ing", as verbs do),
> > but it inverts in questions, though real verbs don't invert.
>
> Have you irrefutable evidence of this?
>
> > Also,
> > unlike verbs, it doesn't select for a complement type, and as a
> > consequence, you can have coordinations of differing categories
> > after "be": "He was studious, in his teens, being prepared for a life
> > of crime, and watched closely by his guardians."
>
> Rather sloppy. In any case, you can about as well (or as
> badly) say 'He had strange tastes: he liked to go to the
> opera, and spinach, and being tickled'.
>
> [...]
>
> The mistake here, it seems to me, is thinking that something
> either is or is not a verb, when in fact there are degrees
> of verb-ness.
Sorry if this isn't the best place to join the thread, but, as Eccles
memorably said in reply to "What are you doing here?", "Everybody's
got to be somewhere".
I'm not getting a sense from the discussion of _why_ it may be
desirable to prove that 'to be' isn't a verb. There are different
kinds of ducks, and they may quack in different ways; but in general
terms they walk like ducks, and quack like ducks.
'To be' _does_ seem to me to have conventional verb morphology, though
clearly it's highly irregular: participles, 'gerunds', imperative,
tenses and aspects, and moods are all present. (OT: Ross, note
impeccably justifiable serial comma. I swear it arrived by chance, not
design.)
It can be used as an auxiliary verb; but so can 'do', and 'have',
which are indisputably verbs.
Nobody's yet claimed that potentially copular verbs such as 'turn' are
for that reason not verbs.
'True' verbs may, in fact, invert: it's just that we don't do it much
any more. I don't think it could usefully be argued that 'to be' was a
verb once upon a time, but it isn't any more.
Adverbs' function can be vague: they can often be taken as modifying
the sentence quite as well as modifying the verb. There is available
some variability in their placing in a sentence, too. I find it hard
to take them as strong evidence here. Of course there are particular
adverbs which can't regularly be used with particular verbs.
I'm entirely comfortable in an awareness that the older parts of
speech don't correspond well to English words in action. "Uncle me no
uncles", or "Grandmother me no eggs". I have no emotional investment
in the idea that, for example, 'become' is a verb: it works for me,
but, hey, show me otherwise and I won't flinch. So, then, to what
extent is it that reclassifying the 'be' family as a non-verb, or an
occasional verb, or partially a verb would contribute to knowledge?
Mike.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Yes, please ignore what I said. Somehow, I thought we were solving the
> puzzle of when "I'm being well" could be correctly used, and I went ahead
> and assumed the 'well' to be an adjective. OTOH, I can't see any context at
> all where this sentence could be correct English with 'well' as an adverb.
Consider Erich Fromm's _To Have or To Be?_ In a discussion of it, I
could see "I'm having just fine, but I'm not being very well".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |I believe there are more instances
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |of the abridgment of the freedom of
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |the people by gradual and silent
|encroachments of those in power
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |than by violent and sudden
(650)857-7572 |usurpations.
| James Madison
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
Tony Cooper
<gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>> I'm from AMERICA (aka the only NORMAL place that anyone NORMAL would
>> wanna live and the only place that doesn't suck balls), you dip! You
>> don't like it, then you can go back to your country. If you REALLY
>> don't think "I'm being well" is correct American English, British
>> English, Swahili English, or whatever the hell other type of English,
>> you REALLY need to get your ass into a school!
>
>Where in America: Tierra del Fuego? Costa Rica? Yukon Territory?
DE's being ridiculous, but you just matched him.
Rex F. May
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com wrote on 6/15/04 2:30 PM:
> "Rex F. May" <rex...@comcast.net> writes:
>
>> Yes, please ignore what I said. Somehow, I thought we were solving the
>> puzzle of when "I'm being well" could be correctly used, and I went ahead
>> and assumed the 'well' to be an adjective. OTOH, I can't see any context at
>> all where this sentence could be correct English with 'well' as an adverb.
>
> Consider Erich Fromm's _To Have or To Be?_ In a discussion of it, I
> could see "I'm having just fine, but I'm not being very well".
