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From: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Second Person Plural
Message-ID: <864@ptsfa.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 10:17:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: ptsfa.864
Posted: Tue Sep 10 10:17:17 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 23:28:17 EDT
References: <2609@ihnss.UUCP>
Reply-To: rob@ptsfa.UUCP (Rob Bernardo)
Organization: Pacific Bell, San Francisco
Lines: 40

In article <2609@ihnss.UUCP> michael@ihnss.UUCP (M. J. Morgan) writes:
>"You" takes the third person plural verb conjugation,

How did you ascertain that the verb form is THIRD PERSON plural.
It seems to me that English has seven forms for all verbs, except
'be', which has eleven. See chart below. There is no form that
could be described as plural specifically for the third person.

In the table below, I have given all the forms of English verbs
as distinguishable by morphology (form) (as opposed to function).
That is, if one form is used for two separate functions, it is
listed only once.


verb form		'be'		ALL      other     verbs
					"irregular"	"regular"
					(e.g. 'do')	(e.g. 'walk')


present "I"		am		do		walk
present "thou"		art		doest		walkest
present other singulars	is		does		walks
present plural		are		always same as present "I" form

subjunctive "thou" 	beest?		always same as present "thou"

past "thou"		wast		didst		walkedst
past other singulars	was		did		walked
past plural		were		always same as other past singulars form

present participle	being		doing		walking
past participle		been		done		walked

every other form	be		always same as present "I" form
(all other subjunctives,
infinitive, etc.)


-- 
Rob Bernardo, San Ramon, CA    (415) 823-2417    {ihnp4|dual|qantel}!ptsfa!rob