He talks about past participles vs past forms, in: "It was froze," or "I thought the left collarbone was broke" as said by a doctor (i.e., an educated man)
In French and Italian and German, in the perfect tense, most verbs take "have" but some take "is": the literal translation of "I have fallen" in French would be "I is fallen". Also, "You are returned," "you are come," etc. and you have to learn the verb forms being vs having. These were also in Old and Middle English, and it was disappearing across the 1700s-1800s. So the transcript has "before she is returned," "Is Elma gone to bed?" etc.
"She followed me in, where was two young men of the family." "And came into the room, where was Elias Ring." This is something from Germanic languages (also an English root), where the verb stays in the same place: There was Elias Ring -> [Clause], where was Elias Ring. This is now obsolete (And came into the room, where Elias Ring was) except in the dialogue construction "blah blah," said Fred.
If you want to listen to it (I don't see a transcript, unfortunately - I was just now re-listening to pick out bits for you) you can find it at podcast sites or at https://lexiconvalley.substack.com/ (you don't need to subscribe).
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In French and Italian and German, in the perfect tense, most verbs take "have" but some take "is": the literal translation of "I have fallen" in French would be "I is fallen". Also, "You are returned," "you are come," etc. and you have to learn the verb forms being vs having. These were also in Old and Middle English, and it was disappearing across the 1700s-1800s. So the transcript has "before she is returned," "Is Elma gone to bed?" etc.
"She followed me in, where was two young men of the family." "And came into the room, where was Elias Ring." This is something from Germanic languages (also an English root), where the verb stays in the same place: There was Elias Ring -> [Clause], where was Elias Ring. This is now obsolete (And came into the room, where Elias Ring was) except in the dialogue construction "blah blah," said Fred.
If you want to listen to it (I don't see a transcript, unfortunately - I was just now re-listening to pick out bits for you) you can find it at podcast sites or at https://lexiconvalley.substack.com/ (you don't need to subscribe).