Thanks, Kathryn, for taking time to help me think through this issue. This
is the kind of question that astute students often pose, too, so I think it
is worth considering. You (and Warriner) have addressed the point I find
most interesting in terms of teaching: whether other subordinating
conjunctions besides "than" and "as" can have an elided/elliptical verb.
But I'm still not convinced that "before" cannot be a preposition in such a
construction. My colleague sent a follow-up e-mail adding these thoughts to
our discussion of the sentence "The Smiths received their invitation before
(us) (we [did])":
Here's something else that I've found: President Clinton and Governor Joe
Manchin III both used the phrase "those who came before us" in their
inaugural addresses, and Maya Angelou used the title "Let's Thank Those Who
Came before Us." Doesn't the preposition "before" have the same sense in
those phrases as in the sentence we're analyzing?
Those examples call into question our assertion that the prepositional
phrase "before us" is illogical in reference to time. The prescriptivist in
me wants to say that even presidents and famous authors can make mistakes,
but the descriptivist in me must admit that both constructions seem
defensible.
I'm surprised we haven't heard from anyone else on the issue.
Best,
Nancy
Nancy L. Tuten, PhD
Professor of English
Director of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program
Columbia College
Columbia, South Carolina
[log in to unmask]
803-786-3706
_____
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Rogers, Kathryn (HRW-ATX)
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 11:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: using "before"
Hi, Nancy,
Per Warriner's grammar and the part-of-speech labels for "before" in
Webster's New World Dictionary, your analysis is correct. It is an
incomplete construction with an elided verb (as you say, "before us" would
be illogical as a prepositional phrase because "us" isn't really a time or
an event in time). So, according to formal rules and logic, the correct
pronoun is "we," though in common speech, people almost never honor the
formal rule when first-person pronouns are involved.
Warriner states that an incomplete construction occurs "most commonly" after
the words _than_ and _as_, but does not rule out other subordinating
conjunctions. It may be that the "rule" your colleague found about only
"than" and "as" taking elided verbs is an attempt to remedy awkwardnesses
like the one in the sentence in question. So it may be a style dictate
rather than a rule of traditional grammar.
At any rate, as a point of correctness, I would use "we," and as a point of
style (at least), I would include "did" at the end of the sentence to avoid
the awkwardness.
Best,
Kathryn
_____
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Nancy Tuten
Sent: Monday, January 02, 2006 6:39 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: using "before"
Happy New Year, listers.
A retired colleague and friend called and asked me to weigh in on the
following grammar question, which someone had posed to him:
In the following sentence, is "before" a preposition, in which case the
pronoun should be in the objective case?
"The Smiths received their invitation before us."
Or, is "before" a subordinating conjunction launching a clause with an
elliptical verb, in which case the pronoun should be in the nominative case?
"The Smiths received their invitation before we [did]."
My first response was to vote for the latter choice, even though I cannot
imagine ever using "we" in that sentence without also saying/writing the
verb. Unlike the second clause of the sentence "She is three inches taller
than I," the clause starting with "before" sounds really wrong without the
verb plainly in sight (or earshot). We concluded that it probably sounds
wrong precisely because "before" can be a preposition or a subordinator,
whereas "than" can serve only in the latter role.
We debated whether we could really say, though, that one choice was right
and one wrong-or even that one choice was better than the other.
We also considered the notion that "before," when used as a preposition,
isn't really logical in front of an object referring to people because it is
not logical to speak of time ("sooner than") in relation to people. That is,
"before noon," "before Tuesday," and "before next week" all make sense
because those objects are all time designations. But is it logical to refer
to time by saying "before [person/people]"? (Of course, we can use "before"
to mean "in front of," but that is a different sense completely: "She gave
the speech before a crowd of six thousand.")
The next day, my colleague called back to tell me that he did some Web
surfing and discovered a number of pages arguing that only "than" and "as"
can have an elliptical verb. Is that so? I know that we use those two to
point out a common pronoun error associated with their use, but are they the
only two?
I suppose that a little creative avoidance is in order here! Either of these
sentences would avoid the problem:
"The Smiths received their invitation sooner than we did."
"The Smiths received their invitation before we did."
I told him that I knew JUST the place to go with this issue, and I will
forward your insights to him!
Thanks for your thoughts,
Nancy
Nancy L. Tuten, PhD
Professor of English
Director of the Writing-across-the-Curriculum Program
Columbia College
Columbia, South Carolina
[log in to unmask]
803-786-3706
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