From: Christophe Grandsire (christophe.grandsire@free.fr)
Date: Sun Apr 13 2003 - 01:21:08 EST
En réponse à Adam Walker <carrajena@yahoo.com>:
> Does the ser/estar distinction exist in Romlangs beyond Iberia? Spanish
> has them. Portuguese does. So does Catalan, but the others don't do
> that, right? I don't think I want a similar distinction in C-a. What
> about the por/para distinction. How wide spread is that?
French has pour/par, although the distinction is different.
I'm
> concidering a three way distinction on "for" -- peru/peu/para(or worse
> pera). I don't know why I'd do this to myself since por and para
> already drive me to distraction in Spanish,
A distraction? It's an extremely simple, useful and logical distinction, much
simpler than French pour/par distinction. How can it be a distraction? English
on the other is just ambiguous in not distinguishing those two things.
And what is the distinction then? Simple: "por" indicates *cause*, "para"
indicates *goal*. Two opposite ideas that deserve to be treated differently. I
always found the por/para distinction to be one of the good thing of Spanish
grammar, simple and effective.
Christophe.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
It takes a straight mind to create a twisted conlang.
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