LL-L "Grammar" 2003.03.02 (01) [E]

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From: Thomas <t.mcrae at uq.net.au>
Subject:  LL-L "Grammar" 2003.02.28 (16) [E]

on 1/3/03 11:10, George M Gibault <gmg at direct.ca> wrote:

> I believe you'll find in the old border dialect - now mostly gone, sadly,
> there were diphthongs for some words that are clear vowels in most Lallans
> Scots.  "you and me" was something like yow 'n mey
Up until the early 70's I know that diphthongs such as "You'n Me" "Me'n
Jummie" were still commonly used. I doubt if they have faded since then.
Regards
Tom
Tom Mc Rae PSOC
Brisbane Australia
"The masonnis suld mak housis stark and rude,
To keep the pepill frome the stormes strang,
And he that fals, the craft it gois all wrang."
>From 15th century Scots Poem 'The Buke of the Chess'

----------

From: Ian James Parsley <parsleyij at yahoo.com>
Subject:  Grammar

Ed,

I agree with you again, of course. If I could try to
clarify what we are discussing here, and then raise a
few queries.

Firstly, I think we are using the term 'subjective' to
refer to anything appearing as the subject of the
sentence, and 'subjective form' to refer to pronominal
forms such as 'I', 'he/she', 'we' and 'they' (as
opposed to the 'objective form', which would be 'me',
'him/her', 'us' and 'them'). Other terms of
'subjective/objective' forms would include
'direct/oblique' or (from Classics)
'nominative/accusative'.

Secondly, therefore, we are looking at the use of the
'objective forms' in the 'subjective' position, i.e.
the use of 'me', 'him/her', 'us' and 'them' as
subjects of the sentence. This contravenes the rules
of Latin and of Standard English (all varieties;
insofar as 'rules' exist for this), but is very
familiar (indeed dominant) in non-standard British
English and all varieties of Scots.

Thirdly, the point raised in answer to your query, is
that the 'objective forms' *cannot* be used alone as
subject of the sentence. *'Me went to the cinema' is
an impossible form, in that no native English speaker
would come out with it, no matter how colloquial the
speech. However, if there are other subjects (which,
as Sandy indicates, would be linked by 'and' or 'or' -
but see below), the objective form is used - thus 'me
and my wife went to the cinema' and 'me and her went
to the cinema' are possible, indeed expected, in
colloquial non-standard British English.

Fourthly, I hinted that it is noteworthy also that the
order of the pronouns is reversed from what would be
expected in Standard English. Usually 'me' comes first
- 'me and my wife...', 'me and him...', but the
'conventions' or, if you prefer, 'rules' of Standard
English dictate this would be 'My wife and I...', 'He
and I...'.

Fifthly, we have also mentioned the hypercorrection -
one that seems endemic is Aussie soap operas
incidentally - that sometimes the 'subjective form' is
actually used in the 'objective' position, although
clearly again only where another object is present -
thus 'for you and I', 'between Conor and I' etc.

Sixthly, we also touched on the reflexive used as a
personal pronoun, a 'pet peeve' for many people. Of
course, with the underlying Celtic substrate, this is
common and sounds fairly normal in Ireland. I do
believe it is more frequent in Ireland - this is no
more than educated guesswork, but I do think I see it
more in what may be described as 'casual business
correspondence' in Ireland than elsewhere in the
English-speaking world. However, for many people
(particularly outside Ireland) it is no doubt a
'cop-out', a way around avoiding the 'rule' (whichever
'rule' that may be!) - hence perhaps its status as
'pet peeve' for many.

Seventhly and finally, which could be a point for
another thread, is that we must define what people
mean when they say a form is 'wrong'. In formal
English (written or spoken) it would of course be
deemed 'wrong' to say/write 'Me and my wife...'
(indeed it may even be deemed wrong as the object in
Standard English, which 'should' be ordered '...my
wife and me'). When people who are not linguists call
something 'wrong', in most cases they do of course
mean 'wrong' in *Standard English* - I've advised many
that a better term is 'non-standard', thus:

'My wife and I...' - correct in Standard
'me and my wife...' - non-standard
(colloquial/informal) speech
'me...' - wrong (in that you would never hear it in
any circumstances, i.e. that it is an 'impossible
form')

Clearly there is a distinction between the case you
point to, Ed, where the 'correction' was well-meaning
and friendly, and instances where the 'correction'
takes the form of a deliberate put-down to show
'superior education' or some such.

