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 > > > > > > > > > >-----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 > >(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 > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere! >http://mail.yahoo.com/ >