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Re: verb-subject agreement

From:Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...>
Date:Monday, April 22, 2002, 6:27
 --- Andrew Strader <guido@...> wrote:
> Are there natural languages which exhibit subject-verb agreement in which > it happens that when the subject consists of a pronoun and a noun, the > pronoun can be elided, making an apparent disagreement between the verb > and the subject? Such a language would demonstrate the following structure: > > "John and I go." > John[NOM] go[1st.pl.] > John we-go.
A similar thing is quite common in the Slavonic languages. If you want to say "You and me" in Russian, you say: "My s toboj" ("We with you") In Polish, you can say (provided you're a woman): "By³yœmy wczoraj z kole¿ank¹ w kinie." "We were yesterday with a friend in the cinema." I once had a Polish girl friend, who did exactly the same thing in Dutch. She just couldn't get used to the fact, that we have a different way of saying this. Very often it happened, that people answered her with the question, who this mysterious third person might be... Jan ===== "You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J. Michael Straczynski __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com