kizolk
Indecisive 
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Post by kizolk on Jul 23, 2024 19:49:29 GMT
The quote in Russian:
Лучше быть профессором в Петербурге, чем меламедом в Эйшишках.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jul 23, 2024 19:51:17 GMT
That man is a transliterator's nightmare.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jul 23, 2024 19:53:11 GMT
Are профессором and меламедом the instrumental? Then Russian does the same irrational thing with the copula that Polish does.
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,666
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Post by kizolk on Jul 23, 2024 20:05:12 GMT
Are профессором and меламедом the instrumental? That seemed true enough to me, but my Russian was never good, and I forgot most of it. -ом for the instrumental matches Wikipedia's Russian case tables though. |
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,666
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Post by kizolk on Jul 23, 2024 20:12:08 GMT
I had gotten to the point where I could understand the gist of the news reports and Putin speeches I watched, but my monomaniacal interest for the language didn't last long, and its fruits withered away with it. That happens not infrequently.
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Post by Etaoin Shrdlu on Jul 23, 2024 20:12:35 GMT
I don't really have any Russian as such, but I've dabbled in Polish.
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kizolk
Indecisive
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Post by kizolk on Jul 23, 2024 20:16:08 GMT
Among the uses of the instrumental Wikipedia lists, there's this:
"associates of connective verbs: быть 'be' "
What a strange thing to do indeed.
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 24, 2024 9:14:56 GMT
Arabic does something similar, but only when the "be" is negated.
There's no instrumental case in Arabic, but the proclitic preposition ب (bi) often conveys an instrumental meaning like "with" or "by". And this preposition can be added to the word that forms the predicate with the verb ليس (laysa), which means "is not". So I could say, for example, لست بملكة (lastu bi-malika), meaning "I'm not a queen". The use of the preposition is optional, though, and the verb can also take the accusative (unlike in Latin and most IE languages, Arabic verbs of the "be" or "become" etc. kind take the accusative).
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jul 24, 2024 10:25:23 GMT
"unlike in Latin and most IE languages, Arabic verbs of the "be" or "become" etc. kind take the accusative"
I wonder why we should call it accusative then. Is it just because it's also used to mark direct objects, or are those verbs actually analyzed as being transitive?
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 24, 2024 11:50:41 GMT
Is it just because it's also used to mark direct objects, or are those verbs actually analyzed as being transitive? The Arabic accusative case is probably called accusative by analogy for the reason you say, but the Arabic system is a little different from that where the term "accusative" was originally applied. My feeling is that, whereas in Latin (and IE languages by and large) the fundamental distinction is between subject (+ what modifies it) and object, in Arabic it's more like subject vs. predicate (no matter whether a predicate noun or adjective etc. refers to the object or to the subject). No Arabic verb that I know of takes a predicate word in the nominative, and adjectives or participles that refer predicatively to the subject, even after a verb other than a copula kind of verb, go in the accusative. For instance, the translation of the sentence "he died happy" would have "happy" in the accusative in Arabic (while it would be nominative in Latin). When there is no verb, however, the predicate goes in the nominative (as in the phrase "Allahu akbar"). As for whether the Arabic "be" etc. verbs are considered transitive, I don't know what the consensus is. Wiktionary seems to go with "copulative". |
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jul 24, 2024 16:21:02 GMT
My feeling is that, whereas in Latin (and IE languages by and large) the fundamental distinction is between subject (+ what modifies it) and object, in Arabic it's more like subject vs. predicate That was my feeling as well (from what you said earlier, not from my non-existent knowledge of Arabic). And more generally, I'm quite okay with the idea of a predicative case, distinct from the nominative even in the case of subject complements, but then I wouldn't call it "accusative". |
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 24, 2024 16:45:03 GMT
What case is "me" in "it's me", eh? Is English developing a predicative case or is "be" becoming transitive?
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kizolk
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Post by kizolk on Jul 24, 2024 16:52:52 GMT
I'd go with the former personally!
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Post by Pacifica on Jul 24, 2024 17:01:43 GMT
Me too. But damn, what the hell is that "me"?  |
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kizolk
Indecisive
Posts: 5,666
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Post by kizolk on Jul 24, 2024 17:53:01 GMT
Good question. Whatever else it may be, I think it's the weird one. Maybe we should just accept the fact that English has a broad, weird kind of oblique case.
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