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Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 2:34 am
Post subject: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please? |
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David Wright Sr.
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 2:34 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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jlawler@umich.edu (John Lawler) wrote in news:UrEwe.134$Ut5.98
@news.itd.umich.edu:
(snip)
| Quote: | he goeth, he seeth, he liveth, he dieth, he hath.
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Hi John. Good to see you posting.
When I joined the Orthodox Church, our Bishop insisted that we pronounce 'he
saith' as 'he sayeth'. I always assumed that he was right and that 'saith'
was some sort of revised or version of 'sayeth'.
Do you think that that is correct?
David Wright |
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David Wright Sr.
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 2:34 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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aaron@avalon.pascal-central.com.invalid (Aaron Davies) wrote in
news:1gyxoam.1m91u82y5mn40N%aaron@avalon.pascal-central.com.invalid:
(snip)
| Quote: | Should be "Whence come ye...", right?
Well, it might be considered rather forward, but I would try 'Whence comest |
thou, fair maiden? and if she didn't slap me we could go on from there.
David W. |
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Mike Lyle
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:07 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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casioculture@gmail.com wrote:
| Quote: | Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between
the
above, please?
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I hit him.
He hit me.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
My feet are killing me.
Next?
--
Mike. |
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R H Draney
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:08 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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casioculture@gmail.com filted:
| Quote: |
Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please?
|
Exactly analogous to "Me I Mine My" (which was almost a George Harrison
song)....
"_I_ have a cat."
"It followed _me_ home."
"It sleeps on _my_ bed."
"This cat is now _mine_."
"_Thou_ hast a cat." (note archaic verb inflection to go with archaic pronoun)
"It followed _thee_ home."
"It sleeps on _thy_ bed."
"*That* cat is _thine_."
.....r |
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Gerald Smyth
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Gerald Smyth
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:25 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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Gerald Smyth wrote:
| Quote: | casioculture@gmail.com wrote:
Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please?
There is a good explanation (though no simple example) in the aue FAQ
at http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/faqthouthee.shtml....g
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The link didn't work from the previous posting, but it's definitely
live so I'll try again like this:
http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/faqthouthee.shtml
....g |
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John Lawler
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:32 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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<casioculture@gmail.com> writes:
| Quote: | Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please?
|
First, a word of warning: if you have to ask, you shouldn't use them.
They're dead, and only those who have studied Black Gramarye deeply
and mastered the Rite of Ashkente dare call them back to life without
grave danger. Be Ware. You Have Been Warned.
Second, here's the relevant paradigm:
Singular Plural
Su Ob PAdj PPron Su Ob PAdj PPron
---- ---- ---- ----- ---- ---- ----- ------
1 I me my mine we us our ours 1
2 thou thee thy thine ye you your yours 2
3m he him his his they them their theirs 3
3f she her her hers
3n it it its its
[1 = First, 2 = Second, 3 = Third Person; m, f, n = masc, fem, neuter;
Su = Subject, Ob = Object, PAdj & PPron = Possessive Adjective & Pronoun]
Note that there used to be a difference between singular and plural, and
between subject and object in second person. This was all lost by the end
of the Early Modern English period, for various reasons and to varying
degrees.
So the rule for using thou, thee, thy, thine is that they're exactly
parallel to I, me, my, and mine (respectively) in Modern English. And that
they should *never* be used to refer to the plural 'you'; they're *all*
strictly singular.
If you use thou as the subject of a sentence, be aware that it has its own
verb ending -(e)st:
thou goest, thou seest, thou livest, thou diest, etc.
The auxiliaries be and have, as usual, are irregular:
thou art, thou hast
And, if thou art going to go to all that trouble, thou shouldst as well use
the archaic third person singular suffix -(e)th:
he goeth, he seeth, he liveth, he dieth, he hath.
The King James Bible used all these forms, but they were already obsolete by
the time it was written; they were used consciously to sound archaic, which
is why they sound sort of religious any more. And of course they're mostly
used wrong any more, as well, since few are they who have studied Black
Gramarye to the requisite depth. We will not speak further of the fate
awaiting one who attempts this lightly, in ignorance.
