Infinitive to and exestential there questions

[Apeiron]

How do other NatLangs handle the function of the infinitive to?
"He likes to skate." (as opposed to the prepositional "He skated to the store")

Likewise the existential there?
"There's going to be rain."

And what would be a IAL* friendly way of handling these?

* to be more specific... in an IAL that would be friendly to the major languages of the internet... the connected world.

Thanks!

[Herr Dunkel]

And what would be a IAL* friendly way of handling these?

* to be more specific... in an IAL that would be friendly to the major languages of the internet... the connected world.

Thanks!

You're screwed, then. Hindi, Russian, English, German, French, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese do it differently.
IALs don't work.

Seriously, though, you could have it Particle + Conjugated verb

[ol bofosh]

How do other NatLangs handle the function of the infinitive to?
"He likes to skate." (as opposed to the prepositional "He skated to the store")

In the same manner as Spanish for the first one: le gusta patinar. So there is no need to use a to-infinitive. Ong lefirt bosir means He(she/it) likes to fly.

The second "to" would be ini in Alahithian, meaning "to" or "toward".

e.g. The bird flew towards the tree is Bet bosirk ini bofosh.

Likewise the existential there?
"There's going to be rain."

Sukifish etheyp (lit. rain will exist). But's that in an experimental stage. If I'm to say sukifish etheytel, then does that mean rain doesn't exist or there is no/it is not rain/ing (now)? That's something I'm still figuring out.

(and considering the word for rain I've used I'm considering I should change that )

And what would be a IAL* friendly way of handling these?

* to be more specific... in an IAL that would be friendly to the major languages of the internet... the connected world.

IAL?

[Herr Dunkel]

IAL?

International Auxlang

Esperanto ripoffs most of the time

[Astraios]

How do other NatLangs handle the function of the infinitive to?
"He likes to skate." (as opposed to the prepositional "He skated to the store")

Lakota doesn't have any concept of an infinitive marker at all. Hebrew does it the same as English. French, don't ask, your head will explode.

Likewise the existential there?
"There's going to be rain."

Lakota has a couple of verbs whose meaning is just "there exists". Hebrew has a particle yesh "there is" (and en "there is not") for the present tense, and uses the verb "be" in the future and past. French uses a set phrase with the verb "have" which changes for tense.

[ol bofosh]

French, don't ask, your head will explode.

I can handle new ideas like agglutination, infinitive and proposition, I think I can handle it. Hit me with it...

yesh "there is"

Please, put your teeth back in, we don't want spittle all over the keyboard...

[Astraios]

French, don't ask, your head will explode.

I can handle new ideas like agglutination, infinitive and proposition, I think I can handle it. Hit me with it...

Sigh. You should have someone ready to call an ambulance...


So, going through my notes (which may be jumbled and nonsensical (EDIT: and also incomplete)), infinitival phrases:

a) in exclamations, in clause fragments, as subjects when non-compound, as implicational subject attributes, as complements of i) verbs expressing will/desire, ii) the verbs adorer, aimer, détester, iii) verbs expressing beliefs or speech acts, iv) modal verbs, v) aspectual verbs, vi) prepositions, as object attributes or free indirect attributes, and as purpose adverbials following a verb movement, ... do not take an infinitive marker.

b) in the historical infinitive, as subjects when compound, as complements of certain verbs, as postponed subjects except for following a few verbs, as identificational subject attributes, as direct objects except for following a few verbs, and as a complement of demander if the logical subject of the infinitive is not the same as the subject of demander, ... take the marker de.

c) as complements of certain verbs, as postponed subjects following a few verbs, and as a complement of demander if the logical subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject of demander, ... take the marker à.


Happy now? xD

[ol bofosh]

Sigh. You should have someone ready to call an ambulance...

On standby...

a) in exclamations, in clause fragments, as subjects when non-compound, as implicational subject attributes, as complements of i) verbs expressing will/desire, ii) the verbs adorer, aimer, détester, iii) verbs expressing beliefs or speech acts, iv) modal verbs, v) aspectual verbs, vi) prepositions, as object attributes or free indirect attributes, and as purpose adverbials following a verb movement, ... do not take an infinitive marker.

b) in the historical infinitive, as subjects when compound, as complements of certain verbs, as postponed subjects except for following a few verbs, as identificational subject attributes, as direct objects except for following a few verbs, and as a complement of demander if the logical subject of the infinitive is not the same as the subject of demander, ... take the marker de.

c) as complements of certain verbs, as postponed subjects following a few verbs, and as a complement of demander if the logical subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject of demander, ... take the marker à.

