Well, I’ve done a fair bit of reading since I wrote post #12 up above and I have a slightly more nuanced take on this verb.

Now, the first thing we have to acknowledge is that the verb ‘be’ is a promiscuous verb in English, deployed for a wide variety of situations and construals that are differentiated in other languages.

Let’s take a look:

Existence: There is a book on the table
Location: The book is on the table
State (permanent): I am a human
State (temporary): I am happy
Identification: That man is my father
Attribution: My father is a doctor
Fundamental truth: Two plus two is four

And a whole bunch of other meanings and nuances (including the recycling of the ‘be’ verb for various continuous tenses: I am eating, I was dancing, I have been waiting)

If you are a native English speaker, this probably seems so natural and commonsensical, you cannot conceive of how complex and nuanced it is. But once we start looking at other languages, we can see how the English system paints with broad brush strokes and redeploys the verb willy-nilly.

(Part of the variability of the forms of the English verb is based on suppletion- that is the yoking together of separate words to mean the same thing. ‘Go’ in the past tense is not goed. It is went, which is the past tense verb of ‘wind’. These two forms are derived from different source verbs but got conflated. Likewise for the ‘be’ verb in English. ‘Be’ is from one root verb, ‘is’ is from a different root verb, ‘am’ from another Proto-Indo-European root)

So, let’s try to unpack the system a little and look at some of the variability that exists.

In English we might say:
There are a lot of stars in the sky.
And we might add:
But you can’t see them tonight because there are a lot of clouds.

There are/ There are.

Now in German, you can say:

Es gibt viele Sterne am Himmel (aber mann kann sie nicht sehen wiel) da sind viele wolken.
There are many stars in the sky (but you cannot see them because) there are many clouds.

The English existence expression ‘there are’ comes out in German as ‘it gives’.

Literally, you say, ‘It gives many stars in the sky.’

But you can also say.
Da sind viele Wolken.
Da = There, at that place, are many clouds.

So, our example sentence in German in English is.

‘It gives many stars in the sky. (But you can’t see them tonight because), there exist many clouds in the sky.

I’ve posed this question to German speakers and they are a bit vague about when to use ‘es gibt’ and ‘da sind’. There is a subtle sense of permanent existence versus temporary existence, or directly perceptible versus not directly perceptible. The German speakers I have spoken to have been fairly non-committal. (Being questioned on the nuances of German usage by an English speaker seems to be challenging…)

The situation in Spanish is a lot clearer.
English ‘be’ can be translated as either ‘ser’ or ‘estar’. In this case the temporary versus permanent distinction is clear.

The old joke of the interaction between Churchill and Bessie Braddock is germane here.

“Sir, you are drunk.”
“And you, Bessie, are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning, and you will still be ugly.”

For English speakers ‘are drunk’ and ‘are ugly’ can just recycle the same verb, but in Spanish
you have to use two different verbs.

Estás borracho. (You are drunk- a temporary state)
Tú eres feo. (You are ugly – a permanent state)

This is the lightest possible gloss of the copula use in Spanish. Something similar exists in other Romance languages.
(Interestingly, there is a vague parallel in English. ‘The teacher is boring’ versus ‘The students are bored. The -ing and -ed endings on the adjectives encode cause and effect, but there is the underlying notion that the boring teacher is always boring, it is something of his essence, but the bored students will exit the state of boredom when the bell rings. Permanent versus temporary states.)

In the case of location, other European languages don’t always go with the ‘be’ verb.
In Dutch one doesn’t usually say ‘The bottle is on the table’. Rather, you use a verb derived from human posture:
The bottle stands on the table.
De fles staat op tafel (Staat = stand)

The stamp is on the envelope
De postzegel zit op de envelop (zit = sit)

Or in Ukrainian:
Пляшка стоїть на столі ( стоїть= stand)
Flashka stoit na stoli
Bottle stands on table

Now, of course, in English you can use a verb other than ‘be’: The bottle stood on the table’ or ‘The rug lay on the floor’, but think about the question. You have to ask, ‘Where is the bottle?’ not ‘Where stands the bottle’? Not ‘Where sits the stamp?’ or ‘Where lays the rug?’


