USAGE: German 'be' (was: Re: Person distinctions in languages?{
| From: | Tristan McLeay <conlang@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, February 4, 2005, 9:47 |
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On 4 Feb 2005, at 8.29 pm, Philip Newton wrote:
> I don't know the history, but "wes" certainly exists in the past
> participle: "gewesen". I suppose it's also what is responsible for the
> imperfect "war(st), waren", since Low German has "was" there (as in
> English).
English was and were both derive from an earlier verb that had the same
consonant but different stress and stuff after the consonant, which
meant that the *s in the origin of 'were' became *z which in West
Germanic became *r. _waren_ probably reflects the r form (as En.
'were'; _warst_ might be a generalisation, or it could be the natural
evolution.
> I believe Low German has "wees" as the imperative... [pIs] is not
> *that* far from there.
> Hm... this should receive a subject tag, but I'm not sure which.
> [USAGE]?
Probably, and a different subject in any case.
--
Tristan.
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