So, simply, without going into detail, some don't have a marker, some have an à marker and others de. I'm sure I'll pick up on the details later.

Now I know why when I said "Spanish verbs are complicated" my girlfriend said "You haven't seen the French verbs..." (although I'm sure this marker business isn't even the half of it).

Happy now? xD

Head's sensitive but stable

[GrinningManiac]

I'm not sure I've understood your question right, so tell me if this is nonsense.

I think you're asking what do other languages do in lieu of the English 'to' in terms of the infinitive?

Hindi has an infinitive ending -naa (Bolnaa = to speak, Karnaa = to do)

To decline Hindi verbs you remove the -naa and replace it with whatever (Bolnaa (to speak) = Boltaa (speak), Bolaa (spoke), Bolungaa (I will speak))

As for 'there' I think Hindivale just say "It will rain" rather than "there will be rain"

[Astraios]

So, simply, without going into detail, some don't have a marker, some have an à marker and others de. I'm sure I'll pick up on the details later.

Yes. You do just end up with an instinctual feel for most of it, but sometimes even I still have to check (I haven't actually done proper practicing in French for ... well, the entire year and a half I've been studying it at uni, really, so that's probably why I'm still unsure occasionally).

[Apeiron]

I think you're asking what do other languages do in lieu of the English 'to' in terms of the infinitive?

Exactly. Do they have them at all? Do they use a word that has another use (like English)? A specific word just for that? How do they solve the same issues?

--

i'm considering:
making the infinitive to a particle, or
leaving it implied, "I would like (to) skate"

i haven't thought as much about the existential there/it. Maybe i'll have a pronoun just for those uses. Hrm.

Thanks for the input, folks.

[----]

Vietnamese doesn't inflect verbs at all; there's no concept of the infinitive in the language. For "There is" you would use the verb có, e.g.; Có một con rắn ở trong giày ống tôi! "There's a snake in my boot!"

[Ser]

a) in exclamations, in clause fragments, as subjects when non-compound, as implicational subject attributes, as complements of i) verbs expressing will/desire, ii) the verbs adorer, aimer, détester, iii) verbs expressing beliefs or speech acts, iv) modal verbs, v) aspectual verbs, vi) prepositions, as object attributes or free indirect attributes, and as purpose adverbials following a verb movement, ... do not take an infinitive marker.

b) in the historical infinitive, as subjects when compound, as complements of certain verbs, as postponed subjects except for following a few verbs, as identificational subject attributes, as direct objects except for following a few verbs, and as a complement of demander if the logical subject of the infinitive is not the same as the subject of demander, ... take the marker de.

c) as complements of certain verbs, as postponed subjects following a few verbs, and as a complement of demander if the logical subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject of demander, ... take the marker à.

So, simply, without going into detail, some don't have a marker, some have an à marker and others de. I'm sure I'll pick up on the details later.

Now I know why when I said "Spanish verbs are complicated" my girlfriend said "You haven't seen the French verbs..." (although I'm sure this marker business isn't even the half of it).

Um, treegod, you know it's not that different in Spanish right? Spanish doesn't distribute some linking usage of prepositions in the same way that French does, but they have a role similar to those of French, including a certain amount of a distinction of whether the logical subject of the subordinated verb(s) is(are) the same as the main one (the conjugating one)... An important difference between French and Spanish is that in Spanish there's also verbs that take the subordinated verb in the gerund, e.g. seguir: sigo dando explicaciones.

Also, le gusta tomar isn't a good example, since "tomar" is the subject of "gustar" here, rather than an example of the sort of construction the OP is asking about. Consider that while "tomar le gusta" is grammatical, *"tomar necesito" isn't.

Example of an infinitive following the main verb: necesito traer más cosas, following the main verb + a: voy a traer más cosas, following the main verb + de: dejé de traer más cosas, following the main verb + en: pienso en traer más cosas, following the verb + con: sueño con traer más cosas, following the verb + por: terminé por traer más cosas, fuck, even que behaves like a preposition with tener que: tengo que traer más cosas (note that que is truly a preposition in this case, since the pronoun object of the second verb can freely be raised just like with any other similar constructions: tengo que traerlas <> las tengo que traer, this doesn't happen if que is a conjunction).

[Ser]

Doing a detailed answer cuz I'm bored and long live procrastination...

