Verbs of existence

[Harold F. Schiffman]

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Dear Prashant Pardeshi,

Tamil, Kannada and Telugu (at least, probably Malayalam and other lgs.
too) have a distinction between two kinds of 'be' but this mostly is used
in the negative only, and the distinction isn't between animate and
inanimate, but in 'location' (iru) vs.  'identity' (aaku, aagu).  In
Kannada the negative is still in use in the spoken lg., e.g. 'illa' means
'not located' and 'alla' means 'not identical to' s.t.  Telugu forms are
/leedu/ 'not loc.' and /kaadu/ 'not ident.' Tamil uses these in Lit.
dialect but not in spoken.

I once made the mistake of using the wrong negative: I looked into a room
and saw that there was no one there, so I said to the Kannada speaker with
me, 'yaaruu alla'.  I should have said 'yaaruu illa' (nobody is located
there).  What 'yaaruu alla' means is 'the person there is a nobody.'

Interesting that the Japanese /iru/ is strikingly similar to the
Tamil-Kannada /iru/ and I assume that /aru/ is not /*alu/ because of the
loss of l-r contrast, but the similarities are striking enough to make
some people (Susumo Ohno, e.g.) to claim close relationships between
Japanese and Tamil.

H. Schiffman


On Sun, 1 May 2005, Prashant Pardeshi wrote:

> VYAKARAN: South Asian Languages and Linguistics Net
> Editors:  Tej K. Bhatia, Syracuse University, New York
>           John Peterson, University of Osnabrueck, Germany
> Details:  Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu and say: INFO VYAKARAN
> Subscribe:Send email to listserv at listserv.syr.edu and say:
>           SUBSCRIBE VYAKARAN FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME
>           (Substitute your real name for first_name last_name)
> Archives: http://listserv.syr.edu
>
> Dear Vyakaran list members,
>
> Currently a collegue of mine is working on verbs of
> existence in Japanese from a historical perspective.
> As you know, Japanese makes a distinction in the verb
> of exitence according to animacy: the verb "iru" is
> used for animates while the verb "aru" is used for
> inanimates.
>
> We are looking for languages which make such a
> distinction and would appreciate if the list members
> can suggest some references. To the best of my
> knowledge Tamil and Sinhalese make such a distinction.
>
> Thanking you in anticipation,
>
> Best regards,
> Prashant Pardeshi (Kobe University, Japan)
>
>
>
>
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