Re: USAGE English 'thou' (was: Proto-Romance)

On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 08:13:58AM -0800, David Zitzelsberger wrote:
> In my college spainish course, my teacher claimed that Spain was still using
> vos. I haven't been to Spain to verify.
In Spain I don't think you'll find "vos", but rather "vosotros".  And while
the form "vos" is found in Latin America, apparently especially in the
River Plate region, there it is the singular, not the plural.

It was originally the plural but that use has all but died out.  As I
said in my reply to John, it's analogous to English "ye" - used for
intentional archaic effect.

The most interesting thing about all of this to me is that the new
coinage resulted in a new verb form, as well; singular "vos" and
plural "vosotros" have verb forms which are distinct from each other as
well as from the "tú" and "usted" forms.

-Mark