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Just the truth Posted 21 years ago
Linguistics Studies
Coordinative Constructions
Monika asked, in {http://www.EnglishForward.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=70995}
Could you please tell me when to use me or I?
I received the following message from an Australian native speaker:
...This is exciting, not only for Sue but for you and I too ...... (I thought it was me in this
case)
I too of course am really looking forward to.........(again I'd say: Me to .......)
Is there a solution to the problem?
Kind regards,
Monika
-----------------------
Mr Micawber replied:
Hi Monika,
The solution is that 'I' is a subject pronoun and 'me' is an object pronoun.
'This is exciting, not only for Sue but for you and me too.' -- 'you and me' is the object of the preposition 'for'.
'I too of course am really looking forward to...' -- 'I' is the subject of the verb 'am...looking'.
'Me too' is acceptable in casual English as an isolated response:
A: 'I'm looking forward to the picnic.'
B: 'Me too!'
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
JTT: This is how this issue is viewed by language scientists:
----------------------------------
CGEL:
Prescriptive works instantiating this sort of aesthetic authoritarianism provide no answer to such obvious questions. They simply assert that grammar dictates things, without supporting their claim from evidence.
The descriptive view would be that when most speakers use a form that our grammar says is incorrect, there is at least a prima facie case that it is the grammmar that is wrong. ... If what is involved were a matter of taste, all evidence would be beside the point. But under the descriptivist viewpoint, grammar is not a matter of taste, nor of aesthetics.
{Examples like the one at issue} show, however, that the only completely secure territory of the nominative in Present-day English is with pronouns functioning as the whole subject in a finite clause.
{Examples like the one at issue}, with 'I' as final coordinate is, however, so common in speech and used by so broad a range of speakers that it has to be recognized as a variety of Standard English, ..."
-----------------------------------------------------
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html
Probably no "grammatical error" has received as much scorn as "misuse" of pronoun case inside conjunctions (phrases with two parts joined by [and] or [or]). What teenager has not been corrected for saying [Me and Jennifer are going to the mall]? The standard story is that the object pronoun
does not belong in subject position -- no one would say [Me is going to the mall] -- so it should be [Jennifer and I]. People tend to misremember the advice as "When in doubt, say 'so-and-so and I', not 'so-and-so and me'," so they unthinkingly overapply it, resulting in hyper-corrected solecisms like [give Al Gore and I a chance] and the even more despised [between you and I].
But if the person on the street is so good at avoiding [Me is going] and [Give I a break], and even former Rhodes Scholars and Ivy League professors can't seem to avoid [Me and Jennifer are going] and [Give Al and I a chance], might it not be the mavens that misunderstand English grammar, not the speakers? The mavens' case about case rests on one assumption: if an entire conjunction phrase has a grammatical feature like subject case, every word inside that phrase has to have that grammatical feature, too. But that is just false.
[Jennifer] is singular; you say [Jennifer is], not [Jennifer are]. The pronoun [She] is singular; you say [She is], not [She are]. But the conjunction [She and Jennifer] is not singular, it's plural; you say [She and Jennifer are], not [She and Jennifer is.] So a conjunction can have a different grammatical number from the pronouns inside it. Why, then, must it have the same grammatical [case] as the pronouns inside it? The answer is that it need not.
A conjunction is just not grammatically equivalent to any of its parts. If John and Marsha met, it does not mean that John met and that Marsha met. If voters give Clinton and Gore a chance, they are not giving Gore his own chance, added on to the chance they are giving Clinton; they are giving the entire ticket a chance. So just because [Al Gore and I] is an object that requires object case, it does not mean that is an object that requires object case. By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants.
The linguist, Joseph Emonds has analysed the 'Me and Jennifer/Between you and I' phenomenon in great technical detail. He concludes that the language that the mavens want us to speak is not only not English, it is not a possible human language!
Could you please tell me when to use me or I?
I received the following message from an Australian native speaker:
...This is exciting, not only for Sue but for you and I too ...... (I thought it was me in this
case)
I too of course am really looking forward to.........(again I'd say: Me to .......)
Is there a solution to the problem?
Kind regards,
Monika
-----------------------
Mr Micawber replied:
Hi Monika,
The solution is that 'I' is a subject pronoun and 'me' is an object pronoun.
'This is exciting, not only for Sue but for you and me too.' -- 'you and me' is the object of the preposition 'for'.
'I too of course am really looking forward to...' -- 'I' is the subject of the verb 'am...looking'.
'Me too' is acceptable in casual English as an isolated response:
A: 'I'm looking forward to the picnic.'
B: 'Me too!'
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
JTT: This is how this issue is viewed by language scientists:
----------------------------------
CGEL:
Prescriptive works instantiating this sort of aesthetic authoritarianism provide no answer to such obvious questions. They simply assert that grammar dictates things, without supporting their claim from evidence.
The descriptive view would be that when most speakers use a form that our grammar says is incorrect, there is at least a prima facie case that it is the grammmar that is wrong. ... If what is involved were a matter of taste, all evidence would be beside the point. But under the descriptivist viewpoint, grammar is not a matter of taste, nor of aesthetics.
{Examples like the one at issue} show, however, that the only completely secure territory of the nominative in Present-day English is with pronouns functioning as the whole subject in a finite clause.
