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>"I am hungry" in English reads like a statement of identity, whereas "j'ai faim" in French for example means "I HAVE a hunger". The hunger exists but it doesn'
by jasode 5y ago
>"I am hungry" in English reads like a statement of identity, whereas "j'ai faim" in French for example means "I HAVE a hunger". The hunger exists but it doesn't define my identity.
>This identification is a lie. If you stop drinking coffee and start drinking tea, you are still 100% you,
Your analysis of "I am hungry" is incorrect. In this case, the "am" is acting as a linking word and not about identity. See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copula_(linguistics)
Or put another way, "I am hungry" can be thought of as a shortened version of "I am [currently having feelings of] hunger". If the more verbose sentence is not about identity but sensation, the shortened version is expressing the same idea.
- xyzelement 5y agoInteresting tidbit. I guess I didn't argue linguistics with the teacher because I appreciated the larger philosophical point this was trying to teach. As an aside (not not saying you were doing this btw) whenever there's an analogy, some percentage of people will try to argue the analogy directly rather than try to understand the concept it's attempting to communicate.
- Izkata 5y agoThis understanding is also closer to Spanish's "ser" and "estar" - both get translated as "am"/"is", but "ser" is for identity and "estar" is for state.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y agoI absolutely love that Spanish uses different words to describe a temporary state vs a permanent state. "I am sad" absolutely should use a different word than "I am from California," and English gets it wrong by combining the two.