On 2010-08-18, at 8:54 PM, Herb wrote:

> Those rules weren't an accurate representation of English pronoun use in the 18th c. any more than they would have been five centuries earlier or two and a half later.   But they are requirements of Formal Standard English today.

Yes, they are part of current formal standard English, but if they've been used in the non-standard way since middle English, then I'm not sure what basis there is for claiming that spoken English is shifting from case marking to focus marking. The word 'shift' implies change, but is the evidence for the change there?

Best,
Brett

-----------------------
Brett Reynolds
English Language Centre
Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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