Re: USAGE: Weird dialectal stuff

At 11:31 pm -0500 9/1/00, John Cowan wrote:
>And Rosta scripsit:
>
>> Cf. I am come, I am gone, I am arrived, The leaves are fallen, He is drunk.
>
>All but the first of these sound archaic to me,
Surely "He is drunk" isn't archaic  :)

In fact all except the last sound distinctly archaic or poetic to me.

e.g. JRRT's English translation
>of Aragorn's (Quenya) coronation oath:
>'
>        Et Earello Endorenna utulieen. [...]
>        Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. [...]
Indeed - it has an archaic ring.

But with due respect to And, none of the above examples show the same
feature as "I was stood", "I was sat".

And's "I am sat" means the same as my "I am sitting"; likewise his "I am
stood" means the same as my "I am standing".

It's this pesky business of verbs being able to be used both transitively &
intransitively.  I guess those who habitually use forms like 'he was stood'
possibly find 'he was standing' incomplete.  "He was standing what? -
standing the sacks against the wall? standing the kinds in rows? or what?"

Likewise I find "he was stood" passive. "Who stood him there?"

Both constructions, however, are equally logical IMHO.

HOWEVER.......
"I am come" does *not* mean the same as "I am coming"; it means the same as
"I have come".

Earlier in western European langs periphrastic perfects were formed by
using 'to be' with past participle if the verb were intransitive or 'to
have' with p.p. if the verb were transitive.  This, tho now modified, is
the origin of the perfect in, e.g. French, Italian & German.  It was also
the case in English.

It was once so in Spanish, but modern Spanish has simplified things by
using only 'haber' + p.p.   Modern English has behaved similarly, tho the
older use of 'to be' + p.p. with instransitives is still possible to give
an archaising effect.

I'm sure And is knows all that as well as I do & was being mischievous  :)

As for including "He is drunk" - And is surely being impish  :)

It does not mean: "He is drinking"  (tho he might still be doing so!)
- therefore it has nothing to do with the "I am stood" business.

Neither does it mean: "He has drunk" (tho he clearly has!)
- I cannot say *"He is drunk the Cola".  Therefore it has nothing to do
with "I am come" etc.

Indeed, 'drunk' is clearly not a past participle here.  It is a derived
adjective meaning what we in my part of Sussex call 'tossicated'.  "He is
tossicated"

Of course, 'tossicated' is the p.p. of 'to tossicate' = "to get someone
drunk"    :)

Soberly,
Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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