There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
From: Michael Everson
1.2. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
From: Padraic Brown
1.3. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
From: Ph. D.
1.4. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
From: Daniel Prohaska
1.5. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
From: Roger Mills
2.1. Re: Something for we to discuss!
From: Roger Mills
3.1. Re: Something for you and I to discuss! (was: Something for we to di
From: Leonardo Castro
4a. Null-subject language
From: C. Brickner
4b. Re: Null-subject language
From: George Corley
4c. Re: Null-subject language
From: Alex Fink
4d. Re: Null-subject language
From: Matthew Boutilier
4e. Re: Null-subject language
From: Roger Mills
4f. Re: Null-subject language
From: R A Brown
4g. Re: Null-subject language
From: R A Brown
4h. Re: Null-subject language
From: George Corley
Messages
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1.1. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
Posted by: "Michael Everson" ever...@evertype.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 7:19 am ((PDT))
On 7 Jul 2013, at 13:43, Ph. D. <p...@phillipdriscoll.com> wrote:
> "Between you and I", "with Jim and I", "for my brother and I": These
> constructions are nearly universal in North America. It's rare to hear
> someone use "me" in these phrases.
I am a native speaker of North American English and to me these are
ungrammatical, and I do not say them. I don't believe that your statement about
rarity is accurate.
Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (33)
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1.2. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" elemti...@yahoo.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 7:22 am ((PDT))
> From: R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com>
>
> To which, of course, one should add: What about your conlangs?
>
> I regret with mine the pronouns no not inflect for case. In
> TAKE they are absolutely invariable; in Outidic they inflect
> only to show plural number.
>
> The Britannic Romlang will, of course, have inflecting
> personal pronouns but it is likely it will distinguish
> between inflecting conjunctive forms and flexionless
> disjunctive forms ;)
This is the route taken by both forms of Kerno. They have a nicely
inflected eo/mi & ty/ti; but also have uninflected disjunctives: me, tu.
In ordinary speech, the latter have become preferred, even where the
disjunct/emphatic would not normally be found in good usage: me a yent
(I'm going out).
Avantimannish doesn't have this construction like we have in English.
They do have a stressed or full form for certain pronouns. The positive
answer to "who wants some Uncle Jang's Forty-Eight Hour Extra Spicy
Olifant Tongue Surprise?" is "ihh!", which corresponds to our excited
sounding "oo, me!" The less than excited, unstressed answer would
involve the pronoun "ei", perhaps "ei'llem cunnen some".
Loucarian has a nominitive/oblique case distinction, but as with Greek
(as I understood Christophe's response), the case appropriate to the
needs of the moment is used. Where emphasis is required, there is an
emphatic termination that can simply be appended to whichever case
form is used. So, the emphatic answer to "who wants to try some
Pharaoh Julian (Life, Peace and Plenty to him and Everlasting his Reign!)
Garum Infused Ostrich Meat Stuffed Tomatoes!?" is, quite emphatically
"mim! mim!"
A question that would require an oblique answer, "who is that plate of
stuffed tomatoes for?": "pros minam!" = "me!"
Padraic
> Ray
Messages in this topic (33)
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1.3. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
Posted by: "Ph. D." p...@phillipdriscoll.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 7:37 am ((PDT))
On 7/7/2013 8:54 AM, Jennifer Collins-Jai wrote:
>
> I wouldn't go so far as to say universal as I dont think I've ever
> heard people use "I" in those phrases as often as I've heard "me".
> Maybe in the US but you certainly can't assume all of North America.
> And you especially can't assume every generation was "corrected" as it
> were.
>
On 7/7/2013 9:43 AM, Padraic Brown wrote:
> At the risk of engaging in unprotected YAEGTery,
> I rather think this is not quite "universal". In
> my experience, "me" is far more common in these
> contexts.
On 7/7/2013 10:19 AM, Michael Everson wrote:
> I am a native speaker of North American English
> and to me these are ungrammatical, and I do not
> say them. I don't believe that your statement
> about rarity is accurate.
Very well, I withdraw my statement. In my old age, I guess I'm just not
hearing people correctly. Now that I think about it, I don't think I've
ever heard anyone in the United States say "between you and I" or "for
George and I." It must be just a British thing.
--Ph. D.
Messages in this topic (33)
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1.4. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
Posted by: "Daniel Prohaska" dan...@ryan-prohaska.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 7:57 am ((PDT))
I agree with Michael. In fact I posted a status report on FB yesterday saying
that phrases "between you and I" or "for you and I" in TV series are my pet
peeve
. this usage is not restricted to Ameerican English - I've heard Brits,
Australians, Canadians and Americans use it. I too consider it ungrammatical.
It's a hypercorrection as prescriptivists in school taught children not to use
"you and me" in the subject case, as in "Who's going to the cinema tonight?" -
"You and me." "No, you have to say "you and I" because you wouldn't say "Me am
going to the cinema tonight", bit "I"." The difficult bit here is that "you"
has no separately marked subject and object case, so every instance of "you and
me" is changed into "you and I" whether it's grammatical or not
.
Dan
On Jul 7, 2013, at 4:19 PM, Michael Everson wrote:
> On 7 Jul 2013, at 13:43, Ph. D. <p...@phillipdriscoll.com> wrote:
>
>> "Between you and I", "with Jim and I", "for my brother and I": These
>> constructions are nearly universal in North America. It's rare to hear
>> someone use "me" in these phrases.
>
> I am a native speaker of North American English and to me these are
> ungrammatical, and I do not say them. I don't believe that your statement
> about rarity is accurate.
>
> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com/
Messages in this topic (33)
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1.5. Re: Something for you and I to discuss!
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 8:40 am ((PDT))
From: Michael Everson <ever...@evertype.com>
On 7 Jul 2013, at 13:43, Ph. D. <p...@phillipdriscoll.com> wrote:
> "Between you and I", "with Jim and I", "for my brother and I": These
> constructions are nearly universal in North America. It's rare to hear
> someone use "me" in these phrases.
I am a native speaker of North American English and to me these are
ungrammatical, and I do not say them. I don't believe that your statement about
rarity is accurate.
================================================
In my experience, the division is maybe 50-50. It depends on the educational
background of speakers. Personally I use 'me' in these cases, and "for you and
I" et al. absolutely grate on my eardrums, but then, I'm something of a pedant
:-((((( I can overlook them in everyday encounters, but when I hear them on TV
that's bad-- actors and certainly writers ought to know better. So says Miss
Fidditch.
Messages in this topic (33)
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2.1. Re: Something for we to discuss!
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 8:25 am ((PDT))
From: Leonardo Castro <leolucas1...@gmail.com>
2013/7/5 Roger Mills <romi...@yahoo.com>:
> Well, like many other conlangs here, Kash would use a prep. phrase:
>
> 'Something for me to do' iyuni re mamepu
>
> iyu/ni re ma/mepu
> st/ni REL I/ do
What's "ni"? Is the "re" a generic relation particle?
=======================================
Kash: -ni is 1) 3s possessive suffix 2) definite marker 3) occasionally seen
frozen to a base, as here (iyu 'that' + -ni) just to form a derivative of some
sort (nominal, adverbial).
re is the particle that introduces subordinate clauses as well as relative
clauses.
Messages in this topic (33)
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3.1. Re: Something for you and I to discuss! (was: Something for we to di
Posted by: "Leonardo Castro" leolucas1...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 9:02 am ((PDT))
2013/7/7 R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com>:
> On 07/07/2013 05:52, Leonardo Castro wrote:
>>
>> 2013/7/5 H. S. Teoh:
>
> Not merely kids - grown-ups as well. It would sound very odd to answer just
> "I', tho "I do" would sound OK and might BTW be given even by kids.
>
>> In pt, one uses nominative 1st person when in isolation
>> or topicalized, while people tend to use other cases in
>> other languages, I don't know why.
>
>
> I don't think this is so. IIRC Ñ /ja/ is used in isolation in Russian.
I think that "yo" is always used in isolation in Spanish as well.
Anyway, I didn't say "people use other cases in all other languages"
but "people tend to use other cases in other languages".
>
> If one gives a one word answer in other western European languages, is it
> always an oblique form? Would Germans, e.g., never answer "ich", but always
> "mich" (or "mir")?
>
> [snip]
>>
>> used in exactly the same sense. BTW, I have once asked a
>> native anglophone linguist what's the syntactic
>> classification of "to do" in such sentences and he
>> answered that he simply didn't know.
>>
>
> Because little or no grammar seems to be taught nowadays. I recall a few
> decades back when the earlier 'grammarless" version of the Cambridge Latin
> Course was introduced, teachers of English language started complaining that
> grammar wasn't being taught. Apparently they thought the one value of Latin
> was that it taught grammar!
>
> I'm glad our staff were more enlightened way back in the 1950s. The English
> staff did teach _English_ grammar and would point out where it differed from
> Latin (or French).
>
> Also contemporary English provides examples examples of the use of "I" where
> prescriptivists say "me" ought to be used.
>
> Pre-school children frequently say things like "Me and Jim went there
> yesterday." At school they get 'corrected' and told they should say "Jim
> and I went there ..." - from then on, alas, the majority of the population
> (at least this side of the Pond) have the formula _x and I_ or _x or I_
> firmly fixed. Well educated people, alas, commonly say things like "Please
> tell my sister or I", "If you find it, please return it to Jim and I" etc.,
> etc.
Interesting! In pt-BR, it's also common for people to say "para você e
eu" (considered incorrect) but "para você e para mim" (never "para
eu"). Maybe it's just because the prepositions "to" (en) and "para"
(pt) are too far from the latter pronoun and so don't 'feel' to govern
it.
>
> Indeed, if you say "Jim and me" after a preposition you may find yourself
> being 'corrected'!!
>
> This formula is so fixed that I have even heard from an educated person
> "please return it to Miss West or to I" (I kid you not).
>
> You will commonly hear "for ...I to do" if someone else is involved - "I'm
> bored. There's nothing for Lisa and I to do."
>
> The use of "I" and "me" in modern contemporary English bears little
> resemblance to that in Latin or,I suspect, in other languages where a case
> system still exists among nouns. IMO talking about "I" and "me" in terms of
> Latin cases is at best misleading.
>
> --
> Ray
> ==================================
> http://www.carolandray.plus.com
> ==================================
> "language ⦠began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
> for individual beings and events."
> [Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (33)
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4a. Null-subject language
Posted by: "C. Brickner" tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 9:38 am ((PDT))
I was doing some research on Wikipedia and I found this in the âNull-subject
languageâ articleâ
Latin text: Veni, vidi, vici.
Literal translation: came, saw, conquered.
Idiomatic translation: I came, I saw, I conquered.
Latin text: Cogito ergo sum.
Literal translation: think, therefore am.
Idiomatic translation: I think, therefore I am.
Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought that âveniâ meant
âI cameâ and âcogitoâ meant âI thinkâ, not merely âcameâ and
âthinkâ respectively.
Given the above literal translations, I must assume that âvenisti, vidisti,
vicistiâ also mean âcame, saw, conqueredâ. If this is so, why bother
with the endings?
Charlie
Messages in this topic (8)
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4b. Re: Null-subject language
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 10:03 am ((PDT))
On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:38 AM, C. Brickner <tepeyach...@embarqmail.com>wrote:
>
>
> Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought that veni meant I
> came and cogito meant I think, not merely came and think
> respectively.
>
>
Nope, it's just the verb. "I came" would probably be 'ego veni' (correct me
if I'm wrong, I don't speak Latin). The first person meaning is still
there, but it's encoded as agreement morphology on the verb.
veni
come.PAST.1SG
>
> Given the above literal translations, I must assume that venisti,
> vidisti, vicisti also mean came, saw, conquered. If this is so, why
> bother with the endings?
>
>
In the case of Latin, those ending do in fact encode the person and number
of the subject, and thus enable subject-dropping. The same occurs in
Spanish:
vení
come-PAST.1SG
veniste
come-past.2SG
Remember, almost no translation is ever perfect, and often that
imperfection occurs because different languages require different things to
be marked. Both Spanish and Latin require the person and number (singular
and plural) to be marked on the verb. English does the same thing, but our
agreement morphology is much more limited, with most verbs only having
different marking for third person singular subjects on present-tense verbs
vs absolutely anything else, which is probably a factor in English being
less free to drop subject pronouns.
Of course, you can have subject dropping without this agreement. Japanese
is perfectly happy to drop subjects even though it has no subject agreement
whatsoever on verbs. All that is required is for the subject to be
understood by context.
nihongo-wa wakarimasen
Japanese-TOP speak-NEG-POLITE
"[I] don't speak Japanese."
In that example, it's understood that the speaker is the subject because
that's the most natural conclusion, but I could say exactly the same thing
while pointing to another person to say "He/She doesn't speak Japanese".
The same thing can't be done with the Latin -- you would have to inflect
the verb for different person agreement -- so the Latin does still contain
the person and number information, but the Japanese does not.
Messages in this topic (8)
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4c. Re: Null-subject language
Posted by: "Alex Fink" 000...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 10:55 am ((PDT))
On Sun, 7 Jul 2013 12:03:34 -0500, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:38 AM, C. Brickner <tepeyach...@embarqmail.com>wrote:
>> Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought that 'veni' *meant* 'I
>> came' and 'cogito' meant 'I think', not merely 'came' and 'think'
>> respectively.
>>
>Nope, it's just the verb. [...] The first person *meaning* is still
>there, but it's encoded as agreement morphology on the verb.
To me this answer feels kinda confused about what goes into "meaning" (emphasis
mine). I'd think it uncontroversial that there shouldn't be a difference in
_meaning_ between "I came" in an agreementless language with a subject pronoun
and a null-subject language with subject agreement, at least not on those
grounds alone.
Needless to say on this list, the problem with the Wikipedia article Charlie
points out is that trying to use English glosses to indicate both meaning and
structure is asking too much of them, and here the requirements are at odds
with each other. In the other example, _cogito ergo sum_, the glosser used
bare "am" for _sum_ which is by chance able to convey the gist of the matter;
but doing this with the other verbs and calling the resulting gloss "literal"
(!) is misleading at best. I've slapped a "disputed" tag on that section till
someone gets round to fixing it up.
I await Ray's word, but AFAIK null-subject _veni, vidi, vici_ is grammatically
and stylistically impeccable Latin; it appears in Suetonius quoting a tablet in
a triumphal procession, and why would Suetonius, or Caesar's tablet-carver,
have put ungrammatical words in Caesar's mouth?
Alex
Messages in this topic (8)
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4d. Re: Null-subject language
Posted by: "Matthew Boutilier" bvticvlar...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 11:00 am ((PDT))
*veni* really *means* 'I came' (or 'I have come') since Latin can
unambiguously present the person and number without a pronoun (*-i*, -*isti*,
-*it*, etc., for the perfect tense). Latin differs from English in this
respect, so even a "literal" translation will not preserve all the same
morphological bits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language
that said, like George pointed out, some languages neither 1. use a pronoun
*nor* 2. conjugate verbs for person and/or number, in certain grammatical
territories.
another one is Egyptian Arabic, which likes to use participles (inflected
for number, not for person) as present-tense verbs.
ÊaÌyiz-Ø ÊayÅ¡
wanting-MASC.SG bread
'[I] want bread.'
matt
On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 12:03 PM, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:38 AM, C. Brickner <tepeyach...@embarqmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought that âveniâ meant
> âI
> > cameâ and âcogitoâ meant âI thinkâ, not merely âcameâ and
> > âthinkâ
> > respectively.
> >
> >
> Nope, it's just the verb. "I came" would probably be 'ego veni' (correct me
> if I'm wrong, I don't speak Latin). The first person meaning is still
> there, but it's encoded as agreement morphology on the verb.
>
> veni
> come.PAST.1SG
>
>
> >
> > Given the above literal translations, I must assume that âvenisti,
> > vidisti, vicistiâ also mean âcame, saw, conqueredâ. If this is so,
> > why
> > bother with the endings?
> >
> >
> In the case of Latin, those ending do in fact encode the person and number
> of the subject, and thus enable subject-dropping. The same occurs in
> Spanish:
>
> vení
> come-PAST.1SG
>
> veniste
> come-past.2SG
>
> Remember, almost no translation is ever perfect, and often that
> imperfection occurs because different languages require different things to
> be marked. Both Spanish and Latin require the person and number (singular
> and plural) to be marked on the verb. English does the same thing, but our
> agreement morphology is much more limited, with most verbs only having
> different marking for third person singular subjects on present-tense verbs
> vs absolutely anything else, which is probably a factor in English being
> less free to drop subject pronouns.
>
> Of course, you can have subject dropping without this agreement. Japanese
> is perfectly happy to drop subjects even though it has no subject agreement
> whatsoever on verbs. All that is required is for the subject to be
> understood by context.
>
> nihongo-wa wakarimasen
> Japanese-TOP speak-NEG-POLITE
> "[I] don't speak Japanese."
>
> In that example, it's understood that the speaker is the subject because
> that's the most natural conclusion, but I could say exactly the same thing
> while pointing to another person to say "He/She doesn't speak Japanese".
> The same thing can't be done with the Latin -- you would have to inflect
> the verb for different person agreement -- so the Latin does still contain
> the person and number information, but the Japanese does not.
>
Messages in this topic (8)
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4e. Re: Null-subject language
Posted by: "Roger Mills" romi...@yahoo.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 12:29 pm ((PDT))
Is it possible the Wikipedia article was discussing _subject-dropping_ rather
than "null-subject"?
As best I recall, veni,veniste etc. can ONLY be translated as "I came/have
come, you came/have come" etc. If you said/wrote "ego veni" it was emphatic.
Just as it would be in Spanish.
(Kash can drop the subject prefix on the verb if a full pronoun subj. is used:
"ta ma/kaya" 'I don't know" vs.
mám ta kaya '_I_ don't know'; aka me hasisa 'do you love me?' aka hát me sisa
'do _you_ love me?')
For that matter, in Engl. we drop subject pronouns (at least 1st pers.) in
colloquial usage (at least I do, e.g. in letters and emails)--- "hope we can
meet up", "sure with it wasn't raining"; "a bunch of us went
bar-hopping....Had a wild evening..."
________________________________
From: Alex Fink <000...@gmail.com>
To: conl...@listserv.brown.edu
Sent: Sunday, July 7, 2013 1:55 PM
Subject: Re: Null-subject language
On Sun, 7 Jul 2013 12:03:34 -0500, George Corley <gacor...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:38 AM, C. Brickner <tepeyach...@embarqmail.com>wrote:
>> Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought that 'veni' *meant* 'I
>> came' and 'cogito' meant 'I think', not merely 'came' and 'think'
>> respectively.
>>
>Nope, it's just the verb. [...] The first person *meaning* is still
>there, but it's encoded as agreement morphology on the verb.
To me this answer feels kinda confused about what goes into "meaning" (emphasis
mine). I'd think it uncontroversial that there shouldn't be a difference in
_meaning_ between "I came" in an agreementless language with a subject pronoun
and a null-subject language with subject agreement, at least not on those
grounds alone.
Needless to say on this list, the problem with the Wikipedia article Charlie
points out is that trying to use English glosses to indicate both meaning and
structure is asking too much of them, and here the requirements are at odds
with each other. In the other example, _cogito ergo sum_, the glosser used
bare "am" for _sum_ which is by chance able to convey the gist of the matter;
but doing this with the other verbs and calling the resulting gloss "literal"
(!) is misleading at best. I've slapped a "disputed" tag on that section till
someone gets round to fixing it up.
I await Ray's word, but AFAIK null-subject _veni, vidi, vici_ is grammatically
and stylistically impeccable Latin; it appears in Suetonius quoting a tablet in
a triumphal procession, and why would Suetonius, or Caesar's tablet-carver,
have put ungrammatical words in Caesar's mouth?