{Examples like the one at issue}, with 'I' as final coordinate is, however, so common in speech and used by so broad a range of speakers that it has to be recognized as a variety of Standard English, ..."
-----------------------------------------------------
http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1994_01_24_thenewrepublic.html
Probably no "grammatical error" has received as much scorn as "misuse" of pronoun case inside conjunctions (phrases with two parts joined by [and] or [or]). What teenager has not been corrected for saying [Me and Jennifer are going to the mall]? The standard story is that the object pronoun
does not belong in subject position -- no one would say [Me is going to the mall] -- so it should be [Jennifer and I]. People tend to misremember the advice as "When in doubt, say 'so-and-so and I', not 'so-and-so and me'," so they unthinkingly overapply it, resulting in hyper-corrected solecisms like [give Al Gore and I a chance] and the even more despised [between you and I].But if the person on the street is so good at avoiding [Me is going] and [Give I a break], and even former Rhodes Scholars and Ivy League professors can't seem to avoid [Me and Jennifer are going] and [Give Al and I a chance], might it not be the mavens that misunderstand English grammar, not the speakers? The mavens' case about case rests on one assumption: if an entire conjunction phrase has a grammatical feature like subject case, every word inside that phrase has to have that grammatical feature, too. But that is just false.
[Jennifer] is singular; you say [Jennifer is], not [Jennifer are]. The pronoun [She] is singular; you say [She is], not [She are]. But the conjunction [She and Jennifer] is not singular, it's plural; you say [She and Jennifer are], not [She and Jennifer is.] So a conjunction can have a different grammatical number from the pronouns inside it. Why, then, must it have the same grammatical [case] as the pronouns inside it? The answer is that it need not.
A conjunction is just not grammatically equivalent to any of its parts. If John and Marsha met, it does not mean that John met and that Marsha met. If voters give Clinton and Gore a chance, they are not giving Gore his own chance, added on to the chance they are giving Clinton; they are giving the entire ticket a chance. So just because [Al Gore and I] is an object that requires object case, it does not mean that is an object that requires object case. By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants.
The linguist, Joseph Emonds has analysed the 'Me and Jennifer/Between you and I' phenomenon in great technical detail. He concludes that the language that the mavens want us to speak is not only not English, it is not a possible human language!
Top answer
By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants. simply assert that grammar dictates things. On the one hand, grammar doesn't dictate things.
- By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants.
- simply assert that grammar dictates things.
- On the one hand, grammar doesn't dictate things.
- On the other, pronouns choose their cases.
- Intriguing.
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17 Answers
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By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants.
Hello JT
I'm puzzled by this sentence, especially when placed (seemingly) in opposition to this one:
Prescriptive works...simply assert that grammar dictates things.
On the one hand, grammar doesn't dictate things. On the other, pronouns choose the
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Could you please tell me when to use me or I?
I received the following message from an Australian native speaker:
...This is exciting, not only for Sue but for you and I too ...... (I thought it was me in this
case)
I too of course am really looking forward to.........(again I'd say: Me to .......)
Is there a solution to the problem?
K
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Dwight Bolinger - linguist
"In language there are no licensed practitioners, but the woods are full of midwives, herbalists, colonic irrigationists, bonesetters and general-purpose witch doctors, some abysmally ignorant, others with a rich fund of practical knowledge - whom we shall lump together and call shamans.
Sometimes their advice is sound. Sometimes it is worthle
"In language there are no licensed practitioners, but the woods are full of midwives, herbalists, colonic irrigationists, bonesetters and general-purpose witch doctors, some abysmally ignorant, others with a rich fund of practical knowledge - whom we shall lump together and call shamans.
Sometimes their advice is sound. Sometimes it is worthle
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But not every shaman is a patient; whereas every linguistic advisor is a user too.
MrP
MrP
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The argument JTT cites is as follows:
1. Some people say X. (Let's call them Group A.)
2. Some people do not say X, but think on the contrary that Y is correct. (Let's call them Group B.)
3. Certain 'language scientists' support Group A, and disparage Group B. (Let's call these 'language scientists' Group C.)
The basis of Group C's defence of Group A is 'usage'.
1. Some people say X. (Let's call them Group A.)
2. Some people do not say X, but think on the contrary that Y is correct. (Let's call them Group B.)
3. Certain 'language scientists' support Group A, and disparage Group B. (Let's call these 'language scientists' Group C.)
The basis of Group C's defence of Group A is 'usage'.
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I know, I know, teacher!!!
It's because Group A is the hard-working proletariat, and Group B is the evil capitalist pigs, and Group C is the heroic, pure-hearted communists who will save the A's from the exploitation of the B's and establish world-wide peace.
Did I get it right?
It's because Group A is the hard-working proletariat, and Group B is the evil capitalist pigs, and Group C is the heroic, pure-hearted communists who will save the A's from the exploitation of the B's and establish world-wide peace.
Did I get it right?
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No, you've missed it by a mile Jim but you've managed to clearly illustrate your lack of knowledge on this subject.
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Perhaps califJim has shown a sense of humour which you have obviously failed to recognize.
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Perhaps califJim has shown a sense of humour which you have obviously failed to recognize.
Perhaps, but "perhaps" is expressive of a low degree of certainty, David. I think I'll stick with what I stated. The record seems to better support it.
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