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THEORY: case systems [was Viko Notes]

From:Thomas R. Wier <trwier@...>
Date:Wednesday, June 26, 2002, 18:12
Quoting Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>:

> On 25 Jun 02, at 16:36, Thomas R. Wier wrote: > > > Yes. In the pronouns, a case system is still extant, although it > > behaves very differently from classical case systems like Latin or > > Greek, and is in a state of flux. It's still ungrammatical to say > > *"Me see that man" or *"He sees I", and therefore case is still a > > relevant notion in English. > > On the other hand, a bunch of people say "Give it to Jim and I" and/or > "Him and me saw the car go past", so as soon as another word (even > another pronoun, in some cases) is joint subject or object along with a > pronoun, the pronoun may change case.
Yes. As I said: English case behaves differently from systems like Latin and Greek, and it is in a state of flux. Any theory of morphosyntax still needs to be able to explain this kind behavior for a given dialect or register. (Note that your first example is almost always an instance of hypercorrection, in that that speaker usually doesn't also say *"give it to Jim and he" or "give it to Jim and they". Your second example where two accusative-marked pronouns can be used as subjects if conjoined is far more systematic and widespread, and so does need to be accounted for in a theory of morphosyntax in a way your first does not.) ===================================================================== Thomas Wier "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n / Dept. of Linguistics mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..." University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought / 1010 E. 59th Street and not complete one road that has no turn" Chicago, IL 60637 Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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Marcus Smith <smithma@...>