Re: OT: Latin subject-verb agreement

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

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