# About subject that in English must appear



## tittiugo

About subject that in English must appear, Always!

Hi WR Etymology etc Forum, 

Is someone able to explain why, differently from Italian, writing English the subject  must be always used?

I mean, when did all begin?


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## fdb

I assume you are asking about subject pronouns ("I, you, he" etc.) Is that right? Maybe you should ask the question in Italian.


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## tittiugo

Thanks fdb, 

You're perfectly right...do you mean only Italian?

Ciao


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## danielstan

I have the same situation in Romanian and I know also in Russian they don't use subject in spoken language.

The cause is simple:
Italian, Romanian, Russian have different verb conjugations for each person (singular and plural), so one can deduce from the subject from the verb.
io vedo / eu văd / я вижу
tu vedi / tu vezi / ты видишь

could be safely reduced to:

vedo / văd / вижу
vedi / vezi / видишь

French and English have the same verb form for many persons (French pronunciation is the same for 1st, 2nd and 3rd person at singular):

je vois / I see
tu vois / you see

Reduction would give:

vois / see
vois / see

which is confusing.


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## fdb

To explain this as “reduction” ignores the whole historical perspective. All the ancient IE languages (Hittite, Sanskrit, Avestan, Greek, Latin etc.) have verb forms which are explicit with regard to person and consequently use the nominative form of the personal pronouns only for reinforcing the subject. Latin (for example) did not reduce “ego canto” to “canto”; instead English (for example) disambiguated “sing” to “I/you/we/they sing”.


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## berndf

fdb said:


> instead English (for example) disambiguated “sing” to “I/you/we/they sing”.


I doubt that this is the correct explanation. Compulsory nominative pronouns in Germanic languages are older than the morphological simplifications in English. They probably developed together with V2 word order and not to compensate for losses or mergers of personal endings.


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## tittiugo

Thanks all of you...


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## M Mira

berndf said:


> I doubt that this is the correct explanation. Compulsory nominative pronouns in Germanic languages are older than the morphological simplifications in English. They probably developed together with V2 word order and not to compensate for losses or mergers of personal endings.


IIRC Portuguese also developed mandatory subject even as it kept the full conjugation for person.


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## Nino83

Also in Icelandic subject pronouns are mandatory like in English and it has a well developed verb cojugation, so probably this syntactic feature is very old.


M Mira said:


> IIRC Portuguese also developed mandatory subject even as it kept the full conjugation for person.


In Brazilian Portuguese it is more common in spoken language to use very often explicit subject pronouns.
At the same time, verb conjugation for person is simplified in spoken BP.
(Eu) falo (tu) falas (ele) fala (nós) falamos (vocês) *falam* (eles) *falam* (European Portuguese)
Eu falo, você *fala*, ele *fala*, a gente *fala*, vocês *falam*, eles *falam* (Brazilian Portuguese)
(Eu) *falava* (tu) falavas (ele) *falava* (nós) falávamos (vocês) *falavam* (eles) *falavam* (European Portuguese)
Eu *falava*, você *falava*, ele *falvava*, a gente *falava*, vocês *falavam*, eles *falavam* (Brazilian Portuguese)
As you can notice, in Brazilian Portuguese there are three different forms in the present and preterite tense and two forms in the past imperfect tense.


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## danielstan

fdb said:


> To explain this as “reduction” ignores the whole historical perspective. All the ancient IE languages (Hittite, Sanskrit, Avestan, Greek, Latin etc.) have verb forms which are explicit with regard to person and consequently use the nominative form of the personal pronouns only for reinforcing the subject. Latin (for example) did not reduce “ego canto” to “canto”; instead English (for example) disambiguated “sing” to “I/you/we/they sing”.



I could be wrong in what I will say, but:
- these ancient languages are known to us from written sources and usually the written form of a language differs in many aspects from the spoken form of it.
Especially Classical Latin was very formalized in writing - same person was using a very correct literary language in official documents and used words of the lower classes in private letters.
I forgot if this one was Cicero or Tacitus - who used, in private, Greek loanwords and words heard in the speech of his slaves.

So, I would accept your explanation if there are texts from ancient grammarians who records the fact that formal language was used in private speeches, too.

As I said, I am not very familiarized with these languages and I am open to hear an more knowledgeable opinion.


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## berndf

Nino83 said:


> Also in Icelandic subject pronouns are mandatory like in English and it has a well developed verb cojugation, so probably this syntactic feature is very old.


