Different languages have different constructions when it comes to expressing needs. I'll divide this post between nominative languages and dative languages. The former have a subject expressed in your usual nominative, as is the case in English; the latter puts the subject in the dative case and the object needed in the nominative case:
Nominative languages:
English: I need a pen.
Portuguese: Preciso/Necessito de uma caneta.
Spanish: Necesito un bolígrafo.
Czech: Potřebuji pero.
Polish: Potrzebuję pióra.
Note: Portuguese precisar and necessitar are normally followed by the preposition de. Omission of the preposition is a sign of an older style of language, especially with precisar.
Polish potrzebować requires the genitive: pióro (nom.) - pióra (gen.). German bedürfen has a similar construction, in which the object is also placed in the genitive: Ich bedarf eines Kugelschreibers.
Dative languages:
Romanian: Îmi trebuie un stilou.
Latin: Mihi opus est calamus.
Russian: Мне нужна ручка.
French: Il me faut un stylo.
Macedonian: Ми треба перо.
Note: In Russian the adjective нужeн has to agree with the thing needed in gender and number.
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1 comment:
Japanese resorts to "sentential predicate" (I am not sure if this is an accepted terminology) in order to express needs and wants.
私はペンが必要だ／いる。
watashi-wa pen-ga hitsuyōda/iru.
I-TOPIC pen-GA be-necessary/need.
Note here that hitsuyōda is an adjective and iru is a verb. Both words express a state of necessity.
Postposition -ga is used to mark the modified noun as the experiencer of the state denoted by the verb or the adjective.
The combination of a noun and an inflected word constitutes a sentence. This sentence is, then, indicated as the predicate of watashi by virtue of the topicalising -wa.
In many languages needs are considered to be an enduring phenomenon. If someone finds herself in need of something, the needed object cannot become unnecessary next moment without a good reason. Being needed, therefore, is a state for the object being needed. The Japanese construction with -ga. capitalises on this thought pattern.
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