Dative Subjects (was: Re: Genetic Descent)

[Eduard Selleslagh]

----- Original Message -----
From: "A. G. Kozak" <agkozak at socrates.Berkeley.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 6:39 PM

> ----Original Message-----
>> From:     Leo A. Connolly [SMTP:connolly at memphis.edu]
>> Sent:    Wednesday, July 04, 2001 2:49 AM

> . . .

>> We formerly had such things -- think "methinks" -- an object in preverbal
>> position not controlling verb agreement.  We have since solved our problem
>> by making _me_ into a true subject _I_ -- with no change in meaning!

> I can see what you're getting at, but isn't this a bit of an
> oversimplification?  We haven't changed any object into a subject; we've
> simply dropped the peculiar "methinks" from the language, mostly because it
> looks so wrong to anyone unfamiliar with older forms of English.  If anyone
> had remembered that "me-" is a dative and that "-thinks" is a reflex of AS.
> "þyncan" ("to seem") and not "þencan" ("to think"), we'd probably all
> still be saying it.  As it is, however, "methinks" ended up being the last
> remnant of a verb otherwise lost in ModE., & so it was prone to be
> misunderstood and finally abandoned.

> A. G. Kozak

[Ed Selleslagh]

You may be interested in learning that in Dutch this expression still exists
(mainly in Flanders): "me dunkt" instead of "denk ik" (or "ik denk" (I think)
according to the place in the sentence). Curiously enough, most dictionaries
seem to believe that "dunken" is a variant of "denken" (to think), probably
misled (mizzled??? :-)) by the erroneous interpretation of the noun "eigendunk"
(=exaggerated self-esteem, self-conceit) as "thought about oneself" instead
of "that what seems to oneself". This interpretation looks pretty old, as in
texts from several centuries ago you can find a past tense "me docht"
("***methought"), using the conjugation of "denken". BTW, the verb "dunken" is
lost in Dutch.

Ed.