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler U Michigan Linguistics Dept
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Me, pron. The objectionable case of I. The personal pronoun in English
has three cases, the dominative, the objectionable and the oppressive.
Each is all three." --- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" |
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Gerald Smyth
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:40 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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Gerald Smyth wrote:
Still not quite there... something strange between the 'a' and the
'q'...
http://www.yaelf.com/aueFAQ/faqthouthee.shtml
(It might have saved time to go the RH Draney route and just explain
it. (Nice example, r.))...g |
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Alan Jones
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:43 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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"R H Draney" <dadoctah@spamcop.net> wrote in message
news:d9v2ki02f6t@drn.newsguy.com...
| Quote: | casioculture@gmail.com filted:
Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please?
Exactly analogous to "Me I Mine My" (which was almost a George Harrison
song)....
"_I_ have a cat."
"It followed _me_ home."
"It sleeps on _my_ bed."
"This cat is now _mine_."
"_Thou_ hast a cat." (note archaic verb inflection to go with archaic
pronoun)
"It followed _thee_ home."
"It sleeps on _thy_ bed."
"*That* cat is _thine_."
|
NB that "thine" is also used instead of "thy" before a vowel sound: "thy
leg", but "thine arm" (like "a" and "an").
Alan Jones |
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R H Draney
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 3:59 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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John Lawler filted:
| Quote: |
casioculture@gmail.com> writes:
Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please?
First, a word of warning: if you have to ask, you shouldn't use them.
They're dead, and only those who have studied Black Gramarye deeply
and mastered the Rite of Ashkente dare call them back to life without
grave danger. Be Ware. You Have Been Warned.
|
As far as I'm concerned, anyone at a Renaissance Faire gets brownie points for
using *any* of ye olde pronouns correctly....
("From whence do you you come from, fair maiden?" - overheard at one such)....r |
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Skitt
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Lars Eighner
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 4:44 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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In our last episode,
<1120077265.598663.316590@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, the
lovely and talented casioculture@gmail.com broadcast on
alt.usage.english:
| Quote: | Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please?
|
These are different cases of the second person singular pronoun.
Here is the comparision to "I":
Latin case/English case 1st Person 2nd Person Examples
nominative/subjective: I thou (I am, thou art)
accusative/objective: me thee (to me, to thee).
"Thy" and "thine," however, were not exactly analogous to the
"my" and "mine" in present-day English. "Thine" was the
genitive/possessive before words starting with a vowel or h:
"thine house," and "thy" was used before other words "thy God."
(This was also the practice with "my" and "mine" at that time,
although it wasn't in either case applied uniformly in the best
known texts, such as the King James Bible.) "Thine" was also
used in the same way "mine" is used in present-day English.
"Ye" was the nominative/subjective of "you" (and is not to be
confused with "ye" in "Ye olde choppe shoppe" in which "ye"
is really "the" where y has been used as an approximation
of the letter ŝ (that's thorn for those not reading in
iso-8859-1).
Some present-day dialects still use the singular second person
pronoun, but not necessarily according to the rules above. For
example, some use "thou" both as the subjective and objective
pronoun. This should not be too surprising since in Standard
English, "you" is now used in both the subjective and objective
cases, and where "ye" exists, it often serves in both cases. The
second person in English is a big mess. The dialects of some
small religious communities which use the singular second person
pronoun use it as a revival from the King James Bible, not as a
preserved usage from a time it was current.
We sometimes get questions referring to texts with "thou,"
"thee," etc. as Old English. The truth is, neither you nor I
can read Old English, and might not even be able to tell that it
was any kind of English. We can pick out many words in Middle
English (e.g. Chaucer) and generally get the sense out of most
of it, but we are utterly stymied by some of the words. Middle
English (well, at least as Chaucer wrote it) is a very melodious
language, so take the chance, if you get it, of hearing it read.
