Talk:quoth
Etymology
[edit]Old English cwæþ is the imperfect of cweþan (to say) and is an archaic form preserved in prose and poetry. Its cognates are Old High German QUETHAN[8], Old Norse kveða (to say)[7] and Gothic kwiþan[8], id. Remotely akin to Cornish COWS[4] (speech) and KEWSEL[4] (story, narative).
[0] means 'Absolutely not; [1] means 'Exceedingly unlikely'; [2] means 'Very dubious'; [3] means 'Questionable'; [4] means 'Possible'; [5] means 'Probable'; [6] means 'Likely'; [7] means 'Most Likely' or *Unattested; [8] means 'Attested'; [9] means 'Obvious' - only used for close matches within the same language or dialect, at linkable periods.
Andrew H. Gray 19:13, 28 October 2015 (UTC) Andrew (talk)
1st and 3rd person singular
[edit]Only used for the 1st and 3rd person singular pronouns. JMGN (talk) 12:26, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
"modal" how?
[edit]How could quoth (bare form) be "modal" or "auxiliary"? I'd argue quoth behaves differently grammatically and are semantically dissimilar to the modal verbs "may", "shall", "can", etc. Also while the base form quoth has the "modal, auxiliary" label while the defective past-tense quoth does not? If anything, the defective past-tense may is more eligible to be called "modal" in view of that modals do not agree with their subject. Ronaldo sewie (talk) 03:25, 25 September 2024 (UTC)