Harald adds:
>Just a small pedantic correction. Swahili does use a copula (ni),
>but for example russian or turkish (although you can have an
>optional copula (an innovation not more than 1000 y.o)) and as
>you mentioned, arabic are good examples.
Yes, I stand corrected. However, if I understand, Swahili /ni/,
being a copula, is not a conjugated verb per se. In fact, I have
a thought that *?es- might have started out as a conjugationless
copula, originally conjugated only in an unmarked
3rd person singular as Old IE *?es, basically signifying "there is"
like Mandarin /you3/. At first, it could be optionally added to
the sentence, much like Russian /est'/, if I recall. Over time,
it became a necessary component in the sentence and then further
gained full conjugation (yet still lacked a thematic vowel like
the inherited verbs because of the way it had been loaned into
the language).
Thanx for added note, H.
- love gLeN
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp