LINGUIST List 3.641

Fri 21 Aug 1992

Disc: Government and Case

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1. "R.Hudson", Linguistic drift; John and me went
2. , Re: 3.635 Linguistic Drift
3. , re: 3.633 Linguistic drift

If English really did have case (or even Case) the behaviour of our
pronouns would be very weird indeed. Does anyone know of any (other)
language in which case-selection interacts with coordination? I'm
told that in, for example, German, which really does have case, there's
no temptation for anyone, anywhere, to use a different case according
to whether or not coordination is involved.

My conclusion is that English no longer has any case at all. What's left
is just five lexemes (ME, HIM, HER, US, THEM) that have funny forms for
use as the subject of a tensed verb (lect A),
- or as conjunct of AND (lect B); or:
- unless also a conjunct of AND (lect C).

 A B C
 He went He went He went
 Bill and he went Bill and he went Bill and him went
 I saw him I saw him I saw him
 I saw Bill and him I saw Bill and he I saw Bill and him

My family includes speakers of each of the three lects, all of whom are
remarkably consist.


Dick Hudson
Dept of Phonetics and Linguistics,
University College London,
Gower Street,
London WC1E 6BT
(071) 387 7050 ext 3152
home: (081) 340 1253

Message 2: Re: 3.635 Linguistic Drift

i think i'm coming in on the middle of "between Jack and i". if no-one else
has mentioned: it is also common to have "she and X" in various complement
positions, e.g. "you must inform she and her husband" or the like.

david powers' explanation of "and" beginning to govern the nominative is very
interesting as a structural explanation. i used to favor the "hyper-
correction" explanation. but it is genetic, and therefore may miss the point
(or a point). after all, unless it has some structural niche of its own to
fall into, how could it survive as a structure?

government does not have to be limited to the indo-european structures we
usually associate with it. in literary/classical arabic, various instances
of government are quite surprising to one used to indo-european examples,
e.g. "is not" and (i believe) also "how much" govern the accusative -- the
latter with no regard for the sentence-structure that normally determines
case in arabic. "and" does not have to be a mere linker of identicals.

zev bar-lev

Message 3: re: 3.633 Linguistic drift

David Powers may object to "between you and I" (which I have certainly heard on
many occasions, though never *"between I and you") because it appears to
violate grammatical rules on two counts: neither the use of accusative "me"
under government by prep; or the use of disjunctive pronoun "me". The
grammatically confusing influence of French can too easily be discounted. Cf
"c'est moi", which is no more marked for case than is French accusative "me",
of which the -translation- could be either "it's I" or "it's me", but the
equivalent ONLY the latter.

 There are undoubtedly dialects in British English (including some in East
Anglia) where "He gave it (to) I" or "Listen to I" can be heard.

 From a standard English viewpoint, the impossibility of *"He told I and you"
but yet the grammatical "He told me and you", "He told you and I", "He told you
and me" has something to do with the (changing?) scope of government in British
English.
 Bill Bennett.