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Re: OT: Latin subject-verb agreement

From:Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...>
Date:Thursday, December 13, 2007, 13:44
In the last episode, (On Thursday 13 December 2007 02:19:45), T. A. McLeay
wrote:
> MorphemeAddict@WMCONNECT.COM wrote: > > In a message dated 12/12/2007 7:59:40 PM Central Standard Time, > > > > conlang@CASSOWARY.ORG writes: > >> Just like "I" isn't exactly the nominative first person singular > >> pronoun, "am" isn't exactly the first person singular form of "to be". > > > > But they are! > > What am I missing? > > They're special. I don't know all the details, but in English you say > things like "It's me", whereas decent languages with proper nominative > first person singular pronouns say "It's I", or "Me and John went for a > run" or "Jack beat John and I". Similar bugs can be found in all the > English pronouns ("Us English speakers don't use pronouns properly all > the time", "Latin speakers did case better than we English speakers"). > > -- > Tristan.
Actually, I find Spanish much more logical in this respect than languages which use either nominative or objective pronouns in this case. In Spanish for example one says "Soy yo" "I am I" or, more grammatically (in English) "I am me". I also find phrases like "Los ingleses somos..." "The English [we] are..." much more logically appealing than "The English [implied 'they'] are" -- "Please understand that there are small European principalities devoted to debating Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction." -- Cameron Laird

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>