Re: Russian names (was: Re: A perfect day...)

At 21:51 02/02/00 -0500, you wrote:
>
>I seem to remember hearing that this is becoming common in European
>languages, for the familiar forms to be used where traditionally the
>formal ones would've been used.
>
The formal form is still very much in use in France and other Latin
countries, but I think it's true in the Northern countries and Germanic
countries.

>But, speaking of these forms, I've noticed that many of the languages
>have similar 2nd plural forms, for instance, Latin _vos_, Russian _vy_,
>but then we have Anglo-Saxon _ge_, seemingly unrelated.  The first
>person plurals also seem unrelated, _nos_ vs. _we_.  Is this connected
>with the PIE dual/plural distinction, i.e., some descendants used the
>dual and others the plural?
>
        There seems to be something like this yes, but I remember seeing something
about 'w' and a nasal being in complementary distribution in an earlier
stage of PIE. It would explain some alternations like 'we' 'nos' that are
found back in PIE. I'll check on my booklet about IE (BTW Padraic, I will
check for the shipping costs today I hope). The use of 'ge' in Anglo-saxon
would be the use of the dual form instead of the plural IIRC (or the
contrary maybe :) ).

                                                        Christophe Grandsire
                                                |Sela Jemufan Atlinan C.G.

"Reality is just another point of view."

homepage : http://rainbow.conlang.org