🚀 go-pugleaf

JAREA@UKCC.UKY.EDU writes:

>In article <peeters.720153021@tasman>
>peeters@tasman.cc.utas.edu.au (bert peeters) writes:
>>
>>I don't know the facts in Rumanian, but for French and Italian the answer is
>>simple. There is just one verb: e^tre for French, essere for Italian. I don't
>>think Latin has anything to do with it. The verb there is esse. Anyone please
>>correct me if I am wrong, but I am almost sure that the reason for the exist-
>>ence of two verbs is purely historical. Lt esse soon became essere, but was
>>apart from that competing with stare (the latter's meaning was watered down
>>from 'stand' to 'be'). In French and Italian, the two amalgamated, with the
>>well-known outcome of one verb having some of its tenses reminiscent of one
>>of the verbs, and others of the other verb. In Spanish and Portuguese, the
>>two verbs remained distinct.
> 
>Italian does preserve both 'essere' and 'stare'.  The latter in such
>expressions as 'Come sta`' = "How are you", as well as a sort of emphatic
>progressive, somewhat like the French 'e^tre en train de faire' (Italian
>'stare facendo')  A basic grammar will give more details, but the contrast
>is not like Spanish 'ser' vs 'estar'. 

I may indeed have been a little superficial in my answer, but then again...
If the two only "be"-like uses of "stare" in Italian are the ones listed 
above, one may well wonder whether that is enough to speak of two verbs
for 'to be' in Italian. No doubt, STARE has survived (that's something I
had genuinely overlooked). But should we judge the data on an English
translation?* For "come sta`" the English also have "How do you do?" and
"stare facendo" is not unlike Dutch constructions such as "lopen te doen"
(litt. run doing), "zitten te slapen" (sit sleeping), "liggen te zeuren"
(lie down moaning) etc. Agreed, Dutch is more abundant here, but it is
no longer a productive mechanism. The first verb needs to be a postural
or a movement verb. Now postural and "stare" do have a lot in common, don't
they?
*Or a translation into any other language for that matter. What I'm saying
is that if in a consistent manner the same verb is used in languages A-Y
where Z uses two verbs, then there may be enough evidence to say "Oh yes
here we have two verbs "to be"". But any such statement remains superficial
and intrinsically incorrect, because too vague.
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Dr Bert Peeters                         Tel: +61 02 202344
Department of Modern Languages               002 202344
University of Tasmania at Hobart        Fax: 002 207813
GPO Box 252C                            Bert.Peeters@modlang.utas.edu.au
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Australia