Date: 08-Aug-2007
From: Lee Hartman <lhartman siu.edu>
Subject: Me and John Can Do It
E-mail this message to a friend
Query for this summary posted in LINGUIST Issue:
18.2287
I inquired about ''objective'' pronoun case in English conjoined subjects (''Me and John can do it''), trying to locate a specific article on this topic. I thank Suzanne Aalberse, John Atkinson, Eric Bakovic, Michael Covington, David Denison, Stefan Dyla, Hans Enger, Susan Fischer, Joe Foster, Scott Jackson, James Lavine, Guy Modica, Paula Newman, Frederick Newmeyer, Carson Schütze, Graham Shorrocks, Bruce Spencer, John te Velde, and Joshua Viau for their informative replies to my query. David Denison sent the most extensive list of sources. Two of the respondents offered their services as native-speaking informants of the dialect in question. I am grateful for the offers, but I estimate that ''me-and-John'' speakers are abundant, if not a majority of the population, in the region where I live (Southern Illinois), as well as in most other parts of the U.S.A. I will list the bibliographic references that they sent me. I think only one item -- Emonds 1986 -- was cited by more than one respondent, and that was cited by five of them. I have yet to determine which item is the one I was seeking. Thanks to all. I hereby relinquish any further ''claim'' on this topic, in favor of anyone who has more time and expertise than I do to research it. Him or her can do it. References: Angermeyer, Philipp S., & John Victor Singler. 2003. ''The case for politeness: Pronoun variation in co-ordinate NPs in object position in English''. _Language Variation and Change_ 15, 171-209. Boyland, Joyce Tang. 2001. ''Hypercorrect pronoun case in English? Cognitive processes that account for pronoun usage.'' In Joan Bybee & Paul Hopper (eds.), _Frequency and the emergence of linguistic structure_ (Typological Studies in Language 45), 383-404. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Denison, David. 1996. The case of the unmarked pronoun. In Derek Britton (ed.), _English historical linguistics 1994: Papers from the 8th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (8.ICEHL, Edinburgh, 19-23 September 1994)_ (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 135), 287-99. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Denison, David. ''Syntax.'' 1998. _The Cambridge History of the English Language_. General Editor Richard M. Hogg. 6 vols. Volume IV: 1776-1997. Ed. Suzanne Romaine. Cambridge, New York & Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Emonds, Joseph. 1986. ''Grammatically deviant prestige constructions''. In Michael Brame, Heles Contreras & Frederick Newmeyer (eds.), _A Festschrift for Sol Saporta_, 93-129. Seattle: Noit Amrofer. Hudson, Richard. 1999. Subject-verb agreement in English. _English Language and Linguistics_ 3, 173-207. ''It is I'' (heading of discussion on the usenet newsgroup sci.lang), first posting 22 May 2007. Johannessen, Janne Bondi. 1998. _Coordination_. New York : Oxford University Press. Klima, Edward S. 1964. ''Relatedness between grammatical systems.'' _Language_ 40:1-20. Parker, Frank, Kathryn Riley & Charles Meyer. 1988. Case assignment and the ordering of constituents in coordinate constructions. _American Speech_ 63, 214-33. Perlmutter, David M., and Scott Soames (1979). _Syntactic argumentation and the structure of English_. Berkeley, U. of Cal. Press. Quinn, Heidi. 2005. _The distribution of pronoun case forms in English_ (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 82). Amsterdam and Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins. Schütze, Carson (2001). ''On the nature of default case''. _Syntax_, 4:205-238. Shorrocks, Graham. 1992. Case assignment in simple and coordinate constructions in Present-day English. _American Speech_ 67, 432-44. Shorrocks, Graham. 1999. _A Grammar of the Dialect of the Bolton Area. Part II. Morphology and Syntax_. Bamberger Beiträge zur Englischen Sprachwissenschaft (University of Bamberg Studies in English Linguistics) 42. Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, New York, Paris, Vienna: Peter Lang, Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften. Sobin, Nick (1997). ''Agreement, default rules, and grammatical viruses''. _Linguistic Inquiry_, 28:318-343. te Velde, John. 2005. _Deriving coordinate symmetries: A phase-based approach integrating Select, Merge, Copy and Match_. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Weerman, F., and J. Evers Vermeul. 2002. ''Pronouns and case''. _Lingua_ 112:301-338. Stefan Dyla adds 'A place to look for such examples are early Linguistic Inquiry and articles and squibs by John Robert Ross, George Lakoff, Jim MCCawley and Paul Postal. Ross's famous Ph.D. dissertation ''Constraints on Variables in Syntax'' almost certainly has such examples. Anything on coordination that comes [from] the Generative Semantics period is a possible source.'
Linguistic Field(s):
Syntax
Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue
|