jal wrote:In Dutch:
1) Een hond is een dier / Honden zijn dieren (single + definite article sounds akward)
2) De hond is in de tuin (although instead of "is" a different verb could be used, or a progressive could be added: "de hond is in de tuin aan 't spelen")
3) Er staat/loopt/ligt een hond in de tuin (not possible to use "is" here)
4) Hier is een hond / hier heb ik/je een hond
So simple "is" is only used for the copula and possibly the substantive, the existential uses different verbs, and presentative has a special construction.
JAL
I do accept "Er is een hond in de tuin" though your sentence is much better.
++++++++
Since I did my MA thesis about Zulu, have been involved in a project about non-verbal predication, especially Bantu languages, and I am now in the process of writing an article with my MA thesis supervisor about subjects in non-verbal predication in Zulu, I think I can say a few things about Zulu. Just for the sake of brevity, I will limit myself to the 3rd person present tense indicative affirmative; in some cases things are much more different for other persons tenses moods and polarities.
1: "the dog is an animal"
a) with nominal predication: In this case there is a copular particle that cliticizes to the predicate NP, the form of this particle varies depending on noun class of the NP, whether the NP starts with a noun, a demonstrative or is just a pronoun, as well as register and dialect: in the sentence "the dog is an animal" it is yi- so the sentence translates as "inja yi-silwane"
b) with adjectival predication: there are 2 types of adjectives; one is called traditionally adjectives and the other is traditionally called relatives. Relatives are prefixed with subject agreement , which agrees in person and noun class and is the same as the subject agreement for verbs where it is also prefixing. "the dog is honest" is "inja i-qotho". Adjectives that are traditionally called adjectives have instead a special set of agreement markers, that agrees only in noun class, that prefixes to it so "the dog is beautiful" is "inja in-hle". The contrast is perhaps bigger if we replace inja, a noun class 9 word, with a noun class 1 word, say umfana "boy". The relative is "umfana u-qotho" the boy is honest, and the adjective construction is "umfana mu-hle" "the boy is beautiful".
2: "the dog is in the garden" Subject agreement is prefixed directly before the locative phrase or the prepositional phrase: "In the garden" is "(s)engandini", so the dog is in the garden is "inja i-sengandini". An example where the predicate is a prepositional phrase "with the cat" is "nekati" which is underlyingly na-ikati. "The dog is with the cat" is "inja inekati". Another meaning of "inja inekati" is "the dog has a cat". In many languages what we express with "have" is expressed without verbs.
3: "there is a dog in the garden" Here there are two ways: the first one is with kukhona: khona means "there" ku- in short, is the default 3rd person agreement, used amongst other things when the subject is indefinite. So "there is a dog in the garde" is "kukhona inja engadini". The second construction is with kuna. Ku- is the same one as we saw before, na- is also the same na that meant with and is also used for "have" so the best literal translation of kuna- is "it has" In this construction "there is a dog in the garden" is' "kunenja engadini"
4: "Here is a dog". For this construction Zulu uses a special set of ..well I don't know what they are but they are highly irregular. For noun class 9 it is "Nayi" so "here is a boy" is "Nayi inja". For comparison: with noun class 1 it is "Nangu umfana""here is a boy"
. That said, what did they historically derive from?