Okay, let’s move out of the Indo-European area.
As mentioned before, Japanese existential usage differentiates between animate and inanimate referents.
There is a cat. Nekko ga iru
There is a car. Kuruma ga aru.

Iru for animates, aru for inanimates.
For other kinds of copula constructions, you can use ‘desu’.

Existence vs. Identification

Hon ga arimasu = There is a book/ There are books (Existence but minus the singular/plural marking which is obligatory in English.)

Hon desu. = This is a book. (Identification)

Desu is just one form. The copula varies for politeness.

Hon da. Plain (‘sa book mate)
Hon desu. Polite (This is a book)
Hon de gozaimasu Formal/honorific (This, sir, if I may be so bold, is a book.)


What’s next? Well, my brief excursions into Thai has challenged me enough. There are several words in Thai that all translate as ‘be’. The ones I come across most often are เป็น (phen) and คือ(Khu). For interested persons here is a video on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj6BuwfssT4



Let’s take a quick detour into another area of ‘be’ verb usage that comes as a bit of a surprise to Anglo speakers. Many languages permit the omission of the ‘be’ verb.
In Ukrainian one says simply:
Я вчитель.
Ya vchitel = I teacher.

No ‘be’ verb necessary.

But only in the present tense.

For past tense statements you need the copula verb.
Я був учителем = I was a teacher
Ya buv uchitelem

Hungarian is a bit more picky.
In the present tense, you can drop the ‘be’ verb with ‘I’ and ‘you’, but you need it for ‘he’, ‘she’ and it’.
Tanár vagyok. I teacher.
Ön tanár. You teacher.
Ő egy tanár. He is teacher.

In Thai you can drop the copula for various attributive adjective statements.
กรุงเทพร้อน
Krungtheph ron
Bangkok hot
Bangkok is hot.

A wide variety of languages have this feature, which is termed ‘zero copula’. My Ukrainian students constantly forget to use the ‘be’ verb because their language is a zero-copula language.

Okay, last on the menu. Many languages have a way of negating the ‘be’ verb that varies from standard negation.

So, if we take a typical sentence in English involving an agent doing something to a patient we can come up with something like this:

The man ate the cake.

Now, if we want to negate it, we have to go through a bit of a rigmarole:
1) Strip the tense and person marking off the verb. (‘Ate’ become just ‘eat’)
2) Insert an auxiliary verb ‘do’ before the main verb.
3) All of the person and tense marking that you stripped off the verb (ate> eat) you now add onto the auxiliary verb (do > did)
4) Now (at last!) you add the negator (did + not)
5) (optional) reduce the negator to a clitic affix (Didn’t)

And there we have it:
The man didn’t eat the cake.

But, for existential, locative, attributive, etc. sentences in English, you just insert the negator.

There is a bottle on the table. >>> There isn’t a bottle on the table.
I’m happy. >>>>>I’m not happy.
That man is my father. >>>>That man is not my father.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy- for these kinds of sentences. My Japanese students sometimes say things like ‘I don’t happy’ or ‘She not did homework’ as they get confused between the two negation strategies in English.

Other languages have a special negator structure for existential sentences.
In Turkish you have standard negation:

bira içtim I drank beer
bira içmedim I didn’t drink beer

But for negated existence, there is a special verb that means ‘not exist’. – yok.
su var = is water. = There is water.
Su yok = not water (water does not exist) There is no water.

This word ‘yok’ is not some kind of negated form of the existence verb. It is a stand-alone word that means ‘not exist’. English lacks this and the concept can only be voiced using a negator added to the ‘be’ verb.

So, there is a very brief overview of ‘be’ in a variety of languages. And it really is just barely scratching the surface. At the moment, I’m reading up on some aspects of languages from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Deep Amazonia and so on, and the picture only gets more complex.

