Please remove me from this mailing list.  I have been teaching math for the past two years and prefer not to get the mail.  THank you...Karen Malisa

On Tuesday, August 15, 2000, Donehew, Pam <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>And what do you think of this Professor Mary Edmondson?
>
>Pamela K. Donehew
>Reading/English Instructor
>West Georgia Technical College
>303 Fort Drive
>LaGrange, GA 30240
>706-845-4323 X5714
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>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kevin Lemoine [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2000 2:59 PM
>To: [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
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>(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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