Ah! You did it!
Dylan Nicholson
> >>>>> "Dylan" == Dylan Nicholson <wizo...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
> Dylan> I'm curious as to how you can distinguish whether an adverb
> Dylan> modifies the verb 'to be', or the whole clause. Take, for
> Dylan> instance, the sentence "I never was a doctor". If you're
> Dylan> going to say that never modifies the clause "I was a
> Dylan> doctor", then I'd expect to be able to move 'never' to
> Dylan> another position in the clause (say, at either end).
>
> Well... you can do that for emphasis, but the sentence structure is
> changed:
>
> Never have I been a doctor.
> I was not a doctor, never.
>
> For the first one, I find it unacceptable to use "was". "Have been"
> sounds much better.
Depends on the context. Certainly if you had been playing some game
where you took on various professions, and were later discussing it,
you might say "Well, I was a fireman at the start, then a soldier.
But I never was a doctor."
I'm sure there are less contrived examples, but that's certainly the
sort of situation in which it would be the only correct form.
As far as whether it is an adverb for to 'be', I agree it's still
debatable.
How about "I will happily be your servant"? Happily seems to be the
sort of adverb that is used with plenty of other verbs.
Dylan
Robert Lieblich
I believe we're witnessing an example of *reductio ad absurdum*,
although I do think playing the "America" card is pretty feeble.
YJ just likes to argue. So does Peter Daniels. I wonder how long
they'll go at it before PD gets tired. God knows YJ never will.
BTW, Joe, you're wrong.
--
Liebs
Amused
DE781
OF COURSE the "it" is omittable, so long as "it" has already been
stated. Just as if you say to someone, "walk it!", and then shorten
it to simply "walk!", once the "it" is understood. Tell me why "he's
acting (the play) well" is NOT correct with the oject omitted! Not
only is it correct; it's very, very commonly-used.
BTW, I've already said where I'm from. Read!
Robert Lieblich
Leaving us with the question of when and in what circumstances
jargon can be the source of a sentence admissible as Standard
English. I'm just some stupid, iggorant AUE Puke, so I won't try to
answer that one.
--
Bob Lieblich
And dumb -- don't forget dumb
>
> Ah! You did it!
Torsten Poulin
> Text books are only made to teach people the way things are
> most commonly done NOW. You don't see "thee" and "thus" in
> textbooks either, do you, but that don't mean they are'nt
> words!
I have seen 'thus' in plenty of textbooks. Usually the kind with
equations in them.
--
Torsten
DE781
The one you listed is just fine. No, "well" is NOT an adjective in
your sentence because "well" is NOT an adjective; it's an adverb.
When someone's being "well", it's different from when they're being
"good". A person who bees well is a person who's good at being, good
at living, either in general or in regard to a specific thing that
they're good at being. A person who is good is a good person. "Good"
describes the PERSON (noun), whereas "well" describes the being
(verb). "I be well" is as correct as "I swim well", "I eat well", "I
taste well" (compare this one with "I taste good"), "I masturbate
well", "I live well", "I do well", etc, etc, etc. ANY verb can be
done well, including being!
M. Ranjit Mathews
> ranjit_...@yahoo.com (M. Ranjit Mathews) wrote ...
> > "Peter T. Daniels" <gram...@worldnet.att.net> wrote ...
> > > DE781 wrote:
> > > > But you CAN say "this person is being well" and that's correct.
> > >
> > > Since you don't know what Tamil is, you're presumably not Indian; where
> > > else can you say "This person is being well"?
> >
> > Excellent observation! That is a fairly literal translation of an
> > equivalent Indian sentence. That introduces the piquant question of
> > what DE781's native language might be, that he finds this correct.
>
> Here's a lesson to learn: it's STUPID of a foreigner to criticize a
> native speaker of the language that they're admittedly just a novice at,
I didn't admit that I was a novice at English. If you aren't a novice
at English, I'd be most interested in perusing your rephrasing, in
whatever dialect of English you speak, of all or some of the following
composition of mine in response to an Anglo writing under the
pseudonym of "Ivanhoe":
Ivanhoe wrote:
> I have noticed that (especially on the 'Net), Chinese (especially
> those from Hong Kong) have a severe tendency to rape the English
> language by deliberately distorting its grammar structure and
> blatantly add end-of-sentence particles (which is present in most
> Chinese dialects and Japanese), which does not belong in Western
> languages. Who do they think they are? Dr. Esperanto? Fuck it.
