Existentials with expressions of saying

[Jan Terje Faarlund]

At 14:56 13.10.98 +0200, Wouden A. van der wrote:
>Fellow typologists,
>
>I am looking for languages with existential constructions (English
>'there is', German 'es gibt') involving some word of
>saying. Background: as I see it, in Dutch such a thing is
>developing. Next to traditional 'er is' "there is" we now often find
>'er is sprake van grote problemen' "there is speech of great problems"
>for 'there are great problems'.  I would be interested in examples of
>comparable constructions/expressions from other languages.
>

Norwegian has an expression very similar to the Dutch one: "Det er snakk
om..." or "Det er tale om..." 'there is talk about' (snakk and tale are
near synonyms).
	Det er snakk om store investeringar, literally 'there is talk about great
investments', idiomatically 'great investments are needed / there is need
for great investments'
	Det var snakk om to gutar på 15 år 'there were two boys of 15 years'
	Det er tale om min fyrste tur til Kina 'this is my first trip to China'

etc.

Best regards,
Jan Terje


	
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Professor Jan Terje Faarlund
Universitetet i Oslo
Institutt for nordistikk og litteraturvitskap
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N-0315 Oslo (Norway)

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