Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 23:32:05 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710290432.XAA01556@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Sender: Lojban list From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Subject: Re: What's going on here? X-To: lojban To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1674 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Oct 28 23:32:26 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >> There was a headline on an editorial in La Nacion that asked (if I >> remember right) "?Somos o estamos indeciso?". The distinction between the >> two possibilities (whether the public was indecisive or merely undecided >> on whatever issue it was) were obviously important enough for some editor >> to devote space to it. > >OK, well what I think is going on there (and again, Jorge will know more >about this than I do) is that "estamos" expresses a condition, and >consequently can be used here to express a tendency. The tendency one is "somos". "Estamos indecisos" would be "we are undecided", and "somos indecisos" would be "we are undecisive". "Estar" is the temporary condition, "ser" is the immanent one. I once read that the ser/estar distinction reflected the tendency of Spaniards to let their spirit ponder on those transcendental issues of existence, leaving for the industrious Anglosaxons the more practical distinctions of doing and making. :) > The >point is that I don't think that the "ser/estar" distinction contributes >anything significant to the English language-web, because its functions >are handled elsewhere - as your translation of the concepts >of "somos/estamos" into "indecisive/merely undecided" shows. Conversely, >"to do/to make" might not contribute anything significant to the Spanish >web, because Spanish speakers make this distinction in other ways that are >familiar to them as well. Of course, English makes do perfectly well with its single "to be", and Spanish with its "hacer". And each of them can make both distinctions in its own way. And so can Lojban and any other language, or it wouldn't be a language. Jorge