There is of course the issue that all Standards are,
to an extent, artificial, and that as a result logic
does play a part in their formation - something which
I agree, Ed, is probably a good thing in most cases!

Now, to come back on a few points.

Firstly, I would disagree slightly with Sandy that an
'and' or 'or' is necessary. Compare 'We are a hardy
bunch' with 'Us Scots are a hardy bunch' - again, as
long as the subject personal pronoun is accompanied,
it is perfectly normal in colloquial British English
(and Scots, of course) to use the objective form.

Secondly, I would dispute a little that this 'rule' of
Standard English is taken from Latin. It is true that
lots of 'rules' were basically made up for English on
the basis of Latin - which is of course inappropriate
(or, at best, artificial) because English is not a
Latinate language. The most notorious of these is
probably the 'split infinitive'. However, other
'rules' of Standard English were made up on the basis
of other things - for example double negation,
perfectly normal in Old English and modern
non-standard English (all varieties), was 'banned' in
Standard English on the basis of mathematics!

We probably can't be entirely clear that Latin *did*
enforce this rule strictly in the later centuries of
its development (see note on French below, for
example), but a language which quite obviously does
insist on 'subjective forms in subjective positions'
and 'objective forms in objective positions' is
German. So a query:

Is a form such as 'mich und meine Frau...' possible as
subject of the sentence in any dialect of
colloquial/informal German (I doubt it)? Is it
possible in any other Germanic language/dialect at
all? Might it ever have occurred in Cape
Dutch-cum-Afrikaans (given the adoption of 'objective
forms' such as _ons_ to serve all positions)?

Thirdly, we did not mention the half-hypercorrection
in forms such as 'between him and I'. Nor did we
mention the point that it seems only 'I' is used in
this way (which may be the solution to the previous
point) - thus 'between me and he', or 'between Conor
and she' is an 'impossible form' (i.e. is not used at
all in any formal or informal speech). So, a query:

Why is the first person singular form only used in
this position as the 'hypercorrection'? Indeed, does a
form such as 'The Scots and we always had a lot in
common' sound right in the first place, even in
Standard English, or do people work around it?

Fourthly and finally, we did not note the debate about
how to follow 'copulative' verbs such as 'to be', 'to
become' - in other words, is it 'It is I' or 'It's
me'? If we take it that the latter is 'correct', is
this grammatical feature 'borrowed' from French or
simply a natural follow-on from the dominance of the
objective form?

Indeed, a notable language which *does* use 'objective
forms' in apparently 'subjective' positions is French
- 'moi, je crois...', 'c'est moi'. But then, French
also has the double-negative. Sheer mathematical
barbarism, I tell you...

Regards,

=====
------------------
Ian James Parsley
www.ianjamesparsley.net
+44 (0)77 2095 1736
JOY - "Jesus, Others, You"

----------

From: Ian James Parsley <parsleyij at yahoo.com>
Subject:  Grammar

Folk,

A couple more 'pet peeves' of mine.

One, theoretically correct in Standard English but
would have Orwell turning in his grave, is the use of
'at this moment in time' to mean, er, 'now'. There's a
plague of this on UK sports reporting! One
correspondent (Chris Kamara) doesn't seem to be able
to complete a sentence without this irritating phrase!
But of course, that's language change for you
(consider the development of Modern High German
'heute' from the Old High German instrumental 'hiu
tagu' - coincidentally corresponding to the
development of 'aujourd'hui' in French).

Two, we hadn't discussed semantic shifts. Some
irritate me intensely (i.e. 'dilemma' used carelessly
to mean 'problem'), others I don't mind at all (i.e.
'decimate' to mean simply 'destroy completely'). I
can't explain logically why some bother me and others
don't.

However, there is one I *can't stand* which now seems
to occur in every sentence of formal (British?)
English uttered - the use of 'literally' to mean
simply 'really'. I don't know whether I should attempt
to explain this logically, but if 'literally' comes to
mean 'really' or 'actually' (themselves obviously
subject to semantic shifts over the centuries), there
don't appear to be any words left to mean 'literally'!

One classic I heard the other day was 'he's literally
exploded with joy'... er, I would rather hope not...

Using 'literally' in this way is a heinous crime which
clearly deserves severe punishment.

