http://www.englishforums.com/search/pro.htm?q=tag%3aNominative+tag%3aEnglish+grammar+tag%3aArticlesSearch results for 'tag:Nominative tag:English grammar tag:Articles' matching tags 'Nominative', 'English grammar', and 'Articles'en-USCSMOD (Build: 3273.32735)http://www.englishforums.com/English/JttsPointOnUsingIOrMe/qlkv/post.htm#81961Thu, 17 Mar 2005 22:15:02 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:81961rhetorhttp 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 me 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 I doubt it The ultra elitist snob Pinker might just have to accept the fact that Rhodes Scholars and Ivy League professors simply haven t been taught correct English grammar As a matter of fact this has been the case for many years 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 What s false is Pinker s understanding of traditional grammar His notorious chapter The Language Mavens from his book The Language Instinct is a compendium of errors regarding the assumptions of traditional grammarians 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 There are so many errors in this silly paragraph it s hard to know where to begin 1 Phrases conjunctive or otherwise don t have case A phrase can never be in the nominative possessive or objective case 2 A copulative conjunction like and does not allow one to distribute the meaning of the verb to the individual members Jack and Jill went up the hill does NOT mean Jack went up the hill and Jill went up the hill The latter compound sentence may be true and it may express a similar truth as the former but it does so in a different way There is NO distribution of the predicate to the individual members If there were such a distribution the verb would be singular This is easily shown by using an explicitly distributive adjective like each before the subject terms In such sentences we can force the predicate to be applied to the elements of the subject phrase individually rather than reckon the elements of the subject phrase jointly For example Each leaf and each flower IS proof of God s handiwork The distributive adjective each allows us to apply the predicate i e the verb all that follows it to the elements of the subject phrase individually The meaning is Each leaf IS proof of God s handiwork and each flower IS proof of God s handiwork Notice that if we started with the compound sentence and coalesced it into a simple one we would NOT change the verb from singular to plural it remains singular Conversely in the sentence A leaf and a flower ARE proof of God s handiwork does not mean A leaf is proof of God s handiwork AND a flower is proof of God s handiwork Both sentences may be true but they are not interchangeable The latter expresses two separate thoughts in two separate clauses the former expresses a single thought we are asked to consider a leaf and a flower jointly Obviously that s different from considering them separately Subject terms joined by or are distributive Jack or Jill went up the hill means Jack went up the hill or Jill went up the hill 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 Again this is usually true for copulative conjunctions like and it is untrue for disjunctive ones like or It s also true to say that This is a secret between me and you does not mean This is a secret between me and this is a secret between you 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 First of all if voters give Gore or Bush a chance they are giving Gore a chance or they are giving Bush a chance Second Al Gore and I is a phrase and phrases don t have case any more than they have person number or gender In the sentence Give Al Gore and me a chance the two object terms are taken jointly the direct object of give is a compound They are BOTH object terms and should therefore BOTH be in the objective case Pinker seems to think that phrases can somehow override the normal syntactic rules governing individual parts of speech as if a phrase were a kind of macro word that has grammatical veto power over the elements it comprises This is completely untrue and it was certainly not the belief of most traditional grammarians in the 18th and 19th centuries Jennifer and I are studying grammar The subject is a compound the terms are meant to be taken jointly with ONE predicate are studying grammar applying to both Since both are subjects both should be in the nominative case Pinker like many psychologists and many linguists is a mystic He believes that there s a separate invisible entity called a phrase that is in the nominative case and that this invisible entity is like a container with elements clanking around in it Those elements he claims Jennifer and I need not conform to the case of the invisible container The invisible container claims Pinker has a different case from those of the elements within it All right If it has a different case from those of the elements within it why shouldn t it also have a number from those of the elements within it The elements within it are plural there are two of them but the phrase is a single entity with one case performing the function of subject By the logic of grammar as Pinker is fond of saying the phrase Jennifer and I or Me and Jennifer should take a singular verb not a plural one We should really be saying Me and Jennifer is studying grammar Me and Jennifer is a single phrase in the nominative case singular number Or is Pinker saying that the phrase may have a different case from the elements it comprises but not a different number If so why 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 There s not single linguist who would actually try to publish an article with constructions like Me and Noam Chomsky was talking one fine day or This was a secret theory between Chomsky and I http://www.englishforums.com/English/JttsPointOnUsingIOrMe/qlck/post.htmThu, 17 Mar 2005 09:11:10 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:81831nona the brit Mod I moved this from a learner s question as I felt they just needed a simple answer which they received from others rather than a debate on the issue This is more appropriate for this section so others interested in the theory of linguistics can continue if they wish Re I me Posted 17 Mar 2005 07 57 AM 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 me 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 Censorship is highly odious in any forum http://www.englishforums.com/English/CoordinativeConstructions/ppxv/post.htmFri, 04 Mar 2005 05:10:19 GMT946f00bb-57d3-4b7b-a9a2-059b5341af52:78272just the truthMonika asked in http www englishforums 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 me 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