My god language is fascinating.

I watched Vikings recently on Prime. On the whole a good watch, but from it I researched and learnt that the Icelandic language is the closest relation to Old Norse (iirc), something which really peaked my interest in the way language evolves and [indeed] in the ways in which it didn't evolve.

I'm no expert, but I suspect that Darwin's theory of evolution might equally apply to languages, as it does life. Just a thought. I mean, if the Icelandic language hasn't changed so much since the time of the Vikings, then we can account for that with the lack of lingual competition/interaction combined with a stable social environment. Whereas, elsewhere in Europe/Scandanavia, both social and lingual interactions were more frequent and thus favoured linguistic evolution.

Anyway, the bottom-line is that I'm late to the party, but have developed an interest in languages and the way that they evolve. So yes, languages are indeed fascinating.

Imagine learning quantum physics... in Thai!

Actually, a fairly significant portion of that would be borrowed English words with Thai intonation.

This is the lightest possible gloss of the copula use in Spanish. Something similar exists in other Romance languages.
(Interestingly, there is a vague parallel in English. ‘The teacher is boring’ versus ‘The students are bored. The -ing and -ed endings on the adjectives encode cause and effect, but there is the underlying notion that the boring teacher is always boring, it is something of his essence, but the bored students will exit the state of boredom when the bell rings. Permanent versus temporary states.)

You could also emphasize the temporary state by making it present continuous: the teacher is being boring.

Been a while since I've thought in English grammar terms, but isn't some of the above also to do with 'be' being a stative verb?

jamest wrote:How difficult was it to learn to speak and write Thai? Seems to me that it would be up there with learning quantum physics.

Grammatically, it's absurdly simple. Simple to the point that your brain rejects the obvious, simple construction of a sentence and tries to Englishify it rendering the sentence unintelligible.

Basically, if you learn enough words in Thai, then all you really need to do is learn the order that they're used in a sentence.

But that's just the theoretical side - the real difficulty (and it's silly) in Thai comes from i) Thai's tonal, meaning that some words which sound the same to the foreign ear mean completely different things to Thais and ii) therearenospacesbetweenwordsinwrittenThaiwhichmeansyouhavetoknowallthewordsinthesentencetoknowwhereeachstartsandends.

As an example of the former. The word 'mai' in Thai has 5 different meanings depending on the tone: wood, new, burn, not, and a question word.

So you can actually make a coherent sentence in Thai that says: new wood doesn't burn, does it? apparently using only one word to the foreign ear.

ไม้ใหม่ไม่ไหม้ไหม (try it in Google translate and hit the 'listen' button (mai mai mai mai mai) - the barely detectable differences in tone are conveying the meaning rather than just the sound of the letters.

Spearthrower wrote:

As an example of the former. The word 'mai' in Thai has 5 different meanings depending on the tone: wood, new, burn, not, and a question word.

So you can actually make a coherent sentence in Thai that says: new wood doesn't burn, does it? apparently using only one word to the foreign ear.

ไม้ใหม่ไม่ไหม้ไหม (try it in Google translate and hit the 'listen' button (mai mai mai mai mai) - the barely detectable differences in tone are conveying the meaning rather than just the sound of the letters.

Excellent example there. I love these kinds of things.
There is a somewhat related phenomenon in Japanese concerning pronunciation and homophones.
Japanese has a really restricted syllable inventory with the default pattern being Consonant + Vowel (C+V) or stand alone vowel (V). Or double vowel (C+v+v) The only syllable coda consonant that is allowable is ん　or /n/. (Nissan, Nippon, Jinshin, Gomon etc.)

There are no consonant clusters that you would find in English (Eg Strengths C+C+C+V+C+C+C)

Now the problem is that Japanese borrowed a whole load of words from Chinese. The words would be differentiated in tone in the original Chinese. However, Japanese is NOT a tonal language, so these words sound the same to the foreign ear.

