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Anonymous Posted 21 years ago
Grammar
Case
In the sentence,"He pretended to be me",or should this be "pretended to be "I",which doesn't sound at all right.Is "me" the object of the infinitve"to be"? in which case the attributive case is correct? Charley-Barley
Top answer
Hello CB Technically and historically "pretended to be I" was the correct form, as "be" is not a transitive verb but a copular verb. However, people nowadays feel that, when a pronoun comes to the position of the complement of the verb "be", the pronoun should take the objective form rather than the nominative form. So "pretended to be me" is more natural.
- Hello CB Technically and historically "pretended to be I" was the correct form, as "be" is not a transitive verb but a copular verb.
- However, people nowadays feel that, when a pronoun comes to the position of the complement of the verb "be", the pronoun should take the objective form rather than the nominative form.
- So "pretended to be me" is more natural.
- paco
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1 Answers
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Hello CB
Technically and historically "pretended to be I" was the correct form, as "be" is not a transitive verb but a copular verb. However, people nowadays feel that, when a pronoun comes to the position of the complement of the verb "be", the pronoun should take the objective form rather than the nominative form. So "pretended to be me" is more natural.
paco
Technically and historically "pretended to be I" was the correct form, as "be" is not a transitive verb but a copular verb. However, people nowadays feel that, when a pronoun comes to the position of the complement of the verb "be", the pronoun should take the objective form rather than the nominative form. So "pretended to be me" is more natural.
paco
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