I have never studied linguistics in any formal way, but have always been fascinated by language and dialect. I'm studying Spanish at present. My French is a little rusty, but passable. I'm fluent in Italian and fairly fluent in Sicilian, though Sicily has some dialects which are literally Greek or Turkish to me.
The second person singular is still found in parts of Britain. I grew up in the north of England, where 2nd person singular was very common, especially outside the major cities. In Accrington, Lancashire, for example, a normal greeting would be "Astabin areet?" (How hast thou been, alright?) And the response would be "Areet err'tye!" (Alright, how art thou [thyself]!)
"Cansta" (Canst thou) was also common.
About modals
You also get tense agreement in English out of the rise of the modals. "I knew they would go" = "I knew they were wanting to go", the last bit of which was interpreted as future. Same for may/might (might = past tense of may), can/could. Tense concord creates hell for English language learners--why do you sudden screw with the verb instead of saying, "I knew they will go." Every other language I know just uses "will": "Sabia que iran", savait qu'ils iront, ja znal, chto poidut, vedel jsem ze pojdut, etc. (Span/French/Russian/Czech, the same's true for Serbian, Italian, Polish ... but I only really know Romance and Slavic).
In Italian, your example "I knew they would go" translates as either "Sapevo che sarebbero andati" (using the conditional perfect) or "Sapevo che andrebbero" (using the past conditional of andare)
"I knew they were wanting to go" translates as "Sapevo che volevano andare" (using volere [to want] as a modal with the infinite "andare" [to go])
Italians never use the preterite tense in speech (except in dialects like Sicilian, which mostly uses the preterite), but they write in the preterite. In spoken Italian, either the past imperfect, or perfect tenses are normally used.
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