How do other NatLangs handle the function of the infinitive to?
"He likes to skate." (as opposed to the prepositional "He skated to the store")

Spanish does it in a similar way as the French explanation Astraios provided above. Standard Arabic, except for words meaning "to start (to do sth)", may either use a definite verbal noun ("he likes the skating") or a subordinate verbal phrase "(he likes that he skate", both "he"s referring to the same person in this literal translation). (For verbs about starting to do stuff, it just puts them next to each other: lit. "he starts he skates" for 'he starts to skate'.) In Mandarin, Cantonese and Classical Chinese they are usually lumped together one verb after the other ("he like skate", a serial verb construction).

Likewise the existential there?
"There's going to be rain."

Standard Spanish uses the verb haber, a special existential verb, as an impersonal (so always in the 3rd person singular). Dialectally, it's very widespread to make it conjugate for number and person, but again, for reasons unknown to me, it's widely considered non-standard (habemos cinco en la clase "there's five in the class (and I belong to those five)"), the standard uses workarounds like hay cinco en la clase "there are five in the class"; habían tres mochilas "there were three backpacks" (habían is in the plural), standard: había tres mochilas) (except for the indicative present tense 3rd person plural, where a usage equal to the standard is more widespread, though even then, there's dialects who make the distinction here using "hayn"). (Otherwise, the verb normally conjugates for all tense/aspect/moods).

French uses the construction "il y a", an impersonal 3rd person singular verb (avoir, also used as "to have (sth)") with a compulsory adverbial pronoun (roughly meaning "there"), not conjugating for number or person although doing it for tense/aspect/moods (so basically il y avait trois sacs à dos lit. "there was having three backpacks" ("there were three backpacks").

Modern Standard Arabic uses 1. the passive conjugations of the verb وجد wajada "to find (sth)", among other meanings; 2. كان ذلك kāna ḏālika "to be there" (though note كان kāna doesn't have an indicative present tense conjugation, so the mere word ذلك ḏālika followed by the noun phrase can be seen at times, and that the verb ليس laysa is used as suppletion for a negative indicative present tense form) (both options otherwise negate normally with Arabic's negative particles, and conjugate for gender, number and tense/aspect/moods following general rules).

Mandarin, Cantonese and Classical Chinese use the verbs 有 yǒu, 有 yáuh, and a word written with "有" respectively (God knows how it was pronounced in CC, the ad hoc readings in Mando and Canto are the same as in the modern languages), these are special existential verbs, and the NP in question goes after them (I'm unsure if I should call it its subject or object, though the distinction is probably not worth it here). For the negative, Mandarin negates it with 没 méi regardless of tense or aspect (没 méi may either precede 有 yǒu or replace it), Cantonese uses 冇 móuh (always replacing 有 yáuh), and Classical Chinese uses a word written as "無" and later "无" as well (the ad hoc readings for both are "wú" for Mando and "mòuh" for Canto, and note that the convention in Simplified Chinese is to write both 無 and 无 as "无") (always replacing the word written as "有").

And what would be a IAL* friendly way of handling these?

* to be more specific... in an IAL that would be friendly to the major languages of the internet... the connected world.

Fuck IALs. Long live artlangs! Seriously though, you can hardly find syntactical compromises for stuff that suit even all of the "major langs of the internetz", the strategies tend to be too different...

[svld]

Mandarin, Cantonese and Classical Chinese use the verbs 有

However 有 is not used in this case. It'll be something like 要下雨了 or "time" + 會下雨 when translating "There's going to be rain".

[ol bofosh]

Um, treegod, you know it's not that different in Spanish right?

No I did not. And I'm not sure if I'm any wiser now that I've read you explanation (I think it'll take me a while navigating my grammar dictionary to understand...)

I was making a comment on Spanish conjugations to my girlfriend, saying how complicated they were (and I still have to supplement my past tenses with haber and future tenses with ir) and and that's when she said "You haven't seen the French verbs..." I don't know what she meant, all I can tell you is that in her opinion French verbs (whether because of prepositions or not) are more complicated in her opinion.

Now I think my head may have exploded.

[ol bofosh]

Also, le gusta tomar isn't a good example, since "tomar" is the subject of "gustar" here, rather than an example of the sort of construction the OP is asking about. Consider that while "tomar le gusta" is grammatical, *"tomar necesito" isn't.

