Objective & Personal Pronouns

[naomimalan]

Originally Posted by banderas

I reckon too except for the sentence below is incomplete. Something is missing.
My father brought my brother and me to the beach. Why? and what now? Was anybody waiting there? Perhaps their mother? Did you know you would be there? If not, it sounds odd.

Now your sentence:
I brought my little sister to the party. It is fine because you knew you would be there after all so it it'll count as moving towards you, the speaker.

But you made a good point saying that when the relevant point of focus is not the place of speaking itself, the difference obviously depends on the context.

I am sure Naomimalan knew what he was talking about.

In fact it's "she" Banderas: " I am sure Naomimalan knew what she was talking about. " No problem though. Most of the people on this site, I don't whether they're men or women. You imagine one thing then all of a sudden one day you find out it's the opposite.

As regards the statement above "I brought my little sister to the party", maybe you didn't make it quite clear enough who's speaking to who and that might be why the confusion persists. For absolute clarity maybe we should label the speaker and the listener. Let's say the speaker is you, Banderas (B) and the listener is myself, Naomi (N).

N is at the party enjoying a diet coke and chatting to everyone. B arrives with his little sister:
B I brought my little sister to the party because there was no-one at home to look after her.

This situation justifies the use of brought because it involves movement towards N and the speaker, B, is addressing the listener N.

As I pointed out initially (this is for Engee): With bring, there has to be movement between two parties, one being the speaker.

As for your beach statement (this is still for Engee): My father brought my brother and me to the beach. You want to know why it's wrong, Engee. It's because, as Banderas pointed out, you haven't made a suitable context for it that would make it acceptable. Let's say Banderas (B) is lying on the beach reading a book on linguistics. He looks up and sees me (N) arriving with my little brother. I say to B:

N My father brought my brother and me to the beach. (He'll be back in a couple of hours to take* us home.)

Again, the use of bring is justified because there has been movement towards the listener B.


*As regards the second half of N's statement on the beach (He'll be back in a couple of hours to take* us home), we have to use take here because there will be no movement between the speaker N and the listener B. There will only be movement between N (and family) and N's home.

I know this is a difficult distinction Engee and if it still isn't clear I wouldn't worry about it too much.

[engee30]

Originally Posted by naomimalan

... As for your beach statement (this is still for Engee): My father brought my brother and me to the beach. You want to know why it's wrong, Engee. It's because, as Banderas pointed out, you haven't made a suitable context for it that would make it acceptable.

Is it because there's no context that we can't use bring in this case? I don't think so. Without any context provided, you can well apply either verb in the initial sentence.

[banderas]

Originally Posted by naomimalan

In fact it's "she" Banderas: " I am sure Naomimalan knew what she was talking about. " No problem though. Most of the people on this site, I don't whether they're men or women. You imagine one thing then all of a sudden one day you find out it's the opposite.

Anyway, I am sorry about the "he" thing.

[banderas]

Originally Posted by engee30

Is it because there's no context that we can't use bring in this case? I don't think so. Without any context provided, you can well apply either verb in the initial sentence.

The context is not as trivial as you seem to think.

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by engee30

There seems to be something I don't quite understand then.
If you can say, I brought my little sister to the party, why is the following sentence wrong? My father brought my brother and me to the beach.
To me, there's only a slight difference between saying someone brought someone else somewhere and someone took someone else somewhere It's all about the point of view of the speaker, I reckon.

I brought my little sister to the party,

You're at the party with your little sister and you convey that fact to some person(s) there.

My father brought my brother and me to the beach.

You're at the beach with your brother and maybe your father and you convey that fact to some person(s) there.

=========================

Regarding the original question from West Grove.

[Objective] Object & Personal Pronouns
To check whether the following sentence is correct. Please advise.

My father brought my brother and I to the beach.

The CGEL states;
[3] a. They invited me to lunch b. %They invited my partner and I to lunch.

The '%' symbol is again used to mark the [b] example as typically used by some speakers of Standard English but not others, though this time it is not a matter of regional variation.

... the only completely secure territory of the nominative in Present-day English is with pronouns functioning as the whole subject in a finite clause.

[This form] with I as final coordinate is, however, so common in speech and used by so broad a range of speakers that it has to be recognized as a variety of Standard English, ...

[engee30]

Originally Posted by riverkid

[This form] with I as final coordinate is, however, so common in speech and used by so broad a range of speakers that it has to be recognized as a variety of Standard English, ...[/color]

Here we go again, Riverkid! The Prescriptive vs The Descriptive.

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by engee30

Here we go again, Riverkid! The Prescriptive vs The Descriptive.

There's no need to go again, Engee. It's no contest. Prescriptivists never offer any constructive replies in defence of their "rules". ;)

Have a read here:

Geoffrey K. Pullum: Home Page

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on,

Ideology, power, and linguistic theory

which is a hot link.

