[Lexicog] semantic domains

[Kenneth C. Hill]

The Hopi treatment of nominal predicates is like Russian only in having no
overtly expressed untensed copula.

--Ken Hill

--- Peter Kirk <peterkirk at qaya.org> wrote:
> On 12/01/2004 14:19, Kenneth C. Hill wrote:
>
> >I'm afraid Rudy is in error regarding Hopi. The difference between
> verbs
> >and non-verbs is quite clear. It may look like nouns can function like
> >verbs in Hopi because Hopi (like, e.g., Russian) lacks a copula except
> for
> >morphologically marked (e.g., tensed) predicates. The element
> equivalent
> >to a copula, called "nexus" [-NEX-] in the Hopi Dictionary, is
> obligatory
> >under the right conditions with non-verbs and cannot be used with
> verbs.
> >
> >
> >
> This is not like Russian. In Russian nouns never have any verb-like
> morphology, except for verbalising derivational suffxes. It sounds more
> like Turkish, in which the present tense of the copula is a set of
> suffixes which agree in person and number with the subject:
>
> men turist-im "I am a tourist"
> sen turist-sin "you are a tourist"
> o turist-tir "he/she is a tourist"
> biz turist-iz "we are tourists"
> etc. (word carefully chosen to avoid special character problems)
>
> The same suffixes are used as personal suffixes in some verb tenses,
> e.g. the aorist:
>
> men gel-er-im "I come"
> sen gel-er-sin "you come"
> o gel-er "he/she comes" - the personal suffix is omitted in the 3rd
> person
> biz gel-er-iz "we come"
> etc.
>
> - but these tenses are actually derived from a participial form e.g.
> gel-er and the copula. So there is a clear morphological distinction
> between nouns (or adjectives) and verbs; a verb can only take the copula
>
> if already nominalised or adjectivalised.
>
> Also, nouns are more commonly used without the copula, e.g. as a
> subject, a direct object, or with postpositions.
>
> --
> Peter Kirk


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