Kevin, I don't know why anyone wouldn't believe a descriptive analysis of
this issue.  But if your colleagues don't like Quirk, et al., why not look
at Jespersen's A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, Poutsma's
A Grammar of Late Modern English, or Curme's Enlgish Grammar.  All of these
are old and scholarly (based on historical research), certainly not
descriptive but neither are they exactly prescriptive.  I use Curme a lot
myself (simply because his 2 volumes weigh less than Quirk), though I
generally take Quirk and friends as more up to date when I find conflicts
between them.  I'm afraid my Curme and my Quirk are at the office, and I'm
home now, or I'd look the issue up. I don't know whether you'll find the
kinds of interpretations your colleagues seem to want except in
not-very-authoritative handbooks. The answer you got from Quirk seems to me
the right one.

The fact is that words change categories a lot.  The category a word falls
into is determined more by constituency than by some prescriptive notion of
"this word is always a . . . ."  Your "after" is a preposition because it's
followed by a noun phrase. Period.  And the noun phrase is the object of
the preposition (if you don't mind circular reasoning).  So the pronoun has
to be in the objective form.  When "after" is followed by a clause, it's a
subordinate conjunction. Period.  Take the case of "that." When "that"
replaces a noun phrase in a clause and then the clause is embedded into a
matrix noun phrase, "that" is a relative pronoun.  When "that" precedes a
noun, as in "that printer," it's a demonstrative.  When "that" precedes a
clause filling a noun phrase slot in a sentence, it's a subordinate
conjunction.  I suppose you could argue that the "thats" aren't even the
same word.  I imagine the same thing is true for "after" when it's a
subordinate conjunction and when it's a preposition, though I don't care to
go there.  Life's too short.  A preposition is a preposition.  And a
subordinate conjunction is a subordinate conjunction. Why not leave it at
that?

Your intuitions are correct. Your colleagues would go against their
intuitions as native speakers of English because of what some ill-conceived
handbook would say?  Or what they perceive some ill-conceived handbook
might say? Incredible!

Tell them I have a bridge down in Cincinnati I'd love to sell them.  I'll
give them a bargain and throw in a rarely used handbook to boot. Max

*****************
Max Morenberg
Professor
Department of English
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056



>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>-----------------------
>Sender:       Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>              <[log in to unmask]>
>Poster:       Kevin Lemoine <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      elliptical constructions
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I have been having a debate with some colleagues
>regarding whether certain subordinating conjunctions,
>namely "after" and "before", can allow ellipsis of the
>predicate.  Here are some relevant examples:
>
>(1) The tap dancers will perform after Jane and I.
>(2) The tap dancers will perform after I.
>(3) After I, the tap dancers will perform.
>
>Several of my colleagues claim that these sentences
>are grammatically correct according to formal,
>standard English.  My intuition tells me that these
>are impossible in any form of English.  Sentences 1-3
>strike me as hypercorrect forms generalized from the
>prescriptive rule that allows for the ellipsis of a
>predicate, leaving a subjective pronoun, with "than"
>and "as", as in the following:
>
>(4) Marcia is much more intelligent than I.
>(5) Claire is as enthusiastic as he.
>
>In fact, sentences with "than" and "as" followed by
>subjective pronouns are acceptable to me only in very
>formal writing.
>
>The only source I have found so far that discusses
>cases like 1-3 is Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and
>Svartvik. Basically, they say that the subjective
>pronoun is unacceptable in sentences like "Nigel
>finished the exam after/before I".  The function of
>words that can be both prepositions and conjunctions
>can be distinguished by what form their complements
>take. In other words, the preposition "after" takes an
>objective pronoun whereas the conjunction "after"
>takes a subjective pronoun plus a form of "do" or the
>main verb.  Variants of (2) would then be
>
>(2a) The tap dancers will perform after me.
>
>or
>
>(2b) The tap dancers will perform after I do/perform.
>
>Quirk et al. is, however, primarily a descriptive
>grammar and doesn't hold the same weight for some
>people as a prescriptive grammar does.  Can anyone
>point me toward a prescriptive grammar that deals with
>this issue?  What are your opinions of the sentences
>above?  Do you readily accept or reject sentences 1-3?
>
>I would appreciate any input ATEGers could give.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Kevin Lemoine, Editor
>
>
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