Doth and Doeth

----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Newton" <philip.newton@...>

> For me, some of those sentences are ungrammatical, since the "thou"
> form takes specific personal endings on the verb -- I would say
> "Dost/art/hast thou?" and "Dost thou allow me...".
But then there were the Quakers! :)  And after them, the Vulcans!!  Consider
T'Pau.  "Thee has..."

> Saying "Do/are/have thou" is as ungrammatical for me as "do/are/have he".
>
> Incidentally, those old forms make a distinction between "do" as
> auxiliary verb and "do" as full verb: as an auxiliary, it's "thou
> dost" /dVst/, while as a full verb, it's "thou doest" /du:@st/.
Hmmm.   I'd always thought that dost and doest were pronounced alike after a
certain point in the Renaissance.  Intrigued.  How could this be
corroborated?  How do we corroborate the pronunciation of "saith," though?
Having spent a long time as an Episcopalian,  I'd never pronounce it as
/'sejiT/, but rather /sET/.   But who's to say?

(And
> in a style that uses "thou", I'd also use the third person singular
> ending -th rather than -s, and make the same distinction: "he doth"
> /dVT/ vs "he doeth" /du:@T/,
Also with doth and doeth:  both of them /dVT/.  Or /dAT/ for me.

> and say "he hath", "he speaketh". I might
> also make a distinction between "ye" [2pl, subject] and "you" [2pl,
> object]. All this is based on the language in the King James Version
> of the Bible.)
We need to see it in rhyming poetry to get the pronunciation.  What rhymes
with doeth?  :)

> I'm not sure whether you were aware of these conjugation forms for
> "thou", which is why I pointed them out.
Thanks, Philip; these are worth knowing.  Remi, I think your greetings rock!
Sally

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