I was passing through a student commons area the other day when I heard one guy say to a couple sitting with him, "Him and Sara left with Joy and I." By any standard of Standard English these are unacceptable forms. However one of the things that codifiers of SE tend not to recognize is how long-term trends in English shape these constructions. English had effectively lost its noun case system by late Middle English, so that pronoun case became a weak vestige of a formerly strong system of grammatical conditioning. That is, the case form of a noun or a pronoun was heavily determined by its grammatical role in its clause. As this broke down, the grammatical conditioning of pronoun case also began breaking down so that what become more important than role-in-clause was discourse function. English had for a long time been shifting from a verb-final word order in very early OE to its modern verb-medial order. The effect of that has been to put objects in final position, which is also the position for new information. As case weakened, the object form came to serve, in Early Modern English already, as the new-information or focus form. Then, when a pronoun that represented new information would be used as subject, speakers would naturally use the me/her/him/us/them forms because they are used for new information. Notice that in the student utterance I gave above, "him and Sara" is new information and so "him" is used even though it's subject. The "I" in "Joy and I" is old information in that conversation, and so the weak, unstressed form "i" is used. My point is not that SE should now regard all of this as correct but rather that there is a lot of grammatical system and sense to the way people use pronoun case today. Traditional grammarians tend not to see it--and see such utterances as hopelessly anomalous--because traditional grammar lacks the analytical apparatus for dealing with this sort of historical change. Herb Stahlke Ball State University >>> [log in to unmask] 09/20/00 02:31PM >>> This discussion of can versus could is fascinating to me because of the larger issue that it raises, i.e., is there any sense in which a usage that is acceptable to a significant number of speakers -- or even to one speaker -- can be "wrong." I am certain that a huge majority of my students would find "can" perfectably acceptable in that sentence about the lonely kid. Nevertheless, I share the feeling that it is wrong, wrong, wrong. This seems to me to be an interesting contradiction. I feel the same way about "between you and I" despite the fact that that would probably be approved by a large majority. On Wed, 20 Sep 2000, Wollin, Edith wrote: > I don't find it acceptable, and it isn't one of those things that I hear > many other people say either. Using I as the object of a preposition when > there is a compound object is used by everyone but a few of us grammar > people now, (at least in Washington)but I don't hear can in this context. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Johanna Rubba [mailto:[log in to unmask]] > Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2000 10:02 AM > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: Verb form of if-subjunctive > > > "(1)The little child is lonely; he would be happier if he had someone that > he can play with." > > Do any of the native speakers on this list find this sentence > grammatical? I can't imagine this being acceptable to anyone, but maybe > I'm wrong. The 'that' clause requires 'could'. > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics > English Department, California Polytechnic State University > One Grand Avenue * San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 > Tel. (805)-756-2184 * Fax: (805)-756-6374 * Dept. Phone. 756-259 > * E-mail: [log in to unmask] * Home page: http://www.calpoly.edu/~jrubba > ** > "Understanding is a lot like sex; it's got a practical purpose, > but that's not why people do it normally" - Frank Oppenheimer > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >