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

Philippe Caquant wrote:
>
> The situation in Portuguese is interesting:
> - O senhor fala português ? (Do you speak portuguese,
> polite forme)
> - Você fala português ? (the same, familiar form)
>
> But In Brazil, the usual form is você for everybody.
>
> "O senhor" (a senhora) like "você" are followed by 3rd
> person sg.
Historically, você was the polite form, and it lost its politeness,
requiring a new polite form to be created.  :-)

> and the inclusion of the object pronoun
> in the verbal form (have to find examples again)
Forms like vêlo-ei (I will see him/it, lit. see-him-I.will), if I
remember the orthography right.  That part, at least, is an archaism.
Old Spanish also used forms like _ver-lo-hé_ (not sure if that's how it
would've been spelled).  It's quite logical, really, since the future
tense is historically derived from the infinitive plus inflections of
_haber_, and object pronouns are generaly suffixed to infinitives in
many Romance languages, including Spanish and Portuguese.

Reply