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On 30 Apr 2006 18:48:12 +0200, Henrik Theiling <theiling@hidden.email> wrote: > > Hi! > > > Padraic Brown <elemtilas@hidden.email> writes: > > --- Scotto Hlad <scott.hlad@hidden.email> wrote: > > > > > Thanks to you all for answering my query about > > > estar vs. ser. How did French > > > and others get away without having two? > Not sure what you're confused about. Latin had two verbs; most modern Romance languages have two verbs descended from them. What's the problem? OK, so the meanings shifted over time. Welcome to language. :) In Iberia, the descendants of stare impinged upon the semantic space formerly occupied by essere. In French, the descendant of stare seems to have disappeared entirely, and some of its semantic space is indeed now occupied by the descendant of essere, although much of it is occupied by circumlocutions and idioms instead (e.g. se tenir). > I don't think Romanian has it, and I don't think Italian has it > > either. Of course, I could be wrong. > Italian stare has taken over some stative (ha!) meanings from essere, but to a much lesser degree than is the case in Iberia. For instance, the usual Italian for "How are you" is "Come sta(i)?", but "Where is it?" is "Dov'è?", not *"Dove sta?" IIRC, Romanian has, like French, merged them into one verb, but it used the other one (sta). -- Mark J. Reed <markjreed@hidden.email> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]