Impersonal verb - Revision history

PeterWilson at 15:37, 14 January 2011

2011-01-14T15:37:56Z

PeterWilson at 16:40, 3 January 2011

2011-01-03T16:40:35Z

PeterWilson at 16:20, 3 January 2011

2011-01-03T16:20:08Z

PeterWilson at 16:11, 3 January 2011

2011-01-03T16:11:19Z

PeterWilson: New page: An '''impersonal verb''' is one which has no clear semantic Subject. In English, the grammatical Subject is usually an impersonal pronoun - the word '''it''', which is used wit...

2011-01-03T16:03:17Z

New page: An '''impersonal verb''' is one which has no clear semantic Subject. In English, the grammatical Subject is usually an impersonal pronoun - the word '''it''', which is used wit...

New page

An '''impersonal [[verb]]''' is one which has no clear semantic [[Subject]]. In English, the grammatical Subject is usually an [[impersonal pronoun]] - the word '''it''', which is used with the [[third person]] [[singular]] of the [[present tense]]. This gives such sentences as "It is raining", where the grammatical function of the word '''it''' is clear, but there is no phenomenon in the real world to which '''it''' refers.

'''Impersonal verbs''' are currently used in such constructions as "It seems to me...", "it occurs to me", in which an essentially subjective experience is expressed in quasi-objective terms. It used to have a wider range, and in [[Old English]] a more recognized grammatical status. It was applied with
*certain verbs of liking or recommending, etc. Some still survive in formal language: it is proper to start a petition to the Queen with the phrasal impersonal construction "May it please the Queen's most excellent Majesty..." To describe someone's whim, an historian may write "It pleased her to ..."
*[[Birchfield's Fowler]] says that impersonal verbs were "once a rich class of verbs originally (in O[ld] E[nglish<nowiki>]</nowiki>]]) governing either an accusative or dative case. Examples of past uses: ''What boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade''...? ([[Milton]]) 'What good does it do ...?); ''him listeth'' 'he is pleased ...; ''methinks'' 'it seems to me'". (the last two are common in [[Shakespeare]] and his contemporaries.)
**This is akin to their use in [[Latin]] and other [[Romance languages]], along with many European and non-European tongues, where the grammatical [[Subject]] of a verb may be expressed purely by [[inflect]]ion, with no separate Subject word. In Latin, for example, one way of saying 'I ought to ...' was ''me opportet'', [[literal]]ly 'me [it] [[behove]]s', or '[it] is incumbent [on] me', where the English pronoun 'it' (and the [[progressive aspect]] 'is') is expressed by the inflection ''-et'' and the [[preposition]] 'on' is expressed by the Latin case-ending of ''me''. the [[accusative of ''ego'', 'I'.

[[category:archaic English]]
[[category:grammar]]
[[category:Grammar concepts]]
[[category:Verb attributes]]
[[category:Verb concepts]]

