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From: dmt@Glacier.ARPA (Mike Thornburg)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: 2nd pers pron in different languages
Message-ID: <12131@Glacier.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 03:15:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: Glacier.12131
Posted: Tue Sep 24 03:15:39 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 25-Sep-85 03:29:59 EDT
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Organization: Stanford University, IC Laboratory
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> 1) Note the similarity between Italian and German. "Sie" actually
>    means "she" or "they". "La" means "she" and "Loro" "they". 
>    (In both languages beeing written lower case.)

Allow me to point out that the formal pronoun "Sie" in German is
clearly derived from "they" and not "she" as it always takes a plural
verb.  It is interesting that Lessing's _Minna_Von_Barnhelm_ (written
during the middle of the 1700's) shows examples of dialogue where
"Sie(singular)" (or "She") and "Er" (or "He") were used as sort of a
semi-formal second person singular amoung people such as servants and
innkeepers who were not close friends, while the aristocracy used
"Sie(plural)" (the present 2nd person formal singular and plural)
when talking with each other.

In a separate note about another part of this discussion, I think no
one else has remarked that not only does Quaker "plain speech" use
"thee" instead of "thou" as the subject of a sentence, but the 3rd
person singular form of the verb is used instead of the one appropriate
to "thou".


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