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From: futor@lll-crg.UUCP (Randal Futor)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.singles
Subject: more on 2d pers pron...
Message-ID: <840@lll-crg.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 14:56:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: lll-crg.840
Posted: Fri Sep 13 14:56:54 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 08:14:38 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Lawernce Livermore Labs, CRG group
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Xref: watmath net.nlang:3558 net.singles:9242

I don't yet know how to excerpt articles into these postings, so this will
have to explain itself...

English has never had a "formal" pronoun as such; certain dialects have
used formal constructions, but no analog to Sie (German) or vous (French)
was ever mentioned to ME in classes on the development of the language
or Old English (OE). Our text (Bright -- pub. data not with me @ office;
if you're THAT curious, you'll find it) contained a 4x3 chart of the forms
as used around AD1000 (+/-100(?)), the rows of which were typical to stud-
ents of Germanic (& other) off-shoots, i.e., Nominative, Genitive, Dative
& Accusative. The interesting (??) labels were those of the columns:
Singular, Dual (!!!!) and Plural; yes, at one time, the language allowed
us to indicate that we were (would have been??) speaking to just two
people, but I know of NO usage involving the "inc-" forms left around
today. If there is sufficient response, I will attempt to post this chart
to one or the other of these newsgroups; please give me some suggestion
of how to represent the edh, though, or I will have to use a "d" &
include a note about it (also, the macrons aren't easy to convey without
using a minus on the line above the vowel which then means leaving a blank
line between "lines" in the chart -- suggs??).

Thanx in advance -- Randy (email: futor@lll-crg.arpa)

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