Re: Ergative and other questions
| From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
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| Date: | Monday, November 17, 2003, 23:51 |
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Roger Mills scripsit:
> despite the variant /-ej/ pronunciation, divorcee and fiancee at least are
> patients (She has been divorced by.., she has been affianced by.... (But as
> for negligee and bargee [unknown to me], deponent saith not.)
"Bargee" is one who poles a barge for a living; by extension, one who
swears creatively and colorfully.
> BTW, does the -ee /-ij/ suffix also derive from French? I'd suspect so. It
> seems to occur mainly with Fr/Latinate forms.
It's the feminine French participial ending; it probably first arrived in
English from Law-French. Even now, legal language is full of -or/-ee pairs:
grantor/grantee, bailor/bailee, testator/legatee (more or less),
promisor/ee, obligor/ee, payor/ee, mortgagor/ee, transferor/ee, employer/ee,
drawer/ee, indorser/ee, etc. etc.
--
Principles. You can't say A is John Cowan <jcowan@...>
made of B or vice versa. All mass http://www.reutershealth.com
is interaction. --Richard Feynman http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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