角 - Hashi = edge
橋 - Hashi = bridge
箸- Hashi = Chopsticks

The syllable stress may vary, but it's pretty hard for language learners to pick up in fast speech.
As you'll notice, the Kanji characters are all different.
This all leads to a lot of words sounding the same.

Here is an example of some words with the C+V+V string SEI.

生 Sei
性 Sei
勢 Sei
星 Sei
世 Sei
正 Sei
誠 Sei
聖 Sei
静 Sei
成 Sei
政 Sei
清 Sei
整 Sei

And the list goes on.

The limited syllable inventory can lead to a lot of syllable repetition in a short space of time.

Mr Akasaka couldn't come because it was hot.

赤坂様来なかった暖かかったから。
Akasaka sama konakatta attatakakatta kara.

Or, all joined up.

Akasakasamakonakattaattatakakattakara.

don't get me started wrote:
I’ve posed this question to German speakers and they are a bit vague about when to use ‘es gibt’ and ‘da sind’. There is a subtle sense of permanent existence versus temporary existence, or directly perceptible versus not directly perceptible. The German speakers I have spoken to have been fairly non-committal. (Being questioned on the nuances of German usage by an English speaker seems to be challenging…)

I was going to say something about this (contribute my mustard, as we say in German), but on thinking about it I realise that I am equally vague.

So I shan't.

"permanent existence versus temporary existence, or directly perceptible versus not directly perceptible" comes close, though.

Spearthrower wrote:Imagine learning quantum physics... in Thai!

Actually, a fairly significant portion of that would be borrowed English words with Thai intonation.

Even more actually, most of it would be mathematical symbols, and what you call those in your head is entirely up to you.

Evolving wrote:

I was going to say something about this (contribute my mustard, as we say in German), but on thinking about it I realise that I am equally vague.

So I shan't.

"permanent existence versus temporary existence, or directly perceptible versus not directly perceptible" comes close, though.

Thank you for your mustard! Much appreciated
Yep, I realized when I first started teaching English many many years ago that there are loads of points of usage where you can tell right from wrong or normal from unusual, but when asked to explain it you find yourself floundering, uhming and ahing.

I just got off an online lesson with a class of Ukrainian students. After I had finished my part, it was a general Q&A session. Some of the questions were quite challenging, to say the least!

Man kann als Mutterspracher sagen: 'Ich verstehe nur den Bahnhof.' Als Sprachlehrer können Sie sagen: 'Ich verstehe den Bahnhof und ein paar Straßen in der Nähe.' Nichts mehr.

The word is "Muttersprachler", and the catchphrase is "ich verstehe nur Bahnhof" - alluding to announcements at a station, notoriously hard to understand.

Lustige Abwandlung aber.

There's a now pretty old children's book by James Krüss which has (among many other lustige Einfälle - should that be in the dative? - yes, normally, but this is English, so I suppose not...) - anyway - it has a newspaper read by cockroaches called the "Schabenzeitung" (Cockroach News), which is amusing in its own right because it could almost be Schwabenzeitung (Swabian News), a perfectly respectable name for a newspaper, and the joke is that the entire paper consists of the word "Hauptbahnhof" repeated countless times. The cockroaches (obviously) can't read, they can only pretend, so they would only understand Bahnhof anyway, even if the paper had proper news in it.

I'm trying to remember which book it was. I think it might be Mein Urgroßvater und ich (My Great-Grandfather and Me), but I'm not sure.

Not that this is remotely important.

Scattershot replies:

Now, of course, in English you can use a verb other than ‘be’: The bottle stood on the table’ or ‘The rug lay on the floor’, but think about the question. You have to ask, ‘Where is the bottle?’ not ‘Where stands the bottle’? Not ‘Where sits the stamp?’ or ‘Where lays the rug?’

I really love the sound of this in English, I can't quite find the word to express what feeling it conjures, but there's a robust and picturesque quality to it.

