Re: THEORY: [CONLANG] Case mismatches (was: Re: Viko Notes)

On Fri, 28 Jun 2002, And Rosta wrote:

> Marcus:
> > My thesis is broadly concerned with instances of 'unbalanced
> > coordination', 'partial agreement' in particular. By 'unbalanced
> > coordination', I mean contexts where [X & Y] is grammatical, but [Y & X]
> > is not.
>
> Does your thesis consider English data? If so, can I get a copy?
It generally ignores English, except to point out that neither pattern is
perfect. I'm currently revising the thesis, so it won't be ready for
people to look at for perhaps a month.

> > The case facts that started this thread are another type of unbalanced
> > coordination, because the case of the conjuncts depends on the ordering of
> > conjuncts (among other things). "him and I" is good, but "I and him" is
> > bad.
>
> But "me and he" is also bad.
This is where things start getting really messy, and part of the reason I
ignore English. (Besides not caring so much about English syntax....)
Basically everyone I talked to judged "me and he" ungrammatical, but some
rated it better than "I and he" and others rated it worse. Some people
preferred "he and me" over "me and he", but others were reverse.

> However, "Her and he are" is worse than "She and him are",
My suspicion, born of experience, is that if you test lots of people,
those judgements will vary.

The pattern I found for English (speakers from California, New York, and
Georgia), involving the first person singular is:
Pefect:
  he and I
  him and me
  me and him
  him and I

Not so good, but could be worse:
  I and him

Terrible:
  I and he
  me and he
  he and me

There is variation about which is better or worse within each grouping,
but the groups were pretty clear. (Except a few people who put "I and him"
in the "Terrible" category.)

The phrase people were happiest with (in general), was "me and him", even
over "him and me". It's the same order they prefer in Pima: in some
contexts, it is even ungrammatical in Pima to not have the first person as
the first conjunct.

Marcus