364 The Loom of Language
We cannot omit the French subject pronoun Indeed, it has no
separate existence apart from the verb In answer to a question, the
Spaniard, Portuguese, or Italian will use yo> eu> 10 Except in the legal
je sousstgne, the Frenchman does not use;0 m answer to a question, he
uses the stressed moi where we usually say me, eg
QuiTa/ait? Mot. Who did it? Me (= I did)
This rule applies to French pronouns of all persons in so far as there
are distinctive stressed forms (mot, tot, hit, eux) In the same situation the
Italian uses the stressed form for the third person (lut> lord) The French-
man uses the stressed forms whenever the pronoun (a) is detached from
its verb, (&) stands alone Frenchmen never use them next to the verb,
eg
(a) Lui, mon ami} He, my friend'
(p) Mot^je n*en sais nen I (myself) know nothing about it
(c) Jeferai comme tot Til do as you (do)
There are emphatic French forms of myself> himself, etc mot"
meme,> lut-meme^ etc The Spanish equivalent of mime is mtsmo(s)~
misma(s) The unstressed subject form precedes it, unless it emphasizes
a noun, e g
lo hago yo mtsmo I do it myself
mi mujer mtsma my wife herself
In all the Romance languages dealt with in this chapter the stressed
forms are the ones we have to use after a preposition, and they take up
the same place in the sentence as the corresponding noun, e g
English / came without her.
French Je suis venu sans elle
Portuguese Tenho vindo sem ella
Spanish He verudo sin ella
Italian Sono venuto senza ella
The unstressed direct or indirect object form is overshadowed by
the verb, which it immediately precedes or follows We always have to
use it when there is no preceding preposition in a statement or ques-
tion It always comes before the French verb, and nearly always does so
in Spanish and Italian statements.,eg Je faime beaucoup (French), Te
amo mucho (Span), Tt amo motto (Ital) = I love you a lot Portuguese
is out of step with its sister dialects. In simple affirmative Portuguese
sentences the object usually follows the verb and a hyphen connects
them, e g .
ele procura-me = he is looking for me
o hvro = he gives me the book