Alex
Messages in this topic (8)
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4f. Re: Null-subject language
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 12:34 pm ((PDT))
On 07/07/2013 17:38, C. Brickner wrote:
> I was doing some research on Wikipedia and I found this
> in the âNull-subject languageâ articleâ
>
> Latin text: Veni, vidi, vici. Literal translation: came,
> saw, conquered. Idiomatic translation: I came, I saw, I
> conquered.
Nope - quite wrong!
> Latin text: Cogito ergo sum. Literal translation: think,
> therefore am. Idiomatic translation: I think, therefore I
> am.
Also barmy.
> Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought
> that âveniâ meant âI cameâ and âcogitoâ meant âI thinkâ,
> not merely âcameâ and âthinkâ respectively.
No, you didn't miss anything. You got it right - the writer
of the Wikipedia article has got it wrong. Alas, not the
only rubbish I've found on Wikipedia (I've tried to correct
some).
I note in the article it is stated that the Latin section
has been disputed - quite rightly so IMHO. I'm fairly
certain the Hebrew, Tamil and Arabic sections are equally
incorrect.
> Given the above literal translations, I must assume that
> âvenisti, vidisti, vicistiâ also mean âcame, saw,
> conqueredâ. If this is so, why bother with the
> endings?
Because the subject is encoded in the _personal_ endings :;
============================================================
On 07/07/2013 18:03, George Corley wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:38 AM, C. Brickner wrote:
>
>> Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought
>> that âveniâ meant âI cameâ and âcogitoâ meant âI
>> thinkâ, not merely âcameâ and âthinkâ respectively.
>>
> Nope, it's just the verb. "I came" would probably be
> 'ego veni' (correct me if I'm wrong, I don't speak
> Latin).
I shall and do. "ego veni" is _not_ the Latin for "I came."
It is the Latin for "_I_ came", i.e. "I" is topicalized for
some reason - the usual one will be to make "I" contrast
with someone else.
Just plain, unmarked "I came" or ("I have come") is _veni_.
> The first person meaning is still there, but it's encoded
> as agreement morphology on the verb.
>
> veni come.PAST.1SG
Yes, but it's not _agreement_ morphology. It is the subject.
Some languages like to express the subject as a
separate 'word', some as a clitic, some as an affix - that's
all.
>> Given the above literal translations, I must assume
>> that âvenisti, vidisti, vicistiâ also mean âcame, saw,
>> conqueredâ. If this is so, why bother with the
>> endings?
>>
>>
> In the case of Latin, those ending do in fact encode the
> person and number of the subject, and thus enable
> subject-dropping.
IMO the term "subject-dropping" is misleading. The subject
simply is not dropped - it's there for all to see or hear.
Real subject-dropping does occur commonly, I understand, in
Chines (of all varieties) and certainly in some style of
English, e.g.
"Hi, been anywhere interesting lately?"
"Yeah - went over to that new fun-park yesterday. Fantastic
place!"
"That so? Must try and go this weekend."
But Latin ain't like that.
======================================================
On 07/07/2013 18:55, Alex Fink wrote:
[snip]
> I await Ray's word, but AFAIK null-subject _veni, vidi,
> vici_ is grammatically and stylistically impeccable
> Latin;
It is impeccable Latin. Nor is it subjectless, as the suffix
-i encodes the ending.
On the other hand "ego veni, vidi, vici" ("'Twas I who came,
saw [and] conquered") would look (and presumably sound) very
odd. If the speaker/writer wanted to emphasize that it was
_he_ and no other who did this, we'd almost certainly have:
[et] ego veni et ego vidi et ego vici.
('Tis I who came and 'tis I who saw and 'tis I who conquered")
And we'd probably say "What an egotist!" ;)
========================================================
On 07/07/2013 19:00, Matthew Boutilier wrote:
> *veni* really *means* 'I came' (or 'I have come') since
> Latin can unambiguously present the person and number
> without a pronoun (*-i*, -*isti*, -*it*, etc., for the
> perfect tense).
