--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:
> tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > You must think I'm an idiot. Of course I know that, like everyone
> > else.
>
> In that case I fail to see what your problem is.
I opposed the idea that a central verb as "to be" should pressed into
a new and more complicated mould than it the one it was already in.
You then argue that that might be illogical, but then language is
illogical and if I can't see that then I have a problem. I think the
problem is on the side of those that use this kind of reasoning.
Basically you used have two types of argument in your posting:
1) the proposal is simple, therefore it is right, and therefore people
who can't see that have a problem.
2) the proposal is complicated, but language is complicated, and
therefore people who can't see that have a problem.
As for Polish, it looks to me like Polish might have gone through a
phase where the copula suffered a similar fate as in Russian: only 3rd
person 'jest' and 'sa~' ('jest' and 'sut'') survived of the present.
From there the paradigm was recreated by constructing new 1st and
2nd persons from the stem 'jest-' extracted from the 3rd sg.
Torsten