Herb,
   
  This subject of the history & use of pronouns has interested me for some time. I am very curious about this notion of the control of case shifting to pragmatics -- it's a new idea to me (obviously not so new, but I was unaware of it until now). Unfortunately, I don't know the publication you're citing. What is CLS? Is it available online (like JSTOR or EBSCO?)? If not, I'll try to get it through Interlibrary Loan.
   
  Regading before, I think there is also a semantic issue. In Early Modern English, I believe the word often meant "in front of," as in Fabian's line in Twelfth Night: "Ay, and had you any eye behind you, you / might see more detractions at your heals than fortunes / before you" (Riverside Shakespeare 2.5.136-138). Clearly, 'before' is contrasted with 'behind' as a preposition of place, not time, in this sentence. If this is the case, it's clearly a preposition that requires the objective case pronoun, and it may help explain the "before me" issue.
   
  Also, wasn't 'ye' the second person plural while 'you' the singular in the nominative? If so, I'm sure even Shakespeare was inconsistent about it (he does use 'you' as a plural subject pronoun often). I know he used 'ye' as an object pronoun, too -- and as a singular subject, but I thought that its origin was as a nominative plural of 'thou'.
   
  These are an awful lot of questions ... sorry.
   
  Thanks,

  Paul
  
"Stahlke, Herbert F.W." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
        v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}        st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }                The use of objective case after “before” has a long history.  In the 1611 King James translation of the Bible, we find the following:
  Matt. 5:12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
  Matt. 28:7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
  In Late Middle and Early Modern English, the nominative form of the second person pronoun was “ye”, as in 28:7 “There shall ye see him”.  “You” was the objective case form, as in “before you” and “told you”.  While the “before you” in 28:7 is a now archaic use for what we would say as “ahead of”, in 5:12 it is arguable the same conjunction/preposition “before” we’ve been talking about.
   
  HL Mencken’s The American Language has an interesting discussion of the changing uses of objective pronouns in American English, but he’s addressing informal spoken English.  I did a short paper about 20 years ago on this, in CLS20, arguing that control of case is shifting from grammar to pragmatics, that anytime a pronoun is in focus it has to be objective case.  This accounts for examples, largely colloquial, like
   
  Me, I wouldn’t say it that way.
  Me and Jack are going hunting.
  Us two will meet you at the park.
   
  Bare subject pronouns, on the other hand, take subjective case because the are topical:
   
  I wouldn’t say it that way.
   
  It isn’t that pronoun case is being lost, it’s that the nature of control over it is shifting.  Of course, formal language shifts that control much more slowly than informal, so it remains an issue in the teaching and editing of writing, with the result that we tend simply to avoid awkward expressions like “It is I.”  Actually, the last time I heard that one used conversationally was nearly 50 years ago when I called the daughter of my high school English teacher for a date.  I asked for her by name, and she answered, “It is I.”  I didn’t allow that to put me off.
   
  Herb
   
      
---------------------------------
  
  From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gretchen Lee
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 1:58 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: using "before"

   
      In a message dated 1/4/2006 10:43:31 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, [log in to unmask] writes:

        Is our insistence on case endings still a throwback to overvaluing latin? These prescriptions go on making people distrust their own language.  Rather than improving writing, I think they have the effect of shutting it down.  People don't need a new language, just practice in the genres of writing.
    We don't have to be prescriptivists to have strong values and high standards. 

    Craig,

     

    I totally agree with you and many others about prescriptivism.  To bring this discussion down to the mundane, however, I'd like to cite my lesson plans for December.  I spent the three weeks before break going over and insisting on my middle school students memorizing pronoun cases. They made pronoun books and illustrated them on the computer. They wrote poems, etc. about cases and when to use them. They chanted "it is I" and looked at linking verbs.  (The French teacher, by the way, went out of her way to stop in my classroom to shake my hand in gratitude!)

     

    Why did we struggle through all this?  Do I not understand that the pronoun cases are eroding? (There's an old joke about people in line at the pearly gates; when St. Peter asks "who's there?" the people who answer "It is I" have their own line labeled "English teachers.")  Of course I do.

     

    But questions on these sorts of things are one more way of sorting and assigning numbers on standardized tests.  If I want my kids to get those extra points that make such a difference nowadays, I have to teach it.  And if they don't get those points, guess who they come to?

     

    Doesn't make it right.  Doesn't make it fair.  But we often have prescriptivism forced on us by politicians and test writers.

     

    Grumpily,

    Gretchen  (wonderful discussion, by the way)


To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"   Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list"   Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/

  




"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction" (_Twelfth Night_ 3.4.127-128).

To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"

Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/