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 *certain verbs of liking or recommending, etc. Some still survive in formal language: it is proper to start a petition to the Queen with the phrasal impersonal construction "May it please the Queen's most excellent Majesty..." To describe someone's whim, an historian may write "It pleased her to ..."
 *[[Birchfield's Fowler]] says that impersonal verbs were "once a rich class of verbs originally (in O[ld] E[nglish<nowiki>]</nowiki>]]) governing either an accusative or dative case. Examples of past uses: ''What boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade''...? ([[Milton]]) 'What good does it do ...?); ''him listeth'' 'he is pleased ...; ''methinks'' 'it seems to me'". (the last two are common in [[Shakespeare]] and his contemporaries.)
-**This is akin to their use in [[Latin]] and other [[Romance languages]], along with many European and non-European tongues, where the grammatical [[Subject]] of a verb may  be expressed purely by [[inflect]]ion, with no separate Subject word. In Latin, for example, one way of saying 'I ought to ...' was ''me opportet'', [[literal]]ly 'me [it] [[Behalf - behoof - behove|behove]]s', or '[it] is incumbent [on] me', where the English pronoun 'it' (and the [[continuous|continuous aspect]] 'is') is expressed by the inflection ''-et'' and the [[preposition]] 'on' is expressed by the Latin case-ending of ''me''. the [[accusative of ''ego'', 'I'. Similarly, a preference could be expressed by the two words ''Mihi placet'': '[it is] pleasing [to] me', using the impersonal verb ''placet'' and ''mihi'', the [[dative case]] of ''ego''.
+**This is akin to their use in [[Latin]] and other [[Romance languages]], along with many European and non-European tongues, where the grammatical [[Subject]] of a verb may  be expressed purely by [[inflect]]ion, with no separate Subject word. In Latin, for example, one way of saying 'I ought to ...' was ''me opportet'', [[literal]]ly 'me [it] [[Behalf - behoof - behove|behove]]s', or '[it] is incumbent [on] me', where the English pronoun 'it' (and the [[continuous|continuous aspect]] 'is') is expressed by the inflection ''-et'' and the [[preposition]] 'on' is expressed by the Latin [[Case in grammar|case]]-ending of ''me'', the [[accusative]] of ''ego'', 'I'. Similarly, a preference could be expressed by the two words ''Mihi placet'': '[it is] pleasing [to] me', using the impersonal verb ''placet'' and ''mihi'', the [[dative case]] of ''ego''. [[Shakespeare]] and other [[Early Modern English]] writers could still say "it likes him not", which similarly has a [[personal pronoun]] in the [[Objective]] case, as an alternative to 'he doesn't like it'.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 An '''impersonal [[verb]]''' is one which has no clear semantic [[Subject]]. In English, the grammatical Subject is usually an [[impersonal pronoun]] - the word '''it''', which is used with the [[third person]] [[singular]] of the [[present tense]]. This gives such sentences as "It is raining", where the grammatical function of the word '''it''' is clear, but there is no phenomenon in the real world to which '''it''' refers.
-'''Impersonal verbs''' are currently used in such constructions as "It seems to me...", "it occurs to me", in which an essentially subjective experience is expressed in quasi-objective terms. It used to have a wider range, and in [[Old English]] a more recognized grammatical status. It was applied with
+'''Impersonal verbs''' are also currently used in such constructions as "It seems to me...", "it occurs to me", in which an essentially subjective experience is expressed in quasi-objective terms. It used to have a wider range, and in [[Old English]] a more recognized grammatical status. It was applied with
 *certain verbs of liking or recommending, etc. Some still survive in formal language: it is proper to start a petition to the Queen with the phrasal impersonal construction "May it please the Queen's most excellent Majesty..." To describe someone's whim, an historian may write "It pleased her to ..."
 *[[Birchfield's Fowler]] says that impersonal verbs were "once a rich class of verbs originally (in O[ld] E[nglish<nowiki>]</nowiki>]]) governing either an accusative or dative case. Examples of past uses: ''What boots it with incessant care To tend the homely slighted shepherd's trade''...? ([[Milton]]) 'What good does it do ...?); ''him listeth'' 'he is pleased ...; ''methinks'' 'it seems to me'". (the last two are common in [[Shakespeare]] and his contemporaries.)
-**This is akin to their use in [[Latin]] and other [[Romance languages]], along with many European and non-European tongues, where the grammatical [[Subject]] of a verb may  be expressed purely by [[inflect]]ion, with no separate Subject word. In Latin, for example, one way of saying 'I ought to ...' was ''me opportet'', [[literal]]ly 'me [it] [[Behalf - behoof - behove|behove]]s', or '[it] is incumbent [on] me', where the English pronoun 'it' (and the [[continuous|continuous aspect]] 'is') is expressed by the inflection ''-et'' and the [[preposition]] 'on' is expressed by the Latin [[Case in grammar|case]]-ending of ''me'', the [[accusative]] of ''ego'', 'I'. Similarly, a preference could be expressed by the two words ''Mihi placet'': '[it is] pleasing [to] me', using the impersonal verb ''placet'' and ''mihi'', the [[dative case]] of ''ego''. [[Shakespeare]] and other [[Early Modern English]] writers could still say "it likes him not", which similarly has a [[personal pronoun]] in the [[Objective]] case, as an alternative to 'he doesn't like it'.
+**This is akin to their use in [[Latin]] and other [[Romance languages]], along with many European and non-European tongues, where the grammatical [[Subject]] of a verb may  be expressed purely by [[inflect]]ion, with no separate Subject word. In Latin, for example, one way of saying 'I ought to ...' was ''me opportet'', [[literal]]ly 'me [it] [[Behalf - behoof - behove|behove]]s', or '[it] is incumbent [on] me', where the English pronoun 'it' (and the [[continuous|continuous aspect]] 'is') is expressed by the inflection ''-et'' and the [[preposition]] 'on' is expressed by the Latin [[Case in grammar|case]]-ending of ''me'', the [[accusative]] of ''ego'', 'I'. Similarly, a preference could be expressed by the two words ''Mihi placet'': '[it is] pleasing [to] me', using the impersonal verb ''placet'' and ''mihi'', the [[dative]] case of ''ego''. [[Shakespeare]] and other [[Early Modern English]] writers could still say "it likes him not", which similarly has a [[personal pronoun]] in the [[Objective]] case, as an alternative to 'he doesn't like it'.