Okay I know we've moved on from E-prime, but I was working on some Spanish homework and I thought of something. In the Spanish language, they actually have two different to be verbs. "Ser" is for things that are relatively permanent. The other verb, "estar", is for temporary things, like "I am hungry". I think this is much more effective than English's single verb. I'm not a native Spanish speaker so I don't really know the connotations associated with these verbs, but I'm assuming that the fact that there are two of them makes for better communication. I would think there would be less of a one to one relationship problem. Do you guys agree?
~elizabeth
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Perhaps having one verb "to be" for lasting things and another for short-lasted things would help to clarify the language. However, can't we infer that statements such as "I am hungry" will probably be temporal feelings whereas a statement such as "That is a mountain" will have more permanence? Not to be hating on the two-verb-to-be-system, but I question whether it's a linguistic necessity.
ReplyDelete-Bryce Cody
When I first read this post I thought it was really cool that there are the two different verbs in Spanish, but now that I think about it, like Bryce said, that doesn't really get rid of the problem. When one-to-one relationships are an issue, the permanent "to be" verb might still be used. Furthermore, in French, the verb "to be" is actually rarely used. Instead of saying "I am hungry" they say "I have hunger" and instead of saying "I am (name)" they say "I call myself (name)."
ReplyDelete-Alexa
I think it helps clarify language by stating the permanence of something. This, although unesseccary, adds a demention to "to be"ness that we don't have in English. As far as the one-to-one relationship goes, I don't think it fixes the problem, but helps and hurts a little. At least to me, it seems to suggest that thins using estar suggests more the appearence and everchanging nature of things, while ser counter that with stability and stresses that something is and has always been something.
ReplyDeleteOften in latin poetry they just drop the word "to be". For example, instead of saying "nego est formosa" (I deny that she is beautiful) they just write "nego formosa" and you are supposed to assume the "to be". This was probably clearer to people who spoke latin as their native language, but to someone translating latin, it is harder to understand.
~Becca
I don't think the ellipsis of "to be" in Latin poetry was trying to make a statement about e-prime; that was just for convenience. Latin is as guilty as English and, from what I can tell, Spanish, in using the "to be" verb as a one to one relationship. French seems to be ahead of the game. I wonder if speaking with more accuracy and fewer "to be" verbs, such as in French, has any reflection on whether French-speaking people think in that same way. If you're originally a French-speaking person and then you learn English, maybe you use the "to be" verb less! So if we implement the "to be" verb less in the English language, our thought processes will incorporate the e-prime idea. Of course, its vice versa is plausible too... making ourselves think in a practical e-prime and then changing the language afterward to suit the change. Sorry for rambling. By the way, Becca, perhaps you mean dimension not demention?
ReplyDelete-- tori
One thing that's really interesting about the Spanish language is that speakers actually use the verb "tener" meaning "to have" in the same way that the French use their version of the "to have" verb. A Spanish speaker will most often indicate a state (i.e. hunger) by using "I have." So going back to Elizabeth's original point, I think it's possible to argue that the Spanish language is actually extremely precise, since they not only often avoid using "to be," but when it is used, the language specifies the context.
ReplyDelete-Tara