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Is the verb "to be" irregular in your... | ||
Tags: Verbs/Conjugation | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 10 of 41 09 March 2011 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
As regular/irregular refers to conjugation, if there's no conjugation, they're not regular or irregular, just as an invisible leaf isn't green.... However, in the case of Papiamentu, we can still argue that the copular verb is irregular, because other verbs take a tense particle, and the copula is the bare tense particle, so is clearly handled differently. In fact, you could argue that the copular in Papiamentu does conjugate, in which case it is very irregular indeed, as no other verbs do.... Back to the original question (and on a related note) Celtic languages (or at least Gaelic, Irish and Welsh) The verb "to be" is the most irregular verb in the languages. There is a historic equivalent distinction between ser-like and estar-like "to be". The estar-like is the only verb to conjugate for simple present -- present constructions in Celtic languages therefore rely on the progressive aspect. The ser-like "to be" is vanishing. In Scottish Gaelic is only takes two forms, and often disappears before this/that, and is implied in question words. In Welsh it has vanished almost entirely, never appearing explicitly in a basic sentence -- you can only see its presence by its effect on word order. In Welsh it is only explicitly used (AFAIK) in answer to yes/no questions. Edited by Cainntear on 09 March 2011 at 3:58pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 11 of 41 09 March 2011 at 3:50pm | IP Logged | ||
But the infinitive is "wees" and the past participle is "gewees". According to wikipedia, "to be" and "to have" are the only two irregular verbs in Afrikaans. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5179 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 12 of 41 09 March 2011 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's irregual even in Vietnamese , you negate it irregulary.
In Mandarin it's rather regular. And Cantonese. Although it has no infinitive. 我爱是你 would be wrong. maybe you use 当, I am not sure. But I think it can be regular in Indonesian. ini adalah buku. However I am not sure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| matthewmathieu Newbie United States Joined 5121 days ago 14 posts - 19 votes | Message 13 of 41 09 March 2011 at 5:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Is it really just frequency that leads to this verb nearly always being irregular in the present? Is it absolutely absurd
to suggest that there may be something irregular about "being" in itself, on a semantic level, that contributes to this irregularity of conjugation? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5767 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 14 of 41 09 March 2011 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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In English and German, the current paradigms of "to be" are made up of what used to be forms of several verbs with meaning related to existence, but different lexical aspects. That might be true for all Germanic languages, I don't know.
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 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6910 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 41 09 March 2011 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Some info here:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=be http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=am http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=is 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cymrotom Tetraglot Groupie United States cymrympls.blogspot.c Joined 5038 days ago 56 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English*, German, Mandarin, Welsh | Message 16 of 41 09 March 2011 at 11:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm unfamiliar with Spanish, could you list the ser and estar-like Welsh verbs?
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