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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5561 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 1 of 21 27 June 2012 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I apologise for raising once again this thorny and contentious issue. I'm one of those people who thinks that "me and X" is a perfectly acceptable 1st person plural subject pronoun combination, and the fact that the 1st person singular is "I" is simply irrelevant.
But in the course of my Lang-8 correcting duties, I came accross the opposite problem, with "I" as an object pronoun, in the sentence: "Last Autumn, my cousin Jim let my wife and I borrow his cottage for the weekend." To me, "my wife and I" sounds better than the logically more correct "my wife and me". I think it's partly the influence of the second verb but even simplifying it to: "Bob invited my wife and I to his cottage" sounds reasonable. It could be because "my wife and I" is such a standard, phrase but I think it also works with other nouns for people: "Bob invited my sister and I" but it starts to sound a little odd with names. "Bob invited Fred and I to his holliday cottage" Of course, I may just be starting to go a little crazy or senile. It'd be handy also, if someone could tell me what tense "borrow" is (infinitive without "to" ?) or what sort of grammatical construction it is. Thanks. Edited by schoenewaelder on 27 June 2012 at 5:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5454 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 2 of 21 27 June 2012 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
It looks like a plain, ordinary infinitve to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5017 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 3 of 21 27 June 2012 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I believe that "My X and I" is only used if it is the subject.
Ex: My sister and I have been invited to the party. They have invited my sister and me to the party. Of course, I would appreciate a native speaker's insight on the matter. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 4 of 21 27 June 2012 at 6:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"Me" can be a subject pronoun, but "I" can never, never, never be an object pronoun, although half the English speaking world seems to think the opposite.
- Dad and I are going fishing. - Me and Dad, we're going fishing. - He invited my wife and me. (NOT: My wife and I!) To anybody who is acquainted to inflecting languages "I" as an object pronoun sounds absolutely gruesome! - Er hat meine Frau und mich eingeladen. (NOT: Meine Frau und ich) - Он пригласил мою жену и меня. (NOT: Мою жену и я) - Hann hefur boðið konu minni og mér heim. (NOT: Konu minni og ég) You wouldn't say: "He invited my sister and he", or "He invited his family and we" either, because "he" and "we" are subject pronouns and cannot become object. Making an exception for "I" would not be very logical. Edited by Josquin on 27 June 2012 at 6:17pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5957 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 5 of 21 27 June 2012 at 6:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Nah, you seem like a pretty solid, non-crazy, non-senile sort. The example you provide is wrong grammatically, but is becoming more widespread among native English speakers and accordingly it does not overly-surprise me that it may now sound right to speakers (both native and learners). A descriptionist would tell you that means that it is therefore becoming grammatically correct. They are of course wrong, and have long ago themselves started to become a little crazy or senile. But in another twenty years, it (along with creating "plural's" by using an apostrophe) will be entirely standard and accepted as an evolution in the language. From my dinosaur nest hidden deep in the primieval forest, that is not an improvement. I have started up myself just recently with lang-8. I would suggest that it is important to correct the use of "I" as an object pronoun. It is currently non-grammatical.
This is an example of the use of the "bare infinitive". The full infinitive would be used if instead of "let" you had used "allowed" or "permitted". Edited by Spanky on 27 June 2012 at 6:49pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 21 27 June 2012 at 7:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This is a little bit complicated. There's an official rule, but relatively few native
speakers obey it precisely. First, the official rule:
Cases (1) and (2) are completely consistent for all native speakers. But (3) and (4) vary considerably in practice. Common alternatives are:
(3a) is extremely common in vernacular English. (4a) is extremely common in educated English. To a German speaker, both of these sound illogical, and a professional English-speaking editor would typically call (3a) "illiterate" and (4a) a "hypercorrection", because it looks like somebody tried to correct (3a) and went too far. But there's no logical reason why vernacular English has to work like German. It might, for example, work like French, where the official rule is:
Here, je is a subject pronoun, and moi is the disjunctive pronoun. If you use the conjunction et, then you always need to use the latter. There's no accusative/nominative distinction at all, as you can see. It's a perfectly logical and straightforward system, especially when you realize that the subject pronouns are halfway to being fully-integrated verbal inflections. Personally, I suspect that spoken English can't decide whether to work like French or German, and that interference between the two sets of rules is generating all kinds of strange possibilities. I encourage you to obey the standard rule in writing, but native speakers will continue to enthusiastically use (3a) and (4a) in speech. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 7 of 21 27 June 2012 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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emk's first quote is the basic rule and is pretty easy to follow. Whenever you're in
doubt, remove the other person (Fred or Mike in these examples) and you'll know which to use correctly.
One other observation, though: when you're including yourself with someone else in a sentence ("me" in example 4), it should follow the other person ("Mike" in example 4). So example 4 should be "Fred is speaking with Mike and me". Another example not mentioned here that's usually turned around is the use of "between ... and ... ". It should be "me" ("between you and me"), and the "me" should always follow the other person. But as noted, it's become common for native speakers to mix them up. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 27 June 2012 at 7:48pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4845 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 8 of 21 27 June 2012 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, but in French, you would also say: « Il a invité ma femme et toi/lui/eux » (elle, nous, vous, and elles are the same as subject pronouns and as disjunctive pronouns), while you would never say: "He has invited my wife and he/she/we/they" (you is the same as subject pronoun and as object pronoun), in English. So, saying: "He has invited my wife and I", is a grammatical mistake, because a subject pronoun can't serve as an object. It might become Standard English one day, but it isn't today. Edited by Josquin on 27 June 2012 at 8:45pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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