Tomar le gusta? Doesn't make sense to me, but only because I don't know enough Spanish to understand it. I'm sure it doesn't come out as "To take he/she likes", right?

Example of an infinitive following the main verb: necesito traer más cosas, following the main verb + a: voy a traer más cosas, following the main verb + de: dejé de traer más cosas, following the main verb + en: pienso en traer más cosas, following the verb + con: sueño con traer más cosas, following the verb + por: terminé por traer más cosas, fuck, even que behaves like a preposition with tener que: tengo que traer más cosas (note that que is truly a preposition in this case, since the pronoun object of the second verb can freely be raised just like with any other similar constructions: tengo que traerlas <> las tengo que traer, this doesn't happen if que is a conjunction).

And para?

[hwhatting]

How do other NatLangs handle the function of the infinitive to?
"He likes to skate." (as opposed to the prepositional "He skated to the store")

German is boringly like English here - you have some auxiliary verbs that take the pure infinitive (Er kann singen "He can sing"), others need the connector zu (cognate with and having a range of meanings comparable to English to): Er beginnt zu singen "he begins / starts to sing".
Russian has a simple infinitive withou any connector: он может / умеет петь "He can sing" он начинает петь "he begins / starts to sing".

Likewise the existential there?
"There's going to be rain."

German uses the contruction es gibt (literally "it gives"), your example would be Es wird Regen geben.
Russian has a special existential form есть in the present tense, in the other tenses it simply uses the 3rd person of the copula: Будет дождь. "There's going to be rain."

[Whimemsz]

Also, le gusta tomar isn't a good example, since "tomar" is the subject of "gustar" here, rather than an example of the sort of construction the OP is asking about. Consider that while "tomar le gusta" is grammatical, *"tomar necesito" isn't.

Tomar le gusta? Doesn't make sense to me, but only because I don't know enough Spanish to understand it. I'm sure it doesn't come out as "To take he/she likes", right?

It's the same construction as le gusta tomar, just with the subject fronted (word order not always being as strict in Spanish as in English). The verb still agrees with its subject tomar in being 3sg, and le is still the direct object, animate 3sg.

[Ser]

Tomar le gusta? Doesn't make sense to me, but only because I don't know enough Spanish to understand it. I'm sure it doesn't come out as "To take he/she likes", right?

Think of "tomar le gusta <> le gusta tomar" as "drinking pleases him/her", "drinking is the subject". (A usual trick to teach the syntax of gustar and encantar to students is to translate it literally as "to please": le gusto lit. "I please her" (idiomatically translated to English as "she likes me").)

And para?

I can't think of any verbal periphrasis with para. It may be that it always introduces subordinated clauses unattached to a main verb... EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it I'm just uncertain on how to analyze sentences like "vine para hablarte".

The verb still agrees with its subject tomar in being 3sg, and le is still the direct object, animate 3sg.

Indirect object, any 3SG...

[Whimemsz]

The verb still agrees with its subject tomar in being 3sg, and le is still the direct object, animate 3sg.

Indirect object, any 3SG...

...

what the fuck

I apologize. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, that's like, the third or fourth stupid thing I've said about Spanish in the last couple days.

[Ser]

Meh, I say stupid things about languages (including Spanish) all the time too. I believe that as Spanish linguistics advances many of the analyses that right now I consider sensible will seem stupid to me, say... (The ZBB blind guiding the ZBB blind, as Pthug/Pthag put it one of these days.)

[ol bofosh]

And para?

I can't think of any verbal periphrasis with para. It may be that it always introduces subordinated clauses unattached to a main verb... EDIT: Actually, the more I think about it I'm just uncertain on how to analyze sentences like "vine para hablarte".

Looking up in my dictionary "para" in front of a verb becomes "in order to". So your example is "I came (in order) to speak to you." Which is roughly what I thought it might be, considering how it's used.

The verb still agrees with its subject tomar in being 3sg, and le is still the direct object, animate 3sg.

Indirect object, any 3SG...[/quote]

What's 3SG?

[Astraios]

Third person singular (he/she/it).

Also that phrase para hablarte is a purpose adverbial with the form of a prepositional phrase (I think).

[Ser]

Looking up in my dictionary "para" in front of a verb becomes "in order to". So your example is "I came (in order) to speak to you." Which is roughly what I thought it might be, considering how it's used.

The problem is that these verbal phrases starting with para are usually analyzed as prepositional phrases (IIRC), not as complement phrases of a main verb... So maybe there's no verbal periphrases with para?