conundrum

[John Dunn]

To answer Anne-Marie Devlin: This is indeed an interesting usage, and it would be useful to know if it is accepted by all native speakers of Russian.  My own view is that it is an invention of nineteenth-century grammarians and is likely to occur only in formal varieties of written Russian.

To answer Patrick Corness: As a native of Bradford I am aware that they do things differently in Leeds, but I do not see how else I could form this particular sentence. 
'You could always ask me and Paul Gallagher' is grammatically possible, but pragmatically dubious, since it places the speaker ahead of a third person, which is something we are taught not to do
'You could always ask PG and me' is also grammatically possible, but conveys a different meaning.  Monosyllabic personal pronouns in English can bear only certain amount of emphasis, and the lack of emphasis here would mean the sentence is likely to be understood as referring to Paul Gallagher and (indeed) myself as a single unit, working together to produce a single answer.  A splendid example, no doubt, of Trans-Atlantic co-operation, but not quite what I meant.  Here 'myself' is simply an emphatic form of the personal pronoun, used to indicate that the conjunction indicates addition, rather than inclusion.

John Dunn.

Disclaimer: Any perceived eccentricities in my English usage are included with the sole intention of confusing other native speakers. 
________________________________________
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of anne marie devlin [anne_mariedevlin at HOTMAIL.COM]
Sent: 05 May 2012 22:40
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] conundrum

What was most interesting about this conundrum for me was the fact that in Russian, the plural could be used after after, if I can remember conditerskaya i makaronnaya fabriki.  In English, it is obvious that a plural can't be used after 'a'.  therefore it is more interesting that a plural can be used in Russian after a singular adjective and I'm surprised that the thread hasn't picked up on that.
AM

________________________________
Date: Sat, 5 May 2012 20:04:42 +0000
From: pjcorness at HOTMAIL.COM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] conundrum
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu


There are some (to me) slightly puzzling uses of English by native speakers amongst this correspondence, presumably intended to assist non-native speakers.
I beg to differ about Paul Gallagher's claim that, talking about factories, one cannot say:
"We built a big one, an expensive one, and a pasta one." Paul writes:

> Agreed. But nouns cannot be used with "one" the way adjectives can:
> We built a big, expensive, pasta factory.
> We built a big one, an expensive one, and a *pasta one.

On the other hand, I also find the use of myself instead of the anticipated me incongruous in the following statement

"Though you can, of course, always ask Paul Gallagher and myself and split the difference."
cf:
You can ask yourself
I can ask myself
You can ask *myself

Patrick Corness

________________________________
Patrick Corness, Visiting Research Fellow
Centre for Translation Studies, University of Leeds
blog: patrickcorness.wordpress.com<http://patrickcorness.wordpress.com/>
________________________________


> Date: Fri, 4 May 2012 15:58:54 +0100
> From: John.Dunn at GLASGOW.AC.UK
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