Re: Back to the Future (was: I'm back, sort of)

At 09:31 24.9.2003 -0400, Isidora Zamora wrote:

>My mother frequently skips her subject pronouns in written notes.  Always
>has.  (See, I just dropped a subject pronoun.)  It drives my husband
>slightly nuts, but I'm used to it.
I drop _jag_ "I" all the time in text messages/SMS, which drives my
would-be wife[1] nuts.  And Swedish certainly isn't pro-drop...

[1] We wìll marry when (a) we can afford a party on the scale we want,
and (b) when we have decided what kind of ceremony we want.

At 10:07 24.9.2003 -0400, Mark J. Reed wrote:

>That's how I interpreted it.  But people rarely say "I am running";
>they say "I'm running".  Thus the tie-in to the contracted pronoun+be
>examples above.
Or rather, both spellings are usually pronounced /ajm "rVnIN/,
as opposed to "I _am_ running", which would be the emphasized form.

Note phonemic transcription.  Actual pronunciation **does** vary! ;-)


At 09:47 24.9.2003 -0700, Costentin Cornomorus wrote:

>If I want to use the present to denote what I'm
>actually doing now, I'd say "I'm eating peas
>now".
Whereas FutEng will have "I'm at my peas now" :)

/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melrochX@melroch.se (delete X)
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