Best,

=====
------------------
Ian James Parsley
www.ianjamesparsley.net
+44 (0)77 2095 1736
JOY - "Jesus, Others, You"

----------

From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Grammar"

> From: Ed Alexander <edsells at cogeco.ca>
> Subject:  LL-L "Grammar" 2003.03.01 (04) [E]
>
> I can only assume that my question is not clear to you because in your
> local situation, no one uses the "You and I" form in the subject
> position.

I usually work in the sort of place where people come from
all over the country for the work, and I'm under the impression
that "you and I" is hardly ever heard - I'll be watching out for
it now, though - perhaps I just don't notice it.

> As far as being impolite, you'd probably best not come to Ontario, where
> this sort of correction is not uncommon, nor generally resented.
> I imagine
> that people here have pretty much become used to it, since you could never
> use the objective pronoun "incorrectly" in school without being corrected
> for it.

I would love to come to Ontario and set you all straight  :)

> Are you saying that some people use it where you are?  Or some people
> sometimes?  It's not considered affected here at all, though it
> fits better
> in more "sophisticated" communication.

This very much depends what you mean by sophisticated! This
might be a bit circular if by 'sophisticated communication'
you mean using grammar and vocabulary that your compatriots
consider sophisticated. I wouldn't call this sort of speech,
where the aim is to speak in a ceratin way for social reasons,
'sophisticated' or 'educated' speech. Perhaps a better term
would be 'engineered'. Obviously people with a lot of education
will be more exposed to situations where they can have their
speech engineered, resulting in a situation where educated
people attempt to teach the uneducated how to speak their
mother tongue badly!

I do occasionally meet people who speak this way but the
'engineering' aspect tends to be clear. There was one chap
who spoke this way and when I expressed my surprise on
learning that he was from North Wales he said that his
father had deliberately brought him up to speak this way.

Perhaps the most 'sophisticated' speech I've heard, other
than from the British royal family, was that of a chap
from London who sat in a desk opposite me. as well as the
'you and I' phenomenon his speech showed many other
engineered forms, including the sort of false modesty
that comes from using two negatives to make a positive,
and treating 'yes' and 'no' as swear words:

him: "That is not entirely incorrect."
me:  "Is that a yes or a no?"
him: "The former."

Although in a well-paying job he used to brag about where
he found his clothes, "This tie was found on Newport Bridge"
(I think that meant that _he_ found it, I've never been
good with the passive voice!). One day he came into work
with pack of luncheon meat:

him: "This was found on Cwmbran Drive this morning."
me:  "Eh... was it open when you found it?"
him: "That wouldn't be terribly far from the truth."

Sophisticated, you say? :)

> I've long ago overcome the idea that the objective (or reflexive, for that
> matter) pronoun being used subjectively was "wrong", since it is so
> "normal".  However, what would you say of the proposition that this is a
> later development which has occurred only in descendants of, say, Old
> Northumbrian and Old English, since it does not occur in other Germanic
> languages, to my knowledge (or does it?).

I'd say the "you and I" thing is the later development.
It was probably introduced in attempting to follow the
outdated idea that Latin grammar makes for better English,
just as the 'no split infinitives' and 'no prepositions at
the end of a sentence' rules were.

A discussion on these historical aspects can be found
around the posting that I gave the URL for in the archives.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

----------

From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Grammar"

> From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
> Subject: "Grammar"
>
> I'd say the "you and I" thing is the later development.
> It was probably introduced in attempting to follow the
> outdated idea that Latin grammar makes for better English,
> just as the 'no split infinitives' and 'no prepositions at
> the end of a sentence' rules were.

I decided to try analysing some of Shakespeare's plays to
see what he used. Here are the results (just for the first
person singular):

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL:

the woman and I will do as we may.
So that you had her wrinkles and I her money,
Deadly divorce step between me and you!

ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA:

Sir, you and I must part, but that's not it:
Sir, you and I have loved, but there's not it;
You and I have known, sir.
Mine honesty and I begin to square.
I and my sword will earn our chronicle:

AS YOU LIKE IT:

Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one:
Till I and my affairs are answered.
Of me and all that I can make;

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS:

Sing, siren, for thyself and I will dote:
Whom I made lord of me and all I had,
Where Balthazar and I did dine together.
There left me and my man, both bound together;

CORIOLANUS:

(none)

CYMBELINE:

His father and I were soldiers together;

HAMLET:

Be you and I behind an arras then;
Thou livest; report me and my cause aright

So, was Shakespeare Canadian, or what?  :\

Sandy
http://scotstext.org/

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