Re: Pro-drop was RE: Conlang collaboration
| From: | Jan van Steenbergen <ijzeren_jan@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, February 16, 2003, 21:07 |
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--- Doug Dee skrzypszy:
> I don't think anyone knows the answer to that (those "why" questions are
> always the hardest). I've read that Germanic, French, & Swiss Rhaeto-Romance
> are highly unusual in not allowing pro-drop even when the person & number of
> the subject is clearly indicated by the verbal inflection. Apparently,
> pro-drop is the norm elsewhere.
AFAIK Russian doesn't really have pro-drop, even though every person has his
own verb form.
Polish allows pro-drop only for the 1st and 2nd person; in the 3rd person, the
subject pronoun is obligatory, strange enough.
ObConlang: not entirely coincidentally, Wenedyk works the same as Polish.
Pro-drop is the standard in the 1st and 2nd person, but never appears in the
third person.
In the perfect tense, the first and third person singular have the same form,
for example "skrzypszy" (I wrote, or he/she wrote). When used without a subject
pronoun, it automatically refers to the first person.
Jan
=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones
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