[engee30]

Oh dear! If this goes like that, I mean if we abandon using the prescriptive rules, English is going to be split into some other forms of English which will be acceptable and understandable for those within that particular group of people using that particular (form of) English (what a mouthful, sorry ). It will be a foreign language even for native speakers of English.
Hopefully, (regarded as nonsense by the author of the book) I won't live as long as that.

[riverkid]

Originally Posted by engee30

Oh dear! If this goes like that, I mean if we abandon using the prescriptive rules,

That's already the case, Engee. Prescriptions have always just sat there, abandoned by all save for a few prescriptivists.

Remember,

"prescriptive rules are, at best, inconsequential little decorations. The very fact that they have to be drilled shows that they are alien to the natural workings of the language system." [S Pinker - The Language Instinct]

HOW GRAMMARS OF ENGLISH
HAVE MISSED THE BOAT
THERE'S BEEN MORE FLUMMOXING THAN MEETS THE EYE

Charles-James N. Bailey

Consider the possibility that English grammar has been misanalysed for centuries because of grammarians’ accepting fundamentally flawed assumptions about grammar and, not least, because of a flawed view of the history of English; and that these failings have resulted in a huge disconnect between English grammars and the genius of the English that really exists among educated native-speakers.

The devel*opment of the information age and of English as a world language means that such lapses have even greater negative import than formerly. But what is available on the shelves has fallen into sufficient discredit for grammar to have forfeited its place in the curriculum, unrespected and little heeded by the brighter students.

[naomimalan]

Regarding the original question from West Grove.

[Objective] Object & Personal Pronouns
To check whether the following sentence is correct. Please advise.

My father brought my brother and I to the beach.

The CGEL states;
[3] a. They invited me to lunch b. %They invited my partner and I to lunch.

The '%' symbol is again used to mark the [b] example as typically used by some speakers of Standard English but not others, though this time it is not a matter of regional variation.

... the only completely secure territory of the nominative in Present-day English is with pronouns functioning as the whole subject in a finite clause.

[This form] with I as final coordinate is, however, so common in speech and used by so broad a range of speakers that it has to be recognized as a variety of Standard English, ...

There seems to be something contradictory about your argument in support of the use of “I” instead of “me” in West Grove’s original question. Here you defend the use of the nominative in an accusative slot. Yet in your comment above (underlined by me) you suggest that the nominative, in all environments but one, is losing ground. According to your argument, you should have been defending the use of “me”, not of “I”.
Again according to your argument, it would be difficult to explain the present day use of the nominative “who” in the position of the accusative “whom” (You say that the only completely secure territory of the nominative is with pronouns functioning as the whole SUBJECT… but with who vs whom it’s a case of the nominative usurping the OBJECT form.)
So in a nutshell I can’t understand why you defend the use of the nominative ‘I’ using an argument in support of the accusative form.
You argument would, however, support the use of “whom” instead of “who” in relative clauses, a use ridiculed by the New Yorker amongst others some time back. Fowler* (sorry a prescriptivist if ever there was one) gives some examples of these, of which :
There was a big man whom I think was a hotelier.
Lord Montgomery liked to choose his own subordinates and have around him men whom he knew respected him.
The girl whom you wish was a boy.
For me, this use of whom, along with utterances like the one you give, condoned by the CGEL (They invited my partner and I to lunch) is an example of what the Routledge dictionary** terms “Hypercorrection”(also “hyperurbanism”:
For those who might be interested but do not have access to this dictionary, here is their definition:
Process and result of an exaggerated attempt on the part of a speaker to adopt or imitate linguistic forms or a linguistic variety that he/she considers to be particularly prestigious. Hypercorrection , which is frequently found in the behaviour of social groups aspiring to raise their stature, tends even to exceed the ideal norms of speech of the higher social classes and therefore sound ‘unnatural.’
In principle, similar mechanisms can be found for every situation in language acquisition and language adoption, where speakers recognize regularities and systematic correspondences in the variety they wish to acquire, but when they cannot adequately apprehend the restrictions on or the exceptions to the rules. The rules that have been abstracted by them in such a manner are accordingly too general and correspondingly generate many ungrammatical forms…
One question: You say that “I” as final co-ordinate is acceptable. This implies then that you accept it in its pretty widespread use after prepositions as. in “Between you and I” Correct ?
Riverkid, let’s try not to have a heated argument about this. I’ve heard that in some camping sites (I don’t know where) there’s a notice saying that discussions about politics and religion are forbidden. Maybe there should be a rule in this forum saying that discussions about linguistics are forbidden!

*”Fowler’s Modern English Usage”, Second edition revised by Sir Ernest Gowers, p. 709
** Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics, Routledge 1996, p. 213