State (permanent): I am a human
State (temporary): I am happy

To be (temporary), or not to be (permanent), that is the question.

To exist in the moment, and to take concerted action towards achieving, otherwise life, the state of living, is unfulfilling, unworthy, unachievable.

Evolving wrote:The word is "Muttersprachler", and the catchphrase is "ich verstehe nur Bahnhof" - alluding to announcements at a station, notoriously hard to understand.

Lustige Abwandlung aber.

There's a now pretty old children's book by James Krüss which has (among many other lustige Einfälle - should that be in the dative? - yes, normally, but this is English, so I suppose not...) - anyway - it has a newspaper read by cockroaches called the "Schabenzeitung" (Cockroach News), which is amusing in its own right because it could almost be Schwabenzeitung (Swabian News), a perfectly respectable name for a newspaper, and the joke is that the entire paper consists of the word "Hauptbahnhof" repeated countless times. The cockroaches (obviously) can't read, they can only pretend, so they would only understand Bahnhof anyway, even if the paper had proper news in it.

Thanks for that (and the correction of 'native speaker').
Yeah, lacking the background cultural knowledge I always assumed that 'Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof*' referred to the physical situation of having passed through a town on a train, but not gotten off. So if someone asked 'Have you ever been to XXXdorf or YYYstadt' you would answer, 'Yes, but I only know the station.'

I like the cockroach story as well!

*Yeah, my Anglo brain always wants to insert an article there, even though I have been told the correct wording. Damn L1 interference!
(If it was indeed referring to passing through a town on a train, but not getting off, would there be an article before Bahnhof?)

Spearthrower wrote:Scattershot replies:

Now, of course, in English you can use a verb other than ‘be’: The bottle stood on the table’ or ‘The rug lay on the floor’, but think about the question. You have to ask, ‘Where is the bottle?’ not ‘Where stands the bottle’? Not ‘Where sits the stamp?’ or ‘Where lays the rug?’

I really love the sound of this in English, I can't quite find the word to express what feeling it conjures, but there's a robust and picturesque quality to it.

State (permanent): I am a human
State (temporary): I am happy

To be (temporary), or not to be (permanent), that is the question.

To exist in the moment, and to take concerted action towards achieving, otherwise life, the state of living, is unfulfilling, unworthy, unachievable.

Yep, the quote from Hamlet is a good illustration of some of the issues underlying the verb 'be'. I've often wondered how Spanish translators deal with it.
I've been working away on writing a book dealing with various linguistic phenomena, and the chapter on copula verbs is titled 'Two be's or not two be's? That is the question'

It's a great example of how certain expressions can be so poetically loaded in one language because of grammatical or semantic rules, and trivial or silly in translation.

Translating it into Thai makes it completely incoherent despite the verb 'bpen' fulfilling basically all the same roles as you listed before, i.e. existence, location, state etc..

don't get me started wrote:
Yeah, lacking the background cultural knowledge I always assumed that 'Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof*' referred to the physical situation of having passed through a town on a train, but not gotten off. So if someone asked 'Have you ever been to XXXdorf or YYYstadt' you would answer, 'Yes, but I only know the station.'

...

(If it was indeed referring to passing through a town on a train, but not getting off, would there be an article before Bahnhof?)

If you want to say "I only know the station", you would use the verb "kennen": ich kenne nur den Bahnhof; and yes, you would need the article.

"Ich verstehe nur 'Bahnhof'" really does mean that, amid the crackling and various other noises, the only word that you can identify is "Bahnhof".

Crack bzz mumble mumble station bzz mumble platform crack scrape bzz

In German, the word "verstehen" (ostensibly "to understand") doesn't just mean intellectual understanding, but also discerning a message in a series of sounds. If somebody is speaking too softly for you to make out what they're saying, in English you'd say "I can't hear you", but in German you could equally well say "Ich verstehe nichts", I don't understand anything.

Your attempted communication is not arriving in my brain.