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on 2/17/04 9:33 PM, HandyDad at lsulky@hidden.email wrote: > --- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, "HandyDad" <lsulky@r...> wrote: >> --- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@m...> wrote: >>> faq isn't the ind ob marker as such, it just means direction. > Tho >> it'll >>> probably end up being -one- such marker. >>> >>> Go tir to hon (faq) zi. >>> >>> Go ziq ben zi. I sing to you. >>> >>> In the first case, faq can be omitted because it's understandable >> without >>> it. >>> >> >> "Go ziq ben zi" opens up the next can of verbs: how to handle >> auxiliary verbs. >> >> 'I sing to benefit you.' >> 'I try to benefit you.' >> 'I try to help you.' >> 'I can help you.' >> >> Or did you mean for "ben", 'benefit', to be interpreted as a >> preposition? >> --K > > I just looked at the older Ceqli website and saw a discussion of > prepositions as verbs. It says that really the prepositional phrase > is essentially another verb, and the final verb is the main one. So > would it be correct to say "Go ben ziq zi"? (Or does this say that I > am singing you, as opposed to singing a song?) > --K The latter, sort of. I was aping Mandarin, and the mandarin way is as said, the first verb is sort of a preposition. I, benefit you, sing. He, sit car, goes. This is fine, but for me it makes the word order far to rigid, and has to be ambiguous at times. So if we use that old particle vo: Go vo dorm sur cwaq. or Go sur cwag vo dorm. I'm on the bed, sleeping. Go vo sur cwag dorm. or Go dorm vo sur cwaq. I'm sleeping on the bed. (a Mandarin speaker, I understand, wouldn't see much difference in these) I think the vo-clause coming last would tend to be the default ceqli word order. Note that this isn't an auxiliary situation at all. Auxiliaries ( I think ) can be regarded as shortenings of longer phrases. Go fey ke go kan ta hon. I can that I read books. Usually shortened to Go fey ke kan ta hon. or even Go fey kan ta hon. But the ke can be left in to avoid ambiguity. -- Rex F. May (Baloo) Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/book-GesundheitDummy.htm