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Re: THEORY: English Pronouns (was Re: THEORY: Ergativity and polypersonalism)

From:Rob Haden <magwich78@...>
Date:Sunday, January 23, 2005, 23:00
On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 10:35:52 EST, Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...> wrote:

>My guess would be that we don't seem to be heading to that point. It looks >to me more ike English is becoming a bit more like French: English "I"
might
>come to function like French "je", while English "me" covers the territory
of
>both French "me" and French "moi". > >That is, so far as I can tell "me" is not ousting "I" in ordinary >non-conjoined subects - I've never heard *"Me went to the ballgame,"
except perhaps from
>small children, while it's common to hear "Me and my brother went . . ."
and
>"Who went?" "Me."
I think that if native English speakers were to pick one form only for each pronoun, they'd be more comfortable using the accusative forms than the nominative forms. - Rob