Re: Marking and Imperatives

One aspect of morphological markedness phenomena is that the most
common expressions are allowed to become the shortest.

Using "thank" in the present tense, first person, is extremely common
because of the status of "thank" as a -- um what's the term, I think
"performative" -- a verb where you can *do* it by *saying* it, like
"thank," "command," "condemn" and so on.  Probably the most common
performative.

So there's no reason that the first person would be equally unmarked
in the past tense; in the past tense, the verb is not a performative.

I guess I'm not sure what the theoretical difference is between a
"mere exception" which is a "contraction of a common phrase" and a
genuine example of morphological unmarkedness.  Surely examples of
extremely unmarked forms *are* exceptions, and they could be described
as "contractions of common constructions."

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Ed doesn't know everything, but he hasn't figured that out yet.
Please break it to him gently.              edheil@postmark.net
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Nik Taylor wrote:

> Ed Heil wrote:
> > Note also that at least in English, there is one verb whose most
> > common and morphologically unmarked usage is in the *first* person --
> > it allows us to drop the pronoun in the first person just as for
> > imperatives we drop the pronoun in the second person.  That verb is
> > "to thank" -- "Thank you!" - "(I) thank you!"
>
> I think that's a mere exception, just a contraction of a very common
> phrase.  Just as "thank you" is often shortened to the monosyllable
> "thanks".  After all, one can't say *"Thanked him for his help", but you
> must say "I thanked him for his help".  Only in the single expression
> "thank you" can that "I" be dropped, so it follows that it's not a
> property of the verb "thank", but rather of that expression.
>
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