The King James Bible and Shakespeare are early Modern English.
"Thou" was well on its way out of the language by that time and
wasn't used consistently and regularly in either text.
Here are some hints on conjugation from an old post by *Mark*
*Israel* (from my own archives since I can't get Google to cough it
up):
| Quote: | (I) Thou shalt conjugate the present indicative of a regular verb
thus:
I love We love
Thou lovest Ye love
He loveth They love
(II) Thou shalt not use "-eth", except for the present indicative
third person SINGULAR. Thou shalt NOT use "-eth" with a PLURAL
subject.
WRONG: Clothes maketh the man.
RIGHT: Clothes make the man.
RIGHT: Attire maketh the man.
(III) Thou shalt not use "-est", except for:
(i) the present indicative second person singular,
WRONG: You lovest men.
RIGHT: Thou lovest men.
RIGHT: Ye love men.
(ii) the past indicative second person singular of irregular
verbs. For the past indicative second person singular of
regular verbs, thou shalt use "-edst", or "didst" with the
infinitive.
RIGHT: Thou gavest money. ["Give" is irregular -- takes
-est LE]
RIGHT: Thou lovedst money.
RIGHT: Thou didst love money.
(IV) Thou shalt NOT append "-est" or "-eth" to the INFINITIVE! If
thou usest an auxiliary verb, then thy main verb (if not a
participle) is infinitive.
WRONG: Thou canst lovest.
RIGHT: Thou canst love.
WRONG: It makes me runneth.
RIGHT: It maketh me to run.
(V) Thou shalt not confound the second person with the third person.
WRONG: Thou undercounteth me.
RIGHT: Thou undercountest me.
(VI) Thou shalt form a negative by putting "not" after the first
verb in the positive statement.
WRONG: My cup doesn't runneth over.
RIGHT: My cup runneth not over.
(VII) Thou shalt not use any inflection for a command.
RIGHT: Thou rulest the waves. (Indicative.)
RIGHT: Rule thou the waves! (Imperative.)
(VIII) Thou shalt not use "-eth" with the subject "I", even if a
noun interveneth.
WRONG: I, the Lord, delighteth in the chastity of women.
RIGHT: I, the Lord, delight in the chastity of women.
(IX) Thou shalt not use a preterite for an infinitive. "Begat" is
a preterite.
WRONG: Those who live in squalor will begat children.
RIGHT: They that live in squalor will beget children.
(X) Thou shalt recognise that these rules are far from complete.
A subsequent lesson could focus on the conjugations of irregular
verbs.
|
--
Lars Eighner eighner@io.com http://www.larseighner.com/
If you can't convince them, confuse them. --Harry S Truman |
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Aaron Davies
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 5:50 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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R H Draney <dadoctah@spamcop.net> wrote:
| Quote: | John Lawler filted:
casioculture@gmail.com> writes:
Thou Thee Thine thy.
Can someone explain with a simple example the difference between the
above, please?
First, a word of warning: if you have to ask, you shouldn't use them.
They're dead, and only those who have studied Black Gramarye deeply
and mastered the Rite of Ashkente dare call them back to life without
grave danger. Be Ware. You Have Been Warned.
As far as I'm concerned, anyone at a Renaissance Faire gets brownie points
for using *any* of ye olde pronouns correctly....
("From whence do you you come from, fair maiden?" - overheard at one
such)....r
|
Should be "Whence come ye...", right?
--
Aaron Davies
Opinions expressed are solely those of a random number generator.
Magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
Ho! Ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Thrust! |
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R H Draney
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2005 6:51 am
Post subject: Re: Thou Thee Thine thy |
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Aaron Davies filted:
| Quote: |
R H Draney <dadoctah@spamcop.net> wrote:
("From whence do you you come from, fair maiden?" - overheard at one
such)....r
Should be "Whence come ye...", right?
|
The extra "you" was my typo, but the rest was as I heard it....r |
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