Re: Natlag: Middle English impersonal verbs

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>


> On 3/9/06, Sally Caves <scaves@...> wrote:
>> I use nigh all the time, too.  I think we ought to bring fustilarian back
>> into English, if we could determine what Shakespeare meant by it.
>
> No need.  It's clearly an epithet, and as such its literal meaning is
> somewhat irrelevant.  If I say to you, "Thou fustilarian!", you would
> be insulted, and we would thereby have achieved communication. :)
Or not; perhaps a huge smile. :D  I've just been on a search for its
meaning, since we were flinging infelicitous insults all over the place
yesterday (infelicitous in the Austinian sense--no one was insulted.)

Then there's "clotpole."  Definitely sounds obscene.  Some of these, like
"clack-dish" (the dish beggars use to get attention and handouts) have
traceable meanings; "tallow-catch," I imagine, has an innocent and a
suggestive meaning, but I'm too lazy to look it up, and well, "clotpole."  I
can imagine what this *might* mean.  Even Hildegard has "privy cleaner"
among her words. (Probably not that, but suggestive of it, clotpole.)

Favorite, if completely repulsive, is clyster-pipe.  Not used as an insult,
if I recall, but a very obscene reference by Iago.

>> So... "it" + impersonal verb in 3rd > singular + pronoun in dative case +
>> infinitive or relative >clause?
>
> Except that is the general English mechanism for "clause as subject".
> I'd restrict the impersonal interpretation to those cases where
> "clause as subject" doesn't make sense.  I think it's semantic, not
> syntactic.
Agreed.  As in the example you gave:  "Cleaning up my mess behooves me."

>> Me reweth, Marie, thy faire rod.  This has no infinitive or relative
>> clause,
>> and could be turned into "thy faire rod me reweth, Marie.
>
> Right, but in modern English, rods can't rue, only people can rue.
> I'd say the semantics make it impersonal.
Right; but the word "reweth" here meant "give pain," "to affect with grief,"
< OE hreowian.  The modern sense "I rue" is ... modern.  Of course in ME
"thy faire rod me reweth" may have sounded as imbecilic as "cleaning up my
mess behooves me."  Semantics.

>> Also in modern English:  "It bothers me that you're doing this on your
>> own."
>
> That's clause-as-subject.  "That you're doing this on your own bothers
> me." is also acceptable, if a bit formal sounding.  So it's not
> impersonal.
>
>> "I guess it falls to me to clean the house up again."
>
> "Cleaning the house up again falls to me."  Replacing the infinitive
> with a gerund bypasses the need for circumlocution . . .
I think a lot of these COULD be impersonal if it were not for the fact that
our penchant has been to personalize them simply by allowing a subject, or a
subject clause, to take them.  This very email may inspire people to start
saying "Doing my homework behooves me."

> > It's necessary for Ian to be the one to tell him."
> "For Ian to be the one to tell him is necessary."
Oh, that sounds terrible!

>> Easily replaced by "Ian needs to be the one to tell him."  You can see
>> why the impersonals
>> died out; they were too easily replaced by subject pronouns and agreeing
>> verbs:  Me nedeth
>> here noon other art to use" (Chaucer, Troilus).  I don't need to use any
>> other art here.  Me liketh:  "I like," instead of "it pleases me."
>> (Another
>> survival, although a little cumbersome: "it pleases me to see you and
>> Frank
>> getting along so well.")
>
> "Seeing you and Frank getting along so well pleases me."
Ca me plait.  I'm just looking for a contemporary replacement for "melikes,"
as we can't use that anymore.  Er, I mean, most of us.  Per below:

> Vs. "It likes me.", which is very different from "I like it." - in the
> modern language.  Yet I seem to recall reading examples of "It likes
> me" *meaning* modern "I like it" in Middle English.
Well yes: "like" meant "please," from OE lician.  Hence, me likes, it liketh
me.  Commonly used to mean "I can't complain about it at all."

  So maybe the
> semantic distinction isn't as clear as I'd like it . . .
as it pleaseth you...  (maybe "please," in its present curtailed form, is a
remnant of an impersonal.  Maybe not.  For that to be true, we should all be
saying "likes you, pass the salt?")

>> Shall we invent some new impersonals?  I rather like their periphrastic
>> quality.  Nicely formal.
>
> It agrees me. :)
It likes me too.

Sally