# Is there a etymological reason why the first and third person singular endings are often the same?



## ilearnslowly

On many occasions, eg. the imperfect and the subjunctive, the endings for spanish verbs are the same. Unless I am missing something, there is no way other than context to distinguish between the yo and usted/el/ella forms. Is there a reason why this is so. Were the two originally considered to have a similar meaning?


my lame attempt at the question in spanish (I am not sure how to type accents on my computer, but any feedback on my spanish is appreciated): 

hay muchas veces cuando la primera y tercera persona se conjugan en la misma manera exacta. Por ejemplo, en el imperfecto, hablaba puede significar 'yo' o 'el'. El subjunctivo es el mismo (yo hable y el hable)

Hay una explicacion historical por que es asi? Cuando hay tantas terminaciones diferentes en la lengua, me parece estrano que estos dos son los mismos cuando tienen significas tan distintas.


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## ilya

I would say for exactly the same reason for which English verbs have the same ending in first person, second person and third person plural: I do / you do / they do. 

In other words, no, there is no reason for it besides the fact that languages tend to simplify while developing and reduce the number of forms used. If you learn more languages, you'll find lots of examples where very different grammar forms use the same ending, hoping that context makes clear which is meant. Or even simplify to the point of not using endings at all, as happens with noun cases in both English and Spanish - there are none.


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## The Newt

I'm no Latinist, but I believe the Latin imperfect endings, which did make a distinction between (for example)_ -bam _(first-person) and _-bat _(third person), have decayed or been simplified over time. So the short answer is no, the forms weren't originally considered to mean the same thing; they were simplified because speakers found they didn't need to distinguish them. Analogous processes have operated in English, which has, for most verbs, an even more radically simplified inventory of verb endings.


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## bibax

The original Latin forms were different (imperfect, conjunctive):

1. cantabam - cantabamus
2. cantabas - cantabatis
3. cantabat - cantabant

1. cantem - cantemus
2. cantes - cantetis
3. cantet - cantent

Spanish lost the ending -m in the 1st person sing. and the ending -t in 3rd person in both numbers. Unlike Italian Spanish still retains the final -s (cantes, cantemos, cantéis).

In Latin the endings -am/-em were probably pronounced like nasal -a/-e , the nasalization was eventually lost.



> ... they were simplified because speakers found they didn't need to distinguish them.


IMO it was not a conscious process.


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## The Newt

bibax said:


> [...]
> 
> IMO it was not a conscious process.



I'm sure you're right.


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## francisgranada

bibax said:


> IMO it was not a conscious process.


Of course, see e.g. _cantamos _(< Lat. _cantamus_) and _cantamos _(< Lat. _cantavimus_). This is, perhaps, even more surprising: there is no formal difference between the present and the past tenses (pretérito perfecto).

P.S. The Italian distinction between _cantavo _(1st pers. sg) and _cantava _(3rd pers. sg.) is a secondary innovation, i.e. the older versions for the  1st pers. sg. were  (i_o) cantava, era, temea/temeva, partia/partiva, etc .._. in Italian as well.


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## bearded

francisgranada said:


> i_o  cantava, era, temea/temeva, partia/partiva, etc .._. in Italian as well.


And some dialects still retain this feature: e.g. in Bolognese _mé a cantèva _(I was singing), _ló al cantèva _(he was singing).
In French there is a difference in the written form, but not in pronunciation: _je chantais, il chantait..._


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## fdb

In Germanic languages the 1st and 3rd person singular are identical in the perfect/preterite tense, and hence also in the so-called preterite-presents, such as English I/he can, I/he may, I/he shall.


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## Sobakus

Curiously, in Polish this is true in the Present for the e-type conjugation because final first-person ę's are (almost?) universally denasalised.


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## Testing1234567

ilearnslowly said:


> On many occasions, eg. the imperfect and the subjunctive, the endings for spanish verbs are the same. Unless I am missing something, there is no way other than context to distinguish between the yo and usted/el/ella forms. Is there a reason why this is so. Were the two originally considered to have a similar meaning?
> 
> 
> my lame attempt at the question in spanish (I am not sure how to type accents on my computer, but any feedback on my spanish is appreciated):
> 
> hay muchas veces cuando la primera y tercera persona se conjugan en la misma manera exacta. Por ejemplo, en el imperfecto, hablaba puede significar 'yo' o 'el'. El subjunctivo es el mismo (yo hable y el hable)
> 
> Hay una explicacion historical por que es asi? Cuando hay tantas terminaciones diferentes en la lengua, me parece estrano que estos dos son los mismos cuando tienen significas tan distintas.



You might want a reply in terms of phonology.

Firstly, the endings were *never* stressed, in Latin or in Vulgar Latin. Syllables after the stress tend to decay. In modern French, *all* syllables after the stress have already decayed, so the stress is always on the last syllable.

Let's refer to the endings:

    singular         plural
1. cantab*am* - canta*bamus*
2. cantab*as* - canta*batis*
3. cantab*at* - canta*bant*

1. cant*em* - cant*emus*
2. cant*es* - cant*etis*
3. cant*et* - cant*ent
*
As can be seen, the 1st-sg and 3rd-sg end in *-m* and *-t* respectively. By the time of Vulgar Latin, *-am* has already become *-ã* (nasal) and *-em* has become *-ẽ*, so you cannot see the final *-m* in any Romance languages. The *-t* is also unstable and has disappeared in virtually every Romance language (except maybe Sardinian). In Old French, the *-t* has already undergone lenition to become *-ṭ* /θ/, so this ending did indeed survive in Vulgar Latin.

You can see the instability of the ending *-t* by considering the fact that in British English, word-final *-t*'s have been dropped (light /lajt/ > /lajʔ/).

The ending *-s* is quite stable, as it is a fricative, although it only survived to Middle French and is completely dropped in Modern French.


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## ahvalj

Testing1234567 said:


> In Old French, the *-t* has already undergone lenition to become *-ṭ* /θ/, so this ending did indeed survive in Vulgar Latin.
> The ending *-s* is quite stable, as it is a fricative, although it only survived to Middle French and is completely dropped in Modern French.


Both survive (as _t_ and _z_) in modern French before the initial vowel of the next word.


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## Testing1234567

ahvalj said:


> Both survive (as _t_ and _z_) in modern French before the initial vowel of the next word.



The survival of _t_ is very limited. I'm not talking about the final *-t* before a deleted vowel (such as momen*t*). I'm talking a final *-t* all by itself (e.g. in chantet, which has not survived after Old French). One can only find it in inversion, where one would say chante-*t*-elle.


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## ilearnslowly

Thanks for the replies everyone, I only just got a notification about them today. Interesting stuff, particularly Testing1234567. That was the kind of answer I was looking for - I hadn't thought about going back to the latin.


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## Testing1234567

ilearnslowly, seeing that your thread title does not contain "Spanish", were you interested in just Spanish or languages in general?


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## ilearnslowly

Testing1234567 said:


> ilearnslowly, seeing that your thread title does not contain "Spanish", were you interested in just Spanish or languages in general?


honestly, I can't remember, but I think the question that was triggered by the fact that this seems to recur across the romance languages. If it was purely that the languages 'simplified' or was pure chance, yes I would have expected some endings to have multiple meanings, but I wouldn't have expected such consistency. ie. why isn't it that the second and third person endings are the same in some languages? or the third person singular and plural? but I think I have had satisfactory answers in here.


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