Impersonal Verb in Various Languages
In some languages such as English, French, German and Dutch, an impersonal verb always takes an impersonal pronoun (it in English, il in French, es in German, het in Dutch) as its syntactical subject:
- It snowed yesterday. (English)
- Il a neigé hier. (French)
- Il risque de pleuvoir. (Title of a novel by Emmanuelle Heidsieck)
- Es schneite gestern. (German)
- Het sneeuwde gisteren. (Dutch)
Occasionally an impersonal verb will allow a noun to appear in apposition to the impersonal pronoun:
- It is raining diamonds.
Or as an instrumental adjunct:
- It was pouring with rain. (British)
- Весь декабрь заливало дождём.
In some other languages (necessarily null subject languages and typically pro-drop languages), such as Portuguese, Spanish, Occitan, Catalan, Italian, Romanian, in Hungarian and all the Slavic languages, an impersonal verb takes no subject at all, but it is conjugated in the third-person singular, which is much as though it had a third-person, singular subject.
- Nevó ayer. (Spanish)
- Nevou ontem. (Portuguese)
- Ha nevicato ieri. (Italian)
- Sniježilo je jučer. (Croatian)
- Havazott tegnap. (Hungarian)
- Вчера вееше снег. / Včera veeše sneg. (Macedonian)
Other languages, those which require a subject, may permit an adjunct to assume that role.
- Unfortunately the next day poured with rain.
Read more about this topic: Impersonal Verb
Famous quotes containing the words impersonal, verb and/or languages:
“The impersonal insensitive friendliness which takes the place of ceremony in that land of waifs and strays.”
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–1966)
“The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“The less sophisticated of my forbears avoided foreigners at all costs, for the very good reason that, in their circles, speaking in tongues was commonly a prelude to snake handling. The more tolerant among us regarded foreign languages as a kind of speech impediment that could be overcome by willpower.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)