>(1) My sister arrived at the movie theater before I.

>Do you suppose that the oddness of the above sentence
>has more to do with sentence stress than with
>ellipsis?
>"I" gets a heavier stress in this sentence-final
>position than we are used to hearing.  Consider how
>much more  "normal" the following sounds, even though
>purists would argue its correctness:

> (2) My sister arrived at the movie theater before
me.

>Since we tend to hear "I" more frequently in
>sentence-initial positions and "me" in more
>sentence-final positions, our ears are more
accustomed
>to a light "I" and a heavy "me."

>Helene Krauthamer

Dear Helene (or anyone else),

What argument(s) do you think purists would use to
support the claim that sentence (2) is incorrect?

Thanks,

Kevin


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