Re: Sentences without any subject

On Oct 6, 1:17 am, John Atkinson <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Peter T. Daniels wrote:
On Oct 5, 7:52 pm, John Atkinson <johna...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Adam Funk wrote:
On 2009-10-05, Guy Barry wrote:
"Christian Weisgerber" <na...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

I don't know how remarkable all of this is in the bigger linguistic
picture.  It is pretty crazy if you are looking at it from English.

It's only remarkable if you're taught that a verb has to have a subject.
(It doesn't have to have an expressed subject in Latin, for example.)
After all, the German usage is perfectly logical: in a passive construction
the direct object of the active verb becomes the subject.  So if the verb
has no direct object, either because it's intransitive or because it takes
some other object, then it makes sense that the passive verb should have no
subject.  (In English, of course, you can't form the passive of an
intransitive verb.)
What's interesting is that in such cases the verb is always third person
singular.  Is this to be taken as the "default" form of the verb?  Or is
there in fact an implied subject which is third person singular, although
never expressed?  Difficult to say.

I'm curious as to whether Modern English is an exception among current
and past Germanic languages here.  Do most other Germanic languages
allow this?  How about Old English?

Modern English isn't an absolute exception to the "always third person
singular" principle.  In many colloquial registers, "there's" and "it's"
are perfectly acceptable, even standard, when followed by a plural noun.
 (I'm not so sure to what extent this is also the case for  the (rarer)
expanded versions, "there is" and "it is".)

I wonder whether the "ungrammaticality" of this in more formal registers
is due to prescriptionist disapproval, as is apparently the case with
singular "they".  Someone should check to see whether Shakespeare and
Jane Austin used it.

See any handbook of non-sexist writing.

I find it hard to believe that such a handbook would have much to say
about the issue under discussion, viz "there/it is".  But I'm willing to
be convinced otherwise, if anyone can provide us with a quotation.

You asked whether Shakepeare or Aust[e]n used singular "they." You
will find examples from both, I'm pretty sure, in such handbooks.

(BTW, as I'm sure you know, Jane Austin often used singular "they" when
she was referring to an unspecified member of a single-sex group.  As do
I.  As others have pointed out before, here and elsewhere, singular
"they" has nothing whatever to do with being "non-sexist" for those who
have it natively -- and that's probably nearly everyone who has English
as their first language, except possibly in NY and Oxbridge.  End of
irrelevant diversion -- I hope!  Sorry I mentioned it, even in passing.)

Maybe, then, you're _not_ talking about Jane Austen?

Singular "they" is a very legitimate way of avoiding sexist prose. Do
you not understand that?
.

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