Re: Person distinctions in languages?

On Fri, 4 Feb 2005 00:59:11 +0100, Steven Williams <feurieaux@...> wrote:
>  --- "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...> schrieb:
>
> > Note that the [@] in the ending is totally unrelated
> > to the [@] in the diphthong and that the dialectal
> > consonant length is distinctive (e.g. /pIs/ 'be!'
> > or 'until' vs. /pIs:/ 'bite').
>
> Whoa, the imperative of 'sein' in that dialect is not
> 'sei(en Sie)'? How does that work out historically?
> Did German historically have more than one rootword
> for 'be', like Old English, like maybe a stem that
> gave the modern /sein/, /sind/, /sei/, /seien/, /seid/
> and so on, and another that gave the /bin/, /bist/?
I don't know the history, but "wes" certainly exists in the past
participle: "gewesen". I suppose it's also what is responsible for the
imperfect "war(st), waren", since Low German has "was" there (as in
English).

I believe Low German has "wees" as the imperative... [pIs] is not
*that* far from there.

Hm... this should receive a subject tag, but I'm not sure which. [USAGE]?

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
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