Learn English – What purpose does third-person verb conjugation serve or used to serve

conjugationhistoryinflectional-morphology

There is one thing in English that doesn't make sense to me: adding 's' (or 'es') to verbs when the subject is a third person. It seems redundant and adds no extra information to the sentence.

"I like cakes", but "he likes cakes" –> 's' serves no purpose here.
In other European languages, there are conjugations for other subjects as well, e.g. in Dutch: "ik spreek", "jij spreekt", "jullie spreken". All of those conjugations are, in my opinion, purposeless in modern languages.

But as a product of linguistic evolution, they must have been there to serve a purpose. That purpose is lost now but I'm very interested in finding out what it was.

Best Answer

Like many features in language, there is no clear answer for "what purpose does that serve". Many European languages retain distinct endings for most or all the combinations of person and number; the modern Scandinavian languages have lost all of them. English has lost most, but retains the 3s ending.

Languages with full verbal conjugation may allow speakers to omit personal pronouns; but do not necessarily do so.

Really this is a historical accident, and there is not necessarily any reason or justification for it.

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Learn English – Usage of third person form for first person

According to Wikipedia, Pratchett has spent much of his life in the southwestern part of England, growing up in Buckinghamshire, and living in Somerset and Wiltshire. The use of -s in many verb forms (and not just in the 3rd person singular) is a dialect feature in this region.

Peter Trudgill writes in Dialects:

The grammatical rule for present-tense verb forms in the Berkshire dialect is obviously not the same as the one in Standard English. As you can see, Berkshire verb forms have the present-tense -s for all persons. The verbs go like this:
            Singular         Plural
1st person  I sings          we sings
2nd person  you sings        you sings
3rd person  he/she/it sings  they sings
Present-tense verb forms like this are part of the grammatical structure of dialects in many areas of southwestern England and South Wales, as well as other areas.

Like many regional dialects in England, this feature is well along the process of being displaced by the dialect of London and the southeast, but hangs on in the more remote and rural areas.

Pratchett doesn't have a well-worked-out system of dialects in his Discworld novels. Instead, he applies a variety of features somewhat haphazardly to indicate that a character speaks a non-standard dialect. Here are some examples of characters from widely separated parts of the Discworld demonstrating this grammatical feature:

Wintersmith — Granny Weatherwax — ‘I hopes I sees you in good health.’

Small Gods — unnamed Omnian — ‘Listen, I knows a square when I sees one!’

Snuff — Willikins — ‘I knows a bad one when I sees them.’

Interesting Times — Cohen the Barbarian — ‘I knows a wizard when I sees one!’

Pratchett's other techniques for indicating non-standard dialect include eye dialect:

Monstrous Regiment — Sergeant Jackrum — ‘This, my lads, is what we call a real orientation lectchoor...’

G dropping:

Guards! Guards! — Sergeant Colon — ‘We’re jus’ goin’ down, goin’ down—’

And H dropping:

Thief of Time — unnamed dwarf — ‘Sign ’ere, where it says “Sign ’Ere”.’

Learn English – Shall, third person singular, archaic form

Willeth is used as a transitive verb ("La Reine le veult," "The Queen wills it", as Parliament has the Royal Assent).

We don't get willeth for will as a modal auxiliary indicating future action. These verbs don't change; similarly shall and must don't change either.

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Learn English – Usage of third person form for first person

Learn English – Shall, third person singular, archaic form

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