Spot on!
The only thing potentially ambiguous about _veni_ is whether
it is present perfect or past imperfective - tho context
usually makes this clear.
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language ⦠began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
4g. Re: Null-subject language
Posted by: "R A Brown" r...@carolandray.plus.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 12:53 pm ((PDT))
On 07/07/2013 20:34, R A Brown wrote:
OOOPS!!!!
> The only thing potentially ambiguous about _veni_ is
> whether it is present perfect or past imperfective - tho
> context usually makes this clear.
That should be: "The only thing potentially ambiguous about
_veni_ is whether it is present perfect or past
*perfective*. The past imperfective is _veniebam_.
Now to write out 100 times: "I must not confuse aspects."
--
Ray
==================================
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
"language ⦠began with half-musical unanalysed expressions
for individual beings and events."
[Otto Jespersen, Progress in Language, 1895]
Messages in this topic (8)
________________________________________________________________________
4h. Re: Null-subject language
Posted by: "George Corley" gacor...@gmail.com
Date: Sun Jul 7, 2013 1:19 pm ((PDT))
On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 2:34 PM, R A Brown <r...@carolandray.plus.com> wrote:
> On 07/07/2013 18:03, George Corley wrote:
>
>> On Sun, Jul 7, 2013 at 11:38 AM, C. Brickner wrote:
>>
>> Did I miss something in my Latin classes? I thought
>>> that veni meant I came and cogito meant I
>>> think, not merely came and think respectively.
>>>
>>> Nope, it's just the verb. "I came" would probably be
>> 'ego veni' (correct me if I'm wrong, I don't speak
>> Latin).
>>
>
> I shall and do. "ego veni" is _not_ the Latin for "I came."
> It is the Latin for "_I_ came", i.e. "I" is topicalized for
> some reason - the usual one will be to make "I" contrast
> with someone else.
>
> Just plain, unmarked "I came" or ("I have come") is _veni_.
>
I was steering as close to "literal translation" as I could.
> The first person meaning is still there, but it's encoded
>>
>> as agreement morphology on the verb.
>>
>> veni come.PAST.1SG
>>
>
> Yes, but it's not _agreement_ morphology. It is the subject.
> Some languages like to express the subject as a
> separate 'word', some as a clitic, some as an affix - that's
> all.
>
This is not that clear-cut though. Latin _does_ have freestanding personal
pronouns, and the person-marking morphology is still there. Since this
morphology is always obligatory, but the subject may or may not be
expressed as a pronoun (yes, with pragmatic implications, but still with
the same basic meaning). To me, that suggests that it is agreement
morphology that can agree with an empty, but recoverable, subject.
> Given the above literal translations, I must assume
>>> that venisti, vidisti, vicisti also mean came, saw,
>>> conquered. If this is so, why bother with the
>>> endings?
>>>
>>>
>>> In the case of Latin, those ending do in fact encode the
>> person and number of the subject, and thus enable
>> subject-dropping.
>>
>
> IMO the term "subject-dropping" is misleading. The subject
> simply is not dropped - it's there for all to see or hear.
>
The subject is recoverable because of redundant marking. That doesn't
necessarily mean that the pronoun itself hasn't been dropped.
> Real subject-dropping does occur commonly, I understand, in
> Chines (of all varieties) and certainly in some style of
> English, e.g.
> "Hi, been anywhere interesting lately?"
> "Yeah - went over to that new fun-park yesterday. Fantastic
> place!"
> "That so? Must try and go this weekend."
>
> But Latin ain't like that.
>
Why? Why must the morphology on the verb -- which is additionally fused
with tense and aspect -- be the subject itself and not agreement with an
external subject, either explicit or pragmatically recoverable? I myself am
sometimes critical of theories that posit empty slots and constituents that
are never phonologically realized, but there looks to be a pretty good
argument for it.
Also, is it common practice in linguistics to present theoretical
statements as absolute facts? My semantics professor constantly chastised
people for hedging on their hypotheses, and now you are presenting
theoretical statements as absolute truths to quite a condescending degree.
Messages in this topic (8)
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