case and number in pronouns

[Bernard Comrie]

To:	Lingtyp
From:	Bernard Comrie
Date:	2003 Mar
Subj:	Case and number in pronouns

Just a few observations triggered by Jeroen Wiedenhof's and Willy
Vandeweghe's questions.

NUMBER

I don't know if this is a factor in the Taiwanese Min usages, but in
different languages there are different preferences for usage of
singular or plural possessive pronouns where both could be justified
a priori. Thus, in English a single speaker tends to say "my
country", "my home town", "my village", whereas in one of the
Northeast Caucasian languages I'm currently working on, Tsez, literal
translations of these are actually judged unacceptable: you have to
say "our village", etc., since (the outsider is told) the village
belongs to the community, not to any individual. With names of family
members that are not solely "individually possessed", non-standard
varieties of English from northern England and Scotland have a strong
tendency to use the possessive pronoun "our" (in Scotland and at
least as far south as Tyneside often in the form "wor"), as in "Wor
Wullie" 'our Willie'. One way of checking whether this is a factor in
Taiwanese Min would be to see if it is possible when the
interpretation can only be singular, as in (assuming monogamy) 'my
spouse'.

CASE

In Tyneside English, use of nominative "we" for accusative "us" is
frequent, as in "with we" 'with us'. Although I grew up on the edge
of Tyneside (in and around Sunderland), and frequently interact with
Tynesiders, my own native dialect is different, the Tyneside usage
still strikes me as bizarre, and I have virtually no reliable
intuitions about it, so any Tynesiders on the list are encouraged to
correct any misstatements I may make. I associate the usage
especially with the expression "with we", but recent observation of a
Tyneside nephew (wor John, to be precise) suggests that it applies to
all positions where "us" would be expected. Since Tyneside, in common
with many English dialects (including my own native one) uses the
first person plural object pronoun in unstressed position also for
singular reference, "with we" (like my native "with us") can also
correspond to standard English "with me" -- note that "we" in subject
position cannot have this singular interpretation. This case usage
doesn't extent to other pronouns.

On the more general point, Joseph Wright, The English Dialect
Grammar, Oxford, 1905 (I am using the 1968 lithographic reprint),
Clarendon Press (= Oxford University Press), p.271 (in section 402)
says of English personal pronouns in dialect usage:

"The objective forms are often used for the nominative when the
pronouns are unemphatic, especially in the south-midland, eastern,
southern, and south-western counties.
"Conversely, in all the dialects of the south-midland, eastern,
southern, and south-western counties the nom. of the personal pronoun
is used as the emphatic form of the objective case."

Incidentally, the Tyneside phenomenon is clearly distinct, in
addition to falling outside the geographical area specified by
Wright. The pronoun in "with we" is at least usually unstressed. (I'm
not even sure if it can be stressed in its plural interpretation; the
singular use of "us/we" is anyway restricted to unstressed usage.)

Following up on Dan Everett's comment on poetic license, one might
note the extreme to which Tom Lehrer goes in his parody of Gilbert
and Sullivan, from the song "Clementine":

"But I love she and she loves me.
Enraptured are the both of we.
Yes I love she and she loves I
And will through all eternity!"

--

Prof. Dr. Bernard Comrie     Director, Department of Linguistics

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
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