It is a common Germanic feature.


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## Gavril

Verb endings in Old English and Icelandic were/are less ambiguous than in Modern English, but still considerably more so than in Romance languages like Italian:

“(I) say/said”: OE _secge_/_sægde _- Icelandic _segi_/_sagði_ - Italian _dico/dissi/dicevo_

“(thou) sayest/saidst”: OE _sægst/sægdest - _Ic._ segir/sagðir - _It. _dici/dicesti/dicevi_

“(he/etc.) says/said”: OE _sægþ/sægde - _Ic. _segir/sagði - _It._ dice/disse/diceva
_
“(we) say/said”: OE _secgaþ/sægdon - _Ic. _segjum/sögðum - _It. _diciamo/dicemmo/dicevamo_

“(you, plural) say/said”: OE _secgaþ/sægdon - _Ic. _segið/sögðuð_ - It. _dite/diceste/dicevaste_

“(they) say/said”: OE _secgaþ/sægdon  - _Ic._ segja/sögðu - _It._ dicono/dissero/dicevano_

(blue = overlaps with the verb form of a different subject)

Not shown in this list are the Icelandic infinitive (_segja_ "to say"), which is identical to the 3pl. present, and the OE 1/2/3sg. present subjunctive, which is identical to the 1sg. pres. indicative.

In light of this, it still seems quite plausible that increased ambiguity (in verb endings) was the main impetus behind the Germanic preference for explicit subjects. There may not be a 1-to-1 causal connection between these two properties, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a significant correlation, i.e. that loss of morphological marking doesn't create pressure to fill the same functional niche with other available elements such as pronouns.


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## Hulalessar

Gavril said:


> In light of this, it still seems quite plausible that increased ambiguity (in verb endings) was the main impetus behind the Germanic preference for explicit subjects. There may not be a 1-to-1 causal connection between these two properties, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a significant correlation, i.e. that loss of morphological marking doesn't create pressure to fill the same functional niche with other available elements such as pronouns.



It does seem plausible, but the snag with the theory is that there are many languages where the verb is not marked for person which do not require the use of subject pronouns.


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## Gavril

Hulalessar said:


> It does seem plausible, but the snag with the theory is that there are many languages where the verb is not marked for person which do not require the use of subject pronouns.



Are you talking about cases like Chinese and Japanese? 

At least these two languages are not clear counter-evidence, because it isn't clear that either language ever had regular verbal subject marking (via pronouns, affixes, or other means). Thus, there was (as far as we can tell) no loss of the kind mentioned in the paragraph you quoted:



> that doesn't mean [...] that loss of morphological marking doesn't create pressure to fill the same functional niche with other available elements such as pronouns.


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## berndf

Gavril said:


> Verb endings in Old English and Icelandic were/are less ambiguous than in Modern English, but still considerably more so than in Romance languages like Italian:


Mandatory nominative pronouns are a common Germanic feature and I am not sure both OE and Icelandic are old enough as evidence.


Gavril said:


> There may not be a 1-to-1 causal connection between these two properties, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a significant correlation


Agreed.


Gavril said:


> , i.e. that loss of morphological marking doesn't create pressure to fill the same functional niche with other available elements such as pronouns.


It does not necessarily mean that. It would be much more obvious to assume that the loss of distinctive personal endings is the result of the presence of nominative pronouns and not the other way round.


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## Gavril

berndf said:


> No, it does not mean that. It would be much more obvious to assume that the loss of distinctive personal endings is the result of the presence of nominative pronouns and not the other way round.



I don't see how one is *more* obvious than the other. Can you elaborate?


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## berndf

In common Germanic, there is not much of of a reason to make nominative pronouns mandatory. But V2 syntax does. If nominative pronouns are older than ending simplification, which I claim, then it is more obvious.


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## Hulalessar

I think it is just the case that some languages may require something to be covered twice, some once and some not at all.


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## Awwal12

danielstan said:


> I have the same situation in Romanian and I know also in Russian they don't use subject in spoken language.


Russian MAY not use pronouns as subjects, but it's surely not obligatory. Especially considering that in the past tense verbal forms aren't personal and are differentiated by gender instead (etymologically, past tense forms of most Slavic languages are indeclinable participles).


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## berndf

Moderator note: This thread is about *English*. Posts about other languages are off-topic unless the relevance for English is demonstrated.


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