Re: Short Question: Actant

Tim May <butsuri@...> wrote:
> Muke Tever wrote at 2005-09-01 10:59:39 (-0600)
>  > English could be seen as doing this--if you take:
>  >
>  >    The president's    talking to you
>  >       (President-3SG) (verb--not marked for person)
>
> Even if you were so perverse as to analyze it that way, "-s" doesn't
> contrast with forms in other persons, so why would you gloss it -3SG?
What do you mean?  The forms in all persons and numbers are:
    -'m  1SG
    -'rt 2SG    -'re PL (all persons)
    -'s  3SG

[The 2SG -'rt is archaic, with the 2SG pronoun 'thou' having
been in standard registers replaced by the 2PL pronoun 'you'
(which still governs verbs as a plural, even when the sense
is singular).]

The use of these clitics on the first and second persons--outside
of pronouns, where they are frequent--is admittedly rare, but again
this is most likely due to habits of speech making the use of nouns
to refer to the first and third person rare.  :p

	*Muke!
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