From: Christophe Grandsire (christophe.grandsire@free.fr)
Date: Fri Jun 06 2003 - 19:48:48 EST
En réponse à Jan van Steenbergen :
>Other languages that use a third person singular:
>Dutch ("u"), although it is more and more often followed by a verb in the 2nd
>person singular;
Isn't "u" 2nd person of origin? I thought it was the object form of "gij",
the original 2nd person singular (which was kept in Flemish dialects for
instance). And I've never heard or seen "u is" for instance. It's always "u
bent". "U heeft" is very rare, "u hebt" is much more common. And for other
verbs, the second and third person singular are identical anyway :) .
There's only the difference when the subject pronoun is after the verb.
When you use "je", the -t of the second person disappears, but not with "u"
("ga je naar Parijs?" but "gaat u naar Parijs?"). But I've always taken
that to be a phenomenon of liaison, rather than a mark that "u" uses third
person rather than second person.
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.
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