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

On Sun, Jan 23, 2005 at 11:02:50PM +1100, Tristan McLeay wrote:
> >Of course, the proper usages would be "It's I", "John and I went to the
> >bar", "between you and me", "'Who would?' - 'I!'". :b
>
>
> The correct uses actually include "It's me" and -"Who would?" - "Me!".
> I don't know where you got the idea those are wrong from
Oh, posh.  You know very well where he got that idea, Tristan; He's
speaking of formal written English, which is certainly what the word
"proper" calls to mind.   I can't speak for you, and maybe
things are different since you're younger and hemispherically-challenged
:), but I was definitely taught in school that "It's me" is incorrect.

> >The interesting question, though, is what causes the confusion in
> >usage.
>
> There is no "confusion in usage"
Sure there is, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. :)  As Sally
noted, many of the prescriptive rules of English grammar originated by
observing actual use.  And Old English was a morpohlogically accusative
language.  So perhaps at one point, back before Shakespeare, "It is I!"
was the normal colloquial use.  The question is, then, what caused "me"
to encroach upon "I"'s territory?


> >The most grammatically proper but wrong-sounding usage
> >would be "'Who would?' - 'We!'"
>
> Evidently not, seeing as:
>
> >-- almost any native speaker would instead
> >answer "Us!"
>
> which just about defines 'grammatically proper'.
No, it doesn't.  Whenever someone speaks of "proper" English, you can be
sure they're talking about formal written English, to which all those
annoying counterintuitive prescriptive rules do apply.

> Not the least of which is English: We've already lost 'ye' to the same
> phenomenon, though the opposite happened to 'him' (as acc. of 'it', not
> 'he') and 'whom'.
Reports of 'whom''s death have been somewhat exaggerated.   It's on life
support, to be sure, but it's not gone.  I use it quite naturally in my
everyday speech.

-Marcos

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