Re: OT: Opinions wanted: person of vocatives

On Mon, Jun 30, 2003 at 09:10:38PM -0500, James Worlton wrote:
> ¡Juan, ven acá! (John, come here!) "ven" is the familiar 2nd person
> imperative form of the verb.
Yes, but as a vocative, "Juan" isn't the subject of "ven"; the subject
is an implied "tú".  The same is true in the English translation.
The only way a vocative can be the subject of a verb is indirectly,
by being the antecedent of a relative pronoun.

The Spanish paternoster does, by the way, use the second person
with the relative pronoun: "Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo . . ."
But I don't know whether or not that is, like the English, an
artifact of the age of the translation (as is the fact that it's
el Padre Nuestro instead of el Nuestro Padre).

-Mark

> If I were doing it in Orêlynna, I would definitely use the 2nd person.
Thanks for the vote! :)

> (Gotta get the relative pronouns figured out first...)
Yeah, that's a major hurdle.

-Mark

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