Re: OT: Opinions wanted: person of vocatives

--- "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 01, 2003 at 08:55:25AM -0700,
> Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
> > Just goes to show! When you ask an idiot to
> mess
> > around with texts like this, you get a second
> > rate answer!
>
> Which idiot would be the responsible party
> here? :)
Whoever decided it would be a Good Thing to have
a 'new' English version!

> Sorry, let me clarify.
Thanks for the clarification!

> > "you're the one who always drives on the
> > wrong side of the road.";
>
> I would say examples like this are not
> parallel.
The examples are of using the third person verb
with a relative pronoun, regardless of the real
person / antecedent.

> Here, the
> antecedent of "who" is not "you" but "one", and
Allright: "it's you who always drives on the
wrong side of the road!"

> I'm definitely leaning toward using
> second-person verbs with the relative
> pronoun when the antecedent is a vocative noun,
> though.
That makes sense. Until your speakers 'decide' to
do something different!

> > As for conlangs, on the odd occasion a Kerno
> > speaker might have to recite this prayer in
> Kerno
> > rather than Latin, they'd say "ke biase", who
> > art. Of coruse, Kerno still has a fairly
> discrete
> > verbal conjugation:
> >
> >   ke biame  who am
> >   ke biase  who are
> >   ke biathe who is
> >   ke sumus  who are
> >   ke ez     who are
> >   ke vionte who are
>
> Hm.  Kerno would appear to have some Latin
> influence.
Well, it is a Romance language!

> Is it
> a Romance conlang?  If so, where did the "bia"
> forms come from? Germanic influence?
Celtic. Ysser is one of those typically irregular
and suppletive verbs. In this case, it takes
forms from ysser, bodar and forer, all of which
mean "be". Bodar is thought to be of Celtic
origin - but the same root exists in Latin -b-
forms (-bo, -bis / -bam, -bas); forer was built
up into a complete verb from forms in for-
(forem, fores).

Bodar forms are those typically found in usual
speech; while ysser forms were typical of higher
registers. The Bible translation, made in the
early 20th century, changed everything by using
the "fuller" bodar forms rather than the "old
literary" ysser forms. The 3s of ysser is often
found in modern speech for "there is": ast(a)
/'Vst(@)/; and when emphatic or accented,
/'ast(@)/. The usual word for there is, "ays", is
generally only found in 'do clauses': "dond-ays"
+ dative + thing = there is at/with someone
something. Naturally, a general statement of
existence may or may not have a specific place,
thus not requiring the dative. And in Kerno, you
can't just have a dangling "do" preposed to the
verb without a specified dative; nor can you have
the verb "ays" without the preposed "do". So,
they use "ast" in stead!

It seems that there was a time when a dichotomy
between copula and substantive verb was about to
happen - but it never came to pass. Sometime in
the early middle ages, ysser and bodar coalesced
into coequal forms (am = biam); and then forer
joined the ranks as well. Ysser began losing its
subjunctive forms, which were probably too
similar to the indicative forms; and forer became
the subjunctive of "be".

The example above also demonstrates the relative
verb forms, which have an extra -e on the end,
which is usually silent:

  /
  'bi@m   'sum
  'bi@s   ED
  'bi@T@  'vi@nd
  /

Note that the 1 & 2pl have no rel. forms in any
verb. The 1 & 2s rel. forms are rarely
encountered.

You can see the whole "be" mess at
<http://www.geocities.com/elemtilas/ill_bethisad/kerno_grammar_paradigms.htm>
along with a lot of other messy paradigms.

Scroll down a bit to the verbal paradigms.

Padraic.


=====
beuyont alch geont la ciay la cina
mangeiont alch geont y faues la lima;
     pe' ne m' molestyont
     que faciont
doazque y facyont in rima.

.

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