Re: OT: Latin subject-verb agreement

"Ungrammatical" according to English textbooks, sure, but we're
talking about real live English as she be spoke.  "I, who are" sounds
weird to me, but I can see where it would work, along the same lines
as "Aren't I?'

Note that I misremembered my TKD earlier - the "as for noun, pronoun
is..." gloss only applies to the copula, which uses the personal
pronouns as verbs.  So the question of noun subjects with 1st/2nd
perdon verb prefixes is not as clear-cut as I supposed.


On 12/13/07, Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...> wrote:
> In the last episode, (On Thursday 13 December 2007 01:55:06), T. A. McLeay
> wrote:
> > David J. Peterson wrote:
> > > Mark:
> > > <<
> > > Given the gloss in TKD for third-person nominal subjects ("As for the
> > > captain, he is on the bridge"), I see no reason why nouns should be
> > > disallowed for other persons.
> > >
> > >
> > > You know, there's kind of a similar phenomenon in English
> > > regarding relative clauses.  Consider:
> > >
> > > I, who am a captain, prefer to wear briefs.
> > > ?*I, who is a captain, prefer to wear briefs.
> > >
> > > I'd say that's pretty straightforward, but then...
> > >
> > > ?!?*You can give the book to me, who am a captain.
> > > ?You can give the book to me, who is a captain.
> > >
> > > I have no explanation for any of this other than that English is
> > > broken.
> >
> > Apparently my English has fixed this because "I, who am a captain, ..."
> > is weird and at least questionable, if not outright wrong. Both "I, who
> > is a captain, ..." and "I, who are a captain, ..." are better, but
> > neither are good.
> >
>
> I have to disagree. "I, who is a captain", could surely only be used of a
> person whose name is "I", whilst "I, who are a captain" is just plain
> ungrammatical. Singular subject, singular complement, plural verb? Come
> on. "I, who am a captain"? Much better.
>
> Jeff.
>
> --
> "Please understand that there are small
> European principalities devoted to debating
> Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction."
>
>                             -- Cameron Laird
>

--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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