| 词组 | pronouns |
| 释义 | pronouns 1. English pronouns seem to be the source of many vexing usage problems. A few will be touched on here, but most of the ones that have generated considerable comment are treated at their own places. We refer you then to between you and I; but; I; it's me; me; myself; one of those who; than; that; they, their, them; who, whom; you; and to the several articles at agreement, many of which treat questions about pronouns. 2. It is sometimes useful to remember that we have several kinds of pronouns. People reminded of pronouns may think only of the personal pronouns, in their nominative, objective, and possessive forms, and maybe the reflexive pronouns based on the personal pronouns. But we also have relative pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns. There are also interrogative pronouns, if you wish, although these are really just some of the relative pronouns doing extra duty. Remembering the variety of pronouns will help keep you from making generalizations like "Every pronoun necessarily has an antecedent" (Barzun 1985). Barzun's statement (which, to be fair, is made in the context of an example that lacks a needed antecedent) is an over-generalization. Indefinite pronouns, for instance, do not require an antecedent. 3. One of the favorite pastimes of writers on usage is to find examples of pronouns that are in the objective case when they should be in the nominative, or are in the nominative when they should be in the objective. Sometimes a worried commentator will deduce from the frequency of such examples that the language is deteriorating or that illiteracy is about to overwhelm us or that our educational system is a complete failure. Beyond the likelihood that the educational system has failed to explain pronouns adequately to many people, the worries are without a sound basis. The use of object forms where subject forms belong, and vice versa, has been going on for hundreds of years. It was, for instance, common in the 17th century to interchange the nominative and objective forms of the second person plural pronoun, ye and you, with the result that eventually the objective you replaced ye altogether. Interchange of nominative and objective forms of other pronouns was also anything but rare; Wyld 1920, for instance, gives this quotation from Sir John Suckling: "What have they to do with you and I?" You can find a good deal on the subject in historical grammars—Jespersen 1909-49, Henry Sweet's A New English Grammar (1892), and Wyld 1920, among others. Quirk et al. 1985 notes that these interchanges of nominative and objective forms actually occur only in a limited number of constructions. The first of these is the use of the objective case where traditional normative grammar calls for the nominative after be or as and than. The rule calling for the nominative is based on analogy with Latin; the use of the objective comes from the influence of the rules of normal word order in English. In English, the nominative is required only in the subject position directly before the verb; the objective tends to be used everywhere else, as if the objective were the unmarked case form to be used everywhere there are no positive reasons for using the nominative. In this respect modern English is much like French. Besides those positions already mentioned, the objective form tends to be chosen in absolute and emphatic uses: • Who said that? Me. Me—afraid of flying? • Better them than us —Don Baylor, quoted in Springfield (Mass.) Daily News, 13 Oct. 1986 There is no question that these constructions, and "It's me" and the rest, would never have been anything but unexceptionable had not our earliest grammarians been so heavily influenced by Latin. We next come to two separate constructions involving coordination, usually with and. The first is characteristic of less educated English, or, as it is delicately put these days, non-mainstream varieties of English. This is the use of the objective case before the verb when the pronoun is coordinated with a noun or another pronoun: • Me and my baby goes back and sleeps the day — anonymous speaker, quoted in Walt Wolfram, Appalachian Speech, 1976 Quirk says that the objective pronoun can even occur in the position next to the verb. Wolfram notes that the objective pronoun does not occur by itself in subject position, only in combination with another noun or pronoun. The second coordinated pairing—which one of our correspondents has named "the Someone and I syndrome"—occurs in rather more educated varieties of English. Here we find a nominative pronoun coordinated with a noun or another pronoun and occurring in the object position after a preposition or after a verb. I is the most common pronoun in such pairs, but others such as he and she are also found: • Now Margaret's curse is fall'n upon our heads, When she exclaimed on Hastings, you, and I ...—Shakespeare, Richard III, 1593 • ... invited my love and I —Lady Strafford, letter, 1734 (in Wyld 1920) • It must all light upon Heartfree and I —Sir John Vanbrugh, The Provok'd Wife, 1697 (OED) • ... a most furious conflict between Sir W. Pen and I —Samuel Pepys, diary, 21 Feb. 1667 • ... the poet, like you and I, dear reader —W. H. Auden, quoted in Time, 2 Feb. 1948 • Louise and I gave it to he and she last Christmas — James Thurber, quoting his cousin, letter, 25 June 1956 • According to both he and Sam, my donkey act ... had quite an effect —Oliver North, quoted in The Tower Commission Report, 1987 In this construction, someone and I is treated as a polite fixed unit, to be used either in subject or object position. Several recent commentators ascribe this usage to hypercorrection—the overly cautious use of the nominative pronoun because it is prescribed in such constructions as "It is I." (See hypercorrection.) But the early appearance of the construction, with such 16th-and 17th-century exemplars as Shakespeare, Suckling, Pepys, and Vanbrugh, antedates the teaching of English grammar. It would seem, therefore, that hypercorrection from the influence of school grammar reinforces rather than causes this relatively old construction. Another linkage that produces case confusion is the pronoun in apposition to a noun. This combination frequently produces objective forms in subject positions where the pronoun is emphasized: • Us Valley Girls have to endure a lot —letter to the editor, People, 13 Sept. 1982 It may be the influence of hypercorrection in avoiding the subjective us girls that leads to the nominative in apposition following a preposition: • At last—a sherry for we Amontillado connoisseurs —advt., quoted in Howard 1978 • We ultimately commune with others of our own faith, and for we westerners, nature is an article out of another faith —Paul Gruchow, Update (Univ. of Minn.), October 1985 The last of the problem environments mentioned by Quirk et al. is the pronoun that seems to lie between two clauses; this pronoun is often drawn toward both the nominative and objective forms by reason of its different relationships to the preceding and following parts of the sentence. Usage is decidedly mixed: • It was she (her?) John criticized —in Quirk et al. • Everything comes to him who waits —English proverb • Just as the ideal of even-handed justice for all can be somewhat tilted toward he who can afford to argue the Tightness of his case —Globe and Mail (Toronto), 8 Oct. 1982, quoted in Greenbaum 1985 • I'm against whoever is in office —And More by Andy Rooney, 1982 • They can't decide where to fight or who to salute — NY. Times, 20 Feb. 1987 • But it were vain for you and I In single fight our strength to try.—William E. Aytoun, "Bothwell," 1856 (in Alford 1866) • ... the reporter whom Mr. Friendly said had been given the secret plan —N. Y. Times, 17 Feb. 1987 Some of these examples follow the dictates of traditional grammar, and others do not. But you can see how each of them is tugged in two directions at once. |
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