> Does this mean, 'The children jump and shouts," is okay too? David, Pinker takes up only noun/pronoun compound constructions. I don't know what Emonds explores, since I've never read that article. Do compound verbs bring up the same issues? I don't think so. In "the children jump and shout," for instance, the children jump and the children shout, unlike the noun examples that Pinker gives where the separate constituents do not necessarily do the same thing as the whole. I suspect that the pronoun issue in compounds also has something to do with the basic strangeness of pronoun forms in English. Pronouns always give us problems because they're the only noun units that have to show case formatting. My sense is that the language is switching from personal pronouns to what have always been reflexive pronouns (but are now becoming non case-formatted substitutes for personal pronouns, especially in compounds). Many of my students (and a heck of a lot of their parents) would say "Jennifer and myself" or even "myself and Jennifer." I don't think the same issue of strangeness comes up with verbs. As for the myself issue, even the language mavens would say "myself included," making "myself" the subject of the the absolute. Nonfinite constructions typically take object-form pronoun subjects. So we would expect "me included." Pronouns are just odd in English, damn difficult to account for. No wonder they confuse us all. But we can take some solace in the fact that Eliot didn't write, "Let us go then, you and myself?" Max Max Morenberg, Professor Department of English Miami University Oxford, OH 45056 [log in to unmask] To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/