• Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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    1 day ago

    Conjugation depends on the individual pronoun, not on the grammatical structure. English isn’t Latin. A lot of people complained about singular they/them because of the conjugation, but we moved past that misunderstanding a decade ago.

    • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      If conjugation depends on the individual pronoun, the pronoun you used was third person since that’s the conjugation you used. They/them is also third person and singular and plural are conjugated the same, so the comparison doesn’t apply.

      To be clear, please use any and all pronouns you’re comfortable with. But don’t write a third person sentence and insist it’s first person.

      • Dragon Rider (drag)@lemmy.nz
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        1 day ago

        Conjugation doesn’t depend on the grammatical structure. Not directly, and not through the pronoun. Drag will prove it: they/them and you/you use the same conjugation, but are in different persons. You don’t think “they” is a second person pronoun, do you?

        • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Conjugation very much builds grammatical structure and is not independent from it. But that’s not what I said. As you said, conjugation depends (among others) on the pronoun. You said you were using a first person pronoun but then used a third person verb. This does not add up. You can either say “drag am always punctual” to make a first person sentence or “drag is always punctual” to make a third person sentence.

          • hobovision@lemm.ee
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            19 hours ago

            See, that’s the problem for drag, because if drag uses first person verbs then drag will sound silly but if drag uses third person verbs then drag will sound like drag is talking in third person, which will also sound silly.