Re: Person marking on nouns?

Muke Tever scripsit:

> In many languages I think though it is possible to use 1st or 2nd person
> verbs when they construe with the speaker or the listener ("Our Father,
> which *art* in heaven"), it usually isnt (Your Majesty *is*; Your Honor
> *doesn't*, your servant *hears*, Usted *quiere*, o senhor *vende*...).
In the Apocalypse of Ezra (aka 4 Esdras, aka 2 Esdras), the modern English
versions say "In the 30th year after the destruction of the city [Jerusalem],
I, Salathiel (who am also Ezra) ...".  The underlying Latin form is _ego
Salathiel qui et Ezra_, which has no verb at all in the relative clause.
Now this "who am" seems very awkward to me, but "who is" would seem just
about as awkward.

It's just one of those things, I think, like the opening lines of the
once very well known poem "Casabianca" by Felicia Hemans:  "The boy
stood on the burning deck/Whence all but he had fled".  If "but" is a
conjunction here, then we have to construe the second line as "all had
fled, but he had _not_ fled", which seems very forced.  But if we take
"but" to be a preposition meaning "except", as in "None but the brave
deserve the fair", then it would call for "him" instead of "he" following,
which would lead to the apparent howler "him had fled", which is probably
why Hemans avoided it.  (*Whew*)

I think it was Thurber who proposed it be rewritten as "Whence all save
him had fled".

--
One art / There is                      John Cowan <jcowan@...>
No less / No more                       http://www.reutershealth.com
All things / To do                      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
With sparks / Galore                     -- Douglas Hofstadter

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