> Is it justifiable to create Chinglish this way?
M. Ranjit Mathews wrote:
Perish the profane blighters, ye exalted spawn of Sir Walter Scott,
for no man, be it within his ken to wield a mighty pen in the tongue
of his forebears, can presume to wield it thus in the Royal tongue
lest he fall afoul of many a savant who has earned his pride of place
by dint of perseverence and quotidian a sobering rebuke under the able
tutelage of most didactic a caviling martinet at aught a select
academy with hallowed hallway graced by many a portrait of the bluest
of blood that ever composed a missive in King's English never so
solicitously with nary a solecism and few a slip betwixt the pen and
the pad lest his escutcheon be besmirched, nay his noble lineage of
many a peer of the realm on which the sun never set.
> especially when you're WRONGLY correcting someone's "error".
I wasn't correcting an error; I was just wanted to know what your
native language was, so that I could compare its grammar with that of
Indian languages. Alas, I perceive that my curiousity has cut you to
the quick!
> I am indeed a native speaker of English. I challenge ANYONE to tell
> me that "I'm being well" is not a correct English sentence!
It is arguably correct in Indian English. If I'd used it in a
composition, my didactic martinet of an English teacher would have
caviled no end since he considered Indianisms fit for coolies.
If one's answer to the quintessential question "to be or not to be?"
is "to be", then one had might as well endeavor to be as well as one
can, and with sufficient practice at exerting every fiber of one's
being to the end of excelling at being, one would presumably be being
well on occasions when one is progressing toward a goal that ends
one's being:-)
> Bullshitters need not respond.
What would you understand by "I am keeping well"?
Rolleston
>I'm neither. I know about 32 languages.
Well?
R.
M. Ranjit Mathews
> O czasie 2004-06-14 03:56, taki/taka jeden/jedna M. Ranjit Mathews
> wzią/ęł(a) i napisał(a) :
>
> > In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an adjective? That
> > is, is modifying "is" with an adjective like in English the exception
> > or the rule?
>
> In every Indo-European language I know an adjective is used.
Thank you.
M. Ranjit Mathews
> In M. Ranjit Mathews <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> writes
> >LEE Sau Dan <dan...@informatik.uni-freiburg.de> wrote ...
> >> >>>>> "M" == M Ranjit Mathews <ranjit_...@yahoo.com> writes:
> >>
> >> M> In most languages, is "is" modified by an adverb or an
> >> M> adjective?
> >>
> >> In most languages? Some languages perhaps don't even have an "is".
> >
> >Is "to be or not to be" untranslatable to these languages, then?
>
> They will have some way to express the concept of existence, but it
> won't necessarily be a verb. BTW, do you think "to be" is (or is not) a
> verb in the same way that "is" is?
Perhaps not in the context where Macbeth uses it. In other contexts,
yes:
1) "Whether there is to be or not to be a King will soon be decided by
the Houses of Parliament."
2)
Q. Is it possible that he's flying?
A. For it to be possible, he'd need wings.
The "to be" in the a. corresponds to the "is" in the q.
> >> Some have it, but it isn't used in sentences such as "He is tall".
> >> So, that's not the same "is" as "is" is in English.
> >
> >If it isn't used, then there's no "is" to be not the same as in English.
>
> I think there is. For example, in Russian it's written "-".
Huh? In Russian and Tamil, the constructions are similar, not using
"is":
E. Who is this?
R. Kto eto? (who this)
T. <yAr idu>? (who this)
E. This is Anna.
R. Eto Anna (this Anna)
T. <idu anna> (this Anna)
E. Anna is tall.
R. Anna visokorosl (says Systran)
T. <anna uyaramuLLavaL> (anna height-having-female)