Regarding Dual Pronouns:

1. Are they mandatory?
2. How do they conjugate verbs?

--- Haukur Thorgeirsson <haukurth@...> wrote:

> that dual - in the sense of a word having a
> different form depending
> on whether there are two are many - is not
> found in English.
>
> vit = we two
> v�r = we (more than two)
>
> �it = you two
> ��r = you (more than two)
>

1. Does one HAVE to use the dual if he knows
there are two? Can he simply use the plural if he
wants? I'm not trying to make it easy on myself -
I just want to know if the usage is for cases
where the speaker wants to stress the duality.

2. Do dual pronouns conjugate verbs as plurals,
singulars or do they have their own conjugation?

Also - at one point in lesson 2 you translate to
English with "thou art". I think "thou" is old
English second person *formal* ("you" and "ye"
were informal). Are you just trying to highlight
the cognate ("art" = "ert"), or is "��" formal (I
thought you've already said Old Norse has no
formal/informat second person differentiation)?

Finally, I, for one, would still like the *.doc
format alot.

>
> >The construction "you two" or "we two" is
> actually used quite often. It is
> >another way of saying "the two of you" or "the
> two of us". The latter is of
> >course the more common structure, and as the
> number of participants
> >increases beyond say three or four you will
> not find people saying "we
> >eight" or "you eight", etc.
>
> Yes, interesting. One wonders where exactly the
> boundary lies:)
>
> we two (normal)
> we three (normal)
> we four (abnormal??)
> we five (abnormal?)
>
> Regards,
> Haukur
>
>
>
>

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