case in personal pronouns

[Michael Noonan]

As I recall, the original English lyrics were first person:

Each day when she walks to the sea,
She looks straight ahead not at me.

When Astrud Gilberto recorded the song, the orientation was changed to
third person.  But 'him' would require a different rhyme, so 'he' was
substituted.

Mickey

On Wed, 26 Mar 2003, Dan Everett wrote:

> Well, as someone who has been a fan of Tom Jobim (author of the song)
> since the 60s, I should point out that first the English lyrics have
> little to do with the Portuguese lyrics. Second, Portuguese colloquial
> dialects don't distinguish accusative vs. nominative third person
> (because they have lost their clitics). This means that if a Brazilian,
> e.g. Jobim, tries to write English lyrics the nominative/accusative he
> vs. him contrast might be lost if they think in Portuguese. Moreover,
> songs, especially popular songs, very often violate the speaker's own
> grammar to get a 'cheap rhyme'. As Paul Simon spoke in Kathy's Song, 'of
> poets who  spend their  time 'writing words that tear and strain to
> rhyme'.
>
> -- Dan
>
>
>
>
> .........................
> Dan Everett
> Professor of Phonetics and Phonology
> Department of Linguistics
> Arts Building
> University of Manchester
> Oxford Road
> M13 9PL
> Manchester, UK
> dan.everett at man.ac.uk
> Phone: 44-161-275-3158
> Dept. Fax and Phone: 44-161-275-3187
> http://lings.ln.man.ac.uk/info/staff/de
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion List for ALT [mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG]
> On Behalf Of Jeroen Wiedenhof
> Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2003 6:35 AM
> To: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Subject: Re: case in personal pronouns
>
>
> At Tuesday, March 25, 2003 2:14 PM, Dan I. Slobin wrote:
>
>
> But I don't recall ever having heard the "subject" form directly after a
> pronoun (e.g., *she gave it to I, *they promised to go out with I)
>
>
> One odd but famous example that comes to
> mind is from the lyrics of The Girl from
> Ipanema:
>
> >but each day when she walks to the sea
> >she looks straight ahead not at he
>
> Full lyrics in Portugese and English are
> at
> http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kidspan/lyrics/ipanema.htm
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Jeroen Wiedenhof         +31-71-527.2525
> Sinological Institute  Leiden University
> P.O. Box 9515 / 2300 RA Leiden / Holland
> jeroen at wiedenhof.nl     www.wiedenhof.nl <http://www.wiedenhof.nl/>
> ----------------------------------------
>
>
>

Michael Noonan			Professor of Linguistics
Dept. of English		Office:   414-229-4539
University of Wisconsin		Fax:	  414-229-2643
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